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February 20, 2025, 2:40 PM
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Top News

Kate Rooney / CNBC:
OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap says the company hit 400M weekly active users in February 2025, up from 300M in December 2024, and 2M paying enterprise customers  —  OpenAI appears to be growing quickly despite increasing competition.  —  The San Francisco-based tech company had 400 million weekly active users …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Amazon plans to discontinue its Appstore for Android and its Coins digital currency, used to purchase games and apps, on August 20, 2025  —  Amazon will discontinue its app store for Android on August 20 this year.  The company sent a notice to developers indicating that they will no longer be able to submit new apps to the store.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Global Witness: ahead of German elections, TikTok's and X's For You feeds showed a substantial far-right bias; 78% of TikTok's recommendations supported the AfD  —  Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias …
Matt Novak / Gizmodo:
Elon Musk says he will “fix” Community Notes as they are “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media”, after disagreeing with notes about Ukraine  —  The billionaire has a history of manipulating X to fit his far-right worldview.
Wired:
Investigation: Google's Display & Video 360 ad platform lets users target Americans' sensitive personal data, despite Google's rules against such practices  —  Google enables marketers to target people with serious illnesses and crushing debt—against its policies—as well as the makers …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Spotify begins accepting AI-narrated audiobooks recorded using ElevenLabs software; Spotify already allows AI-recorded audiobooks, with several restrictions  —  A new ElevenLabs partnership aims to help authors bring AI-narrated audiobooks to Spotify listeners.
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
Palantir's stock fell 10% on February 19 after the WaPo reported US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to cut military spending; PLTR is up 50%+ in 2025  —  - Spending shift would affect 8% of US defense spending  — AI-focused Palantir has become major government contractor
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
CISA and the FBI: attackers deploying Ghost ransomware breached victims from multiple industry sectors across 70+ countries, including critical infrastructure  —  CISA and the FBI said attackers deploying Ghost ransomware have breached victims from multiple industry sectors across over 70 countries …
Nikkei Asia:
Tokyo-based Sakana AI details its AI CUDA Engineer, which it says can speed up AI training and inference by 10x to 100x by “breeding” efficient instructions  —  TOKYO — Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI says it has developed a system capable of accelerating artificial intelligence development …
Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: top X executives hinted to Interpublic and other ad firms that not spending on X could lead to legal woes, due to X's lawsuit against some advertisers
Pew Research Center:
US survey: views of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk tilt negative; Democrats and Republicans view Zuckerberg unfavorably; Musk is polarizing along party lines  —  Americans' views of two prominent tech executives - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - tilt more negative than positive.
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The US SEC announces the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit to protect investors from bad actors in crypto and AI, replacing the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit  —  - The agency announced the new unit on Thursday, calling it the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, or CETU.
Kim Zetter / Wired:
Source: 19-year-old Edward Coristine and Kyle Schutt, both DOGE engineers, are now on staff at the CISA; Coristine was briefly an intern for Neuralink  —  DOGE technologists Edward Coristine—the 19-year-old known online as “Big Balls”—and Kyle Schutt are now listed as staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
RT Watson / The Block:
Nansen: 86% of traders lost $251M in total on the Solana memecoin Libra that Argentine President Milei promoted, while the remaining traders profited $180M  —  - Citing onchain data, Nansen Research said that through Tuesday, 86% of traders lost a total of $251 million on the LIBRA token …
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson announces an inquiry into “Big Tech censorship”, which he says is “un-American” and “potentially illegal”  —  - FTC Chair Ferguson invites public comment about tech platforms  — Conservatives claim ideas, affiliations have been censored

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:40 PM ET, February 20, 2025.

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

Bloomberg:
Sources: WBD begins exclusive talks with Netflix to sell its film and TV studios and HBO Max; Netflix is offering a $5B breakup fee if the deal isn't approved

The Guardian:
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and the Netherlands exit Eurovision after Israel received an all-clear to compete; the BBC and Germany's SWR plan to participate

James Faris / Business Insider:
Kalshi strikes a deal with CNBC that will integrate Kalshi's prediction data into CNBC's channel, site, and app starting in 2026, days after striking a CNN deal

More News

Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Oppo launches the Find N5, the world's thinnest foldable at 8.93mm closed and 4.21mm open, with IPX6, X8, and X9 ratings, in Europe and Asia for ~$1,870

Earlier Picks

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google is removing Gemini support from the main Google app on iOS, pushing users to download the standalone Gemini app that launched in November 2024
Andy Chalk / PC Gamer:
Valve releases a Team Fortress 2 SDK with the game's client and server code, letting users build new Team Fortress 2-based games licensed for non-commercial use
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Muse AI, a first-of-its-kind generative AI model that can generate a game environment based on visuals, players' controller actions, or both
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