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Techmeme
February 26, 2025, 3:15 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
How hackers of the $1.5B Bybit crypto heist used UI manipulation of employee devices and social engineering to gain control of ETH multisig cold wallets  —  The cryptocurrency industry and those responsible for securing it are still in shock following Friday's heist, likely by North Korea …
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
OpenAI expands Deep Research to ChatGPT Plus, Team, Edu, and Enterprise users, with 10 queries per month; Pro users now have 120 queries per month, up from 100  —  A $200 Pro subscription is no longer required to use the tool.  —  When OpenAI announced Deep Research at start of February …
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
After backlash, YC deletes a demo video from X and LinkedIn of a startup it backs that says it's building AI-powered performance monitoring for factory workers  —  A demo from Optifye.AI, a member of Y Combinator's current cohort, sparked a social media backlash that ended up with YC deleting it off its socials.
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
WBD closes three game studios and cancels a highly anticipated Wonder Woman title in a bid to boost the profitability of its interactive entertainment business  —  - Company halts work on highly anticipated Wonder Woman title  — Closures follow several disappointing releases last year
Andrew E. Freedman / Tom's Hardware:
Framework unveils the Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 300, priced at $1,099 for a pre-built model, and Framework Laptop 12 with a touch screen, price TBA  —  The Framework Laptop 13 is also getting an AMD-based update.  —  Framework is expanding its laptop lineup and getting into desktops.
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Valve's Steam Deck, launched in 2022, has been dominating the handheld PC gaming market, with about 50% market share in 2024, according to IDC  —  Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, MSI Claw: The Steam Deck is bigger than them combined. … Today is the third anniversary of Valve's Steam Deck …
Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk:
Uniswap Labs says the US SEC has closed its probe into the company and will not file enforcement actions, after the SEC dropped OpenSea and Robinhood probes  —  Uniswap celebrated the news on X, calling it a “huge win for DeFi.”  —  What to know: … The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out unlimited access to Voice and Think Deeper, powered by OpenAI'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 …
Rick Whiting / CRN:
IBM plans to acquire DataStax and its cloud database development platform to expand IBM's Watsonx AI portfolio; Crunchbase: DataStax has raised $342.6M  —  IBM said Tuesday it has a deal to acquire DataStax, including that company's database platform, data streaming technology …
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 …
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 …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
xAI released a new Grok 3 voice mode featuring different personalities, including an 18+ “Unhinged” option and a “Sexy” one that role-plays sexual scenarios  —  On Sunday, xAI released a new voice interaction mode for its Grok 3 AI model that is currently available to its premium subscribers.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google releases a free version of Gemini Code Assist for individual users, offering 180K code completions per month; GitHub Copilot's free tier offers 2,000  —  And provides 90 times more monthly code completions than GitHub Copilot's free tier. … A free version of Gemini Code Assist …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Access Now: 54 countries imposed internet shutdowns at least 296 times in 2024, led by Myanmar, displacing India from the top spot for the first time since 2018  —  - “As internet access becomes consistently weaponized, restricted, and precarious, we are seeing pervasive patterns …
Business Insider:
Sources: Mira Murati's new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, is aiming to raise $1B at a ~$9B valuation; the round is in progress and details could change  —  - OpenAI's former CTO, Mira Murati, debuted her new startup, Thinking Machine Labs, last week.  — The startup is aiming …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: in July 2024, Microsoft told top GOP officials that Chinese hackers had accessed the RNC email system for months; the RNC chose not to alert the FBI  —  The previously unreported intrusion came as the Trump campaign was hacked by Iranian operatives
Reuters:
Sources: DeepSeek, which planned to release R2 in May, now wants it out as early as possible; DeepSeek's owner High-Flyer built a ~10K A100 GPU cluster in 2021  —  DeepSeek is looking to press home its advantage.  —  The Chinese startup triggered a $1 trillion-plus sell-off in global equities markets …
More: BGRForums: Slashdot
The Information:
Source: data security company Cohesity plans an employee share sale at an $8B valuation and expects to generate $2.2B in revenue in the 12 months ending in July  —  One of enterprise software's bitter rivalries—between data security firms Rubrik and Cohesity—came to a head last year …

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Google:
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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
Zoho:
AI meeting assistants: A game-changer in communication  —  We've come a long way from live video call demonstrations at world's fairs.  What was once considered a futuristic idea is now a vital part of how we collaborate …
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Earlier Picks

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
Bloomberg: