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Techmeme
February 19, 2026, 2:20 AM
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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 …
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.
Ece Yildirim / Gizmodo:
An experiment finds X's feed algorithm favored conservative content, and switching to the “For you” feed shifted users' views toward more conservative positions  —  The algorithm also doesn't like posts by traditional news media, the researchers found.
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.
Gayoung Lee / Gizmodo:
Microsoft's Project Silica team details its laser-modified glass storage tech, saying tests suggest that it can preserve information for at least 10,000 years  —  “This will change the way we think about keeping data and archival preservation.”  —  Our knowledge of the past comes from stone tablets and old parchment.
Financial Times:
Sources: Accenture told execs promotions would require “regular adoption” of AI and is tracking individual weekly logins to its AI tools for some senior staff  —  Consulting firms use ‘carrot and stick’ with some senior staff less willing to use technology than junior colleagues
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 …
The Guardian:
The UK proposes new rules requiring tech firms to remove nonconsensual abusive content within 48 hours or risk blocking and fines of up to 10% of global revenue  —  PM says measure, also applied to deepfake nudes, is needed owing to a ‘national emergency’ of online misogyny
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.
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 …
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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 …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's TCS signs OpenAI as its first data center customer, starting with 100MW of capacity; Tata Group plans to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise, starting with TCS  —  OpenAI has partnered with India's Tata Group to secure 100 megawatts of AI-ready data center capacity in the country, with plans to scale to 1 gigawatt.
Joe Miller / Financial Times:
OPM Director Scott Kupor says tech billionaires such as Elon Musk will give talks to the US Tech Force, which aims to recruit roughly 1,000 software engineers  —  Programme aims to modernise digital infrastructure of US federal agencies  —  Tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Sam Altman …
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 and APMdigest
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 …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:20 AM ET, February 19, 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

Julianna Bragg / Axios:
Colbert's interview on YouTube with US Senate candidate James Talarico has drawn over 6M views as of Wednesday afternoon in the US, after it was posted Monday

Pranav Baskar / New York Times:
Journalists say an AP reporter and three other journalists were detained in Cameroon while probing a secretive US program that deports migrants to Cameroon

David Shepardson / Reuters:
FCC Chair Brendan Carr says, “We're going to be moving forward” with Nexstar's acquisition of Tegna, a merger that requires lifting the station ownership cap

More News

Earlier Picks

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
Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune:
Cogent Security, which aims to use AI agents to decide which software bugs to remediate, raised a $42M Series A led by Bain, taking its total funding to $53M
Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:
Matthew Ball's State of Video Gaming 2026 report: global video game content sales grew 5.3% YoY to $195.6B in 2025 while job losses fell 40% YoY to 9,200 people
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
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
At India's AI Summit, Google announces the America-India Connect Initiative, which will build new fiber optic lines between India, the US, and other countries
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