Techmeme
February 25, 2025, 2:25 PM

Top News

Reuters:
Sources: Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, and other Chinese companies are ramping up orders for Nvidia's H20 AI chip due to booming demand for DeepSeek's models  —  Chinese companies are ramping up orders for Nvidia's (NVDA.O) H20 artificial intelligence chip due to booming demand …
Financial Times:
Sources: Huawei has increased its AI chip yield to nearly 40%, up from 20% about a year ago, meaning its Ascend chips are now profitable for the first time  —  Chinese company improves ‘yield’ of latest semiconductor, despite US efforts to prevent manufacturing advances
Bloomberg:
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google releases its free Gemini Code Assist globally in public preview for solo developers, with 180K code completions per month; GitHub Copilot offers 2,000  —  And provides 90 times more monthly code completions than GitHub Copilot's free tier. … A free version of Gemini Code Assist …
Brad Norton / Dexerto:
Activision confirms on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's Steam page that it “uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets”, after fan speculation  —  Activision has finally admitted to using AI-generated content in its games and Call of Duty players aren't the least bit surprised.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
Kate Bush and 1,000+ other musicians “co-write” a “silent” album to protest the UK's proposal to let AI train on their copyrighted work if they don't opt out  —  Recordings of empty studios represent impact on musicians of UK's plans to let AI train on their work without permission
Associated Press:
Resignation letter: 21 DOGE staffers, who previously worked at the USDS, say they won't use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services”  —  More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Employee screening company DISA confirms a data breach in February 2024, found in April 2024, affecting 3.3M+ people and including Social Security numbers  —  DISA Global Solutions, a U.S.-based provider of employee screening services, has said it suffered a data breach that affects more than 3.3 million people.
Faris Mokhtar / Bloomberg:
Sources: Indonesia and Apple agree a deal to lift the iPhone 16 ban, with Apple set to invest $1B; a memorandum of agreement may be signed this week  —  - Tech giant has promised to invest $1 billion in Indonesia  — Deal would be win for Prabowo after series of policy setbacks
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple investors reject outside shareholder proposals asking the company to cease its DEI efforts and write a report assessing the risks of its work on AI  —  Apple Inc. investors rejected outside shareholder proposals that asked the iPhone maker to cease its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts …
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
Bitcoin falls below $90K, its lowest level since mid-November 2024, as the rally that followed Trump's election fades; ETH, XRP, SOL, and more also fell sharply  —  - Biggest token is now down almost 20% since Trump inauguration  — Macro factors and crypto blowups combine to erode confidence
CNBC:
Chegg sues Google, saying AI Overviews hurt its traffic and revenue, as it mulls strategic options, including an acquisition; CHGG drops 30%+  —  Chegg on Monday filed suit in federal district court against Google, claiming that artificial intelligence summaries of search results have hurt …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
New York's law requiring ISPs to offer $15 or $20/month broadband has inspired Vermont, Massachusetts, and California to guarantee affordable internet access  —  New York's law requiring Internet service providers to offer broadband for $15 or $20 a month has spurred legislative efforts …
More: Route FiftyBluesky: @sportshotchrisMastodon: @ax6761@freeradical.zoneForums: r/technology, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
Bloomberg:
Sources: SpaceX seeks to deploy Starlink terminals for the FAA, raising questions about Elon Musk's conflicts of interest and Verizon's $2B FAA contract in 2023  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX is seeking to deploy Starlink satellite internet terminals to help accelerate an upgrade …
Arjun Sha / Beebom:
Microsoft quietly launched free, ad-supported desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows, with banner and video ads and limited functionality  —  In Short  — Microsoft has quietly introduced a free ad-supported Office that brings access to desktop Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without any subscription.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Sweden-based Lovable, an AI-powered app builder, raised a $15M pre-Series A led by Creandum following a €6.8M pre-seed, says it has 500K users and $17M in ARR  —  Using generative AI to create software has been possibly the largest use case since it first appeared a couple years ago.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out unlimited access to Voice and Think Deeper, powered by Open AI's o1 model, to all Copilot users for free  —  You won't hit any limits using OpenAI's o1 reasoning model inside Copilot anymore. … Microsoft made OpenAI's o1 reasoning model free for all Copilot users last month …
More: PCWorld, Microsoft, and BGR
Bloomberg:
Sources: Italy wants to replace STMicro CEO Jean-Marc Chéry for poor performance, as the Franco-Italian chipmaker struggles to navigate a slump in chip demand  —  Italy's government wants to replace Jean-Marc Chéry, the man at the helm of Franco-Italian chipmaking joint-venture STMicroelectronics NV, for poor performance.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Epic v. Apple: Phil Schiller says he initially feared Apple's 27% App Store fee posed a compliance risk and could create “antagonistic” developer relations  —  Apple Fellow Phil Schiller, the executive in charge of leading the App Store, testified in court on Monday …

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Earlier Picks

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NBC News:
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