|
February 18, 2026, 6:50 PM
|
Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| The Keyword: |
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana-made cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages — The Gemini app now features our most advanced music generation model Lyria 3, empowering anyone to make 30-second tracks using text or images in beta.
More: The Verge, The Register, Engadget, Android Police, Mashable, Gizmodo, CNBC, MobileSyrup, Campaign Middle East, PCMag, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Music Business Worldwide, Android Authority, Android Headlines, Mix 1049, Android Central, iPhone in Canada, SQ Magazine, Tom's Guide, 9to5Google, Thurrott, Music Ally, Neowin, Ars Technica, EFTM, MarkTechPost, and Droid Life
X: @iamemily2050, @allan_d_clive, @jasonbaldridge, @googleai, @stocksavvyshay, @google, @rpnickson, @marcelocaporale, @710_eth, @_philschmid, @slow_developer, @natlungfy, @joshwoodward, @officiallogank, @pyvrma, @kimmonismus, @google, @synthwavedd, and @ammaar
LinkedIn: Jeff Chang and Debbie W.
Forums: r/singularity and Slashdot
| CNBC: |
Social media addiction trial: Mark Zuckerberg says increasing engagement on Instagram is not a company goal and that Meta removes underage users it identifies — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back against the notion that the social media company made increasing time spent on Instagram a company goal.
More: The Guardian, NBC News, NPR, Gizmodo, New York Times, Business Insider, The Information, Breitbart, International Business Times, Axios, Associated Press, Le Monde, The National, Washington Examiner, The Independent, New York Post, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera, Semafor, Straight Arrow News, Rolling Stone, Mashable, Forbes Australia, LAW.com, Wall Street Journal, YouTube, CNN, One America News Network, Digital CxO, GMA News Online, CBS News, The American Bazaar, ABC, Fox News, New York Post, New York Post, Australian Financial Review, The Wrap, Sydney Morning Herald, The Olympian, Overturned, FOX 13 Seattle, Newsweek, Sky News, Android Headlines, Tech Oversight Project, The Sun, Quartz, Deseret News, BBC, NewsNation, MS NOW, Center for Countering …, and Bloomberg Law
X: @tech_oversight and @tech_oversight
LinkedIn: Kelly Stonelake and Nicki Petrossi
Bluesky: @theresistanceco and @davelee.me
Threads: @jonathanhaidt and @pranavdixit
Forums: r/politics, r/NPR, r/technology, and r/LegalNews
| Alicia Tang / Bloomberg: |
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $1B from Autodesk, a16z, Nvidia, AMD, Sea, and others to build its world models for robotics, scientific discovery, and more — World Labs, a startup from artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a new round of funding to pursue a novel approach to AI development.
More: World Labs, SiliconANGLE, PYMNTS.com, Reuters, The Deep View, and The Decoder
| Reuters: |
Sources: the US State Department is developing an online portal at “freedom.gov” to let users in Europe and elsewhere view content banned by their governments — The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned … | Todd Haselton / The Verge: |
Google unveils the $499 Pixel 10a, with a Tensor G4 and 8GB of RAM like the Pixel 9a, Satellite SOS, an 11% brighter screen, but no Pixelsnap, 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.
More: The Keyword, Engadget, The Shortcut, Thurrott, Android Central, PhoneArena, Livemint, Trusted Reviews, Droid Life, Business Standard, iPhone in Canada, Android Authority, TechCrunch, Engadget, T3, Wired, MobileSyrup, Tom's Guide, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, XDA Developers, Digit, and Android Headlines
X: @niktek, @google, @redlaysdedo, @thegalox_, and @mkbhd
| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
More: Google Support, HotHardware, CNET, iPhone in Canada, Android Headlines, nextpit, PhoneArena, Thurrott, and Notebookcheck
| The Record: |
Texas AG Ken Paxton sues TP-Link, alleging it deceptively markets its products as secure while allowing the CCP to hack into consumers' devices — Texas is suing networking equipment company TP-Link Systems for allegedly allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to hack into consumers' devices … | Niko Gallogly / New York Times: |
eBay agrees to acquire secondhand clothing app Depop from Etsy for ~$1.2B in cash; Etsy bought Depop in 2021 for $1.6B; ETSY jumps 17%+ after hours — The $1.2 billion deal comes as eBay looks to expand its appeal among younger users. — Secondhand clothing apps hit a stride during …
More: Etsy, Inc., The Information, TechCrunch, San Francisco Business Times, CNBC, Dow Jones Newswires, Associated Press, WWD, Vogue, Barron's Online, The Business of Fashion, Benzinga, Oktopost, Wall Street Journal, Value Added Resource, and Retail TouchPoints
X: @bjornjeffery, @mikeisaac, and @jimcramer
| Juli Clover / MacRumors: |
Apple adds support for third-party voice-based conversational apps in CarPlay starting with iOS 26.4, letting CarPlay users access apps like AI chatbots — With iOS 26.4, CarPlay users will be able to use third-party chatbots with CarPlay. AI services like Claude, Gemini …
More: Apple, AppleInsider, The Olympian, Mashable, 9to5Mac, iDrop News, iClarified, BGR, iPhone in Canada, and heise online News
| Leo Schwartz / Fortune: |
Sports-focused prediction market Novig raised a $75M Series B led by Pantera Capital at a $500M valuation; Novig is commission-free for retail traders — As the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket dominate the attention of investors and regulators, a sports-focused challenger called Novig …
More: Wall Street Journal, PYMNTS.com, Sports Business Journal, Axios, The Crypto Times, Ventureburn, Sportico, Forbes, Forerunner, FinSMEs, Blockonomi, and Economic news
X: @novig, @franklinbi, and @masonnystrom
| Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: |
Microsoft confirms a bug that let Microsoft 365 Copilot summarize confidential emails from Sent Items and Drafts folders, and deployed a fix in early February — Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January …
More: TechCrunch, The Register, Mashable, Neowin, Inc.com, Cyber Security News, Windows Latest, PCWorld, and Eschaton
Bluesky: @hypervisible.blacksky.app. Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/BetterOffline, r/privacy, and Slashdot
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Audible launches an “immersion reading” feature that lets readers switch between ebook and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries — Only days after Spotify announced its foray into physical book sales, which included an audiobook feature that lets …
More: Audible.com, ZDNET, CNET, Android Authority, The Verge, 9to5Mac, Good e-Reader, Publishers Weekly, TechRadar, Mashable, Thurrott, and Jane Friedman
| 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
More: The Verge, Reuters, CoinDesk, The Coin Republic, Barron's Online, Engadget, cftc.gov, Event Horizon, CoinGeek, crypto.news, Cryptonews, CoinGape, and Business Insider
X: @govcox and @conorfkenny
| OpenAI: |
OpenAI and Paradigm announce EVMbench, a benchmark that measures how well AI agents can detect, exploit, and patch high-severity smart contract vulnerabilities — Making smart contracts safer by evaluating AI agents' ability to detect, patch, and exploit vulnerabilities in blockchain environments.
More: Decrypt, The Block, CoinDesk, CoinGape, Paradigm, The Crypto Times, and Coinmonks
X: @scaling01, @0xalpo, and @openai
| Bloomberg: |
Saudi-backed AI startup Humain invested $3B in xAI, becoming a “significant minority shareholder” in a deal that completed just before SpaceX's xAI acquisition — Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence company Humain has invested $3 billion into Elon Musk's xAI …
More: HUMAIN, Observer, Capital Brief, The Information, arabnews.jp, New York Times, Reuters, Tech in Asia, Semafor, Financial Times, Nairametrics, Dow Jones Newswires, and Türkiye Today
X: @humain, @tareqamin_, and @elonmusk
| Alex Heath / Sources: |
Sources: while Meta offered OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger more money than OpenAI, he ultimately aligned more closely with OpenAI's overall vibe and vision — Less than a week before he ultimately joined OpenAI, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger talked about the two job offers …
More: Inc, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Business Insider. Bluesky: @alexeheath.com
| New York Times: |
Meta plans to spend $65M in 2026 to boost state politicians friendly to AI; filings: Meta started two super PACs, one backing the GOP and another for Democrats — Meta's biggest election investment aims to prevent state legislation that it fears could inhibit artificial intelligence development.
More: Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Originally Reported …, Political Wire, and Benzinga
X: @teddyschleifer, @cernovich, @jdcocchiarella, @teddyschleifer, @thegreenebj, @sachalouise, @nathantbernard, @leehepner, @ryangrim, and @hbendaas. Bluesky: @sachalouise
Forums: r/technology and r/politics
| 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.
More: /dev/agents and Dreamer
X: @joannastern, @dps, @bentossell, @hbarra, @mikeyk, @dps, @paraga, @dps, @dreamer, and @dreamer
Bluesky: @martinsfp and @edzitron.com
| George Hammond / Financial Times: |
Sources: Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former Google DeepMind Principal Scientist David Silver, is raising a $1B seed led by Sequoia at a ~$4B valuation — Funding deal would value David Silver's start-up Ineffable Intelligence at $4bn — David Silver, one of Britain's top AI researchers …
More: PYMNTS.com, SiliconANGLE, Sifted, David SIlver, The Times, Telegraph, The Economic Times, Capacity, Implicator.ai, and Tech Funding News. X: @etnshow
| 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
X: @joemillerjr. Bluesky: @henrymance.ft.com, @justinhendrix, and @henrymance.ft.com. Forums: r/politics
| Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE: |
Selector, which offers an AI platform that promises to simplify network monitoring, raised a $32M Series B led by AVP at a $375M valuation — Network observability provider Selector Software Inc. today announced that it has raised a $32 million funding round at a $375 million valuation.
More: FinSMEs, APMdigest, and Ventureburn
| Jyoti Mann / The Information: |
Sources: Meta has revived a previously shelved smartwatch project, now code-named Malibu 2, and plans to release it in 2026 with health features and Meta AI — Meta Platforms plans to release its first smartwatch in 2026, according to two people familiar with the matter.
More: The Verge
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Figma reports Q4 revenue up 40% YoY to $303.8M, vs. $293.15M est., and forecasts Q1 revenue above estimates; FIG jumps 15%+ after hours — Figma shares surged 15% in extended trading on Wednesday after the design software maker reported robust results and quarterly guidance than Wall Street had predicted.| Meir Orbach / CTech: |
Venice, which develops identity security software, emerges from stealth after raising a $25M Series A led by IVP, following an $8M seed round — The Israeli company replaces static enterprise permissions with dynamic access control. — Startup Venice (formerly Valkyrie) has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round.
More: TechCrunch, FinSMEs, Index Ventures, Venice, and IVP Perspectives
| 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 … | Lora Kolodny / CNBC: |
Cadence shares closed up 7.6% on Wednesday after the chip design company reported Q4 revenue up ~6% to $1.44B and adjusted EPS of $1.99, both above estimates — Cadence Design Systems stock rose by more than 6% on Wednesday after the chip design software company reported earnings that beat analysts' expectations.
More: Yahoo Finance, Reuters, Benzinga, investor.cadence.com, Barron's Online, and CNBC
| Julia Black / Vanity Fair: |
OpenAI hires Instagram's VP of global partnerships, Charles Porch, as its first VP of global creative partnerships, seeking to win over a skeptical Hollywood — Charles Porch's newly created role as OpenAI's VP of global creative partnerships signals the AI giant's new focus on the entertainment industry
More: The Hollywood Reporter. X: @fidjissimo, @whatdotcd, @alexeheath, @mjnblack, @zck, and @kate_rouch. Threads: @robertdenning. Instagram: charlesporch
| Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: |
Efficient Computer, which is developing AI chips with a “spatial dataflow” architecture to minimize energy consumption, raised a $60M Series A — Efficient Computer Co. says it's going to make the dream of low-energy artificial intelligence computing a reality after raising $60 million in early-stage funding today.| Samantha Subin / CNBC: |
DoorDash reports Q4 revenue up 38% YoY to $3.96B, vs. $3.99B est., total orders up 32% to 903M, and forecasts Q1 adjusted EBITDA below estimates — Doordash's stock climbed 14% during extended trading on Wednesday, recovering from an initial downswing after the food delivery platform issued … Sponsor Posts
Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.
Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: Grow Payments for Zoho CRM — App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools. Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …
App Spotlight: Grow Payments for Zoho CRM — App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools. Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …
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.
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.Featured Podcasts
The Upstarts Podcast:
Radical AI's Joseph Krause: The Scientist Building The 'Waymo' Lab For New Materials
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Hard Fork:
Do Social Media Bans Work? + A Conversation About A.I. Consciousness + Tool Time
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
The AI writing app fighting AI slop
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Adam Mosseri: AI is a tailwind for authenticity
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.
Great Chat:
SPVs have a brand problem
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
About This Page
This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:50 PM 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
James Faris / Business Insider:Todd Spangler / Variety:
Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:
Upcoming Tech Events
More News
| Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune: |
More: SiliconANGLE, Ventureburn, SecurityWeek, FinSMEs, and Bain Capital Ventures
X: @baincapvc, @allisonbraley, and @enriquesalem
| Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz: |
More: MatthewBall.co and PC Gamer
X: @loudmouthjulia, @jamesekaplan, @jmoledina, @ballmatthew, @jonahblake, @ballmatthew, @sarthakgh, @ballmatthew, @jonathanhawkins, and @ballmatthew. LinkedIn: Jamil Moledina
Bluesky: @felipepepe, @hantani, @pedrothedagger, and @mayteramarble