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Techmeme
December 4, 2025, 10:05 PM
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Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta is considering deep budget cuts to its metaverse efforts in 2026, potentially as high as 30% and most likely including layoffs as early as January  —  Meta Platforms Inc.'s Mark Zuckerberg is expected to meaningfully cut resources for building the so-called metaverse …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Meta says it is shifting some of its investment from metaverse toward AI glasses and wearables, and “we aren't planning any broader changes than that”  —  Meta plans to direct its investments to focus on wearables like its augmented reality glasses but does not plan to abandon building the metaverse.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple says Meta Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Newstead will become its general counsel in March; Meta says it is actively searching for her replacement  —  Apple's general counsel, Kate Adams, and its vice president for environment, policy, and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson, will retire from Apple, the company announced on Thursday.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out Gemini 3 Deep Think to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, after saying in November it needed “extra time for safety evaluations”  —  After previewing last month with the launch of Gemini 3 Pro, the new Deep Think mode is now available for Google AI Ultra subscribers.
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Two studies suggest AI chatbots can shift political views more effectively than TV campaign ads, especially by presenting many claims, regardless of accuracy  —  New research suggests AI chatbots can shift people's political views more effectively than campaign ads on TV.
Reuters:
Russia's Roskomnadzor says it has blocked FaceTime in Russia, claiming the service is being used to organize and “carry out terrorist attacks in the country”  —  Russia has blocked Apple's (AAPL.O) video-calling app FaceTime, the state communications watchdog said on Thursday …
Boaz Sobrado / Forbes:
A Polymarket trader netted $1M+ in 24 hours, mostly by placing suspiciously accurate bets on Google's 2025 Year in Search rankings  —  Boaz Sobrado is a fintech leader and entrepreneur.  —  A Polymarket trader known as AlphaRaccoon has ignited controversy after allegedly netting over $1 million …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Amazon plans to release its $630 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and $500 Kindle Scribe on December 10, after announcing them in September, but won't offer preorders  —  The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and upgraded Kindle Scribe will be available to order soon.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple announces its 2025 App Store Award winners and names visual planner Tiimo as the iPhone App of the Year; many of the winning apps have AI integrations  —  Apple on Thursday shared its annual list of App Store Award winners, continuing its tradition of celebrating the best apps and games of the past year.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft will increase prices for commercial Office subscriptions on July 1, 2026, including a 33% jump for front-line worker plans like Microsoft 365 F1  —  Microsoft said Thursday that it will increase the prices of Office productivity software subscriptions for commercial and government clients on July 1.
Peter S. Goodman / New York Times:
How TSMC, Intel, and Amkor are transforming Phoenix into a US chip hub, investing tens of billions and illustrating the difficulties of large-scale US projects  —  The transformation of Phoenix into a semiconductor hub by Taiwan's TSMC illustrates the difficulties of large-scale projects in the United States.
Steven Levy / Wired:
A profile of AI hearing aid startup Fortell, which has raised $150M so far and is targeting affluent clients in NYC with a $6,800 device that uses a custom chip  —  AI-powered startup Fortell has become a secret handshake for the privileged hearing-impaired crowd who swear by the product.
Ece Yildirim / Gizmodo:
DealBook Summit: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says “the more constitutional you want to make” the US' Caribbean boat strikes “the more you're going to need” Palantir  —  Alex Karp vows to use his “whole influence” on immigration and defense policy.  —  Read Later Read Later
Christina Kyriasoglou / Bloomberg:
Phia, founded by Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe to develop an AI search engine accessed via an extension for Chrome and Safari, raised $30M at a $180M valuation  —  Phoebe Gates, daughter of Microsoft Corp.'s billionaire founder Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, is raising $30 million …
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
A US federal judge rules that OpenAI must produce 20M anonymized ChatGPT chat logs in the copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times and other news outlets  —  OpenAI must produce millions of anonymized chat logs from ChatGPT users in its high-stakes copyright dispute with the New York Times …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meta launches a centralized support hub for Facebook and Instagram, with AI-powered search and an AI assistant to answer queries, in its iOS and Android apps  —  Meta is launching a new centralized support hub for Facebook and Instagram users, the company announced on Thursday …
Jacob Bogage / Washington Post:
Sources: Amazon, the USPS' top customer, providing $6B+ in 2025 revenue, is considering ending its deal at the end of 2026 and expanding its US delivery network  —  Amazon has long been the Postal Service's top customer, providing more than $6 billion in annual revenue to the agency in 2025.
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
OpenAI is testing training LLMs to produce “confessions”, or self-report how they carried out a task and own up to bad behavior, like appearing to lie or cheat  —  OpenAI is testing another new way to expose the complicated processes at work inside large language models.
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
Thoughts on AI progress and why AI labs' actions hint at a worldview in which AI models will continue to fare poorly at generalization and on-the-job learning  —  Why I'm moderately bearish in the short term, and explosively bullish in the long term  —  What are we scaling?
The Information:
Sources: Fluidstack, an AI cloud provider that is aiding Google's effort to expand access to its TPUs, is in talks to raise $700M+ led by Situational Awareness  —  Fluidstack, a cloud provider aiding Google's AI chip push, is in talks to raise more than $700 million in new financing, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.

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From Mediagazer

Ethan Gach / Kotaku:
Valnet agrees to a $2M settlement to end a 2023 suit accusing it of misclassifying some workers as contractors rather than full-time employees to deny them pay

Denise Petski / Deadline:
Amazon Prime Video sets November 20 for the premiere of “Melania, The Series”, the two-episode follow-up to Brett Ratner's “Melania” documentary

Jason Cox / The Diplomat:
International affairs magazine The Diplomat retracts a piece quoting Korean startup Newtype's CEO, saying the interview was faked and emails came from Russia

More News

Earlier Picks

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Apple replacing Alan Dye with Stephen Lemay may revive the Jobs-era “design is how it works” ethos in Apple's UI design that faded due to Jony Ive elevating Dye
Barbara Moens / Financial Times:
The European Commission opens an antitrust investigation into Meta over its new policy on AI providers' access to WhatsApp; the probe won't fall under the DMA
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