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February 20, 2025, 3:35 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: |
Amazon plans to discontinue its Appstore for Android and its Coins program on August 20, 2025, but keep its Appstore on its devices like Fire TV and Fire Tablet — Amazon will discontinue its app store for Android on August 20 this year. The company sent a notice to developers indicating …
More: Amazon, Amazon Appstore Developer Blog, 9to5Google, How-To Geek, Engadget, PCMag, Thurrott, Ars Technica, The Verge, XDA Developers, Mirror, Android Central, WebProNews, HotHardware, iPhone in Canada Blog, PocketGamer.biz, PYMNTS.com, The Sun, Trusted Reviews, AFTVnews, PhoneArena, Liliputing, BetaNews, Android Police, Android Authority, Neowin, Digital Trends, Android Headlines, Mobilegamer.biz, and Droid Life
Forums: r/technology and r/Games
| Kate Rooney / CNBC: |
OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap says the company hit 400M weekly active users in February 2025, up from 300M in December 2024, and 2M paying enterprise customers — OpenAI appears to be growing quickly despite increasing competition. — The San Francisco-based tech company had 400 million weekly active users …
More: TechCrunch, eWeek, VentureBeat, Seeking Alpha, PYMNTS.com, Thurrott, The Rio Times, San Francisco Business Times, The Wrap, Analytics India Magazine, and Quartz
X: @bradlightcap, @kimmonismus, @firstadopter, @stevenheidel, @snsf, @emollick, @edzitron, and @kr00ney
LinkedIn: Kate Rooney and Geoff Lewis
| Matt Novak / Gizmodo: |
Elon Musk says he will “fix” Community Notes as they are “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media”, after disagreeing with notes about Ukraine — The billionaire has a history of manipulating X to fit his far-right worldview.
More: The Hill and Mediaite
Bluesky: @gordonmoat, @quinnypig.com, @sweet-jesus, @wilkos, @onto2028, @rawveggies, @justbcause, @zackhouse, @creatrixpj, and @paleofuture
| Wired: |
Investigation: Google's Display & Video 360 ad platform lets users target Americans' sensitive personal data, despite Google's rules against such practices — Google enables marketers to target people with serious illnesses and crushing debt—against its policies—as well as the makers …
More: Mostly signs and Mind Matters
Bluesky: @evacide, @karlbode.com, @couts, @dell, and @glynmoody
Forums: r/technews, r/technology, and r/TrueReddit
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Amazon will end support for Chime, its alternative to Zoom, on February 20, 2026; report: Amazon is adopting Zoom as its standard app for internal meetings — Amazon Chime, the tech giant's underwhelming alternative to Zoom and Google Meet, is shutting down for good.
More: Amazon Web Services, GeekWire, Thurrott, Business Insider, TechRadar, Verdict, iTnews, PYMNTS.com, and Chain Store Age
| Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: |
Global Witness: ahead of German elections, TikTok's and X's For You feeds showed a substantial far-right bias; 78% of TikTok's recommendations supported the AfD — Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias …
More: Silicon Republic. Mastodon: @bretcarmichael@mastodon … and @bascule@mas.to. X: @davemcclure. LinkedIn: Global Witness
Forums: r/technology, r/democrats, r/neoliberal, r/FreeSpeech, r/worldnews, r/WelcomeToGilead, and r/europe
| Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: |
Spotify begins accepting AI-narrated audiobooks recorded using ElevenLabs software; Spotify already allows AI-recorded audiobooks, with several restrictions — A new ElevenLabs partnership aims to help authors bring AI-narrated audiobooks to Spotify listeners.
More: Spotify, Thurrott, The Decoder, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, iPhone in Canada Blog, and Good e-Reader
Bluesky: @theopriestley.com. Mastodon: @mloxton@med-mastodon.com. X: @elevenlabsio. LinkedIn: Dustin Blank
| Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: |
CISA and the FBI: attackers deploying Ghost ransomware breached victims from multiple industry sectors across 70+ countries, including critical infrastructure — CISA and the FBI said attackers deploying Ghost ransomware have breached victims from multiple industry sectors across over 70 countries … | Ashley Carman / Bloomberg: |
YouTube plans a premium lite tier in the US, Australia, Germany, and Thailand, offering podcasts and how-to clips without ads; music videos will have ads — - The service will continue to put ads in music videos — The tier will launch in areas that include the US, Australia| Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: |
Palantir's stock fell 10% on February 19 after the WaPo reported US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to cut military spending; PLTR is up 50%+ in 2025 — - Spending shift would affect 8% of US defense spending — AI-focused Palantir has become major government contractor| Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac: |
Kuo: all iPhone 17 models will use Apple's in-house Wi-Fi chips, enhancing connectivity and cutting costs; only the slim iPhone 17 will use the C1 modem chip — Apple just launched its brand new C1 modem yesterday with the iPhone 16e. But there's another new Apple-designed chip coming soon …
More: MacRumors, AppleInsider, Seeking Alpha, Patently Apple, iClarified, PhoneArena, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone in Canada Blog, Wall Street Pit, and BGR
X: @mingchikuo and @markgurman
| Nikkei Asia: |
Tokyo-based Sakana AI details its AI CUDA Engineer, which it says can speed up AI training and inference by 10x to 100x by “breeding” efficient instructions — TOKYO — Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI says it has developed a system capable of accelerating artificial intelligence development …
More: Sakana AI, pub.sakana.ai, Hugging Face, and Analytics India Magazine
X: @miru_why, @main_horse, @roberttlange, @falhazmiai, and @sakanaailabs
| Sarah Wynn / The Block: |
The US SEC announces the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit to protect investors from bad actors in crypto and AI, replacing the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit — - The agency announced the new unit on Thursday, calling it the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, or CETU.| Bloomberg: |
Sources: X's financials showing a ~$1.4B profit given to investors fall outside corporate accounting norms; the 2023 figures were audited, but 2024 was not — - Heavily adjusted figures, advertising rebound boost outlook — Leverage ratio remains a burdensome nine times adjusted profit| Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal: |
More: Gizmodo, The Information, and TVNewsCheck
Bluesky: @bcmerchant, @wikisteff, @whetmoser.com, @chronotope.aramzs.xyz, @pppgrifter, @mediaevan, and @baymama. Mastodon: @ianb@mastodon.well.com
| Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal: |
Chinese game giant NetEase reports Q4 net profit up 33% YoY to ~$1.2B, above ~$1.05B est., and revenue down 1.4%, a sign its gaming business is turning around — The company's revenue fell 1.4% but was slightly better than analysts' expectations — Chinese videogame giant NetEase returned …
More: NetEase, Inc., Video Games Chronicle, GamesIndustry.biz, and TechRaptor
| New York Times: |
Sources: the Trump administration targets officials fighting foreign interference in US elections, including those focused on cybersecurity and false content — The Trump administration has reassigned or forced out several dozen government employees who had been working to fight foreign interference … | Pew Research Center: |
US survey: views of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk tilt negative; Democrats and Republicans view Zuckerberg unfavorably; Musk is polarizing along party lines — Americans' views of two prominent tech executives - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - tilt more negative than positive.
More: Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Axios, KRON4, The Independent, New York Times, The Ankler, Poynter, Forbes, Fortune, TechSpot, PCMag, and Mediaite
Bluesky: @justinbaragona, @mims, @paularmstrongtbd, @kenlowery, @stevierea, @daveweigel, @ericcolumbus, and @stevierea
X: @johngramlich, @sr_lazarus, @johngramlich, @brianstelter, and @maxwelltani. Forums: r/EnoughMuskSpam
| Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: |
Twitch plans to implement a 100-hour storage cap for Highlights and Uploads from April 19, automatically deleting content from streamers who exceed the limit — Streamers who have exceeded this limit will have their content automatically deleted until it meets the threshold.
More: Ars Technica, Engadget, TechCrunch, Android Headlines, Cord Cutters News, and help.twitch.tv
| Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: |
Nvidia launches Signs, a new AI platform to teach American Sign Language and create a validated dataset for sign language learners and ASL app developers — Nvidia has unveiled a new AI platform for teaching people how to use American Sign Language to help bridge communication gaps.| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
Amazon surpassed Walmart in quarterly sales for the first time during the most recent quarter, with a revenue of $187.8B compared to Walmart's $180.5B — Amazon has dethroned Walmart in quarterly revenue for the first time ever. — Amazon said earlier this month that it brought … | Wes Davis / The Verge: |
Rabbit R1 maker Rabbit demos its “generalist Android agent”, showing it controlling apps on a tablet, building on its LAM Playground, a “generalist web agent” — Watch Rabbit's AI agent, but not the Rabbit R1, do things in Android apps.| Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg: |
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson announces an inquiry into “Big Tech censorship”, which he says is “un-American” and “potentially illegal” — - FTC Chair Ferguson invites public comment about tech platforms — Conservatives claim ideas, affiliations have been censored
More: Reuters, Federal Trade Commission, PYMNTS.com, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Fox Business, Digital Journal, The Gateway Pundit, MLex, The Daily Caller, and Business Insider
Bluesky: @zero-to-hero. X: @ambermarieduke, @mikebenzcyber, @allumbokhari, @nathanleamerdc, @adamkovac, @robmcgravytrain, @benbrodydc, @wesghodges, @randyebarnett, @zephyrteachout, @sayssimonson, @josephvconiglio, @realjdenton, @mholyoakftc, @wendyndavis, @ryangrim, @afergusonftc, @andyjungtech, @castrotech, @ftc, @benremaly, @afergusonftc, and @afergusonftc
| Kim Zetter / Wired: |
Source: 19-year-old Edward Coristine and Kyle Schutt, both DOGE engineers, are now on staff at the CISA; Coristine was briefly an intern for Neuralink — DOGE technologists Edward Coristine—the 19-year-old known online as “Big Balls”—and Kyle Schutt are now listed as staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
More: SC Media and Nextgov/FCW
Bluesky: @ericjgeller.com, @couts, and @kimzetter
X: @watermanreports and @erratarob
LinkedIn: Rick Barnes and Mikael Ekman
Forums: r/politics, r/craftofintelligence, r/espionage, and r/fednews
| RT Watson / The Block: |
Nansen: 86% of traders lost $251M in total on the Solana memecoin Libra that Argentine President Milei promoted, while the remaining traders profited $180M — - Citing onchain data, Nansen Research said that through Tuesday, 86% of traders lost a total of $251 million on the LIBRA token … | Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg: |
Together AI, which provides users access to AI computing, raised $305M co-led by General Catalyst and Saudi Arabia's Prosperity7 at a $3.3B valuation — Startup Together AI, which provides users access to artificial intelligence computing, has raised $305 million from investors in deal led …
More: PYMNTS.com, FinSMEs, Crunchbase News, Reuters, General Catalyst, Analytics India Magazine, and Together AI
LinkedIn: Abhishek Shukla and Marc Bhargava
Sponsor Posts
Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model — Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy. Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
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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
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:
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate — Welcome again! Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes. Let's look at how to use …
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate — Welcome again! Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes. Let's look at how to use …
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.
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
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Bluesky: @tomwarren.co.uk. Mastodon: @mads@fedi.mvpgame.dev. X: @xboxwire, @reach_vb, @lukasschaefer96, @katjahofmann, @natureportfolio, @alacremeox, @mustafasuleyman, @protosphinx, @coreybrickley, @yacinemtb, @teknium1, @satyanadella, @tomwarren, @tomwarren, @peteratmsr, @rowancheung, @theturingpost, @msftresearch, @wario64, @rowancheung, @azed_ai, @peteratmsr, @howfxr, @knoebelbroet, @rowancheung, and @rowancheung
Forums: r/gamingnews, r/technews, r/singularity, r/gaming, r/xbox, r/Games, and r/xbox