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Techmeme
December 15, 2025, 12:20 PM
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Top News

Bloomberg:
iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reaches a restructuring agreement to hand over control to its secured lender and main Chinese supplier Shenzhen Picea  —  iRobot Corp., the company that revolutionized robot vacuum cleaners in the early 2000s with its Roomba model …
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
A look at iRobot, founded in 1990, and its slow collapse after US and EU regulatory pressure killed Amazon's $1.7B deal in 2024 amid growing Chinese competition  —  There's something painfully American about the arc of iRobot, the company that taught your vacuum to navigate around the furniture.
Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Nvidia launches Nemotron 3, a family of AI models using a hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture and the Mamba-Transformer design, in 30B, 100B, and ~500B sizes  —  Nvidia launched the new version of its frontier models, Nemotron 3, by leaning in on a model architecture that the world's …
Financial Times:
Sources: the UK government wants Apple, Google, and others to block explicit images at the OS level by default to protect kids and have adults verify their ages  —  Home Office expected to encourage companies to introduce controls  —  The UK government wants technology companies …
Martin Peers / The Information:
Filing: Oracle signed ~$150B of data center leases in the three months ending November 30, raising its total data center and cloud capacity commitments to $248B  —  Oracle struck about $150 billion worth of lease commitments on data centers in the three months ending November …
Reuters:
Internal docs: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads, like for scams  —  A Reuters investigation reveals the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China.
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Thrive Holdings announces it has hired Palantir CIO Jim Siders to serve as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services  —  Thrive Holdings, owned by OpenAI and Strive investor Thrive Capital, announced on Monday that it's tapped Palantir veteran Jim Siders …
More: CRN and Business Wire
Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW:
The Trump administration launches US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 staffers from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize the government  —  After pushing hundreds of thousands of government employees to leave their posts and dismantling many government technology units …
Rose Henderson / Bloomberg:
Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD offer, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid  —  The two chief executive officers of Netflix Inc. laid out the company's case for acquiring Warner Bros Discovery Inc. …
Caroline Hyde / Bloomberg:
AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $130M Series B led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst at a $1.3B valuation, taking its total funding to $225M  —  Chai Discovery, an artificial intelligence drug-discovery company backed by OpenAI, has raised $130 million to build a “computer-aided design suite” for molecules.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and now has over $30B in AUM; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022  —  Dragoneer has raised $4.3 billion for its seventh venture capital fund, Axios has learned. … - The San Francisco-based firm raised $3.8 billion …
Anna Heim / TechCrunch:
Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret videos to add synced sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index Ventures and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed  —  AI lets anyone create videos, but many AI video creation tools lack support for audio.  Mirelo is building AI that adds soundtracks to match the video's action.
Luke James / Tom's Hardware:
LG smart TV owners say a webOS update pinned Microsoft Copilot to the home screen, with no apparent way to remove the app; LG unveiled an AI TV strategy at CES  —  Users report Copilot appearing after a recent software update, with no option to uninstall.  —  LG smart TV owners are reporting …
Mike Baker / New York Times:
US volunteer fire departments are scrambling to find software amid shrinking options and higher costs, as companies backed by private equity dominate the market  —  Rural departments have long relied on cheap software solutions to keep their operations running.

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From Mediagazer

Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg:
The FCC approves Paramount's request for foreign ownership above 25% in its proposed WBD acquisition; foreign owners would hold 49.5% of its Class B shares

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Filing: ABC says the FCC hasn't refuted “substantial evidence” of Trump administration retaliation in ordering an early review of eight ABC TV station licenses

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:
Universal says it remains committed to releasing Alex Gibney's Musk documentary internationally, after a report said it was reconsidering; US debut is October 9

More News

Washington Post:
How David Sacks and AI adviser Sriram Krishnan overcame MAGA's opposition to Trump's AI executive order, talking to lawmakers and finally modifying its language

Earlier Picks

Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:
Interviews with copywriters on generative AI's impact: their work used for training, layoffs, wages and rates in free fall, freelancers losing clients, and more
New York Times:
Investigation: after Trump returned to the White House, the SEC eased up on or dismissed 60%+ of ongoing crypto cases, including ones about Trump-tied companies
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