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May 16, 2025, 10:20 AM
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Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
After Grok's “white genocide in South Africa” X replies, xAI says “an unauthorized modification was made to Grok response bot's prompt” at 3:15 AM PST on May 14  —  xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for a bug in its AI-powered Grok chatbot that caused Grok …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Epic Games says that Apple rejected its latest Fortnite submission to the US App Store and the game on iOS will be “offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it”  —  Epic says that the game is ‘offline’ on iPhones everywhere after Apple rejected its App Store resubmission.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Meta has delayed rolling out its Behemoth LLM, internally slated for an April release, to fall or later, after struggling to improve its capabilities  —  The company's struggle to improve the capabilities of latest AI model mirrors issues at some top AI companies
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sony's Haven Studios founder Jade Raymond leaves the company; sources: some developers were worried about its first game's external test reception and progress  —  Her company, Haven Studios, is developing an online shooter title called Fairgames … PlayStation leadership didn't give Haven staff …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Court filing: Anthropic apologizes for one of its expert witnesses citing an article hallucinated by Claude in the company's legal battle with music publishers  —  A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company's Claude AI chatbot …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Windsurf launches SWE-1, its first family of software engineering AI models, claiming its largest model rivals Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro  —  On Thursday, Windsurf, a startup that develops popular AI tools for software engineers, announced the launch of its first family …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Take-Two reports Q4 net bookings up 17% YoY to $1.58B, vs. $1.55B est., net revenue up 13% YoY to $1.58B, and forecasts FY 2026 net bookings below expectations  —  Bookings, a measure of sales, grew 17% to $1.58 billion in the fourth quarter ended March 31, surpassing Wall Street projections of $1.55 billion.
Reuters:
Charter announces plans to merge with Cox Communications in a deal that values Cox at $34.5B including debt and unites two of the biggest US cable providers  —  Charter Communications (CHTR.O) said on Friday it would merge with Cox Communications in a deal that would value its privately held rival …
Bloomberg:
Source: Coinbase's hackers had bribed enough customer service representatives to achieve effectively on-demand access to customer info in the past five months  —  On the long list of crypto companies that have been hacked, there are plenty of examples of financial losses that are much more painful …
Niket Nishant / Reuters:
Coinbase says hackers accessed data of a “small subset” of users, but not credentials, expects to incur $180M-$400M in costs, and refuses to pay a $20M ransom
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sources: Microsoft has stopped production of its Surface Laptop Studio 2 and plans to mark the device as end of life in June, with no apparent successor plans  —  The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is no longer being manufactured and there's no replacement in sight.
Wall Street Journal:
Analysis: since January, 36+ staff and associates of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey got federal roles that oversee their companies  —  See how allies of four tech titans are staffing the agencies meant to regulate them, raising ethics flags and securing billions
New York Times:
Coinbase says it is working with the US SEC to close an investigation into whether it misstated its numbers by noting 100M+ “verified users” in its 2021 IPO doc  —  The inquiry continued even after the commission dropped a lawsuit accusing Coinbase of illegally marketing digital currencies to the public.
Camille Bromley / Columbia Journalism Review:
Q&A with Wired's Steven Levy on the evolving relationship between the tech industry and the press, media outlets' licensing deals with AI companies, and more  —  “What you find when you get into a place is always more interesting than any preconception you have.”
Zach Vallese / CNBC:
YouTube launches a weekly top podcast shows chart, tracking podcasts in the US and updated every Wednesday; The Joe Rogan Experience currently tops the chart
Karoline Kan / Bloomberg:
Shanghai-based Synyi AI launches a trial program in Saudi Arabia to let patients see an AI doctor for diagnoses and prescriptions, which a human doctor reviews  —  A Chinese startup has opened the world's first clinic in Saudi Arabia where artificial intelligence diagnoses patients …
More: Tech in Asia

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:20 AM ET, May 16, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

James Hibberd / The Hollywood Reporter:
After a backlash, AMC opts out of screening an AI short film during its pre-show, programmed by ad company Screenvision, before feature films

Selome Hailu / Variety:
Matthew McConaughey and Timothée Chalamet discuss AI's potential to replace actors and win awards; McConaughey said AI actors will “infiltrate” the Oscars

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
A look at The Sun's video strategy, which includes a shift to longform news and sponsored lifestyle content; it has 6.4M YouTube subscribers on its main channel

More News

Bloomberg:
Sources: President Trump's Middle East AI deals open rifts with China hawks in his administration over concerns AI chips shipped to the Gulf end up in China
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple says a warning on EU App Store listings for apps with no IAP has been live since March 2024, and the EU told it to hold off on tweaks that Apple proposed
Jon Victor / The Information:
Sources: Cohere, which has raised nearly $1B, was on pace to generate $70M in annual revenue as of February 2025; in 2023, it projected ~$450M in 2024 revenue

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Threads now lets users add up to five links to their profile bios and rolls out analytics tools to track clicks on profile links and links shared in posts
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple rolls out CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, in new and existing Aston Martins in North America after months of delays, before a wider rollout
Bloomberg:
President Trump says he told Tim Cook that “I don't want you building in India”, “India can take care of themselves”, and Apple will be “upping” US production
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