Techmeme
August 30, 2025, 11:40 AM

Top News

Jeff Horwitz / Reuters:
Meta created and let users create flirty chatbots and intimate images using the names and likenesses of Taylor Swift and other celebs without their permission  —  Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities - including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez …
Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Filing: StubHub, which is planning a September IPO, says revenue grew 3% to $828M in H1, missing its earlier projection of $885M, with adjusted EBITDA down 7%  —  Even as StubHub makes a renewed push to go public, its business isn't expanding as quickly as it had hoped.
David DiMolfetta / Nextgov/FCW:
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem fires 24 FEMA IT staffers, including the CIO and CISO; DHS says they failed security protocols and let hackers access FEMA networks  —  An internal FEMA email obtained by Nextgov/FCW ordered all agency employees to change their passwords “due to recent cybersecurity incidents and threats.”
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
ChatGPT integration in Apple's Xcode 26 beta 7 defaults to GPT-5; developers can now also use Claude Sonnet 4 by signing into their paid Claude account  —  Apple has released a new beta of Xcode 26 for developers today with a pair of notable changes.  There's now support for ChatGPT 5 …
Andreessen Horowitz:
Top 100 AI consumer apps: Gemini ranks #2 behind ChatGPT on mobile with ~50% of its MAUs, with Grok at #4; on the web, Gemini has ~12% of ChatGPT's visits  —  5th edition  —  This is the fifth edition of our Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps which reflects two and a half years of data on how everyday AI usage is evolving.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp fixed a zero-click bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used, alongside a now-fixed Apple flaw, to hack into devices of “specific targeted users”  —  WhatsApp said on Friday that it fixed a security bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used to stealthily hack …
Ann Gehan / The Information:
Flip, a TikTok rival that let shoppers post video reviews and earn cash based on engagement, has shut down; it had raised $300M and was valued at $1B+ in 2024  —  Flip, a video-sharing social media app that at one point tried to challenge TikTok's dominance, has shut down, according to a message to users and the company's website.
More: SFGATE

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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:
What happened to tech's backbone?
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to Run a Political Campaign in the TikTok Era (And How Not To)
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:40 AM ET, August 30, 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

Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Los Angeles Times:
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Karen Freifeld / Reuters: