Techmeme
June 19, 2025, 8:40 AM

Top News

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Nobitex, Iran's largest crypto exchange, says it was hacked, and pro-Israel group Predatory Sparrow takes credit; Elliptic: the hackers stole and “burned” $90M+  —  Iran's largest crypto exchange, Nobitex, said Wednesday that it was hacked and funds have been drained from its hot wallet.
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
Andrew R. Chow / Time:
An MIT study of 54 people: writing SAT essays using ChatGPT had the lowest brain engagement and poorer neural performance than using Google Search or no tools  —  Does ChatGPT harm critical thinking abilities?  A new study from researchers at MIT's Media Lab has returned some concerning results.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft plans to announce thousands of job cuts, particularly in sales, in early July following its fiscal year end, after cutting 6,000 jobs in May  —  The cuts are expected to be announced early next month, following the end of Microsoft's fiscal year, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Information:
Source: Meta is in advanced talks to hire Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross to help lead its AI efforts and maybe partly buy out their VC fund, NFDG, worth billions  —  Meta Platforms is in advanced talks to hire the prominent artificial intelligence investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross …
Financial Times:
Sources: Microsoft is prepared to walk away from high-stakes OpenAI negotiations if they cannot agree on critical issues, such as the size of Microsoft's stake  —  ChatGPT maker's plans to convert into a for-profit leads software giant to make contingency plans
Bloomberg:
Texas Instruments plans to spend $60B+ on US chip plants, including two new factories in Sherman, Texas, and says its long-term spending plan remains unchanged  —  The company said its long-term capital spending plan remains unchanged.  The total includes amounts allotted to plants …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Korean media: Google switching from Samsung's foundry to TSMC for its upcoming Pixel 10 series' Tensor G5 chip was a “shock” and is a wake-up call for Samsung  —  According to a new report, Google's switch from Samsung's foundry to TSMC for the Tensor G5 chip in the upcoming Pixel 10 series was a …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Midjourney launches V1, its first AI video generation model, letting subscribers animate images via its website; video tasks will cost ~8x more than image tasks  —  Popular AI image generation service Midjourney has launched its first AI video generation model V1, marking a pivotal shift …
Scale AI:
Scale AI emphasizes that it “remains an independent company” and says Meta will not have access to its internal systems or customers' confidential information  —  Over the past week, we've received thoughtful questions from our customers, partners, and contributors …
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Washington Post:
The US State Department restarts student visa interviews and requires all applicants to make their social media accounts public for vetting by US embassies  —  The new requirements could affect hundreds of thousands of visa applications each year, raising concerns about staffing requirements.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US DOJ seizes $225.3M in crypto linked to “pig butchering” scams of 400+ victims, marking “the largest cryptocurrency seizure in US Secret Service history”  —  The Justice Department announced Wednesday the largest-ever U.S. seizure of cryptocurrency linked to so-called …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Meta says it is adding support for passkeys to Facebook for iOS and Android “soon”, and will begin rolling out passkeys to Messenger “in the coming months”  —  Using your device security instead of a password makes it harder to get tricked into giving up your Facebook account.
Sophie Shulman / CTech:
Wix acquires Base44, which lets users build apps from text prompts, for $80M; Base44 was founded by a solo entrepreneur six months ago and employs six people  —  31-year-old Maor Shlomo built the viral AI app-maker as a side project that began last year during a post-reserve trip.
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
An interview with Apple SVP Craig Federighi on the journey to iPadOS' windowing system and menu bar, the iPad's essence as a “magical piece of glass”, and more  —  It's a cool, sunny morning at Apple Park as I'm walking my way along the iconic glass ring to meet with Apple's SVP …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Stop re-entering invoices between CRM and accounting systems  —  This is a guest blog from Xapplets (Zeeyes).There's a workflow most growing teams know well.  Sales closes a deal in the CRM.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Training Data:
Factory's Matan Grinberg: The Coming 'Dark Factory' Where Software Builds Itself
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Matthew Smith — Natural Gas: The Next Bottleneck
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Kimi K3 & AI's Price War, What Happened To Google?, OpenAI's Partner Trouble
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.
Great Chat:
Never follow your heroes (on X)
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:40 AM ET, June 19, 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.

More News

Ellen Barry / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Lisa Stiffler / GeekWire:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Kayla Cobb / The Wrap: