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Techmeme
February 20, 2025, 10:30 AM
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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
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 …
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  —  Google is informing iOS users that it will be removing Gemini support from the main Google app as it pushes users over to the full Gemini app.
Adamya Sharma / Android Authority:
Google is bringing Circle to Search-like visual searches to its Chrome and Google iOS apps, without the Circle to Search branding, as a Google Lens feature
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 …
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  —  Valve has also released major updates to all Source-engine multiplayer games adding 64-bit support, scalable HUDS, “and a lot of other improvements.”
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.
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 …
More: TechCrunch, Reuters, and Quartz
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  —  Interpublic recently signed an advertising agreement with the platform; other agencies are also in negotiations
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 …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Nvidia launches Signs, a new AI platform to teach American Sign Language and create a validated dataset for sign language learners and ASL app developers  —  Nvidia has unveiled a new AI platform for teaching people how to use American Sign Language to help bridge communication gaps.
More: CNN and Axios
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.
Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg:
Together AI, which provides users access to AI computing, raised $305M co-led by General Catalyst and Saudi Arabia's Prosperity7 at a $3.3B valuation  —  Startup Together AI, which provides users access to artificial intelligence computing, has raised $305 million from investors in deal led …
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  —  Oppo's Find N5 is the thinnest book-style foldable yet, and it's launching worldwide — but it's another foldable the US just won't get.
Jon Keegan / Sherwood News:
Perplexity open sources R1 1776, a version of the DeepSeek R1 model that Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas says was “post-trained to remove the China censorship”  —  But shortly after its release, attention turned to how compliant the model was with Chinese censorship laws.
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
Meta says Mark Zuckerberg went to the US Capitol on February 19 to lobby Senators on AI and talk about issues like US tech leadership  —  Zuckerberg met with senators one day after his personal charity announced it was ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Alexander Saeedy / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: a US grand jury is investigating criminal misconduct at fintech Synapse, where up to $96M in user funds went missing, and has questioned an executive  —  Former executive testifies before New York grand jury investigating fraud and other possible felonies

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:30 AM 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

Paul Glynn / BBC:
HarperCollins UK drops children's author and comedian David Walliams following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward young women

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Interview with WPP CEO Cindy Rose, who says AI puts pressure on the ad agency's pricing and WPP has 10K data scientists and software engineers and 12K creatives

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:
Lou Cannon, a veteran Washington Post reporter who wrote several influential biographies of Ronald Reagan, has died at 92

More News

Earlier Picks

Courtney Albon / Defense News:
Austin-based autonomous shipbuilding startup Saronic raised a $600M Series C led by Elad Gil at a $4B valuation, and unveiled plans for a next-gen shipyard
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Uber ditches commissions in favor of daily fees for auto-rickshaw drivers in India in response to increased competition from local rivals Rapido and Namma Yatri
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
Q&A with Satya Nadella on Microsoft's AGI plan, the quantum breakthrough with Majorana 1, how Muse will change gaming, AI's legal barriers, AI safety, and more
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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