Techmeme
June 21, 2025, 3:05 AM

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:
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: @alexrkonradLinkedIn: Alex Konrad and Bucky Moore

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Earlier Picks

Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Bloomberg:
Wen-Yee Lee / Reuters:
Barbara Ortutay / Associated Press:
Guillaume Grallet / Le Point: