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Techmeme
August 20, 2026, 11:35 PM
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Top News

Newcomer:
Sources: Poolside struck a non-exclusive $6B licensing deal with Nvidia, plus a $1B investment at a $12B pre-money valuation; 109 staffers get Nvidia job offers  —  EXCLUSIVE TO NEWCOMER: Poolside AI, the artificial intelligence model-building startup, has struck a non-exclusive licensing deal …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Anthropic expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record-setting IPO, as it prepares to file publicly for its IPO as soon as the end of August  —  Anthropic PBC expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record-setting initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter …
Vlad Fedorov / The GitHub Blog:
GitHub says its 7+ hour August 17 outage was caused by a capacity failure when peak traffic overwhelmed an infrastructure component in a Central US data center  —  An update on the August 17 outage and the steps we're taking to improve reliability.  —  On August 17, GitHub experienced an outage that lasted 7 hours and 47 minutes.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
OpenAI rolls out an Apple Messages plugin for ChatGPT on macOS, letting ChatGPT read, search, and analyze chats, prepare and send messages, and more  —  Well, this seems interesting.  ChatGPT's latest update adds a new Mac integration: the ability to work with conversations from Apple's Messages app.
Kristin Robinson / Billboard:
Email: Apple Music tells industry partners that songs tagged as “materially generated using AI” by content providers will be visibly labeled on the service  —  The news builds on Apple's recent announcement of AI Transparency Tags for songs.  Now, the service will soon make those disclosures visible to users.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out Pocket, an experimental vibe-coding app that lets users create and share small games, in the US, after launching it in Brazil last month  —  Meta's experimental vibe-coding gaming app, Pocket, is now rolling out to everyone in the U.S. The app, which arrived quietly last month …
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Source: Anthropic plans a change for later this year that still requires enterprises to retain data for 30 days but lets them do so on their own cloud systems  —  Anthropic PBC plans to allow business customers to keep greater control of their data when using its most capable artificial intelligence models …
Google:
Google DeepMind says its Gemma family of open models has surpassed 1B downloads and developers have published 100K+ Gemma model variants over the past two years  —  From outer space to underwater, here's how developers are bringing a positive impact with our open models.
Qianer Liu / The Information:
Sources: Nvidia plans to begin small-batch shipments of an LPU tailored for Chinese customers by the end of 2026; the chip complies with US export control rules  —  Nvidia plans to begin small-batch shipments of an AI chip specially tailored for Chinese customers by the end of the year …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Slack launches Slack Code, adding dedicated, project-specific code channels that let teams collaborate with AI coding agents “like teammates” across all plans  —  Slack Code provides a dedicated open space for teams to collaborate with AI agents.
Marcela Ayres / Reuters:
Brazil announces ~$444.2M in AI investments split between US and Chinese companies, including ~$250.3M for a supercomputing project with Huawei and iFlytek  —  Brazil's government announced on Thursday investments of about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2 million) to bolster its artificial intelligence ecosystem …
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
Waymo says it has built an ASIC chip that will improve its robotaxis' reflexes and navigational skills and help it diversify away from third parties like Nvidia  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo has built a custom chip that the company said will improve the performance of its robotaxis …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Nevada approves permits letting Tesla deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis in the Las Vegas area over the next year, while Waymo and Uber are each allowed up to 1,000  —  Nevada, get ready for the robotaxis.  —  The Nevada Transportation Authority unanimously approved three permits Thursday that will allow Tesla …
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Source: AI training data startup Micro1's gross annual run rate grew from $100M to $500M in the past eight months, putting net annual run rate at $150M-$200M  —  The near-bottomless demand for unique AI training data from top labs and corporations is driving a massive boom for a cohort of data-labeling startups.
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
Charter closes its $34.5B Cox acquisition, announced in May 2025, uniting two of the biggest US cable and broadband providers, and completes its Liberty deal  —  “When Liberty first invested in Charter more than a decade ago, we saw an opportunity to build scale behind a great management team and operating model," said John Malone.
Alexander Gladstone / Wall Street Journal:
A bankruptcy court delays Google's $10M purchase of Spirit Airlines' data after former flight attendants objected, seeking assurance their info would be removed  —  The flight attendants want assurance that their confidential information will be removed from the sale of the defunct airline's digital records

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:35 PM ET, August 20, 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 Robertson / New York Times:
An Alabama jury finds the NYT defamed a college basketball player in a 2023 article that wrongly placed him at a deadly shooting and awards $9.25M in damages

Michael McCarthy / Front Office Sports:
OutKick founder Clay Travis launches Sport & State, offering live shows and podcasts; sources say it is valued at $100M, and Hard Rock Bet owns a 10% stake

Suzanne Rowan Kelleher / Forbes:
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's reality show about his family road trip, sponsored by companies regulated by the DOT, launches on YouTube

More News

Douglas Gillison / Reuters:
Study: 150+ Polymarket wallets may have traded on internal US military information, making $8M overall with a 97.2% average win rate and attracting copycat bets
Hugo Lowell / Wired:
Sources: Trump officials expect Elon Musk to spend $100M to $200M in the November midterm elections, with a focus on voter turnout in key races, including Texas
Christine Chen / Reuters:
Australia passes the News Bargaining Incentive, which will tax tech giants 2.5% on their Australian ad revenue if they don't strike deals with local news media

Earlier Picks

Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Stripe's OpenRouter acquisition, its largest yet, is a bet on a future where users turn to a mix of AI models and tokens are the central currency for businesses
Luz Ding / Bloomberg:
Alibaba reports Q1 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$39.64B, meeting est., and net income down 75% to ~$1.54B due to heavy AI spending and weak domestic retail consumption
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Binance launches Agent OS, a platform that lets AI agents analyze markets and execute trades on users' behalf; users have to limit AI agents' access and trades
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
South Korean media: SK Hynix and its union reach a tentative deal, featuring a 6.3% salary increase and profit-sharing bonuses paid as 60% shares and 40% cash
Bloomberg:
London-based Callosum, whose software matches AI tasks with models and chips, raised a $100M seed led by Atomico; the UK's Sovereign AI Fund also invested
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Virginia's Loudoun County hosts 250+ data centers that bring in huge tax revenues, but in 2025, its board voted to slow construction after residents pushed back
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