Techmeme
March 4, 2026, 12:05 PM

Top News

Tom's Hardware:
Apple unveils the $599+ MacBook Neo, with a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an A18 Pro chip, side-firing speakers, a 1080p webcam, two USB-C ports, and Touch ID  —  Apple debuts a new entry-level MacBook at just the right time  —  Apple finally took the wraps off its long-rumored budget laptop.
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
MacBook Neo hands-on: a new product category for Apple, and it doesn't look budget with a vibrant display and aluminum body, but the keyboard is a bit flimsy  —  But of course, it's light on specs. … It's just fascinating to see the company tackle an entirely new category …
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Apple's MacBook Neo uses the A18 Pro that launched in its iPhone 16 range, alongside 8GB of RAM and a headphone jack; Apple discontinued its 12" MacBook in 2019  —  The entry-level MacBook could help Apple compete with Chromebooks and low-cost Windows laptops.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple says the MacBook Neo is $599 with 256GB of storage and $699 with Touch ID and 512GB of storage, both available in citrus, silver, indigo, and blush colors  —  Apple Inc. rolled out the $599 MacBook Neo in its biggest push yet into low-end laptops, aiming to challenge Windows PCs and Chromebooks for budget-minded shoppers.
Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
Polymarket removes long-running markets that let users bet on if a nuclear weapon will be detonated, amid the Iran strikes; a 2025 contract had $1.7M+ in volume  —  Nuclear weapon-themed markets aren't new on the prediction market platform, but public outcry about the contracts has apparently forced the platform to delete them.
Amy Fan / New York Times:
Analysis: since 2025's end, Polymarket users rarely bet large sums on US strikes by the next day; the day before the Iran strikes, 150+ accounts made such bets  —  Polymarket users placed hundreds of bets of at least $1,000 predicting an imminent American strike, raising concerns about insider trading.
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony no longer plans to release its big single-player PlayStation 5 games on PC, a major strategy shift that sees it returning to console exclusivity  —  The video-game publisher no longer plans to put out PC ports of PlayStation games such as ‘Ghost of Yotei’
Julie Jargon / Wall Street Journal:
A US lawsuit says Gemini sent a man to find an android body it could inhabit, before he died by suicide; Google says it sent him to crisis hotlines “many times”  —  A new lawsuit alleges Google's chatbot sent a Florida man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit.
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Sources: Anthropic recently passed $19B in run-rate revenue, up from $9B at the end of 2025 and ~$14B a few weeks ago, as its clash with the US DOD casts doubt  —  Anthropic PBC is on track to generate annual revenue of almost $20 billion, a projection based on current performance …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Google details Coruna, an exploit kit used to hijack iPhones via malicious websites; iVerify suggests it may have been originally built for the US government  —  A highly sophisticated set of iPhone hijacking techniques has likely infected tens of thousands of phones or more.
Jason Snell / Six Colors:
Washington Post:
Sources: the US used Palantir's Maven Smart System, integrated with Claude, to find and prioritize 1,000 targets within the first 24 hours of its attack on Iran  —  Advanced AI technology is identifying targets in Iran and quickly prioritizing them, supporting the massive military operations carried out by U.S. and Israeli forces.
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Junyang Lin, a tech lead on Alibaba's Qwen team, abruptly steps down, and two other team members leave; one contributor says “I know leaving wasn't your choice”  —  Alibaba's Qwen AI project has lost one of its most visible technical leaders just a day after the Chinese tech giant unveiled …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Trump says “the GENIUS Act is being threatened and undermined by the banks”, which are holding the CLARITY Act hostage, as they oppose stablecoin yield payouts  —  U.S. President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the banking industry is trying to undermine the stablecoin bill he signed into law last year.
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Journal:
Kraken says its banking unit won “master account” access to the US Fed's core payment systems, the first crypto company to be able to move money like banks  —  ‘Master account’ approval gives firm access to the same payment rail as thousands of banks and credit unions
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Joe Tidy / BBC:
TikTok says it won't add E2EE to DMs because it would prevent police and its safety teams from reading messages when needed and it wants to protect young users  —  TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption (E2EE) - the controversial privacy feature used by nearly all its rivals - arguing it makes users less safe.
Financial Times:
Sources: the White House is debating whether to allow Tencent to maintain stakes in US and Finnish video game companies; Tencent holds a 28% stake in Epic Games  —  Chinese company's investments in ‘Fortnite’ creator Epic Games and other creators have faced long-running US security review
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
An internal DHS document shows CBP used location data sourced from the online ad industry to track phone locations; ICE has bought access to similar tools  —  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought data from the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' precise movements over time …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Eight Sleep, which sells smart mattress accessories to track sleep patterns and adjust temperatures, raised $50M at a $1.5B valuation, up from $500M in 2021  —  Sleep tech company Eight Sleep today said that it has raised $50 million in a strategic round led by Tether Investments at a valuation of $1.5 billion.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
The central nervous system of your business  —  Used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, Airtable combines AI with the scale of an infinitely flexible, no-code system.  With all your data in one place, it's like mission control for your company.
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:
AI that actually helps: Practical intelligence in Zoho Workplace  —  Lately, most AI assistants feel like that one over-eager intern who interrupts every five minutes with a suggestion you didn't ask for.At Zoho …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Pentagon Insider: What's Next For Anthropic and The Department of War — With Michael Horowitz
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The World's Cup Is Coming to Trump's America, with Roger Bennett
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.
Invest Like the Best:
John Arnold - China, Energy Markets and Fixing America's Systems
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Social Radars:
Peter Reinhardt, CEO & co-founder, Charm Industrial; CEO & co-founder, Segment
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, and Jared Friedman from YC
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:05 PM ET, March 4, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

The Information:
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
OpenAI: