Techmeme
March 5, 2025, 4:10 PM

Top News

Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge:
Apple updates the $999+ 13" and $1,199+ 15" MacBook Air with an M4, offering a 10-core CPU and an 8-core GPU, and a blue color option, shipping from March 12  —  Upgrades at a lower cost.  I'll take it. … Apple just updated the MacBook Air with an M4 processor, a new sky blue color option …
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Apple updates the Mac Studio with an M4 Max for $1,999+ and an M3 Ultra for $3,999+, with up to 32 cores, including 24 performance cores, shipping from March 12  —  Two generations of Apple silicon, one computer.  —  After over a year and a half, Apple is updating the Mac Studio …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
After announcing the M3 Ultra, Apple says not every M chip generation will get an Ultra tier, suggesting the company will skip the M4 Ultra  —  It could explain why we're getting an M3 Ultra this deep into the M4 rollout.  —  Apple's first Mac Studio refresh in nearly two years is a welcome update …
Andrew E. Freedman / Tom's Hardware:
Apple debuts the M3 Ultra, built from two 3nm M3 Max chips, with Thunderbolt 5, an UltraFusion packaging architecture, an 80-core GPU, and up to 512GB of memory  —  When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. … Apple has a new powerhouse computer ready to go.
Jack Greenberg / YouTube Official Blog:
YouTube debuts an $8/month Premium Lite tier in the US, offering most videos ad-free and music with ads, and plans to launch in Thailand, Germany, and Australia  —  Today we'll begin expanding our Premium Lite pilot to users in the US.  Premium Lite gives viewers a new …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Digg co-founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian are relaunching Digg, after acquiring the site from Money Group for an undisclosed sum  —  Two decades after creating Digg, a community-focused social message board, Kevin Rose is reviving the site and teaming up with a founder of Reddit.
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Reinforcement learning pioneers Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton win the 2024 Turing Award; their work contributed to the rise of AI, like AlphaGo and ChatGPT  —  Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton developed reinforcement learning, a technique vital to chatbots like ChatGPT.
Financial Times:
Turing winners Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton warn over unsafe deployment of AI, saying releasing models “without safeguards is not good engineering practice”  —  Two pioneers of reinforcement learning have won the $1mn prize from the Association for Computing Machinery
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out an experimental AI Mode in Google Search, designed to let users ask complex, multi-part questions, to Google One AI Premium subscribers  —  Google is launching a new “AI Mode” experimental feature in Search that looks to take on popular services like Perplexity AI and OpenAI's ChatGPT Search.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
The DOJ charges 12 Chinese nationals, including PRC staff, alleging an espionage campaign hit US state and federal agencies, like the Treasury, and other orgs  —  The Justice Department claims 10 alleged hackers and two eChinese government officials took part in a wave of cyberattacks around …
Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Microsoft says China-linked hacking group Silk Typhoon was targeting remote management tools and cloud apps to steal data keys in the US and abroad in late 2024  —  - ‘Silk Typhoon’ group previously blamed in Treasury breach  — Attackers hunting for details on US policy, investigations
The Information:
Source: OpenAI told some investors about plans for new agents: $2,000/month for knowledge work, a $10K/month for coding, and $20K/month for PhD-level research  —  OpenAI is betting big on ChatGPT, which is generating at least $4 billion in annualized revenue.
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Sesame's AI speech model demo has many users expressing astonishment at its realism, with some testers reporting an emotional connection to the voice assistant  —  In late 2013, the Spike Jonze film Her imagined a future where people would form emotional connections with AI voice assistants.
Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
While addressing Congress, President Trump calls to “get rid” of the $52B CHIPS and Science Act and use the leftover amount to “reduce debt or any other reason”  —  President Donald Trump called for an end to a landmark $52 billion semiconductor subsidy program that's spurred …
Sebastian Sinclair / Decrypt:
Yuga Labs, creator of BAYC NFTs, says the US SEC closed its investigation into the startup without taking enforcement action and that “NFTs are not securities”  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has closed its investigation into Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club …
Jason Shubnell / The Block:
Upmanyu Trivedi / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA clears Microsoft's $13B OpenAI investment in 2023, ending 14 months of uncertainty over the deal, but says “Microsoft did acquire material influence”  —  - The 2023 deal did not result in change of control over OpenAI  — CMA's decision comes after 14 months of scrutiny of the tie-up
Tom Warren / The Verge:
AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT review: 16GB of VRAM, FSR 4, and lower power draw than prior Radeon cards, but no AMD reference design and they are bulky cards  —  Nvidia's dominance over the latest generation of graphics cards ends today.  AMD might have surrendered the high end of the GPU market …
Ezra Klein / New York Times:
Q&A with ex-White House AI adviser Ben Buchanan on the Biden administration, AGI, OpenAI's Deep Research, the US labor market, China, hacks, AI labs, and more  —  This is an edited transcript of an episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.”  You can listen to the conversation by following …
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
A look at the LA Times' AI “Insights”: much of the cited sourcing wouldn't pass scrutiny in a newsroom or a classroom, and the political labels can be confusing  —  The hope: The L.A. Times will appear more “objective” if it presents both sides of an issue, even if one side's written …

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:
5 reasons why digital signatures are a must-have for small and medium enterprises  —  Every morning, Hazel stops by her favorite corner cafe, where the barista already knows her order—a double espresso, no sugar.
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:
Mooooaaar Models!
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How Trump's tariffs actually work on the ground
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Great Chat:
Imposter syndrome is due for a rebrand
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to make money in Washington, with Punchbowl's Jake Sherman
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Spotlight On:
*RSA Preview* 1Password's Jeff Shiner on balancing B2B and B2C customers in a rapidly evolving tech landscape
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Invest Like the Best:
Neil Mehta - Finding Future S&P 500 Companies
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:10 PM ET, March 5, 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

Financial Times:
Hayden Field / CNBC: