Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Techmeme
February 17, 2025, 10:20 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
President Xi meets Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, and others, signaling Beijing's support for the long-marginalized private sector  —  - Meeting signals a more supportive stance toward private firms  — Xi promises relief from excessive fines, level playing field
Reuters:
South Korea's data protection authority says DeepSeek app downloads have been suspended in the country after DeepSeek failed to follow its personal data rules  —  South Korea's data protection authority on Monday said it had temporarily suspended the domestic service of Chinese AI app DeepSeek since Saturday.
Matt Binder / disruptionist:
X shows error messages when trying to share Signal's Signal.me links in DMs, posts, and profile pages, and a warning page if users click on already posted links  —  Signal has been a primary method of communication for federal workers looking to blow the whistle on DOGE.
Namanyay Goel / N's Blog:
New junior developers are reliant on Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools, meaning foundational coding knowledge is missing, potentially creating future problems  —  100k+ views 70+ votes 50+ votes  —  Something's been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it.
Financial Times:
Surj, the sporting arm of Saudi Arabia's PIF, plans to invest $1B in DAZN and a new joint venture with the sports streamer; source: Surj will take a <5% stake  —  Surj Sports Investment will take stake in DAZN and help fund a Middle East broadcasting joint venture
Max Tani / Semafor:
Documents: the NYT greenlights using select internal and external AI tools for editorial and product staff, including from OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft  —  The Scoop  —  The New York Times is greenlighting the use of AI for its product and editorial staff, saying that internal tools …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Mistral debuts Mistral Saba, a 24B-parameter custom-trained model for Arabic language and culture, via its API; Saba bests Mistral Small 3 for Arabic content  —  The next frontier for large language models (LLMs), one of the key technologies underpinning the boom in generative AI tools, might be geographical.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
6 Tips to Unlock Revenue with Transactional Emails  —  This is a guest post by Tabular.You might think of transactional emails as boring necessities, but the truth is, they're far more powerful than you realize.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
Why Uber's CPO delivers food on weekends | Sachin Kansal
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Big Meta/Anduril Deal Is A Big Deal
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Social Radars:
Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Hard Fork:
The A.I. Jobpocalypse + Building at Anthropic with Mike Krieger + Hard Fork Crimes Division
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Rick Smith (CEO, Axon): The Wild Ride From Near-Bankruptcy to $50B+
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Sewing Machine Repair Shop', With Patrick McGee
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:20 PM ET, February 17, 2025.

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

Earlier Picks

David Barnett / The Guardian:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: