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August 19, 2026, 4:35 PM
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Erin Griffith / New York Times:
Stripe agrees to acquire New York-based OpenRouter; a source says Stripe is paying $7.5B, with $1.5B going to the startup's founders and $6B to its investors  —  The deal is significant for the artificial intelligence industry, uniting Stripe's payments business with OpenRouter's helping businesses direct their spending on A.I. models.
Axios:
Letter: Stripe told investors January 1 marked the “beginning of the singularity”, a major inflection point in long-term trends, and H1 revenue rose 41% YoY  —  Stripe on Wednesday told investors that January 1st marked the “beginning of the singularity,” which it refers …
Dana Wollman / Bloomberg:
Marvell and Google expand their chip development deal, and Marvell grants Google a warrant to buy up to nearly 59M shares at $206.58 each, totaling up to $12.2B  —  Marvell Technology Inc. has agreed to give Alphabet Inc.'s Google rights to buy as much as $12.2 billion of its shares in exchange for purchasing chips.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to expand Prime Air drone deliveries to cities in at least five more US states in the coming months, including Chicago and Atlanta by 2026's end  —  Amazon.com Inc. plans to expand its drone delivery operation to cities in at least five more US states in the coming months …
Alex Isenstadt / Axios:
Memo: the GOP asks AI companies to stem the public backlash against data centers, saying the issue could kill its chances of holding a vital Senate seat in Ohio  —  The Senate GOP campaign arm, in a private memo to top AI companies, warns that toxic views of U.S. data centers are killing …
Wall Street Journal:
US tech companies are offering community investments, guaranteeing jobs, and hosting open houses to address concerns and win public support for AI data centers
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold review: a tougher body, an IP68 rating, and a decent triple rear camera, but an iterative hardware upgrade with a dated-looking design  —  The foldable phone market is in the middle of a huge transformation, but no one told Google.  —  Last year, Samsung transformed …
Julian Chokkattu / Wired:
Pixel 11 Pro review: Magic Capture can be useful, Rambler might be Google's best feature in years, but the gaming performance is subpar and HiLight is useless
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Google Pixel 11 review: a great design, fantastic camera features, and some Pro phone specs, but few gen-to-gen hardware improvements and it's expensive at $899
Bloomberg:
Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker Unitree's stock surges 460% in its Shanghai trading debut, giving it a $50B+ market cap, after it raised ~$904M in its IPO  —  Unitree Robotics shares surged 460% in their Shanghai trading debut after the company raised 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon makes its AI-powered Alexa+ free on all compatible Fire TV devices in the US, automatically upgrading all its users even if they don't subscribe to Prime  —  AI is coming to your TV, whether you want it or not.  —  On Wednesday, Amazon said its AI assistant, Alexa+ …
Zijing Wu / Financial Times:
Sources: Beijing allowed ByteDance and Tencent ~10K Nvidia H200 chips each in mainland China in recent weeks; US licenses permit the H200 in China and Hong Kong  —  Beijing permits small shipments to help leading tech groups in drive to catch up with US rivals
Bloomberg:
Sources: AI chip startup Fractile is in talks to raise ~$600M at a $6.5B pre-money valuation, up from ~$1B in May, and has an initial ~$250M deal with Anthropic  —  Fractile, a startup developing chips tailored for artificial intelligence use that has a deal to supply Anthropic PBC …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Meta launches a Mac app for Meta AI and says Meta AI can now work directly with Instagram and Facebook accounts, Meta ad campaigns, and Google Workspace  —  You can share your window with the new Meta AI app, as well as connect it to Google Workspace. … Meta is launching a new Mac app dedicated to its AI chatbot.
Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI is testing Private Safety Processing, a new technique to identify misuse patterns while preserving zero data retention protections, with early customers  —  OpenAI said Wednesday that it believes a new technique will allow it to safely serve its most advanced models to businesses without needing to retain their data.
Alexander Martin / The Record:
AI evaluation lab Irregular's report on its role in hacking incidents involving OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta models faces criticism over key unanswered questions  —  The company at the center of a series of incidents in which AI models compromised real-world computer systems during supposedly …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Block releases Berd, a desktop app it built to give its employees a single environment for working with AI agents across different models, under Apache 2.0  —  Block, the technology company founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that owns Square, Cash App and the music streaming service Tidal …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal's Bengaluru-based fintech Navi raised $100M from Prosus, its first institutional funding, sources say at a ~$1.3B valuation  —  Indian fintech Navi has raised $100 million from Prosus, marking the first institutional funding for the eight-year-old startup founded …
Jowi Morales / Tom's Hardware:
A hacker known as Cyberleek leaks two GTA VI gameplay clips and the full map in protest of Rockstar Games' digital-only release; Rockstar issues DMCA takedowns  —  The hacker wants Rockstar to stop pre-selling digital games. … GTA VI is one of the most hotly anticipated games in history …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI's Q2 sales grew 18% QoQ to $6.7B as its loss jumped 32% to $12.3B; Anthropic's sales grew 2x+ to $11.6B as it swung to a small operating profit  —  The ChatGPT-maker's revenue disappointed some investors, although the company told them its growth accelerated in the third quarter
The Information:
Source: Nvidia has discussed an investment in Mercor as part of a round valuing the startup at $20B; Nvidia paid Mercor tens of millions of dollars last quarter  —  Nvidia has discussed an investment in Mercor, a data labeling provider that helps the chip designer develop its open-source AI models …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Amazon appears to have leaked Jason Statham's new film Mutiny, streaming it in full on Prime Video in the US, two days before it is supposed to hit theaters  —  The film isn't supposed to hit theaters for two days, but it's available to stream on Prime Video now.
Murad Hemmadi / The Logic:
Sources: Veeda, which is developing world models and is led by ex-Nvidia VP of AI Research Sanja Fidler, raised a $90M+ seed and is backed by Khosla and Radical  —  Toronto-based Veeda is building control systems for physical AI, and is backed by Khosla Ventures and Radical Ventures, The Logic has learned

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:35 PM ET, August 19, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

Steven Zeitchik / The Hollywood Reporter:
Q&A with California AG Rob Bonta about why David Ellison is “desperate”, some Hollywood guilds supporting Paramount's WBD deal, concerns about CNN, and more

Max Tani / Semafor:
Memo: MS NOW plans to launch a $7.99/month membership program for “super fans” on September 9, offering members-only content verticals, a 24/7 feed, and more

Mike Leonard / Bloomberg Law:
Azerbaijan sues CNN in US federal court, accusing CNN of falsely reporting that Azerbaijan let Israel stage military operations against Iran from its territory

More News

Wired:
Reconstructed code from Flock's login pages reveals OS Investigate, a new AI system that integrates license plate scans, arrest records, case files, and more

Earlier Picks

Denny Thomas / Bloomberg:
Filing: SK Hynix plans a ~$29B share buyback, repurchasing and canceling up to 24M treasury shares, in a bid to calm worries about the durability of AI spending
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Z.ai prices GLM-5.3 API access at $1.40/1M input tokens and $4.40/1M output tokens, unchanged from GLM-5.2; Kimi K3 costs $3/1M input and $15/1M output tokens
Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Cerebras unveils CS-4, a server rack with 50% fewer components built on its new Nexus architecture and powered by three WSE-3 Turbo chips, available in Q3 2026
Pew Research Center:
Survey: 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased AI use in daily life, up from 37% in 2021, including 55% of those under 30
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