Techmeme
October 16, 2025, 11:45 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: F5 blames its breach on state-backed hackers from China who used the Brickstorm malware to infiltrate its network for 12+ months and steal source code  —  A potentially “catastrophic” breach of a major US-based cybersecurity provider has been blamed on state-backed hackers from China …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Ryan S. Gladwin / Decrypt:
Paxos says it “mistakenly minted” $300T of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin on October 15 on the Ethereum blockchain and then “burned” the tokens 20+ minutes later  —  Crypto industry observers were baffled Wednesday afternoon when an on-chain transaction showed that Paxos …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple executive Ke Yang, who was appointed just weeks ago as the head of the AKI team developing AI-driven web search for Siri, is leaving for Meta  —  The Apple Inc. executive leading an effort to develop AI-driven web search is stepping down, marking the latest in a string …
The Keyword:
Google releases Cell2Sentence-Scale 27B (C2S-Scale), a 27B-parameter foundation model for single-cell analysis built on its Gemma family of open models  —  We're launching a new 27 billion parameter foundation model for single-cell analysis built on the Gemma family of open models.
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
TSMC reports Q3 net profit up 39% YoY to ~$14.8B, above est., and raises its 2025 revenue growth projection to the mid-30% range, citing “very strong” AI demand  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. hiked its projection for 2025 revenue growth for the second time this year …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Honor teases the Robot Phone, featuring an AI-enabled, gimbal-mounted camera that unfolds from the phone's rear and can shoot photos and video in any direction  —  But we'll have to wait until next year to find out more. … Honor has announced what it's calling the “Robot Phone …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Kraken acquires US-licensed futures exchange Small Exchange from IG Group, for $32.5M in cash and $67.5M in Kraken parent company's Payward stock, before an IPO  —  Kraken has acquired a US-licensed futures exchange from IG Group as the crypto heavyweight seeks to broaden the range of products it can offer directly to US customers.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Commonwealth Fusion Systems partners with Google DeepMind to use Google's open-source plasma simulator, TORAX, for accelerating fusion energy development  —  Google DeepMind is partnering with a Boston-area energy startup to use AI to speed the development of fusion as a clean energy source.
Wall Street Journal:
The White House says representatives from Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and other corporate donors to a $250M ballroom attended a dinner with President Trump  —  Dinner set to include representatives from Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon.com and Palantir
Matt Burgess / Wired:
How facial recognition software rejects people with facial differences, who number an estimated 100M+ worldwide, blocking them from accessing essential services  —  An estimated 100 million people live with facial differences.  As face recognition tech becomes widespread …
Bluesky: @brbarrett, @lhn, @mattburgess1, and @coutsForums: r/technews
Financial Times:
Investigation: the Trump family's crypto empire has reaped over $1B in pre-tax profits over the past year; Eric Trump says the true figure is “probably more”  —  The president and his family have built a rapidly growing digital assets empire which has been fuelled by the administration's industry-friendly policies
Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
Spotify partners with Sony Music Group, WMG, UMG, Merlin, and Believe to develop “responsible” AI products and says it will build a generative AI research lab  —  In a significant step towards interfacing with AI and its impact on the music industry, Spotify has partnered …
Deena Mousa / MIT Technology Review:
How AI-powered tools like PainChek, an app that scans a person's face for tiny muscle movements, are helping health care providers better assess patients' pain  —  For years at Orchard Care Homes, a 23‑facility dementia-care chain in northern England, Cheryl Baird watched nurses fill …
Megan Morrone / Axios:
OpenAI hires black hole theoretical physicist Alex Lupsasca, the first person to join the OpenAI for Science initiative led by Kevin Weil, to shape its research  —  Prize-winning black hole theoretical physicist Alex Lupsasca has joined OpenAI's new science team, Axios has learned.
Bluesky: @wesley83
Russell Brandom / TechCrunch:
Anthropic releases Claude Haiku 4.5, claiming it offers similar levels of coding performance to Sonnet 4 at “one-third the cost and more than twice the speed”  —  On Wednesday, Anthropic released Claude Haiku 4.5, the newest version of its smallest model, billed as offering similar performance …
Dave Lee / Bloomberg:
David Sacks says Anthropic is running a “regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering”, in response to Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark's AI policy essay  —  On Tuesday, White House AI “czar” and venture capitalist David Sacks intensified a frustration that has been building for months.
Financial Times:
HR software startup Deel raised $300M led by Ribbit Capital at a $17B valuation, up from $12.6B earlier in 2025, and says revenue crossed $100M in September  —  HR start-up raises $300mn from Ribbit, Coatue and Andreessen amid espionage allegations from rival Rippling
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Ripple acquires GTreasury, a platform used by Fortune 500 companies for managing cash, foreign exchange, and risk, for $1B, set to close in the coming months  —  The deal, pending regulatory approvals, would give Ripple access to large enterprise clients as it is building out financial services around its digital asset business.
More: Axios
CoinDesk:
SharpLink Gaming, the second-largest publicly traded ether treasury firm, raised $76.5M in a direct stock offering priced above market  —  The sale reflects “strong institutional confidence,” the company said, with an unnamed investor also receiving an option to buy another 4.5 million shares
Dylan Butts / CNBC:
The US FCC announces proceedings to potentially bar Hong Kong-based telco HKT and its subsidiaries from accessing domestic US networks, citing its ties to China  —  Regulators in the U.S. have moved to block one of Hong Kong's largest telecommunications companies from accessing domestic networks, citing national security concerns.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple doesn't include a charger in the box with the 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro in European countries, making users pay extra; the company cites an upcoming EU law  —  The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K. …

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Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Ashley Capoot / CNBC: