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June 18, 2025, 2:50 PM
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Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: lobbyists for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta back a campaign for a 10-year US state AI regulation ban, a move dividing the AI industry and the GOP  —  Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party
More: AppleInsider, The Hill, and PYMNTS.com
Bluesky: @elizkolbert.  X: @pawlega.  Forums: r/politics, r/artificial, and r/technology
Hayden Field / The Verge:
A look at California's 52-page California Report on Frontier Policy, which proposes an AI regulatory framework based on transparency, risk assessments, and more
John Voorhees / MacStories:
Hands-on with Apple's new Speech framework components in the macOS Tahoe beta: the APIs deliver transcription speeds significantly faster than OpenAI's Whisper  —  Late last Tuesday night, after watching F1: The Movie at the Steve Jobs Theater, I was driving back from dropping Federico off at his hotel when I got a text:
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
A cyberattack claimed by pro-Israel hacktivist group Predatory Sparrow has reportedly disrupted services at Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah, including its website  —  The attack introduces a clear cyber element with immediate consequences for the country's critical infrastructure amid a growing conflict between Israel and Iran.
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
The Iranian government says it has restricted internet access in response to Israeli cyberattacks; some Western communication apps have reportedly been blocked
Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNET:
An interview with Samsung SVP Dr. Hon Pak on the Galaxy Watch getting a first-ever blood analysis feature, AI health tools, and a potential monthly subscription  —  With a first-ever blood analysis feature and four new AI-powered health tools, the Galaxy Watch is shaping up to be a smarter ally …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
On a podcast, Sam Altman said Meta made “giant offers to a lot of people on our team ... like, $100M signing bonuses”, and “none of our best people” have accepted  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta's …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out the ability to have back-and-forth voice conversations with AI Mode, available in the Google app by tapping the Live button  —  Google is rolling out the ability for users to have a back-and-forth voice conversation with AI Mode, its experimental Search feature that lets users ask complex, multi-part questions.
CNN:
President Trump plans to sign an executive order this week to grant TikTok a 90-day extension in enforcement of the sale-or-ban law, marking his third extension  —  New York CNN —  —  TikTok just got another lifeline from the White House, with President Donald Trump set to delay enforcement …
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the Catholic Church's decadelong dialogue with Silicon Valley on AI, as Pope Leo prepares to make AI's potential threat to humanity a signature issue  —  The new pope is making the potential threat of artificial intelligence to humanity a signature issue—but Silicon Valley is trying to win him over
Kristina Partsinevelos / CNBC:
AWS says Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 launched on its Trainium2 GPUs, and Project Rainier, AWS' supercomputer built for Anthropic, uses 500K+ Trainium2 chips  —  Amazon Web Services is set to announce an update to its Graviton4 chip that includes 600 gigabits per second of network bandwidth …
Financial Times:
Netflix signs a landmark deal with France's TF1 to show linear TV for the first time; TF1 will broadcast all five of its channels, showing live sports and more  —  Deal will be closely watched by broadcasters, who are losing millions of viewers to streaming giants  —  Daniel Thomas and Hannah Murphy in Cannes
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The DOJ announces the seizure of $225.3M in crypto, the largest-ever US seizure of cryptocurrency linked to confidence schemes known as “pig butchering”  —  The Justice Department announced Wednesday the largest-ever U.S. seizure of cryptocurrency linked to so-called “pig butchering” …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI details why “emergent misalignment”, where training on wrong answers in one area can lead to misalignment in others, happens and how it can be mitigated  —  OpenAI researchers say they've discovered hidden features inside AI models that correspond to misaligned “personas …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US Senate passes the GENIUS Act, which establishes the first federal regulatory framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins; the bill now heads to the House  —  The Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill that for the first time establishes federal guardrails …
Hiroko Tabuchi / New York Times:
The NAACP plans to sue xAI over a lack of permits for its Memphis data center's gas turbines, which it claims pollute nearby predominantly Black neighborhoods  —  The company, xAI, has installed several dozen turbines in Memphis without proper permits, the group said, polluting a nearby community.
Bloomberg:
Sources: xAI is burning through $1B per month, expects to burn through ~$13B in 2025, and projects its revenue to be just $500M in 2025, rising to $2B+ in 2026

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 PM ET, June 18, 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

The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney says Jimmy Kimmel's show will return to ABC on Tuesday and the suspension was “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment”

Doug Shapiro / The Mediator:
As GenAI disrupts media content creation by lowering barriers and costs, value will shift to complements such as merchandise, live events, and exclusive access

Reuters:
RSF says Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan, jailed from 2020 to 2024, has been sentenced to four more years on a charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”

More News

Earlier Picks

Michelle Kim / Rest of World:
Ten current and former Samsung semiconductor engineers say many are leaving for SK Hynix and other rivals due to long hours, heavy workloads, and lower bonuses
Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Pano AI, which uses AI and computer vision to offer active wildfire detection, raised a $44M Series B led by Giant Ventures, bringing its total funding to $89M
More: FinTech Global, Salesforce Ventures, and Pano AI
Bluesky: @prietschka.  X: @salesforcevc.  LinkedIn: Abe Yokell and Garry Tan
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
X sues New York, claiming a law requiring social media companies to disclose how they deal with hate speech and disinformation violates the US Constitution
Steve Kopack / NBC News:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company expects that “in the next few years” AI use “will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains”
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