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August 13, 2025, 4:25 AM
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Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI introduces “Auto”, “Fast”, and “Thinking” settings for GPT-5 in ChatGPT's model picker, with “Auto” similar to the GPT-5 model router announced earlier  —  When OpenAI launched GPT-5 last week, the company said the model would simplify the ChatGPT experience.
Katherine Blunt / Wall Street Journal:
Perplexity offers to acquire Chrome for $34.5B, significantly more than Perplexity's estimated $18B valuation, and says large VC funds agreed to back the deal  —  With its unsolicited bid for Google's browser, AI startup seeks to take advantage of uncertainty over pending antitrust ruling
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
Perplexity's unsolicited $34.5B bid for Chrome with claimed VC backing is clearly a marketing stunt and strategic signaling amid Google's antitrust uncertainty  —  Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5 Billion Offer for Chrome  —  With its unsolicited bid for Google's browser …
New York Times:
Sources: US investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least in part responsible for a recent hack of the US federal court filing system  —  Federal officials are scrambling to assess the damage and address flaws in a sprawling, heavily used computer system long known to have vulnerabilities.
Mark Gurman / @markgurman:
In response to Elon Musk's claims that the App Store favors the ChatGPT app, Apple says the App Store “is designed to be fair and free of bias”  —  Apple on @elonmusk's claims: “The App Store is designed to be fair and free of bias. We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations, and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Surbhi Misra / Reuters:
Elon Musk says that Apple “makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI” to top its App Store, an “antitrust violation”, and xAI will take legal action
Derek Thompson:
Studies suggest AI chatbots' sycophantic design may increase narcissism among young and vulnerable users, potentially altering personality traits at scale  —  “I can imagine a future where a lot of people really trust ChatGPT's advice for their most important decisions,” Sam Altman said.
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI is preparing to back Neuralink rival Merge Labs, co-founded by Sam Altman, that aims to raise $250M at an $850M valuation, including from OpenAI  —  OpenAI in talks to invest in brain implant start-up that would compete with Musk's company  —  Ivan Levingston in London …
Bloomberg:
CoreWeave reports Q2 revenue up 207% YoY to $1.21B, vs. $1.08B est., adjusted net loss of $130.8M, vs. $96.3M est., up from $5M in Q2 2024; CRWV drops 10%+  —  CoreWeave Inc.'s shares fell 10% after it delivered a disappointing earnings outlook, reflecting margin pressures from a rapid AI datacenter expansion.
Joedy McCreary / MedPage Today:
Study: endoscopists accustomed to using AI for colonoscopies detected fewer precancerous growths after the tools were removed  —  - The adenoma detection rate (ADR) in more than 1,400 non-AI assisted colonoscopies dropped 6 percentage points, from 28.4% to 22.4%, after endoscopists routinely used the technology in their practice.
Dylan Loh / Nikkei Asia:
Singapore's three neobanks, GXS Bank, MariBank, and Trust Bank, together posted $278.1M in losses in 2024 as legacy rivals digitalized, intensifying competition  —  SINGAPORE — Eugina Sim will continue saving with a traditional lender, even though digital banks owned by technology players including Grab …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's RBI grants Paytm “in-principle” approval to operate as a payment services provider for online merchants, after China's Ant Group sold its entire stake  —  Indian fintech giant Paytm has received long-awaited approval from the country's central bank to operate …
Emily Price / Fast Company:
Meta says Threads has 400M monthly active users, up from 350M MAUs in April; Similarweb says Threads has 15.3M DAUs on mobile in June, below X's 22.9M  —  Meta's Twitter rival has hit 400 million monthly users, closing the gap with X on mobile.  —  Meta's Threads is on a roll.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Anthropic updates Claude Sonnet 4 to support a 1M token context window, letting it process prompts up to 750K words or 75K lines of code, up 5x on its old limit  —  Anthropic is increasing the amount of information that enterprise customers can send to Claude in a single prompt …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:25 AM ET, August 13, 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

Heather Cherone / WTTW News:
NetChoice sues Illinois to block taxes on large social media companies and on companies with over $1M in gross receipts from digital ad services

Joe Sonka / Louisville Public Media:
McClatchy enacts deep, nationwide layoffs, including at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer, and Idaho Statesman

Brandy Zadrozny / MS NOW:
A campaign using manipulated videos of US celebrities, falsely branded with CNN logos, is targeting Democratic candidates and seems to be backed by the Kremlin

More News

Sharon Goldman / Fortune:
NYC-based Profound, which helps brands optimize visibility in AI search responses, raised a $35M Series B led by Sequoia, bringing its total funding to $58.5M
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google launches Preferred Sources in the US and India, allowing users to personalize the news in Search's “top stories” section by selecting favorite outlets

Earlier Picks

Adrian Zmudzinski / Cointelegraph:
Qubic, a layer-1 blockchain project that pools mining resources, has been trying a 51% attack on Monero and says it succeeded, causing Monero's price to fall
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
In US court, Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud charges over TerraUSD's $40B collapse in a plea deal with prosecutors
Financial Times:
Anthropic signs a deal to offer Claude to US lawmakers for $1/year, following OpenAI; a source says Google is in talks to offer Gemini on similarly cheap terms
The Verge:
Epic says it is bringing Fortnite back to iOS in Australia “at a date to be determined”, after a judge ruled Apple and Google's app stores are anticompetitive
Ina Fried / Axios:
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says he will “leave GitHub to become a founder again”, with GitHub and its leadership team moving into Microsoft's CoreAI organization
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