Techmeme: Chinese automakers delay plans to mass-produce self-driving vehicles as Beijing becomes more cautious, after a fatal Xiaomi crash in March caused public concern (Keith Bradsher/New York Times)

Top News

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

The European Commission says Apple will bring AirPods-like pairing and iPhone notification access to third-party devices under the DMA in iOS 26.3 in 2026 — The European Commission today praised the interoperability changes that Apple is introducing in iOS 26.3, once again crediting the Digital Markets Act …

More: Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Thurrott, BGR, Mashable, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, SammyGuru, and SamMobile

Bluesky: @gateklons. Forums: Hacker News, r/europe, and MacRumors Forums

Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:

The US FCC bans imports, marketing, and sales of new foreign-made drones and components, including from China's DJI and Autel, citing national security concerns — American customers hoarding products in anticipation of restrictions against popular Chinese manufacturer DJI and a smaller competitor, Autel Robotics

More: Politico, The Verge, Tom's Hardware, PCMag, US FCC, Reuters, Washington Examiner, Kotaku, The Daily Caller, Digital Trends, Modern Diplomacy, PetaPixel, Sherwood News, DroneXL.co, The Independent, Tom's Guide, CNN, Fox News, DroneDJ, Android Authority, The Hacker News, GSMArena.com, Associated Press, The Hill, New York Times, Telecompaper, TechNode, and Bloomberg

X: @brendancarrfcc and @fcc. Mastodon: @[email protected]

Forums: r/radiocontrol, r/technology, r/politics, and r/fpv

Reece Rogers / Wired:

Google's Nano Banana Pro and OpenAI's ChatGPT Images can make nonconsensual bikini deepfakes from photos of fully clothed women; Reddit bans r/ChatGPTJailbreak — Users of AI image generators are offering each other instructions on how to use the tech to alter pictures of women into realistic, revealing deepfakes.

More: Associated Press. Bluesky: @hypervisible.blacksky.app. Forums: r/artificial

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:

OpenAI details efforts to secure its ChatGPT Atlas browser against prompt injection attacks, including building an “LLM-based automated attacker” — Even as OpenAI works to harden its Atlas AI browser against cyberattacks, the company admits that prompt injections …

More: OpenAI, eWeek, Fortune, Gizmodo, Shelly Palmer, The Decoder, Digit, WinBuzzer, The Indian Express, Digital Trends, and KnowTechie

X: @dfinke, @_lamaahmad, and @xiangyuqi_pton

Forums: r/artificial, r/BlackboxAI_, r/BetterOffline, and r/firefox

Bloomberg:

ServiceNow agrees to acquire cybersecurity startup Armis for $7.75B, set to close in H2 2026, pending approvals; Insight acquired Armis in a $1.1B deal in 2020 — ServiceNow Inc. has reached a deal to buy the cybersecurity startup Armis in a deal valued at $7.75 billion, representing its largest acquisition to date.

More: ServiceNow, CNBC, Cybersecurity Dive, CyberScoop, Globes, CRN, The Information, Investor's Business Daily, MarketWatch, Reuters, Benzinga, Bloomberg Law, diginomica, Axios, Constellation Research, Wall Street Journal, and VINnews

Kate Duguid / Financial Times:

US companies sold $1.7T of investment-grade bonds in 2025, nearing the $1.8T 2020 record, driven by AI infrastructure borrowing; Goldman says AI makes up ~30% — Investment-grade borrowers have issued $1.7tn of bonds this year, closing in on 2020s Covid debt rush

More: Silicon UK, Tech in Asia, Reuters, and Semafor

Yueqi Yang / The Information:

Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, raised $35M for his new global exchange AX, which offers perpetual futures, a source says at a $187M valuation — Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, has raised $35 million for his startup Architect Financial Technologies, which offers a global perpetual futures exchange.

More: FinSMEs, The Block, Architect Financial …, Pulse 2.0, Chicago Business, and Crypto Briefing

X: @brettharrison88 and @brettharrison88

Bonny Chu / Fox News:

The Pentagon partners with xAI to embed the company's frontier AI systems, based on the Grok family of models, directly into GenAI.mil as soon as early 2026 — Grok will be deployed across systems serving 3 million military and civilian personnel by early 2026

More: U.S. Department of War, eWeek, The Information, xAI, Benzinga, Crypto Briefing, Townhall, TESLARATI, and Sherwood News

X: @silvermanjacob. Bluesky: @nicholasgrossman, @therao, @grumpyoldveteran, @alejandrobriceno, and @spiritualmantis. Forums: r/BetterOffline

Bloomberg:

Samsung's Harman agrees to acquire ZF's radar and automotive computing driver-assistance business for €1.5B, as the European auto-supplier sector struggles — Samsung Electronics Co.-owned Harman International is buying the advanced driver assistance systems business of Germany's ZF Group …

More: Samsung Newsroom, Reuters, Korea Joongang Daily, Wall Street Journal, electrive.com, SammyGuru, Analytics India Magazine, SamMobile, Automotive World, and KED Global

MiniMax:

China's MiniMax releases M2.1, an upgrade to its open-source M2 model that it says has “significantly enhanced” coding capabilities in Rust, Java, and others — MiniMax has been continuously transforming itself in a more AI-native way. The core driving forces of this process are models …

More: SiliconANGLE. X: @arafatkatze, @yashasgunderia, @tokenbender, @tphuang, @rudrank, @minimax__ai, @goosewin, and @minimax__ai. Forums: r/singularity

Keith Bradsher / New York Times:

Chinese automakers delay plans to mass-produce self-driving vehicles as Beijing becomes more cautious, after a fatal Xiaomi crash in March caused public concern — After years of planning for cars that would let drivers take their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road, China's regulators have become more cautious.

More: UKTN, Semafor, and BBC

Jordan Fabian / Bloomberg:

The US says China is engaging in unfair chip trade practices after a yearlong review, but holds off on additional chip import tariffs at least until mid-2027 — The US accused China of engaging in unfair trade practices in the semiconductor sector, but is declining to impose additional tariffs on chip imports until at least mid-2027.

More: Reuters, Financial Times, New York Times, ZeroHedge News, and NewsMax.com. Forums: Slashdot

Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:

The Canada Pension Plan Board and Australia's Goodman agree to invest $2.6B+ in data centers in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Paris, starting to build in June 2026 — The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Australia's Goodman Group agreed to set up a multibillion dollar European data center business …

More: DatacenterDynamics, Verdict, Capital Brief, Telecompaper, and Dow Jones Newswires

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Lemon Slice, which launched a 20B-parameter model that creates digital avatars for AI agents, streaming video at 20 FPS on a single GPU, raised a $10.5M seed — Developers and companies are increasingly deploying AI agents and chatbots within their apps, but so far they've mostly been restricted to text.

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:

ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs — You know us for voice. Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency. Hear it for yourself.

Intel:

5G's most deployed platform — Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN. That's the power of Intel Inside®

Zoho:

New in Zoho Flow: Notes, If-Else, Tags, and Custom Notifications — It's been an exciting time for Zoho Flow, as we continue enhancing the platform for teams building integrations and automations.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Cheeky Pint:

The 20-year journey to fully autonomous cars with Dmitri Dolgov of Waymo

Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.

Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.

Invest Like the Best:

Mitchell Green - Lessons from Cold Calling 10,000 Companies

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Grit:

The Silicon Valley Insider In The Pentagon | DoW Emil Michael

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

The art of influence: The single most important skill that AI can't replace | Jessica Fain (Webflow, ex-Slack)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Access:

Live @ Nvidia's nerd Super Bowl, poker takes over tech, and the future of AI banking

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Everybody Goes Home: How technology is helping prevent wildfires from spreading

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:20 PM ET, December 23, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.