Techmeme
May 20, 2025, 6:50 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Epic Games announces that Fortnite is back on the App Store in the US for iPhone and iPad users, and on the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the EU  —  After a nearly five-year hiatus, Fortnite is back on the App Store for iPhone and iPad users in the United States.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Google's AI Mode, its chatbot for Search, rolls out to everyone in the US and will include features like Deep Search, agentic capabilities, and chart generation  —  Google has begun rolling out AI Mode to every Search user in the US.  The company announced the expansion during its I/O 2025 conference.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google says Project Astra will power new capabilities in Search, including a new Search Live feature, as well as in the Gemini AI app and third-party products  —  Google announced on Tuesday during Google I/O 2025 that Project Astra — the company's low latency, multimodal AI experience …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google launches Google AI Ultra, a subscription plan with the highest usage limits and access to its most capable models, rolling out in the US for $250/month  —  To date, AI Premium is how you access the latest features from Google.  At I/O 2025, that subscription tier is being renamed to …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google will soon let users shop in AI Mode, unveils agentic checkout, and updates its virtual try-on feature in Search Labs for clothes shoppers in the US  —  There's also a new way to find products you're looking for in AI Mode. … Google is taking its virtual try-on feature to a new level.
CNBC:
Google announces new video and image generation models Veo 3 and Imagen 4, alongside a new AI filmmaking tool Flow and expanded access to Lyria 2  —  Google on Tuesday announced Veo 3, an AI video generator that can also create and incorporate audio.  —  The artificial intelligence tool competes …
Taryn Plumb / VentureBeat:
Google debuts Deep Think, an enhanced reasoning mode in Gemini 2.5 Pro that it says excels at math and coding, available to “trusted testers” via the Gemini API  —  Google is moving closer to its goal of a “universal AI assistant” that can understand context, plan and take action.
Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google unveils Gemini in Chrome, which initially works across just two tabs but will eventually support many and be agentic, for Google AI Pro and Ultra users  —  Google's AI assistant will be able to help you while you browse. … Google is adding its Gemini AI assistant to Chrome, the company announced at Google I/O on Tuesday.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out Project Mariner, its web-browsing AI agent, to Google's AI Ultra plan, and brings its capabilities to the Gemini API and Vertex AI  —  Google announced during Google I/O 2025 that it's rolling out Project Mariner, the company's experimental AI agent that browses and uses websites, to more users and developers.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Google says it is partnering with Samsung, Gentle Monster, Xreal, and Warby Parker to create Android XR smart glasses, offering AI assistance via Gemini  —  With smart glasses, Google seems to be taking a page out of Meta and Ray-Ban's book. … Google's second era of smart glasses is off to a chic start.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Xreal unveils Project Aura, expected to be the first Android XR glasses, powered by a separate puck with a Qualcomm chip, slated to launch by early 2026  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google has entered the glasses race by partnering with Xreal Inc. on the first spectacles to run an augmented-reality version of its operating system.
Amanda Kooser / CNET:
Google on YouTube:
A recording of the Google I/O 2025 keynote  —  It's time to I/O!  Tune in to learn the latest news, announcements, and AI updates from Google.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to unveil at WWDC an SDK and related frameworks to let third-party devs build AI features based on LLMs it uses for Apple Intelligence  —  Apple Inc. is preparing to allow third-party developers to write software using its artificial intelligence models …
Billy Steele / Engadget:
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Civitai blames a “configuration issue” for allowing users to generate non-consensual porn; it appears that users can still create such videos of non-celebrities  —  404 Media found that people were using Civitai to create nonconsensual AI porn videos of anyone for a small price.
More: ZDNET and The Verge
Forums: r/law and r/politics
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
The ad-supported web is dying, and the next development to accelerate this may be the agentic web, which Microsoft is pushing via NLWeb and MCP support  —  Ethan Zuckerman wrote in The Atlantic in 2014: … Marc Andreessen, who was there when the web was born, explained in a 2019 podcast …
Financial Times:
UK tech unicorn Builder.ai, backed by Microsoft, Qatar, and others, says it is entering insolvency proceedings due to financial and past leadership “problems”  —  Once high-flying group founded by Sachin Dev Duggal says its was unable to recover from ‘past decisions’
Ryan S. Gladwin / Decrypt:
Michael Arrington says Coinbase's recent data breach “will lead to people dying”, calls for KYC rules reassessment and prison for execs failing to protect users  —  The founder of online news publication TechCrunch has claimed that Coinbase's recent data breach “will lead to people dying …

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Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg:
Politico:
More: 404 Media, Engadget, and Decrypt
X: @durov, @durov, and @victorglafForums: Slashdot
New York Times:
More: The HillBluesky: @noahshachtman, @rmac, and @justinhendrixMastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg: