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Techmeme
February 20, 2026, 1:25 PM
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Top News

Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times:
Sources: Amazon's AI tools have caused at least two AWS outages, including a 13-hour disruption in December; Amazon says it was “user error, not AI error”  —  Tech giant blames ‘user error, not AI error’ for incident in December involving its Kiro tool
The Information:
Sources: OpenAI has 200+ people working on a family of AI devices, including a smart speaker priced from $200 to $300, possibly smart glasses and a smart lamp  —  OpenAI has more than 200 people working on a family of AI-powered devices that will include a smart speaker and possibly smart glasses …
Adam Levine / Barron's Online:
Tech stocks rise slightly from their morning lows after the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump lacked the authority to impose sweeping global tariffs  —  Shares of tech goods makers rose off their morning lows on news of the high court's ruling.  Tech goods have been some of the least …
Alex Heath / Sources:
Scott Myers, the SVP of Snap's AR glasses unit Specs, leaves after six years; sources say Myers left after a “blow-up” with Evan Spiegel over Snap's strategy  —  My chat with CEO Dylan Field ahead of today's earnings call.  Also: Snap loses its head of Specs right before the big launch …
More: TechCrunch, Road to VR, SFGATE, and Fast Company
X: @alexeheath.  LinkedIn: Alex Heath.  Bluesky: @carnage4life
Chris Lattner / Modular Blog:
Claude's C Compiler shows AI elevates the role of human judgment and vision; it's a milestone, but closely mirrors LLVM/GCC, and hard codes things to pass tests  —  Compilers occupy a special place in computer science.  They're a canonical course in computer science education.  Building one is a rite of passage.
Robert Burnson / Bloomberg:
A US grand jury indicted two former Google engineers and one of their husbands for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to the Tensor chip for Pixel phones  —  Two former Google engineers and one of their husbands were indicted for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to the company's Tensor processor for Pixel phones.
Financial Times:
Sources: Nvidia is close to finalizing an up to $30B investment into OpenAI, replacing 2025's long-term $100B commitment; the deal could be closed this weekend  —  Chipmaker swaps last year's complex framework with AI start-up in favour of equity cheque  —  Nvidia is close to finalising …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google rejected 1.75M policy-violating Android apps and blocked 80K+ developer accounts from Google Play in 2025, down from 2.36M apps and 158K accounts in 2024  —  Fewer bad actors are targeting Google Play with malicious apps, the company says, a shift that the tech giant credits …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:25 PM ET, February 20, 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:
Sources: Disney is discussing a potential free tier for Disney+; product and tech chief Adam Smith discussed the initiative at a town hall but gave no timeline

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Report: Letterboxd's owners have held early talks with potential buyers, including Netflix, Sony Pictures, Paramount, and PE giant TPG

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
USA Today CEO Mike Reed says the company is prepared to opt out of Google Search in the next 6 to 12 months because it has no licensing agreement with Google

More News

Dan Gallagher / Wall Street Journal:
Uber's market cap fell to ~$150B, down ~25% in six months, as investors weigh robotaxi disruption and see the market as a two-horse race between Waymo and Tesla
Evan Halper / Washington Post:
Tech companies are increasingly building private power plants to fuel off-grid data centers, a move some warn has reliability challenges and hurts climate goals
Jonathan Lloyd / NBC Los Angeles:
Los Angeles County sues Roblox, alleging it engaged in deceptive business practices that exposed children to sexual content, exploitation, and online predators

Earlier Picks

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sony shuts down Bluepoint Games, the PlayStation subsidiary behind remakes of older games like Demon's Souls and Uncharted; ~70 employees will lose their jobs
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta says it is “explicitly separating” Quest VR from its Worlds platform, making Worlds “almost exclusively mobile” to better compete with Roblox and Fortnite
Reece Rogers / Wired:
Block employees describe a deteriorating culture, as morale plunges amid rolling layoffs and Jack Dorsey pushes generative AI tools to maximize productivity
Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Toronto-based chip startup Taalas, which hardwires AI models into custom silicon to achieve faster inference, raised $169M, bringing its total funding to $219M
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out Gemini 3.1 Pro, which it says is “a step forward in core reasoning”, for all users in the Gemini app; the .1 increment is a first for Google
Kalley Huang / New York Times:
West Virginia's AG sues Apple for allegedly violating consumer protection law by not implementing tools like PhotoDNA to detect CSAM stored and shared on iCloud
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