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Techmeme
August 18, 2026, 4:30 PM
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Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI changed safety practices and paused RL training for two weeks after the Hugging Face breach and evidence Astra may have met a critical cyber threshold  —  OpenAI said Tuesday that it has made several changes to its safety practices following its determination that an upcoming system …
Apple:
Apple unveils new EU business terms from October 1, resolving disputes with the EU, including a new 5% Core Technology Commission and App Store commission tiers  —  Apple today announced changes to its business terms for apps in the European Union, following close collaboration with the European Commission.
Michael Acton / Financial Times:
In filings, Apple acknowledges App Store regulatory changes are weighing on its $100B+ services business; US App Store spend fell 6% YoY in Q2, per Sensor Tower  —  Court rulings and new App Store rules are beginning to weigh on one of the iPhone maker's profitable growth engines
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
A short video found in Apple's macOS Tahoe 26.7 RC appears to show a man demoing camera-equipped AirPods using Visual Intelligence and Siri to answer questions  —  Apple is working on camera-equipped AirPods that appear to be nearly ready to launch, based on a video MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple's macOS Tahoe 26.7 RC references unreleased products: a Home Hub, home accessories, two new Beats, AirPods Pro 4, Apple Intelligence in China, and more  —  The macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate that Apple seeded today has references to several unreleased products, from home devices to iPhones, iPads, AirPods, and Macs.
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
OpenAI debuts ChatGPT for Teens, a mode that limits high-risk chats about self-harm, eating disorders, violence, and more, and has studying tools and guardrails  —  The artificial intelligence start-up announced a chatbot mode that will automatically limit some conversations to better protect young users.
Robbie Whelan / Wall Street Journal:
AI inference chip startup Etched raised $700M led by its new server rack customer Jane Street at a $21B valuation, up from $10.3B after raising $300M in July  —  Etched, founded by Harvard dropouts, has its own in-office data center and has signed quant-trading firm Jane Street as its first customer.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Comcast is rolling out Wi-Fi motion sensing to its Xfinity XB7 and newer gateways, a free opt-in feature that enables its routers to detect movement at home  —  Comcast is activating free Wi-Fi motion sensing on Xfinity gateways, allowing its routers to detect movement at home.
Julian Chokkattu / Wired:
Dutch company Fairphone launches its $650 flagship repairable Fairphone (Gen. 6+) in the US and plans to keep launching new phone generations every two years  —  More than a decade after launching in Europe, the Netherlands company is now selling its repairable phones in the US, starting with the Fairphone (Gen 6+).
Connor Hart / Wall Street Journal:
Klarna says CFO Niclas Neglén and CMO David Sandström plan to step down in early 2027, and lowers its full-year GMV guidance to $149B-$151B; KLAR falls 20%+  —  The payments company tempered its outlook for the year, even as it swung to a profit and logged higher revenue in the second quarter
Madeleine Cuff / New Scientist:
Google unveils Operation Blue Skies, a £5M trial to re-route North Atlantic aircraft using Google's AI atmospheric forecasts to reduce warming due to contrails  —  Operation Blue Skies is the world's first trial to deploy contrail avoidance measures across an entire airspace …
Associated Press:
Discord suspends livestreams in Brazil, after the country's data protection authority ordered it last week, saying Discord failed to protect children and teens  —  Discord, the popular platform for gamers to communicate online, said on Monday it suspended its livestreams in Brazil after criticism …
Diana Novak Jones / Reuters:
How a bipartisan coalition of US states fought to present a united case against Meta; District Judge Rogers adopted a hybrid structure for the multiweek trial  —  As opening statements get underway in a landmark trial over claims that Meta Platforms (META.O) misled the public about the safety …
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Opening arguments begin on Tuesday in the US state AGs' social media addiction lawsuit against Meta; New Mexico AG says the consequences could be “astronomical”

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From Mediagazer

Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: David Ellison has asked CNN CEO Mark Thompson to stay on after the WBD acquisition closes; Thompson's current deal extends into 2027

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Disney plans a TV restructuring that is expected to result in more layoffs and consolidation of divisions as it pivots from linear TV toward streaming

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
The UK's Independent reports 2025 revenue up 4% YoY to £55.1M, of which £13.3M is from the US and Canada, and pre-tax profit up 9% YoY to £3.5M

More News

Earlier Picks

Owen Dahlkamp / Politico:
Sources: AI-drafted bills are swamping the US House's Legislative Counsel, which now spends more time fixing them than it would spend to draft them from scratch
Lauly Li / Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Google has told suppliers it plans to move all Pixel phone, smartwatch, and wireless earbud manufacturing out of China in 2027 amid US-China tensions
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Situational Awareness offered part of its $5B Anthropic stake at a 20% discount and gave a 12-hour deadline as it scrambled for cash at the end of July
David Sacks / @davidsacks:
David Sacks says “Dario Amodei believes frontier AI is too powerful to distribute; we believe it is too powerful to centralize” after Amodei shared policy ideas
Bloomberg:
Filing: Nvidia agrees to spend up to $105B to support SB Energy's new Ohio data center campus OpenAI is set to lease; Nvidia agrees to invest $1.5B in SB Energy
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