Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
February 18, 2026, 10:20 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Abu Sultan / Reuters:
Microsoft says it is on pace to invest $50B by 2030 to help expand AI across the Global South, after unveiling $17.5B worth of AI investments in India in 2025  —  Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Wednesday said it is on pace to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to help expand AI to countries across the ‘Global South’.
Shruti Rajagopalan / Get Down and Shruti:
A look at India's sensible AI regulation, promising foundation models, chip ambitions, energy constraints, startup ecosystem, and blossoming venture funding
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
Perplexity says it has no plans to further pursue ads, which it introduced in 2024, after phasing them out in late 2025 over fears they would erode user trust  —  Leading start-ups have recently embraced sponsors as they search for revenue  —  AI start-up Perplexity has abandoned advertising …
Joe Miller / Financial Times:
How US citizens, clergy, and elected officials in conservative communities like Missouri are leading a grassroots rebellion against the Trump-backed AI boom  —  Republicans fear backlash against White House agenda could undermine support in this year's midterm elections
Financial Times:
Meta commits to buying millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs in a multiyear deal; a source says Meta's in-house AI chip strategy had technical challenges  —  Social media group will purchase millions of chips even as it tries to develop its own AI hardware
Anthropic:
Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 4.6 with improvements in coding, computer use, instruction following, and more; it features a 1M token context window in beta  —  Claude Sonnet 4.6 is our most capable Sonnet model yet.  It's a full upgrade of the model's skills across coding, computer use …
More: eWeek, The Register, Every, Claude, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, The Decoder, The Indian Express, Latent.Space, Help Net Security, Digit, Business Standard, Cyber Security News, Neowin, XDA Developers, Moneycontrol, Silicon Republic, iClarified, The Economic Times, crypto.news, VentureBeat, The Deep View, Runtime, InfoWorld, Simon Willison's Weblog, Mashable, MacRumors, Android Headlines, WinBuzzer, TechRepublic, Claude, Axios, The Verge, Forbes, Tom's Guide, CNET, CNBC, ZDNET, The New Stack, SiliconANGLE, ITPro, and About Amazon
X: @clairevo, @zck, @levie, @andonlabs, @willccbb, @artificialanlys, @aakashgupta, @jack_raines, @boringbiz_, @chatgpt21, @blondesnmoney, @scaling01, @claudeai, @sleepinyourhat, @therundownai, @felixrieseberg, @abcampbell, @alexalbert__, @claudeai, @kimmonismus, @alexalbert__, @scaling01, @bcherny, @scaling01, @scaling01, @daniellefong, @dejavucoder, @trungtphan, @artificialanlys, @alexalbert__, @github, @alexfinn, @isidoremiller, @awscloud, @benbajarin, @davidondrej1, @mweinbach, @birdyword, @llmjunky, @inductionheads, @daniel_mac8, @chongdashu, @artificialanlys, @zapier, @juanpa, @lexnlin, @felixrieseberg, @gregkamradt, @scaling01, @alexpalcuie, @jkeatn, @cnbc, @wadefoster, @box, @chatgpt21, @thezachmueller, @arcprize, @kimmonismus, @andonlabs, @aibattle_, @openrouter, @adocomplete, @scaling01, @danshipper, @iruletheworldmo, @danshipper, @sean_t_strong, @claudeai, @andrewcurran_, @claudeai, @claudeai, and @lentils80
LinkedIn: Thomas Li, Artificial Analysis, Cal Rueb, and Claude
Bluesky: @timkellogg.me, @mergesort.me, and @pekka
Forums: Hacker News, r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, r/singularity, r/ClaudeAI, Slashdot, and MacRumors Forums
Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times:
Q&A with Synthesia co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli on growing the London-based enterprise AI video platform, hitting a $4B valuation, regulation, and more  —  The founder of the $4bn UK start-up talks about his mission to reinvent content creation and how Europe can compete in the global AI race
Rachel Swan / San Francisco Chronicle:
Tesla agrees to stop using the term “autopilot” to market its EVs in California to avoid a 30-day suspension by the state's DMV, resolving a long-running battle  —  Tesla has stopped using the term “autopilot” to market its electric vehicles in California in order to avoid a 30 …
Todd Haselton / The Verge:
Google unveils the $499 Pixel 10A, offering the same Tensor G4 chip as the 9A, 8GB of RAM, and an 11% brighter display, in 128GB and 256GB, shipping March 4  —  Google's midrange Pixels have been our top pick for budget Android phones for a while.  They offer good cameras and most of what you need at a budget-friendly price.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google schedules I/O 2026 for May 19 to 20 in Mountain View, teasing the “latest AI breakthroughs and updates” in Gemini, Android, and more  —  Following the puzzle this morning, Google has announced that I/O 2026 is taking place May 19-20.  —  I/O 2026 will feature …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $200M from Autodesk, part of a larger round; the companies are exploring integrating World Labs' AI models into Autodesk products  —  Fei-Fei Li's World Labs has secured a $200 million investment from software design giant Autodesk.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Canva COO Cliff Obrecht says the company hit $4B in ARR at the end of 2025, had 265M+ MAUs and 31M+ paid users, and expects to IPO in the next “couple of years”  —  Creative company Canva ended 2025 on a high note with a 20% increase in monthly active users, growth that was partially propelled by adoption of its AI tools.
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
SEC filing: Peter Thiel and Founders Fund have fully exited ETHZilla, down from a 7.5% stake in August 2025; ether is down 60% from its August 2025 peak  —  Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund have fully exited ETHZilla Corp., according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Alexandre Rajbhandari / Bloomberg:
Filings: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cut its Amazon stake by 75%+ to ~2.3M shares in Q4 2025; Berkshire bought 5.1M NYT shares, worth ~$352M in December  —  Berkshire Hathaway Inc. slashed its holding in Amazon.com Inc. by more than 75% in the fourth quarter, while also building …
Krystal Hur / Wall Street Journal:
A Las Vegas federal appeals court rejects Kalshi's emergency bid for an administrative stay on Nevada's push to block the platform, a major setback for Kalshi  —  A federal appeals court rejected Kalshi's bid, setting the stage for Nevada's civil-enforcement proceedings
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Digital savings startup Vestwell raised a $385M Series E co-led by Blue Owl and Sixth Street, after a $125M Series D in 2023, taking its total funding to $660M  —  Vestwell, a digital savings platform, has raised $385 million in a Series E funding round co-led by Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth.
More: Axios and FinSMEs
David Singleton / flurries of latent creativity:
Dreamer, founded by former Stripe CTO David Singleton, Hugo Barra, and others, launches in beta to let technical and non-technical users build agentic AI apps  —  Dreamer is the name of the platform and company I started with Hugo, Nicholas and others a little over a year ago.

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Streamline payment collections in Singapore with PayNow and GrabPay  —  Under the “Smart Nation” initiative, Singapore is making a transformation towards cashless and quick payment options.
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

Big Technology Podcast:
 How Google DeepMind Operates & Experiments — With Lila Ibrahim and James Manyika
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Invest Like the Best:
 Josh Kushner - Concentration and Conviction
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Janice Min on Hollywood's Crisis; Reed Duchscher on the Creator Boom
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
The Social Radars:
 Tom Blomfield, Partner, Y Combinator; Co-Founder, Monzo
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Cheeky Pint:
 Ramp founder Eric Glyman on the many ways AI is changing corporate spending
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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 10:20 AM ET, February 18, 2026.

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.

From Mediagazer

Jack Dunn / Variety:
Stephen Colbert says CBS released its statement “without ever talking to me” and talk shows have long been exempt from “equal time” rules

Cameron Adams / The Daily Beast:
Sources: CNN restricted staff from using its platforms for self-promotion, after Jake Tapper pushing his Joe Biden book turned into a “rolling infomercial”

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
The New York Times wins three 2025 Polk Awards, including for its Trump coverage; The Boston Globe, ProPublica, AP, and Business Insider also won

More News

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
YouTube fully restores its services after resolving a brief outage on February 17 starting at around 7:45pm ET due to a recommendations system issue

Earlier Picks

TechCrunch:
Emergent, which offers an AI-powered software development service, says it is generating annual run-rate revenue of $100M+, just eight months after launch
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Stripe's stablecoin firm Bridge wins conditional approval from the US OCC to form a national trust bank, which would allow it to issue and manage stablecoins
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is ramping up work on AI wearables with cameras and Siri, such as smart glasses, AirPods, and a pendant that can be worn as a necklace or pinned
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter