Techmeme
August 18, 2025, 2:20 PM

Top News

Himanshi Akhand / Reuters:
Australia's ACCC says Google agreed to pay a AU$55M fine over deals with Telstra and Optus to preinstall only Google Search on Android phones from 2019 to 2021  —  Australia's competition regulator said on Monday it has begun proceedings against Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) …
Bloomberg:
Sources: the Trump administration is in discussions to take a stake of ~10% in Intel, converting some or all of Intel's $10.9B CHIPS Act grants into equity  —  The Trump administration is in discussions to take a stake of about 10% in Intel Corp., according to a White House official …
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
SoftBank buys Foxconn's Ohio EV plant; Foxconn will still run the plant and make AI servers as part of Softbank's $500B Stargate project with OpenAI and Oracle  —  Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. will operate a US factory owned by SoftBank Group Corp., setting up what's in the running …
Bloomberg:
Source: Oracle Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidson, who joined in 1988 and became the company's first CSO, is leaving as part of a recent reorganization  —  Oracle Corp.'s longtime chief security officer, one of the highest ranking women in the cybersecurity industry …
Financial Times:
Sources: the EU and the US have delayed formalizing their trade deal partly over “non-tariff barriers”, like relaxing the DSA, which the EU sees as a red line  —  Document formalising last month's deal delayed by squabbles over language on ‘non-tariff barriers’, bloc's officials say
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
HR giant Workday says hackers stole an unspecified amount of personal information, like names and email addresses, from one of its third-party CRM platforms  —  Workday, one of the largest providers of human resources technology, has confirmed a data breach that allowed hackers …
Ben Bergman / Business Insider:
Sources: Anthropic asked Menlo to use the VC firm's own capital for investment in the startup and not an SPV, as Menlo did in a previous funding round  —  - Anthropic is raising about $5 billion at a $170 billion valuation, BI confirmed.  — The AI startup is being picky about the types …
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Grok's website is exposing the underlying prompts for its AI personas, including one for a “crazy conspiracist” persona that spends “a lot of time on 4chan”  —  The website for Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok is exposing the underlying prompts for a wealth of its AI personas …
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Google increases its stake in bitcoin miner and datacenter operator TeraWulf from 8% to 14%, bringing its total investment to ~$3.2B; WULF jumps 10%+  —  TeraWulf stock rallied more than 10% after Google hiked its stake in the bitcoin miner and data center operator as it funds an expansion of its Lake Mariner, New York, facility.
Max Buondonno / The Shortcut:
Samsung announces the Galaxy Buds3 FE, with a new AirPods Pro-like design, improved ANC, and upgraded audio quality, launching September 4 for $149.99  —  - 🎧 Samsung has announced its latest budget earbuds: the Galaxy Buds 3 FE  — 🔇 The earbuds come with improved ANC and upgraded audio quality
Financial Times:
Digital bank Monzo, which has 13M UK customers, plans to launch a mobile phone service; Revolut and Klarna, each with ~11M UK customers, announced similar plans  —  Digital bank is exploring launching its own digital sim and offering monthly contracts  —  Monzo is planning to launch …

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More News

Edward White / Financial Times:
Bluesky: @mranthropology and @yaqiu
LinkedIn: Yi Yang and Edward White

Earlier Picks

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: