Techmeme
November 5, 2025, 2:20 PM

Top News

Mike Scarcella / Reuters:
Google and Epic Games settle Epic's 2020 antitrust lawsuit, with Android and Google Play changes to expand competition and choice, pending a US judge's approval  —  Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google said on Tuesday it has reached a comprehensive U.S. court settlement with “Fortnite” …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
In its Epic settlement, Google proposes lowering app store fees globally, a program to let alternative app stores become first-class Android citizens, and more  —  Instead of breaking Google's app store, Google will let them in. … He issued a permanent injunction that will force Google …
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Sony rolls out PlayStation Portal cloud streaming, letting PlayStation Premium Plus members stream select titles without a PS5 connection, in testing since 2024  —  Cloud streaming PS5 games to your PlayStation Portal is out of beta, and includes streaming for some games you own.
Nikou Asgari / Financial Times:
Crypto company Ripple raised $500M from Citadel, Fortress, and others at a $40B valuation and says payments made on its platform passed $95B so far in 2025  —  $500mn investment round underlines appetite for stablecoin payments sector  —  Ripple has raised $500mn from investors including …
Reuters:
Sources: the Chinese government issues guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made AI chips  —  - Order likely to affect U.S. chipmakers Nvidia, AMD, Intel  — Beijing trying to cultivate domestic AI chipmakers like Huawei
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says Maps will get Gemini instead of Assistant on Android and iOS, offering a “hands-free, conversational driving experience”, in the “coming weeks”  —  In Google Maps, Gemini already exists in place listings, and it's now coming to the navigation experience on Android and iOS.
Robin Wigglesworth / Financial Times:
Josh Sisco / Bloomberg:
Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport says the US DOJ concluded its review of Google's planned $32B acquisition; the FTC's website says the early termination was October 24  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google and cybersecurity company Wiz Inc. cleared a key hurdle to closing their $32 billion deal …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources detail Elon Musk's time at xAI after he left DOGE: he oversaw racy chatbot Ani's design, unwound by playing Diablo, tended to his children, and more  —  Focus on winning tech arms race leads to long hours at xAI; employees turned over biometric data to develop controversial avatars
Lee Ying Shan / CNBC:
Samsung, TSMC, SoftBank, SK Hynix, and others closed as much as 10% down, matching their US peers, as investors worry over stretched AI and tech valuations  —  Shares in Japan's SoftBank Group closed 10% lower on Wednesday, amid a broader drop in AI-linked companies as investors turned wary …
Bloomberg:
Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
Letter: the MPA sent Meta a cease-and-desist over Instagram's use of “PG-13” for teen content restrictions, calling it “literally false and highly misleading”  —  Meta says it never claimed or implied that its teen accounts were officially PG-13 rated or certified by MPA
Jenny Che / Bloomberg:
The Intercept:
YouTube confirms it removed 700+ videos from three prominent Palestinian human rights groups in early October to comply with the US State Department's sanctions  —  A documentary featuring mothers surviving Israel's genocide in Gaza.  A video investigation uncovering Israel's role in the killing of a Palestinian American journalist.
TechCrunch:
Wabi, a “YouTube for apps” launched by Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda to let users create and share mini apps without coding, raised a $20M pre-seed  —  Eugenia Kyuda saw the future of consumer AI before most.  She founded Replika, the first major AI companion startup, in 2017 years before ChatGPT launched.
Boaz Barak / Windows On Theory:
Research: AI's ability to complete lengthy software engineering tasks has doubled roughly every six months, but there is a “messiness tax” for real-world tasks  —  METR has had a very influential work by Kwa and West et al on measuring AI's ability to complete long tasks.
Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix rolls out a new ad metric called monthly active viewers, or MAV, and says it has 190M such viewers in the 12 countries where it offers an ad tier  —  The streamer is rolling out a stat it calls monthly active viewers.  —  Netflix is rolling out a new advertising metric that is says shows …
Koh Ewe / BBC:
A Chinese court sentences five top members of a Myanmar mafia to death, convicting 21 in total, as Beijing continues its crackdown on online scam operations  —  A Chinese court has sentenced five top members of an infamous Myanmar mafia to death as Beijing continues its crackdown on scam operations in South East Asia.
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Motorola Edge 70 review: the new £699 ultra-thin device has a silicone back and great battery life, but the OS is full of ads; the phone won't launch in the US  —  I've been as much of a thin phone skeptic as anyone.  Why would I give up on camera specs and battery life just to shave …

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