Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
February 25, 2025, 1:40 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Reuters:
Sources: Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, and other Chinese companies are ramping up orders for Nvidia's H20 AI chip due to booming demand for DeepSeek's models  —  Chinese companies are ramping up orders for Nvidia's (NVDA.O) H20 artificial intelligence chip due to booming demand …
Financial Times:
Sources: Huawei has increased its AI chip yield to nearly 40%, up from 20% about a year ago, meaning its Ascend chips are now profitable for the first time  —  Chinese company improves ‘yield’ of latest semiconductor, despite US efforts to prevent manufacturing advances
Brad Norton / Dexerto:
Activision confirms on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's Steam page that it “uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets”, after fan speculation  —  Activision has finally admitted to using AI-generated content in its games and Call of Duty players aren't the least bit surprised.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google releases its free Gemini Code Assist globally in public preview for solo developers, with 180K code completions per month; GitHub Copilot offers 2,000  —  And provides 90 times more monthly code completions than GitHub Copilot's free tier. … A free version of Gemini Code Assist …
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
Kate Bush and 1,000+ other musicians “co-write” a “silent” album to protest the UK's proposal to let AI train on their copyrighted work if they don't opt out  —  Recordings of empty studios represent impact on musicians of UK's plans to let AI train on their work without permission
Associated Press:
Resignation letter: 21 DOGE staffers, who previously worked at the USDS, say they won't use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services”  —  More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe launches an updated Photoshop app for iOS, including many design, editing, and AI tools from the desktop app; an Android app is coming “later this year”  —  It's free and available on iOS first, with an Android version coming later this year.
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Employee screening company DISA confirms a data breach in February 2024, found in April 2024, affecting 3.3M+ people and including Social Security numbers  —  DISA Global Solutions, a U.S.-based provider of employee screening services, has said it suffered a data breach that affects more than 3.3 million people.
Faris Mokhtar / Bloomberg:
Sources: Indonesia and Apple agree a deal to lift the iPhone 16 ban, with Apple set to invest $1B; a memorandum of agreement may be signed this week  —  - Tech giant has promised to invest $1 billion in Indonesia  — Deal would be win for Prabowo after series of policy setbacks
CNBC:
Chegg sues Google, saying AI Overviews hurt its traffic and revenue, as it mulls strategic options, including an acquisition; CHGG drops 30%+  —  Chegg on Monday filed suit in federal district court against Google, claiming that artificial intelligence summaries of search results have hurt …
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
Bitcoin falls below $90K, its lowest level since mid-November 2024, as the rally that followed Trump's election fades; ETH, XRP, SOL, and more also fell sharply  —  - Biggest token is now down almost 20% since Trump inauguration  — Macro factors and crypto blowups combine to erode confidence
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple investors reject outside shareholder proposals asking the company to cease its DEI efforts and write a report assessing the risks of its work on AI  —  Apple Inc. investors rejected outside shareholder proposals that asked the iPhone maker to cease its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SpaceX seeks to deploy Starlink terminals for the FAA, raising questions about Elon Musk's conflicts of interest and Verizon's $2B FAA contract in 2023  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX is seeking to deploy Starlink satellite internet terminals to help accelerate an upgrade …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out unlimited access to Voice and Think Deeper, powered by Open AI's o1 model, to all Copilot users for free  —  You won't hit any limits using OpenAI's o1 reasoning model inside Copilot anymore. … Microsoft made OpenAI's o1 reasoning model free for all Copilot users last month …
More: Microsoft
Bloomberg:
Sources: Italy wants to replace STMicro CEO Jean-Marc Chéry for poor performance, as the Franco-Italian chipmaker struggles to navigate a slump in chip demand  —  Italy's government wants to replace Jean-Marc Chéry, the man at the helm of Franco-Italian chipmaking joint-venture STMicroelectronics NV, for poor performance.
Ethan Mollick / One Useful Thing:
Claude 3.7 and Grok-3 are the first “Gen3” models with big gains in handling complex tasks, using 10x more compute than GPT-4-class models, and better reasoning  —  Note: After publishing this piece, I was contacted by Anthropic who told me that Sonnet 3.7 would not be considered …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Epic v. Apple: Phil Schiller says he initially feared Apple's 27% App Store fee posed a compliance risk and could create “antagonistic” developer relations  —  Apple Fellow Phil Schiller, the executive in charge of leading the App Store, testified in court on Monday …
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
The UK CMA clears IBM's $6.4B acquisition of infrastructure software company HashiCorp, 10 months after IBM announced the deal, which needs US FTC approval  —  The U.K.'s antitrust authority has given the go-ahead to IBM's planned multibillion acquisition of infrastructure software company HashiCorp.
Bluesky: @quinnypig.com

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Build vs Buy Embedded Analytics: The Decision That Defines Your Product Roadmap  —  Every SaaS product team eventually hits the analytics wall.  Your customers want insights inside your app.  Your roadmap has no room to spare.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
 Go touch some grass (but don't tweet about it)
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Lenny's Podcast:
 An AI state of the union: We've passed the inflection point, dark factories are coming, and automation timelines | Simon Willison
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Access:
 The future of AI might be on your finger
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
 Axiom's Carina Hong: Solving Math's Hardest Problems With AI, And AI's Problems With Math
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
 Iran, Oil, and the US
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:40 PM ET, February 25, 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

Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
WME is selling sports marketing agency 160over90 to Publicis Groupe for, sources say, $500M+; WME bought the agency in 2018 for about $200M

Variety:
Sources: the legal team for Paramount President Jeff Shell has engaged in preliminary talks about a possible exit from the company, where he was hired in 2024

Erik Wemple / New York Times:
Judges have now cited verbal attacks on the press by Trump and appointees when ruling against the US government in at least three cases involving news outlets

More News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Israeli startup Quantum Machines, which offers hardware tools to other quantum computing companies, raised a $170M Series C led by PSG Equity
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
New York's law requiring ISPs to offer $15 or $20/month broadband has inspired Vermont, Massachusetts, and California to guarantee affordable internet access
More: Route Fifty.  Bluesky: @sportshotchris.  Mastodon: @ax6761@freeradical.zone.  Forums: r/technology, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Tesla starts rolling out a software update enabling driver-assistance features, similar to Full Self-Driving in the US, for Chinese customers who paid $8,800
Bloomberg:
Sources: Trump's team plans tougher US chip curbs and have met with Dutch and Japanese counterparts, urging them to tighten restrictions on China's chip sector
Brendan Pierson / Reuters:
DoorDash agrees to pay $16.75M to settle a lawsuit by NY's AG accusing it of pocketing customers' tips for delivery drivers between May 2017 and September 2019
NBC News:
Sources: the Elon Musk-directed OPM email asking federal staff about recent work requested no links or attachments as part of a plan to feed responses into AI
Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Anthropic is finalizing a $3.5B funding round valuing it at $61.5B, up from an $18B valuation in 2024; its annualized revenue recently hit ~$1.2B
Arjun Sha / Beebom:
Microsoft quietly launched free, ad-supported desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows, with banner and video ads and limited functionality
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter