Techmeme
February 21, 2025, 5:50 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple removes Advanced Data Protection for iCloud in the UK, pulling the optional E2EE feature rather than complying with the UK's order to build a backdoor  —  - Company removes Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users  — “We never will” build backdoor to user data, iPhone maker says
More: BBC, Washington Post, 9to5Mac, The Verge, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, MacRumors, PCMag, Tech Policy Press, Electronic Frontier Foundation, SiliconANGLE, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, ITV News, Daring Fireball, Financial Times, PhoneArena, Channel NewsAsia, The Standard, Engadget, Breitbart, mjtsai.com, Al Jazeera, UPI, Gizmodo, Neowin, Sky News, Digital Trends, TechRadar, mobilenewscwp.co.uk, Silicon UK, The Information, AppleInsider, PetaPixel, BGR, Cult of Mac, The Apple Post, CyberInsider, ZeroHedge News, and The Hacker News
Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
ZachXBT: crypto exchange Bybit has experienced $1.46B worth of “suspicious outflows”; Bybit CEO confirms hacker took control of a cold ETH wallet  —  Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has experienced $1.46 billion worth of “suspicious outflows,” according to blockchain sleuth ZachXBT.
RT Watson / The Block:
Arkham says ZachXBT submitted proof that North Korea's Lazarus Group is behind Bybit's $1.5B hack, which is the largest single theft in crypto history  —  - Arkham Intelligence said Lazarus Group hacked Bybit for over $1.5 billion, citing information provided by online sleuth ZachXBT.
David Heaney / UploadVR:
Apple releases visionOS 2.4 developer beta, adding Apple Intelligence, a guest mode, a Spatial Gallery app, an iPhone app for remote installs, and more  —  visionOS 2.4 will bring Apple Intelligence to Vision Pro, a Spatial Gallery app, an iPhone app for remote installs, and a new iPhone/iPad-driven guest flow.
Jesse Pound / CNBC:
Cade Metz / New York Times:
OpenAI says it found evidence of an AI-powered surveillance tool used by a Chinese security operation to identify anti-China posts on social media in the West  —  The company said a Chinese operation had built the tool to identify anti-Chinese posts on social media services in Western countries.
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
DeepSeek plans to open source five of its code repositories next week, letting anyone download, build on, or improve the code behind its well-regarded AI models  —  - The startup will begin making technology available next week  — DeepSeek is pushing harder on its open-source approach
Ian Duncan / Washington Post:
Sources: the US NHTSA is losing ~10% of its workforce via firings and buyout offers, including nearly half of a small team that regulates autonomous vehicles  —  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is losing about 10 percent of its workforce through firings and buyout offers, according to people briefed on the cuts.
Bloomberg:
NetEase CEO William Ding has cut hundreds of jobs, closed game studios, and reduced international investment as he refocuses on a smaller portfolio of titles  —  - Hundreds of staffers and about a dozen games have been cut  — Founder William Ding sets elevated expectations for results
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Sakana AI walks back claims that its new AI CUDA Engineer can speed up AI training by up to 100x, after complaints about worse-than-average training performance  —  This week, Sakana AI, a Nvidia-backed startup that's raised hundreds of millions of dollars from VC firms, made a remarkable claim.
Tom Carreras / CoinDesk:
Source: the US Marshals Service is struggling to come up with a rough estimate of its bitcoin holdings, complicating plans for a US Bitcoin reserve  —  The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) is tasked with managing assets seized by law enforcement in the course of criminal investigations …

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
Are you ready for the era of agentic AI?  —  Tech leaders are always talking about what's next, and right now, agentic AI is dominating the discourse.  Equip yourself with the info you need in this recorded webinar.
Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
Zoho:
Unveiling AI-powered updates in Zoho Sheet  —  In 2024, we, the Zoho Sheet team, dedicated ourselves to research and development in order to introduce new features that enhance productivity, data management, collaboration, and other functionalities.
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

Techmeme Ride Home:
Why COULDN'T Apple Make An iPhone In The US?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Derek Thompson (Writer, The Atlantic) and Zach Weinberg (Co-founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) Discuss the Tariff Withdrawal and America's Future
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Hard Fork:
Big Tech's Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama
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.
Great Chat:
The bull case for domestic manufacturing
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Why DOGE is killing the agency that keeps banks from ripping you off
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
OpenAI's CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter)
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:50 PM ET, February 21, 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

Ricardo Brito / Reuters:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac: