Techmeme
March 4, 2026, 2:50 PM

Top News

Tom's Hardware:
Apple unveils the $599+ MacBook Neo, with a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an A18 Pro chip, side-firing speakers, a 1080p webcam, two USB-C ports, and Touch ID  —  Apple debuts a new entry-level MacBook at just the right time  —  Apple finally took the wraps off its long-rumored budget laptop.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
The MacBook Neo is $599 with 256GB of storage and $699 with Touch ID and 512GB of storage, available in citrus, silver, indigo, and blush colors  —  Apple Inc. rolled out the $599 MacBook Neo in its biggest push yet into low-end laptops, aiming to challenge Windows PCs and Chromebooks for budget-minded shoppers.
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Julie Jargon / Wall Street Journal:
A US lawsuit says Gemini sent a man to find an android body it could inhabit, before he died by suicide; Google says it sent him to crisis hotlines “many times”  —  A new lawsuit alleges Google's chatbot sent a Florida man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit.
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony no longer plans to release its big single-player PlayStation 5 games on PC, a major strategy shift that sees it returning to console exclusivity  —  The video-game publisher no longer plans to put out PC ports of PlayStation games such as ‘Ghost of Yotei’
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
Polymarket removes long-running markets that let users bet on if a nuclear weapon will be detonated, amid the Iran strikes; a 2025 contract had $1.7M+ in volume  —  Nuclear weapon-themed markets aren't new on the prediction market platform, but public outcry about the contracts has apparently forced the platform to delete them.
Amy Fan / New York Times:
Analysis: since 2025's end, Polymarket users rarely bet large sums on US strikes by the next day; the day before the Iran strikes, 150+ accounts made such bets  —  Polymarket users placed hundreds of bets of at least $1,000 predicting an imminent American strike, raising concerns about insider trading.
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
Authorities from 14 countries shut down LeakBase, seize its domains, and arrest multiple people allegedly tied to the cybercrime forum, which had 142K+ members  —  The marketplace was one of the world's largest hubs for cybercrime with more than 142,000 members.
Washington Post:
Sources: the US used Palantir's Maven Smart System, integrated with Claude, to find and prioritize 1,000 targets within the first 24 hours of its attack on Iran  —  Advanced AI technology is identifying targets in Iran and quickly prioritizing them, supporting the massive military operations carried out by U.S. and Israeli forces.
Jason Snell / Six Colors:
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Epic and Google propose a settlement that would have Google share its Play Store app catalog with rivals and offer a registered app store program for Android  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google unveiled a new system for apps on its Android phones and tablets Wednesday, agreeing to easier access …
Wall Street Journal:
Kraken says its banking unit won “master account” access to the US Fed's core payment systems, making it the first crypto company that can move money like banks  —  ‘Master account’ approval gives firm access to the same payment rail as thousands of banks and credit unions
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Google details Coruna, an exploit kit used to hijack iPhones via malicious websites; iVerify suggests it may have been originally built for the US government  —  A highly sophisticated set of iPhone hijacking techniques has likely infected tens of thousands of phones or more.
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Tencent-owned Finnish game company Supercell says it is cooperating with a CFIUS security probe of Tencent's data practices  —  Supercell Oy, the Finnish game company owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd., said it's cooperating with a US government security probe of its Chinese parent's data practices.
Financial Times:
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Junyang Lin, a tech lead on Alibaba's Qwen team, abruptly steps down, and two other team members leave; one contributor says “I know leaving wasn't your choice”  —  Alibaba's Qwen AI project has lost one of its most visible technical leaders just a day after the Chinese tech giant unveiled …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Trump says “the GENIUS Act is being threatened and undermined by the banks”, which are holding the CLARITY Act hostage, as they oppose stablecoin yield payouts  —  U.S. President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the banking industry is trying to undermine the stablecoin bill he signed into law last year.
Joe Tidy / BBC:
TikTok says it won't add E2EE to DMs because it would prevent police and its safety teams from reading messages when needed and it wants to protect young users  —  TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption (E2EE) - the controversial privacy feature used by nearly all its rivals - arguing it makes users less safe.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Azure Content Understanding: Building on lessons from a decade of Document Intelligence  —  What a decade of teaching machines to read real-world documents taught us about what LLMs can and can't do.
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:
AI Leaders Can't Get Along. So How Will They Keep Us Safe? — With Kevin Roose
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.
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.
Sources:
Robinhood's CEO on letting AI trade your money
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Training Data:
David Silver and Lasse Espeholt of Ineffable Intelligence: A Superlearner for the Age of Experience
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Cheeky Pint:
Muse Wonder: Zuckerberg and Wang's $100B AI
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 PM ET, March 4, 2026.

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

Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica:

Earlier Picks

The Information:
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge: