Techmeme
May 8, 2025, 8:30 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple aims to begin mass production of a chip for its smart glasses, with greater power efficiency and multi-camera control, by end of 2026 or in 2027  —  The company has made progress on the chip that it's developing for smart glasses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
OpenAI:
OpenAI hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo as CEO of Applications, reporting to Sam Altman, who says he will remain CEO and focus on research, compute, and safety  —  Sam shared this message with the company earlier today:  —  Hi everyone - I have some exciting news to share.
Fidji Simo / Instacart Corporate Blog:
Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
Senate Democrats block the Genius Act after Republicans rebuffed a provision to bar Trump and others from profiting off of crypto ventures while in office  —  Senate Democrats blocked stablecoin legislation backed by the digital assets industry amid a furor over President Donald Trump's extensive …
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Coinbase agrees to acquire Dubai-based Deribit, the world's biggest trading platform for BTC and ETH options, for ~$2.9B, split as $700M in cash and 11M shares  —  Deribit is the world's biggest trading platform for bitcoin options  —  Coinbase Global has agreed to acquire Deribit …
David Wallace-Wells / New York Times:
Q&A with Bill Gates on closing the Gates Foundation on December 31, 2045, donating ~$200B, President Trump, Elon Musk, AI drug discovery, AI advances, and more  —  Today the Gates Foundation celebrates its 25th anniversary by announcing its plans to close up shop.
Fortune:
Sources: Meta is in discussions with crypto firms to introduce stablecoins as a means to manage payouts, and has hired a VP of product with crypto experience  —  Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, speaks at a conference in September.  —  In 2019, Meta announced an audacious project …
Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:
Bitcoin jumps above $100,000 for first time since February 2025, after President Trump announced a US-UK trade agreement; ether, dogecoin, and solana rose 9%+  —  Bitcoin on Thursday hit its highest level since February and climbing back above the key $100,000 level.
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
Celsius Network founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky is sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to commodities fraud and misleading investors  —  Whoop Launches Slimmer Fitness Bands With Blood Pressure, ECG Features  —  Review: The Whoop 5.0 and MG — short for medical grade …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Affirm reports Q3 revenue up 36% YoY to $783M, vs. $783M est., GMV up 36% to $8.6B, above est., and forecasts Q4 revenue below est.; AFRM drops 8%+ after hours  —  WATCH NOW  —  Affirm, the provider of buy now, pay later loans, gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter …
Washington Post:
Senate hearing: Sam Altman says that requiring government approval to release AI would be “disastrous” for the US' lead in AI, a reversal from his 2023 comments  —  Congressional testimony Thursday from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman illustrated a shift in the tech industry's attitude to the potential risks of AI.
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out AI-powered defenses to help combat scams on Chrome, including the use of Gemini Nano, its on-device LLM, in Enhanced Protection mode on desktop  —  Google announced on Thursday that it's rolling out new AI-powered defenses to help combat scams on Chrome.
Paul Sandle / Reuters:
The UK says the Digital Services Tax remains unchanged under the trade deal agreed between the US and the UK, both of which will work on a “digital trade deal”  —  Britain's digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon (AMZN.O), Google (GOOGL.O) and Meta (META.O) …
Chris Vallance / BBC:
The Wikimedia Foundation says it is taking legal action to challenge the UK's Online Safety Act, saying it could threaten the safety of its volunteer editors  —  Wikipedia is taking legal action against new Online Safety Act regulations it says could threaten the safety of its volunteer editors …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
The LockBit ransomware gang has suffered a data breach, with 59,975 BTC addresses and 4,442 negotiation messages leaked, and posted on its dark web site  —  The LockBit ransomware gang has suffered a data breach after its dark web affiliate panels were defaced and replaced with a message linking to a MySQL database dump.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Danny Park / The Block:
The US OCC says banks can buy and sell customers' crypto assets on their behalf and can outsource crypto custody and trade execution services to third parties  —  - The OCC clarified that national banks are permitted to execute cryptocurrency buy and sell orders on behalf of their customers.

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Earlier Picks

Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Maggie Harrison / Futurism:
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica: