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August 19, 2026, 10:55 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 …
Bloomberg:
Trump urges Congress to pass the Clarity Act at a White House event with execs including the CEOs of Coinbase and Robinhood; the bill has stalled in the Senate  —  President Donald Trump pressed Congress to pass digital asset market structure legislation that is a top priority for the industry …
CNBC:
Sources: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands that OpenAI “will be a public company in 2027”, or sooner if “our business continues to inflect”  —  OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees during an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence lab …
Reuters:
Former Meta engineering director Arturo Béjar testifies that Mark Zuckerberg prioritized growth and engagement over child safety on Facebook and Instagram  —  A former engineering director at Meta Platforms (META.O) testified on Wednesday that CEO Mark Zuckerberg fostered a culture …
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
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.
Amanda Caswell / Tom's Guide:
Google announces new study tools, including a student hub, notebooks, and interactive 3D visualizations in Gemini, plus student offers for Google AI plans  —  Head back to school equipped with AI tools for studying, researching and more  —  Once again, Google is giving eligible college students …
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: YouTube is offering top creators millions to post videos exclusively on YouTube for a period and will penalize those that post to Netflix concurrently  —  YouTube will pay creators to post their videos to YouTube before any other service.  If creators post to YouTube and Netflix at the same time, they will face consequences.
Bloomberg:
Sources: SpaceX approached Cognition about a potential acquisition, but Cognition didn't engage; Cognition CEO Scott Wu says the company is “not for sale”  —  SpaceX Attempted to Buy AI Coding Startup Cognition  —  Video Player is loading.  —  Unmute  —  Current Time 0:00 Loaded: 26.60% Playback Rate
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
Dana Wollman / Bloomberg:
Marvell and Google expand their chip development deal, and Marvell grants Google a warrant to buy as much as $12.2B of its shares; MRVL closes up 9.85%  —  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.
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+ …
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) …
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to expand Prime Air drone delivery to almost 500 cities and towns in the US by the end of 2026, a sixfold increase from its current footprint  —  Amazon.com Inc. plans to expand its drone delivery operation to cities in at least five more US states in the coming months …
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.
Wall Street Journal:
The US Army is phasing out its drone assault battalion, as part of a “back-to-basics” approach; it was created in January to learn from the conflict in Ukraine  —  Gen. Christopher LaNeve takes aim at a cutting-edge drone unit, one of several moves he has made since taking over the Army
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 …
More: PYMNTS
Trishla Ostwal / Adweek:
OpenAI expands its ad pilot program to 31 European markets, including Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, after launching it in nine countries including the US  —  Expansion of the AI giant's ads pilot comes as ad revenue climbs more than 25% since the start of August  —  The future of brands gets decided here.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:55 PM ET, August 19, 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.

From Mediagazer

Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
Letter: movie theater trade organization Cinema United, which previously supported the AGs' lawsuit against Paramount's WBD deal, now favors settlement talks

Todd Spangler / Variety:
José Suárez, president and general manager of three Telemundo-owned TV stations in Florida, died in a helicopter crash Wednesday in Kenya along with six others

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

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
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
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

Earlier Picks

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
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
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
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