Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors
Techmeme
March 12, 2025, 4:28 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Niantic Labs says it is selling its video game division, including Pokémon Go, to Saudi Arabia-owned developer Scopely for $3.5B, subject to regulatory approval  —  The $3.5 billion Scopely deal could bring Niantic's AR gaming catalog under Saudi ownership.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google unveils Gemma 3, the “world's best single-accelerator model”, running on a single GPU, in 1B, 4B, 12B, and 27B sizes, and says it outperforms Llama-405B  —  Following version 1 in February 2024 and 2 in May, Google today announced Gemma 3 as its latest open model for developers.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google DeepMind launches two AI models, Gemini 2.0-based Robotics and Robotics-ER, to help robots “perform a wider range of real-world tasks than ever before”  —  Gemini Robotics also makes robots more dexterous, allowing them to perform more precise tasks, like folding a piece of paper.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
The US FTC asks a judge to delay its case accusing Amazon of deceptive practices with Amazon Prime, citing staffing shortfalls  —  The Federal Trade Commission asked a judge in Seattle to delay the start of its trial accusing Amazon of duping consumers into signing up for its Prime program, citing staffing constraints.
Bloomberg:
Roomba maker iRobot warns of “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating, after Amazon abandoned a $1B+ takeover in January 2024; IRBT drops 35%+  —  IRobot Corp., the consumer robotics company that Amazon.com Inc. once planned to buy for more than $1 billion …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Thoughts on using LLMs for coding, which can often be difficult and unintuitive, and why “vibe coding” is a fantastic way to explore the capabilities of LLMs  —  Online discussions about using Large Language Models to help write code inevitably produce comments from developers who's experiences have been disappointing.
Bhanvi Satija / Reuters:
Intel appoints former board member Lip-Bu Tan as CEO, effective March 18; INTC jumps 11%+ after hours  —  Struggling U.S. chipmaker Intel (INTC.O) on Wednesday named former board member Lip-Bu Tan as its CEO effective March 18, more than two months after the it ousted company veteran Pat Gelsinger.
More: CNBC, Intel, and Reuters
Financial Times:
Amazon, Google, and Meta join a World Nuclear Association statement, alongside Occidental, Dow, and others, to triple capacity by 2050; Microsoft didn't sign  —  Tech giants join banks in calling for new power stations to meet growing energy demands and combat climate change
Reuters:
Sources: TSMC has pitched Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Qualcomm about taking stakes in a JV to run Intel Foundry; TSMC would hold no more than a 50% stake  —  TSMC (2330.TW) has pitched U.S. chip designers Nvidia (NVDA.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and Broadcom (AVGO.O) …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sources: an Xbox-branded Asus handheld may debut this year as part of Microsoft's effort to unify Windows and Xbox into a universal library of Xbox and PC games  —  Microsoft's next-gen Xbox platform is shaping up.  —  Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer warned in November …
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Spotify says it paid $10B+ in royalties in 2024, “the largest in music history”, making up 60%+ of its $17.13B+ 2024 revenue, with ~1,500 artists earning $1M+  —  Company has long drawn ire from musicians who say streaming model does not remunerate them enough
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Food delivery startup Wonder acquires the media company Tastemade, sources say for around $90M, the latest step in its effort to create a mealtime “super app”  —  Wonder CEO Marc Lore hopes the company will one day offer AI-powered autonomous food ordering for all three meals of the day
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google updates Chrome's extension rules to ban affiliate link injection without user action or benefit, after Honey allegedly stole creators' affiliate revenue  —  Honey was accused of shadily swapping out affiliate links, and now Google has new rules for extensions targeting exactly that.
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Binance says Abu Dhabi's MGX acquired a minority stake for $2B, the first institutional investment in the exchange and MGX's first entry into the crypto  —  Binance said Abu Dhabi's MGX has acquired a minority stake for $2 billion, the first institutional investment in the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's largest telco Jio Platforms partners with SpaceX to offer Starlink in the country, just hours after rival Airtel announced a similar partnership  —  Jio Platforms, the subsidiary of India's conglomerate Reliance Industries and the country's largest telecom operator …
Chihiro Ishikawa / Nikkei Asia:
BeReal CEO Aymeric Roffe says Japan is now the photo sharing app's second-largest market with over 4.5M MAUs, 83% aged 14 to 27; BeReal has 40M users globally  —  TOKYO — BeReal is eager to expand in Japan's fast-growing and highly engaged market, said its CEO in an interview with Nikkei Asia.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
How EWS deprecation affects Zoho Calendar Interoperability  —  Understanding the impactMicrosoft began blocking Exchange Web Services (EWS) requests in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365) as of October 1, 2026.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
 AI Stockpocalypse, Anthropic Nears RSI?, Prediction Markets vs. Pollsters
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Machine Gods:
 The Purple Tsunami Against Data Centers
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
Invest Like the Best:
 Ramtin Naimi - The State of Venture
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Upstarts Podcast:
 How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman
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.
Great Chat:
 Would you let a robot do 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.
Training Data:
 A Model For Everyone: How Ronak From Trajectory Is Building Products For Continual Learning
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:28 PM ET, March 12, 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

CNN:
Source: UFC CEO Dana White has declined Trump's offer to become press secretary

Washington Post:
Sources: Trump ally Laura Loomer was paid, including via wire transfers worth ~$60K, for political social media posts without publicly disclosing the payments

Corbin Bolies / Variety:
Elvis Presley music rights holders and the publisher of many of Eminem's records file new federal lawsuits against Suno, adding to the AI company's legal woes

More News

The Reporters' Collective:
A look at community apps like Kutumb mobilizing millions of Indians for politics, spreading disinformation, and inciting hate, beyond civil watchdogs' scrutiny

Earlier Picks

Stephen Totilo / Game File:
Mike Verdu, who joined Netflix in 2021 to launch its game offering and took on a new role as VP of Generative AI for games four months ago, has left the company
Sam Altman / @sama:
Sam Altman says OpenAI trained an AI model that is good at creative writing and shares a short story it wrote; he's “not sure yet how/when it will get released”
New York Times:
Filings: Google owns a 14% Anthropic stake but holds no voting rights, board seats, or board observer rights; Google aims to invest $750M more in September 2025
Emma Roth / The Verge:
OpenAI debuts a Responses API to help developers build agents that search the web, scan for files, and perform tasks on PCs, and an Agents SDK for orchestration
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter