Techmeme
December 16, 2025, 4:20 PM
 

December 16, 2025

3:20 PM  •
Yogita Khatri / The Block:  Hong Kong-based RedotPay, a fintech focused on stablecoin-based payments, raised a $107M Series B led by Goodwater Capital, bringing its total raised to ~$200M
2:40 PM  •
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:  Amazon partners with payments startup Slope to offer loans of up to $5M to merchants selling on its platform, using Amazon sales data for candidate selection
2:10 PM  •
Jessica Testa / New York Times:  Netflix announces a partnership with iHeartMedia to exclusively publish at least 15 video podcasts beginning in early 2026, including The Breakfast Club
1:45 PM  •
Robert Hart / The Verge:  Google launches CC, an experimental AI assistant that delivers a personalized daily “Your Day Ahead” briefing email based on users' emails and calendar
1:35 PM  •
New York Times:  The US threatens economic penalties against European companies like Spotify if the EU does not roll back regulations and lawsuits targeting US tech giants
1:25 PM  •
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:  Leona Health, maker of an AI-copilot that integrates with doctors' WhatsApp accounts in LATAM to manage patient communications, raised a $14M seed led by a16z
1:20 PM  •
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:  OpenAI updates ChatGPT Images to generate images up to 4x faster and edit more precisely, and adds a new section in ChatGPT's app and website for images
1:05 PM  •
Financial Times:  OpenAI hires former UK chancellor George Osborne to lead OpenAI for Countries, the global expansion arm of its $500B Stargate data center initiative
1:00 PM  •
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:  Source: OpenAI rolled back ChatGPT's model router, which sent some queries to reasoning models, for Free and $5/month Go tiers, as it was costly and hurt DAUs
12:55 PM  •
Dan Primack / Axios:  Event software company Cvent acquires video content platform Goldcast; source: Cvent paid just under $300M to acquire Goldcast, which had raised around $38M
12:40 PM  •
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:  DoorDash launches Zesty, a standalone AI-powered social app for users to find nearby restaurants, in public testing in San Francisco and New York
12:20 PM  •
OpenAI:  OpenAI launches FrontierScience, a benchmark to measure models' expert-level scientific reasoning with 700+ questions, finding GPT-5.2 is its strongest model
11:55 AM  •
The Information:  A look at Apple's iPhone roadmap; sources say the iPhone 18 Pro lineup will get under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will move to the top-left corner
11:40 AM  •
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:  Meta launches prompt-based sound separation model SAM Audio in its Segment Anything Playground, letting users isolate individual sounds from complex recordings
11:35 AM  •
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:  Instagram unveils its first TV app, initially available on Amazon's Fire TV as a test with plans to expand to other TV platforms
11:15 AM  •
Andrew McCalip:  Orbital solar data centers' cost-per-watt of compute is $51.10/W, far above $15.85/W for terrestrial sites; SpaceX is uniquely positioned to try orbital
10:20 AM  •
Ryan Lawler / Axios:  Sequence, which builds AI agents to automate B2B companies' revenue operations, raised a $20M Series A led by 645 Ventures, bringing its total funding to ~$40M
9:25 AM  •
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:  Q&A with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe on founding Rivian in 2009, production challenges, the VW partnership, autonomy, AI, EVs, chips, CarPlay, and more
9:10 AM  •
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:  Adobe adds a prompt-based video editor to its Firefly app that uses Runway's Aleph model, and adds image and video models from Black Forest Labs and others
8:45 AM  •
David Pierce / The Verge:  Mozilla appoints Anthony Enzor-DeMeo as its CEO, after years of its for-profit arm juggling layoffs, restructuring, its Google dependence, and the AI landscape
8:25 AM  •
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal:  Databricks is raising a $4B Series L at a $134B valuation, up from $100B in September and $62B in December 2024, and had a $4.8B annual revenue rate in October
7:45 AM  •
Emily Mason / Bloomberg:  Visa says it will allow US banks to settle transactions using Circle's USDC stablecoin over Solana, the US' first full deployment of stablecoin bank settlements
7:10 AM  •
New York Times:  Elizabeth Warren and two other Democratic senators write to Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and others about AI data centers' role in rising electricity bills
6:55 AM  •
Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg:  Sources and a memo: Amazon plans to cut 370 jobs at its European HQ in Luxembourg, or ~8.5% of its 4,370 employees, the country's biggest layoffs in 20+ years
6:35 AM  •
Gregory Schmidt / New York Times:  VW plans to end vehicle production at its Dresden plant, which opened in 2001, and convert it into a research hub for tech such as AI, robotics, and chip design
6:20 AM  •
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:  As Europe rearms, Anduril is trying to break through in the UK by co-funding major programs, cutting manufacturing deals, and billing itself as “Anglo-American”
6:05 AM  •
Rest of World:  Analysis: of the world's 8,808 data centers in October 2025, nearly 7,000 are in areas outside the optimal 18C to 27C temperature range; 600 are in 27C+ areas
5:50 AM  •
Reuters:  China approves two Level 3 autonomous cars from state-owned Changan Auto and BAIC Motor, the first such approvals; the cars can drive in Chongqing and Beijing
5:35 AM  •
Counterpoint Research:  Global smartphone shipments are set to shrink 2.1% in 2026, led by Chinese OEMs, due to rising memory costs; DRAM prices could further raise costs by 10%-15%
2:05 AM  •
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:  How the rise of AI has divided Hollywood: some oppose all AI use, while others, like director Timur Bekmambetov, say they are exploring ways to embrace AI tools
12:55 AM  •
Financial Times:  Sources: Monzo's board pushed out CEO TS Anil, who in October announced his exit and handover to former Google executive Diana Layfield, over IPO timing plans
12:00 AM  •
William Sandlund / Financial Times:  Shares in Chinese companies critical to AI infrastructure surged in 2025, with CATL up 45% and Sungrow up 130%, as exports boost margins despite Trump's tariffs

December 15, 2025

10:15 PM  •
Robbie Whelan / Wall Street Journal:  CoreWeave lost $33B in market value in six weeks amid construction delays at its data center in Denton, Texas, criticism from short seller Jim Chanos, and more
10:00 PM  •
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:  OpenAI Chief Communications Officer Hannah Wong plans to leave in January; Wong joined in 2021 and led PR during Sam Altman's brief ouster and rehiring in 2023
8:20 PM  •
New York Times:  Sources: the US has paused its Tech Prosperity Deal with the UK, signed in September, over frustrations about UK online safety rules and digital services taxes
8:05 PM  •
Emilia David / VentureBeat:  The Allen Institute for AI launches Bolmo 7B and Bolmo 1B, claiming they are “the first fully open byte-level language models”, built using its Olmo 3 models
7:05 PM  •
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:  Tesla's shares closed at a 2025 high on December 15, after the company confirmed it is testing its driverless vehicles in Austin without a human safety operator
6:45 PM  •
Katherine Hamilton / Wall Street Journal:  PayPal says it filed US applications to establish PayPal Bank, to offer savings accounts and cut its reliance on third parties when loaning to small businesses
6:30 PM  •
TechCrunch:  Ford plans to repurpose its Kentucky factory manufacturing capacity to launch a battery storage business for data centers, amid its shift from making large EVs
6:15 PM  •
Ari Levy / CNBC:  Shares of Broadcom, CoreWeave, and Oracle, companies tied to the AI infrastructure buildout, extend last week's decline; ORCL is down 46%+ since September 10
5:40 PM  •
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:  Intel names Robin Colwell, deputy assistant to President Trump, as its head of government affairs, and Pushkar Ranade, the CEO's chief of staff, as interim CTO
5:00 PM  •
Bloomberg:  Sources: Disney's Sora deal is entirely in OpenAI stock warrants rather than a cash licensing fee; Disney has the option to buy more shares beyond its $1B stake
4:20 PM  •
Anna Tong / Forbes:  Sources: Notion told staff it is doing a $300M tender offer at an $11B valuation, ahead of a potential IPO, and passed $600M in ARR, half of it from AI products
3:30 PM  •
Bloomberg:  How crypto entrepreneur Bill Zanker helped Donald and Melania Trump launch memecoins; $TRUMP is down 88%+ from its peak and $MELANIA is down 98%+ from its peak
2:55 PM  •
Reuters:  The US FTC, along with 21 states and DC, files an amended complaint against Uber, alleging it engaged in deceptive Uber One billing and cancellation practices
2:40 PM  •
Cloudflare:  Cloudflare's 2025 report: global internet traffic grew 19% in 2025, ChatGPT was the most popular generative AI service, Starlink traffic grew 2.3x, and more
1:45 PM  •
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:  GM adds native Apple Music to select 2025 model year Cadillac and Chevrolet vehicles, and rolls out digital key support, after phasing out CarPlay from 2023
1:40 PM  •
Theo Wayt / The Information:  Sources: xAI created an enterprise AI sales group six months ago, but xAI's lack of experience in selling to big businesses is holding potential customers back
1:00 PM  •
Reshmi Basu / Bloomberg:  Lidar manufacturer Luminar files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says it reached a deal to sell its chip subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc. for $110M in cash
12:50 PM  •
Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters:  Mexico-based fintech Plata raised up to $500M in a financing deal arranged by Nomura Securities International, as it moves toward becoming a full-fledged bank
12:45 PM  •
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:  Google is shutting down its dark web monitoring tool, launched in 2024 to alert users when their personal info is detected on the dark web, on February 16, 2026
12:35 PM  •
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:  NYC-based Octane, which offers “instant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, raised a $100M Series F at a $1.3B post-money valuation
11:53 AM  •
Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters:  Nvidia acquires SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source AI workload management system, and says it will keep distributing Slurm on an open-source basis
11:40 AM  •
Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW:  The Trump administration forms the US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 employees from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize government tech
11:30 AM  •
Dan Primack / Axios:  Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and has $30B+ in AUM, including a $12B evergreen fund; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022
11:15 AM  •
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:  Thrive Holdings announces it has hired Palantir CIO Jim Siders to serve as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services
10:30 AM  •
Luke James / Tom's Hardware:  LG smart TV owners say a webOS update pinned Microsoft Copilot to the home screen, with no apparent way to remove the app; LG unveiled an AI TV strategy at CES
9:35 AM  •
Reuters:  Internal docs: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads, like for scams
9:15 AM  •
Erin Griffith / New York Times:  Lightspeed raised $9B+ across six AI funds, including $3.3B to back breakout hits like Anthropic, xAI, and Mistral; Lightspeed has backed 165 AI startups
9:06 AM  •
Emilia David / VentureBeat:  Nvidia launches Nemotron 3, a family of AI models using a hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture and the Mamba-Transformer design, in 30B, 100B, and ~500B sizes
8:00 AM  •
Rose Henderson / Bloomberg:  Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD offer, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid
7:45 AM  •
Anna Heim / TechCrunch:  Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret videos to add synced sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index Ventures and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed
7:20 AM  •
Naomi Nix / Washington Post:  Tech whistleblowers like Yaël Eisenstat say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives and careers; Meta is in litigation with Sarah Wynn-Williams
7:05 AM  •
Caroline Hyde / Bloomberg:  AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $130M Series B led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst at a $1.3B valuation, taking its total funding to $225M
6:55 AM  •
Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal:  Teneo survey of 350+ public-company CEOs: 68% plan to spend more on AI in 2026 than in 2025, <50% of AI projects generated more returns than they cost, and more
6:40 AM  •
Bloomberg:  Analysis: Tata, Infosys, and Cognizant are set to bear the brunt of Trump's $100K H-1B fee; from 2020 to 2024, 93% of Infosys' H-1B hires would have had to pay
6:25 AM  •
Financial Times:  Sources: the UK government wants Apple, Google, and others to block explicit images at the OS level by default to protect kids and have adults verify their ages
6:10 AM  •
Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal:  AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon's rivalry is moving beyond ads, with explicit customer poaching efforts and lawsuits; AT&T blocked T-Mobile's Easy Switch tool twice
5:55 AM  •
Financial Times:  DTCC: credit default swaps tied to a handful of US tech groups have climbed 90% since early September, as investors seek ways to protect against an AI debt bust
5:40 AM  •
John Reynolds / Tech.eu:  London-based PolyAI, which makes call center AI voice assistants, raised an $86M Series D led by Georgian, Hedosophia, and Khosla, after raising $50M in 2024
5:15 AM  •
Lauren Edmonds / Business Insider:  Filing: Reddit says in its lawsuit against Australia's social media ban that it is “a collection of public fora” and social interaction isn't its “sole purpose”
4:55 AM  •
Mike Baker / New York Times:  US volunteer fire departments are scrambling to find software amid shrinking options and higher costs, as companies backed by private equity dominate the market
4:35 AM  •
Washington Post:  How David Sacks and AI adviser Sriram Krishnan overcame MAGA's opposition to Trump's AI executive order, talking to lawmakers and finally modifying its language
4:20 AM  •
Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:  Interviews with copywriters on generative AI's impact: their work used for training, layoffs, wages and rates in free fall, freelancers losing clients, and more
3:50 AM  •
Allison Johnson / The Verge:  AI image generators like Nano Banana have increased realism by mimicking phone camera traits in contrast, exposure, and sharpening to avoid the uncanny valley
2:00 AM  •
Financial Times:  How Nvidia's lobbying efforts grew after Howard Lutnick brokered Jensen Huang's early access to President Trump, who ultimately approved H200 sales to China
1:10 AM  •
Martin Peers / The Information:  Filing: Oracle signed ~$150B of data center leases in the three months ending November 30, raising its total data center and cloud capacity commitments to $248B

December 14, 2025

11:30 PM  •
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:  A look at iRobot, founded in 1990, and its slow collapse after US and EU regulatory pressure killed Amazon's $1.7B deal in 2024 amid growing Chinese competition
10:35 PM  •
New York Times:  Investigation: after Trump returned to the White House, the SEC eased up on or dismissed 60%+ of ongoing crypto cases, including ones about Trump-tied companies
9:40 PM  •
Angus Berwick / Wall Street Journal:  How the UAE's growing interest in crypto drew Michael Saylor, Changpeng Zhao, and other executives to Abu Dhabi, hoping to secure deals with Emirati investors
8:25 PM  •
Bloomberg:  An interview with Marcos Galperin, the CEO of MercadoLibre, which has a $105B market cap, on deciding to resign, MercadoLibre's rivalry with Amazon, and more
7:45 PM  •
Bloomberg:  iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reaches a restructuring agreement to hand over control to its secured lender and main Chinese supplier Shenzhen Picea
6:25 PM  •
Ralph Jones / The Guardian:  How Skövde, a small Swedish city of 58,000, churns out world-famous video games via a degree for game developers at University of Skövde and a startup incubator
4:45 PM  •
Corrie Driebusch / Wall Street Journal:  A look at the efforts to give retail investors access to private markets, where shares of startups like OpenAI trade, and the opportunities and risks they bring
2:40 PM  •
Kieran Smith / Financial Times:  Delivery Hero Chair Kristin Skogen Lund backs CEO Niklas Östberg as the company explores selling assets amid shareholder pressure over its falling stock price
12:15 PM  •
Zack Abrams / The Block:  Italy's Exor rejects Tether's cash offer for its 65.4% controlling stake in Juventus, which valued the Italian soccer club at €1.1B, as Tether aims to diversify
10:45 AM  •
Mike Butcher / Pathfounders:  Solve Intelligence, which offers generative AI tools to law firms for IP and patent law work, raised a $40M Series B, bringing its total funding to $55M
8:00 AM  •
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:  A look at Trump's AI Executive Order and how its interstate commerce argument could backfire by invalidating laws in GOP states targeting “Big Tech censorship”
5:00 AM  •
Bloomberg:  A profile of ASML, Europe's most valuable company, as it prepares for a transition to High NA EUV, with high-volume manufacturing expected in 2027 and 2028
2:00 AM  •
New York Times:  Crypto casinos have become online gambling havens for teens and problem gamblers, propped up by operators who turn social media influencers into recruiters
1:55 AM  •
Krysta Escobar / CNBC:  Esusu, which offers a rent reporting API used by Zillow, banks, and others to help renters build credit scores, raised a $50M Series C at a $1.2B valuation
1:40 AM  •
Chris Metinko / Axios:  Prime Security, which develops AI agents that help with security design during software development, raised a $20M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners
1:30 AM  •
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:  SuperCircle, which offers an AI-powered reverse logistics and recycling management service for retail brands, raised a $24M+ Series A led by Foundry Group
1:20 AM  •
Will McCurdy / PCMag:  Amazon rolls out Ask This Book to the Kindle iOS app, letting readers ask questions about plot or characters; authors can't opt out
1:10 AM  •
Tamara Djurickovic / Tech.eu:  Qargo, which offers a cloud-based transport management service for carriers, freight forwarders, and third-party logistics, raised a $33M Series B led by Sofina
1:05 AM  •
Chris Metinko / Axios:  Outset, which develops AI agents that help Microsoft and other companies conduct customer research and surveys, raised a $30M Series B led by Radical Ventures
12:55 AM  •
Wall Street Journal:  Sources: OpenAI told staff it was ending the six-month “vesting cliff” that required new employees to work for at least six months before their equity vests
12:40 AM  •
Bloomberg:  Sources: ServiceNow is in advanced talks to buy Armis, which helps businesses secure and manage IoT devices, in a deal that may value Armis at as much as $7B

December 13, 2025

11:55 PM  •
Micah Zimmerman / Bitcoin Magazine:  The US CFTC withdraws its 2020 guidance on the “actual delivery” of a digital asset, aiming to support broader access to regulated crypto markets
10:05 PM  •
Mishal Husain / Bloomberg:  Q&A with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman on defining superintelligence, its application in the medical field, universal basic income, regulation, and more
8:05 PM  •
Tim Wu / Financial Times:  Despite talk of an existential US-China AI race, the Chinese state and its major companies are spending more to dominate other domains, such as EVs and robotics
6:05 PM  •
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:  To build more powerful AI systems, some AI leaders are focusing on pursuing an approach called continual learning, which mimics how people learn over time
4:05 PM  •
Clive Cookson / Financial Times:  A University of Cambridge analysis reveals how cheap SMS text message verification to create online accounts fuels global influence and manipulation campaigns
3:00 PM  •
Brooke Sutherland / Bloomberg:  The AI boom is delaying US municipal projects, as ~$4T in AI infra spending through 2030 shifts skilled construction workers to AI data centers
2:40 PM  •
Bloomberg:  How Oracle's massive Stargate deal with OpenAI has pushed Oracle to the center of the AI boom, turning its market cap into a barometer on AI sentiment
1:20 PM  •
Taylor Telford / Washington Post:  Blowback over posts about the death of Charlie Kirk has prompted companies to be more aggressive about monitoring employees' social media activity
12:10 PM  •
Sarah Holder / Bloomberg:  A look at Netflix House in Philadelphia, a new 100K sq. ft. location for in-person experiences, which resembles a Disneyland attraction and a Dave & Buster's
10:30 AM  •
Jamie Tarabay / Bloomberg:  Sources: The Trump administration is drafting a new cyber strategy that would enlist private companies to mount offensive cyberattacks on foreign adversaries
8:35 AM  •
Financial Times:  Sources: private capital giant Apollo Global has shorted loans and rapidly cut exposure to the enterprise software sector in 2025 amid concerns over AI threat
5:35 AM  •
Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:  A profile of Nex, which makes the $249 Nex Playground motion-based gaming system targeted toward kids and projects more than $150M of sales this year
2:35 AM  •
Financial Times:  OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok
2:05 AM  •
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:  Broadcom's shares fell 11% on December 12, their biggest single-day drop since January, after the company's AI sales outlook fell short of investor expectations
1:55 AM  •
Mark Haranas / CRN:  Indian IT giant TCS agrees to acquire Coastal Cloud, a Florida-based Salesforce consulting partner, for $700M, in a bid to boost its AI and US customer business
1:50 AM  •
Robin Wigglesworth / Financial Times:  Cisco's stock touched a new record high of $80.25 on December 10, surpassing its previous split-adjusted high of $80.06 on March 27, 2000; CSCO is up 31.64% YTD
1:15 AM  •
Isabelle Lee / Bloomberg:  Seagate and Western Digital, with stocks each up 200%+ in 2025, will join Nasdaq 100 before the December 22 market open; GlobalFoundries will leave the index
1:05 AM  •
Semafor:  In a letter to the Trump administration, the GOP Senatorial Committee Chair Sen. Tim Scott said the Netflix-WBD deal raises “significant antitrust problems”

December 12, 2025

9:55 PM  •
Gene Maddaus / Variety:  Google has removed dozens of AI videos from YouTube that depicted Disney characters, after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter flagging the links
9:35 PM  •
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:  Microsoft expands its bug bounty program so that any critical vulnerability, including in third-party code, impacting its online services is eligible for awards
8:40 PM  •
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:  OpenAI quietly adopted Anthropic's “skills” mechanism in ChatGPT and Codex; ChatGPT's skills include creating and modifying spreadsheets, docx files, and PDFs
8:01 PM  •
Loren Grush / Bloomberg:  Internal message: SpaceX has authorized an insider share sale at $421/share, valuing the company at ~$800B, and said it's preparing for a possible IPO in 2026
7:05 PM  •
Rachyl Jones / Semafor:  Singapore-based ChemLex raised a $45M funding round led by Granite Asia to build an AI-powered, automated chemistry lab to accelerate drug discovery
6:40 PM  •
Bloomberg:  Sources: Intel is in advanced talks to acquire AI chip startup SambaNova for about $1.6B including debt; the deal could come together as soon as next month
6:35 PM  •
Andrew Welsch / Barron's Online:  Automated digital wealth management company Wealthfront's stock closed up 1.36% in its Nasdaq debut, valuing it at ~$2.7B, after raising $486M in its IPO
6:20 PM  •
Financial Times:  Shares of data center real estate company Fermi closed down 34% after a tenant terminated a $150M agreement to help fund an AI campus in West Texas
5:35 PM  •
Reuters:  Exor rejects Tether's all-cash offer for its 65.4% majority stake in Juventus, which valued the Italian soccer club at $1.17B
5:15 PM  •
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:  Source: OpenEvidence, which offers an AI chatbot for doctors, is raising $250M at a $12B valuation, up from $6B in Oct., and has $150M in annualized ad revenue
5:00 PM  •
Xuedong Huang / Zoom:  Zoom says its “federated AI” model, combining its SLM with open- and closed-source models, got 48.1% on Humanity's Last Exam vs. 45.8% for Gemini 3 Pro w/ tools
4:00 PM  •
Maggie Eastland / Bloomberg:  David Sacks says China is rejecting Nvidia's H200 AI chips, because the country wants “semiconductor independence” and to “prop up and subsidize Huawei”
2:55 PM  •
Emma Roth / The Verge:  Amazon Prime Video pulls its AI recaps, which it began testing in November, for Fallout, Bosch, and other shows after users noticed errors in the Fallout recaps
2:20 PM  •
Thinking Machines Lab:  Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab makes Tinker, its API for fine-tuning language models, generally available, adds support for Kimi K2 Thinking, and more
2:15 PM  •
Bloomberg:  David Sacks says Trump's AI EO aims to ease companies' compliance burden and that the administration is working with Congress on a common AI oversight standard
1:55 PM  •
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:  Google expands Google Translate's live speech translation from Pixel Buds to any headphones, supporting 70+ languages, in beta on compatible Android phones
1:30 PM  •
Axios:  Policymakers behind key state AI bills scoff at Trump's EO; some GOP governors are pushing ahead with their own AI bills; Steve Bannon says Sacks misled Trump
12:40 PM  •
Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg:  Sources: X reported $752M in Q3 revenue, up 17% YoY, a net loss of $577.4M, and EBITDA of ~$454M, up 16%; revenue for the first nine months of 2025 was $2B+
12:30 PM  •
Ann Gehan / The Information:  Source: livestream shopping app Whatnot nears ~$1B in revenue for 2025; Whatnot says it has passed $6B in gross sales this year, more than doubling 2024's sales
12:05 PM  •
Rocket Drew / The Information:  Companies are updating insider trading policies to cover prediction markets; Kalshi and others are pushing for federal oversight, including of insider trading
11:17 AM  •
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:  Sources: Oracle has delayed completion of some OpenAI data centers from 2027 to 2028, largely due to labor and material shortages; Oracle denies delays
11:10 AM  •
Nina Bambysheva / Forbes:  Kalshi integrates its event trading platform into the popular crypto wallet Phantom; Dune: in November, Kalshi's trading volume hit $5.8B vs. Polymarket's $3.7B
11:00 AM  •
Ben Weiss / Fortune:  YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD
10:25 AM  •
Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch:  Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity updates World to make it a “super app” with encrypted chat integration and a Venmo-like tool for sending and requesting crypto
9:50 AM  •
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:  Trump's AI executive order directs federal agencies to look into withholding federal funding from states passing “the most onerous and excessive laws” around AI
9:40 AM  •
Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz:  [Thread] Substack quietly added a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters, but says it reverted the change after complaints
9:15 AM  •
Reuters:  Serval, which offers an AI assistant for IT, HR, legal, and finance, raised a $75M Series B led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation, taking its total funding to $127M
8:55 AM  •
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:  Switzerland launches a preliminary investigation into whether Apple's terms for granting third-party access to NFC tech on iPhones violate its antitrust laws
8:45 AM  •
Reuters:  Sources: Nvidia told its Chinese clients that it is evaluating adding production capacity for its H200 chips after orders exceeded its current output level
8:35 AM  •
Ian King / Bloomberg:  TechInsights: Huawei's Kirin 9030 chip, used in its Mate 80 Pro Max phone, is China's most advanced chip to date and was produced with SMIC's updated 7nm tech
7:55 AM  •
John Liu / Bloomberg:  Sources: China is considering a ~$28B-to-$70B incentives package, which would be separate from the $50B Big Fund III plan, to support its chipmaking industry
7:50 AM  •
Reuters:  EU finance ministers agree on a €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 2026, aiming to crack down on Chinese imports from retailers like Shein and Temu
6:50 AM  •
Kirsty Needham / Reuters:  Papua New Guinea says Google will build three subsea cables for the country, a $120M effort funded by Australia, amid China boosting its influence in the region
4:55 AM  •
Nikkei Asia:  Taiwan opens its largest AI supercomputing data center, with Nvidia's Blackwell chips, a major effort in its push for sovereign AI and chip industry innovation
2:30 AM  •
Reuters:  Sources: Intel has tested chipmaking tools in 2025 from California-based ACM Research, which has deep China ties; US sanctions targeted two ACM overseas units
2:00 AM  •
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Newsletter:  GPT-5.2 models have a 400K context window and 128K max output tokens, like GPT-5 and 5.1, but have an August 31, 2025, knowledge cutoff, vs. September 30, 2024
12:55 AM  •
Alex Heath / Sources:  An interview with Nikita Bier, who wants to lure journalists back to X with a rebuilt recommendation algorithm with no keyword suppression or manual downranking

December 11, 2025

11:15 PM  •
Jay Peters / The Verge:  Tim Sweeney: the Ninth Circuit's decision on the Epic v. Apple contempt ruling appeal “completely shuts down” App Store rules letting Apple collect “junk fees”
10:55 PM  •
Reuters:  Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia to overturn its social media ban for under-16s, saying it “infringes the implied freedom of political communication”
10:35 PM  •
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:  In his EO, Trump orders US AG Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” that meets regularly with David Sacks to challenge “inconsistent” state AI laws
9:55 PM  •
Zachary Small / New York Times:  A look at France-based indie game studio Sandfall Interactive, whose critically acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had a sub-$10M budget and sold 5M+ copies
8:50 PM  •
Dara Kerr / The Guardian:  xAI partners with El Salvador to deploy Grok across 5,000+ public schools, reaching 1M+ students in an “AI-powered education program” over the next two years
7:55 PM  •
OpenAI:  On OpenAI's 10-year anniversary, Sam Altman reflects on “a decade of breakthroughs, learnings, and the path toward AGI that benefits all of humanity”
7:35 PM  •
CNBC:  Broadcom CEO Hock Tan reveals that Anthropic placed a $10B order for Google's Ironwood TPU racks in Q3 and says Anthropic placed an additional $11B order in Q4
6:55 PM  •
Reuters:  President Trump signs an executive order aimed at preempting a growing number of state AI laws, saying “we want to have one central source of approval”
6:05 PM  •
Maria Curi / Axios:  New US OMB guidance states that LLMs procured by federal agencies must comply with two “unbiased AI principles”: “truth-seeking” and “ideological neutrality”
5:15 PM  •
Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk:  A US judge sentences Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon to 15 years in prison; Kwon pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud charges in August
4:25 PM  •
Kif Leswing / CNBC:  Broadcom Q4: revenue up 28% YoY to $18.02B, vs. $17.49B est., forecasts Q1 revenue above est., and expects AI chip sales to double YoY to $8.2B; AVGO falls 10%+

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