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Techmeme
March 13, 2026, 3:10 PM
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Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: Elon Musk pushed out two more xAI co-founders after getting frustrated with xAI's coding product progress and brought in “fixers” from SpaceX and Tesla  —  Tesla and SpaceX managers sent in to review work as billionaire's start-up struggles to keep pace with rivals
Fred Lambert / Electrek:
Elon Musk says xAI “was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up”  —  Elon Musk admitted today that xAI, his artificial intelligence venture, “was not built right first time around” and “is being rebuilt from the foundations up.”
The Information:
xAI hires senior Cursor leaders Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg; Elon Musk said he expects xAI to “catch up and exceed our competitors” in coding by mid-2026
Eli Tan / New York Times:
Sources: Meta delayed the launch of its Avocado model to at least May over performance concerns and discussed temporarily licensing Gemini to power its products  —  The tech giant pushed back the timeline after spending billions to be on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence.
Karandeep Singh Oberoi / Android Police:
Meta updates a support page to say that end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after May 8  —  Can you imagine a world where WhatsApp stops offering end-to-end encryption (E2EE)?  That's not happening, but a different Meta-owned company …
Clive Thompson / New York Times:
Developers on AI coding: many are enthusiastic and now feel more like architects than construction workers, some say software jobs openings may grow, and more  —  Lately, Manu Ebert has been trying to keep his A.I. from humiliating him.  —  I recently visited Ebert, a machine-learning engineer …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amazon Prime Video plans to raise the price of its ad-free plan, Ultra, to $4.99 per month, and add support for up to five simultaneous streams, from April 10  —  The revamped Prime Video ‘Ultra’ tier will cost $4.99 per month and come with ‘exclusive’ access to 4K streams.
Kelby Vera / HuffPost:
Alex Karp says AI disrupts the economic power of “humanities-trained, largely Democratic voters” and strengthens that of “working-class, often male voters”  —  In a new interview, Palantir CEO Alex Karp predicted who will be hit hardest by shifts in technology ... and it wasn't the typical MAGA base.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple is lowering its commission for its App Store in mainland China from 30% to 25%, starting on March 15, “following discussions with the Chinese regulator”  —  Apple Inc. is lowering the fees it collects from app developers for software and in-app purchases in China …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Adobe agrees to pay $75M to resolve a US government lawsuit accusing it of concealing hefty termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions  —  Adobe (ADBE.O) said on Friday it will pay $75 million to resolve a U.S. government lawsuit accusing the Photoshop and Acrobat maker …
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Peacock adds a new feature to its app that uses AI to curate personalized vertical video playlists, narrated by a generative AI avatar of host Andy Cohen  —  Peacock is making a clear bet on two things: AI and mobile-first entertainment.  —  Based on what the streamer previewed at a press event yesterday …
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Uber is relaunching a robotaxi service with Hyundai-backed Motional in Las Vegas; the service will have a safety driver behind the wheel until the end of 2026  —  Uber Technologies Inc. is relaunching a robotaxi service with the Hyundai Motor Co.-backed company Motional in Las Vegas …
Nathan Vifflin / Reuters:
STMicro says it will retrain workers and deploy humanoid robots in its older chip plants for repetitive and physically demanding tasks, aiming to avoid closures  —  STMicroelectronics (STMPA.PA) unveiled plans on Thursday to retrain workers and deploy robots in its older chip manufacturing plants …
More: Tech in Asia
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Telus Digital confirms a security incident after ShinyHunters claimed to have stolen nearly 1PB of data from the Canadian BPO giant in a multimonth breach  —  Canadian business process outsourcing giant Telus Digital has confirmed it suffered a security incident after threat actors claimed …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Adobe says CEO Shantanu Narayen will step down after it names his successor; Narayen became CEO in 2007 and will stay on as chair of the board; ADBE drops 6%+  —  Adobe said CEO Shantanu Narayen will step down after a successor has been appointed, and he will remain as the design software company's chair.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:10 PM ET, March 13, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

Suzanne Monyak / Bloomberg Law:
A federal appeals court upholds an August 2025 ruling that Trump officials can't fire VOA director Michael Abramowitz without approval from an independent board

Jack Queen / Reuters:
A federal judge said Trump's $10B defamation suit against the BBC over a Panorama documentary can go forward but threw out Trump's unfair trade practices claim

The Guardian:
The Guardian and ITV publish an investigation into TV presenter David Walliams, who lost a court bid to stop them from publishing sexual misconduct allegations

More News

Fortune:
Docs: Binance investigators found accounts, including of a VIP Chinese trader and a suspected Iranian gold smuggler, that helped move $1B to Iran-linked groups
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Source: the perpetrators of the wiper attack on Stryker appear to have used Microsoft Intune to issue a “remote wipe” command against all connected devices
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: ByteDance is working with Aolani Cloud to deploy ~500 Nvidia Blackwell systems in Malaysia, totaling ~36,000 B200 chips; the hardware could cost $2.5B+
Associated Press:
Social media addiction trial: the plaintiff, Meta, and YouTube make their closing arguments; jurors begin deliberations on the liability for harms to children

Earlier Picks

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A US appeals court voids much of a March 2025 injunction blocking California's online child safety law, while keeping some of the law's provisions blocked
Jessica Lyons / The Register:
A US DOJ-led international law enforcement operation disrupted SocksEscort, a residential proxy network used to exploit residential routers worldwide
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Anthropic says Claude can now generate custom charts, diagrams, and other visualizations directly in a conversation, turned on by default for all users in beta
Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft launches Copilot Health, which integrates medical records, biometric data from wearables, and lab test results to give personalized advice, in the US
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Google launches Ask Maps, a Gemini-powered conversational Google Maps feature that lets users ask “complex, real-world questions”, available in the US and India
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