Techmeme
June 17, 2025, 7:15 PM

Top News

Tulsee Doshi / The Keyword:
Google makes Gemini 2.5 Flash and Pro generally available and introduces 2.5 Flash-Lite, which it says is its most cost-efficient and fastest 2.5 model yet  —  Gemini 2.5 Flash and Pro are now generally available, and we're introducing 2.5 Flash-Lite, our most cost-efficient and fastest 2.5 model yet.
Steve Kopack / NBC News:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company expects that in the next few years AI “will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains”  —  Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the retail and tech giant “will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today.”
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US Senate passes the Genius Act, which establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins; the bill now heads to the House  —  The Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill that for the first time establishes federal guardrails for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins and creates …
Bloomberg:
Sources: xAI is in talks to raise $4.3B via an equity investment on top of the $5B in debt it's trying to borrow; of its previously raised $14B, it has $4B left  —  Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI is in talks to raise $4.3 billion through an equity investment on top …
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft and AMD announce a “strategic, multi-year partnership” to design custom silicon for a number of devices, including next-generation Xbox consoles  —  Xbox President Sarah Bond shared an update on Xbox consoles today, confirming their ongoing partnership with AMD for first-party hardware …
CNBC:
Sources: Meta and EssilorLuxottica plan AI-powered smart glasses under Oakley and Prada brands; they will be aimed at athletes, and the Oakleys may cost ~$360  —  Meta and EssilorLuxottica plan to release versions of their AI-powered smart glasses under the Oakley and Prada brands, CNBC has learned.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Facebook renames its Videos tab as the Reels tab and says all videos on its platform will soon be shared as reels, regardless of their length or orientation  —  Facebook announced on Tuesday that all videos on its platform will soon be shared as reels, regardless of their length or orientation.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Waymo expands its coverage area in San Francisco and LA by 80 square miles each, bringing its total coverage area in California to 250 square miles  —  The company's robotaxis are now operating across 250 square miles of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
US appeals court rules in Apple's favor by throwing out a $300M verdict that found it infringed on Optis' wireless tech patents, sending the case to a new trial  —  Apple (AAPL.O) has convinced a U.S. appeals court to throw out a $300 million verdict by a jury that found …
CNN:
President Trump plans to sign an executive order this week to grant TikTok a 90-day extension in enforcement of the sale-or-ban law, marking his third extension  —  New York CNN —  —  TikTok just got another lifeline from the White House, with President Donald Trump set to delay enforcement …
Bloomberg:
Shanghai-based MiniMax open sources MiniMax-M1, a model for complicated productivity tasks that supports 1M input tokens and it says beats DeepSeek's R1-0528  —  Chinese AI upstart MiniMax released a new large language model, joining a slew of domestic peers inspired to surpass DeepSeek in the field of reasoning AI.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Salesforce says it will increase prices on many products in August, including Slack; major product lines will see a 6% increase on average  —  List prices will go up by an average of 6% for major product lines in August, the company said in a statement Tuesday.  The cost of the workplace communications tool Slack will also rise.
Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac:
Apple's Journal app is coming to iPad and Mac in iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe and gains features like multiple journals, map view, inline images, and more  —  Apple's Journal app is coming to the iPad and Mac as part of iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe, and several brand new features will be included too—even on iPhone.
More: How-To Geek and TechRadarForums: r/apple
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
X sues New York, claiming a law requiring social media companies to disclose how they deal with hate speech and disinformation violates the US Constitution  —  Elon Musk's X Corp. sued the state of New York claiming a law requiring social media companies to disclose how they deal with hate speech …
David Pierce / The Verge:
Threads launches a fediverse feed and a way to search for fediverse users, with support for Mastodon and others, for users who turned on fediverse sharing  —  A dedicated feed, and better search, will make social web content much more visible in Threads.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe debuts Firefly for iOS and Android, letting mobile users generate images and videos using text prompts and experiment with popular AI photo editing tools  —  The iPhone and Android Firefly app can sync AI image and video projects to desktops via Creative Cloud.
Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Pano AI, which uses AI and computer vision to offer active wildfire detection, raised a $44M Series B led by Giant Ventures, bringing its total funding to $89M  —  Pano AI's fundraising signals investor willingness to back startups that rely in part on government entities for revenue
More: Salesforce Ventures and Pano AI
Bluesky: @prietschkaX: @salesforcevcLinkedIn: Abe Yokell and Garry Tan
John Koblin / New York Times:
Nielsen: in May, Americans watched more TV on streaming than on cable and broadcast networks combined, the first time streaming was king of TV over a full month  —  In May, more Americans watched television on streaming than on cable and network television combined, Nielsen said.
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:NEW
A cyberattack claimed by the pro-Israel hacktivist group Predatory Sparrow has reportedly disrupted services at Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah  —  The attack introduces a clear cyber element with immediate consequences for the country's critical infrastructure amid a growing conflict between Israel and Iran.
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Self-driving simulation software maker Applied Intuition raised $600M co-led by BlackRock and Kleiner Perkins at a $15B valuation, up from $6B in March 2024  —  The company raised $600 million from investors as it prepares for an eventual IPO. … The financing, which the company plans to announce Tuesday …
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Sponsor Post
Mark Mwachiro / Adweek:
At Cannes, Meta adds AI tools to its Advantage+ suite for advertisers and agencies, including turning images into videos, video highlights, and Virtual Try-On  —  The new features include the ability to transform still images into video.  —  With the advertising world congregating this week …
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:

Sponsor Posts

Google:
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Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
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IDrive:
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