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Techmeme
June 21, 2025, 3:05 AM
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Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab raised $2B led by a16z at a $10B valuation; Murati will hold board voting rights that outweigh all other directors  —  Six-month-old secretive AI start-up in one of the largest initial funding rounds in Silicon Valley's history
Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta held talks with Perplexity about a possible takeover and tried to hire CEO Aravind Srinivas before moving ahead with its investment in Scale AI
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple execs have held internal discussions about bidding for, or partnering with, Perplexity, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and tech  —  Apple Inc. executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta unveils the $399+ Oakley Meta HSTN glasses, with Meta AI and the features of its Ray-Ban models, plus 3K video recording and double the battery life  —  The new lineup starts at $399 and captures 3K video. … Meta is announcing its next pair of smart glasses with Oakley.
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Insurance giant Aflac says a cybercrime group breached its systems and may have stolen data; source: the attack bears the hallmarks of Scattered Spider  —  Insurance company Aflac said a “sophisticated cybercrime group” breached its systems and may have stolen data.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Cloudflare says it mitigated a record-breaking 7.3Tbps DDoS attack in mid-May, which delivered 37.4TB of junk traffic to the target in just 45 seconds  —  Large-scale attacks designed to bring down Internet services by sending them more traffic than they can process keep getting bigger …
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Cluely, which wants to help users “cheat on everything”, including job interviews and exams, raised a $15M Series A led by a16z, two months after a $5.3M seed  —  Cluely, a startup that claims to help users “cheat” on job interviews, exams, and sales calls, has raised …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Anthropic's test of 16 top AI models from OpenAI and others found that, in some cases, they resorted to malicious behavior to avoid replacement or achieve goals  —  Large language models across the AI industry are increasingly willing to evade safeguards, resort to deception and even attempt …
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: Reddit is exploring Tools for Humanity's World ID identity system to allow users to verify that they are unique individuals while remaining anonymous  —  THE SCOOP  —  Reddit is considering using World ID, the verification system based on iris-scanning Orbs whose parent company was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: a US official told Samsung, SK Hynix, and TSMC that the US may revoke waivers that let them ship US chipmaking equipment to their factories in China  —  Move isn't meant to escalate trade tensions, White House officials say  —  A U.S. official told top global semiconductor makers …
South China Morning Post:
How Huawei has remained resilient in the face of US sanctions; Mizuho: about 700,000 units of Huawei's Ascend 910 series are expected to ship in 2025  —  Huawei is expected to ship about 700,000 Ascend AI processors in 2025, according to Mizuho estimates  —  By Ann Caoin Shanghai and Wency Chenin Shanghai
Monique Mulima / Bloomberg:
Canadian crypto companies are encountering regulatory challenges in introducing a local stablecoin, as the US advances stablecoin legislation  —  While the US Senate advanced far-reaching stablecoin legislation, Canadian companies are pushing to get even the most basic stablecoin products available for users in the country.
More: Unchained and BetaKit
Magdalena Del Valle / Bloomberg:
A UN survey of 21 countries finds that trust in AI is strongest in low-income and developing nations; 83% in China and 37.5% in the US said they trust AI  —  A United Nations study found a sharp global divide on attitudes toward artificial intelligence, with trust strongest in low-income countries and skepticism high in wealthier ones.
Forums: Slashdot
Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media:
Browserbase, which develops headless browsers for AI agents and apps, raised a $40M Series B led by Notable Capital at a $300M valuation, up ~4x since September  —  The 16-month-old infrastructure startup behind ‘headless browsers’ is now valued at $300 million and claims more than 1,000 customers.
More: Browserbase, Pulse 2.0, SiliconANGLE, and Sourcery
Bluesky: @alexrkonrad.  LinkedIn: Alex Konrad and Bucky Moore

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:05 AM ET, June 21, 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

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: in its next US TV deal, the NHL seeks a 50%-100% increase over its seven-year, $4.5B contract with ESPN and TNT; formal talks can begin on January 1

Bloomberg:
A look at Disney's AI push; sources: it is testing AI-powered suggestions and could add chats with characters on Disney+, and execs saw AI demos at Amazon MGM

Kali Bomeli / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at pre-election expansion of partisan websites disguised as local news in Ohio, promoted with Meta ads by groups with ties to Democrats and Republicans

More News

Earlier Picks

Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Coinbase says it has secured a MiCA license from Luxembourg to offer crypto services across the EU, and will shift its European base from Ireland to Luxembourg
Bloomberg:
Sources: Masayoshi Son is pitching Trump officials and TSMC on a Shenzhen-like $1T AI and robotics manufacturing hub in Arizona, codenamed Project Crystal Land
Wen-Yee Lee / Reuters:
Sources: Foxconn and Nvidia are in talks to deploy humanoid robots at a new Foxconn factory in Houston by Q1 2026 to produce Nvidia AI servers
Barbara Ortutay / Associated Press:
Trump extends the TikTok ban deadline for a third time; there is no legal basis for the extensions, and it's unclear how many times the deadline can be extended
Guillaume Grallet / Le Point:
Q&A with Pavel Durov on his arrest in France, Macron, Russia, the FBI, the fight for Telegram, leaving his wealth to the 100+ children he has fathered, and more
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