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Techmeme
March 17, 2025, 3:25 PM
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Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Users report that Gemini 2.0 Flash is very good at removing watermarks from images; many models allow this but some, like Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4o, do not  —  Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google's new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images …
New York Times:
HR service Rippling sues Deel, accusing its rival of hiring a mole in its Dublin office to comb through trade secrets, uncovered via a “honeypot” Slack channel  —  A lawsuit by Rippling accuses a top competitor, Deel, of placing a mole in its ranks — which it uncovered via a “honeypot” trap on Slack.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Open letter: ~100 EU companies urge EU lawmakers to take “radical action” to shrink the reliance on foreign infrastructure by fostering a so-called “Euro stack”  —  A broad coalition drawn from across the ranks of Europe's tech industry is calling for “radical action” …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Roblox open sources Cube 3D, the first version of its AI foundation model for generating 3D objects, trained on licensed and public datasets and its own data  —  The model, Cube 3D, creates 3D models from a text prompt. … Roblox is launching and open-sourcing Cube 3D …
Stephen Morris / Financial Times:
Alphabet spins off laser-based internet company Taara from its X “moonshot” incubator; Taara, which raised new funding, has its origins in Loon, closed in 2021  —  Taara start-up aims to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink to connect remote areas to the internet using light beams
Mike Pastore / Search Engine Land:
Adobe: traffic from AI sources to US retail sites in February rose 1,200% from July 2024; 39% of US consumers used generative AI for shopping, 53% plan to do so  —  Traffic from generative AI surged to U.S. retail sites over the holiday season and that trend has continued into 2025, according to new Adobe data.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Discord launches a Social SDK to let developers offer friends lists, cross-platform messaging, voice, and more, with console and mobile support “coming soon”  —  An easier way to connect with Discord friends. … Discord is launching a way for developers to directly integrate …
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
AI slop, shared by thousands of prolific accounts, is brute forcing virality, and platforms like Meta embrace it; some AI videos get 350M+ views  —  Consider, for a moment, that this AI-generated video of a bizarre creature turning into a spider, turning into a nightmare giraffe inside of a busy mall has been viewed 362 million times.
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Zoom unveils AI Companion 2.0, which adds agentic AI features, including calendar management, meeting tools, and document creation, rolling out by July 2025  —  Zoom became a household name during the pandemic as remote work became the norm nearly overnight.
Hugh Son / CNBC:
Walmart's OnePay says Klarna will replace Affirm to offer buy-now-pay-later to US shoppers later in 2025, and OnePay can buy a Klarna stake; AFRM drops 10%+  —  Swedish fintech firm Klarna will be the exclusive provider of buy now, pay later loans for Walmart, taking a coveted partnership away from rival Affirm, CNBC has learned.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:25 PM ET, March 17, 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.

From Mediagazer

The Wrap:
VOA director Michael Abramowitz condemns its shutdown, says Trump is “failing to protect US interests”; others say shutting VOA is a “national security issue”

Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says Conan O'Brien will reprise his Oscar hosting duties in 2026, one of the earliest renewals for an Oscar host

Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Trump praises Jeff Bezos for changes at WaPo, says he doesn't think media's treatment of him has changed so far, but he sees a shift among tech giants

More News

Daryna Antoniuk / The Record:
Telegram's Pavel Durov has left France, reportedly after a judge authorized him to leave the country for “several weeks”; the investigation is ongoing
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
Crypto exchange OKX says it has “temporarily” suspended its DEX aggregator services, used to launder the $1.5B Bybit hack, after reported EU scrutiny under MiCA

Earlier Picks

Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian:
How Elon Musk targeted 18F, as former employees say the GSA group focused on increasing bureaucratic efficiency through tech, similar to what DOGE claims to do
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Ofcom will enforce rules under the UK's Online Safety Act, designed to protect internet users from illegal content and harmful activity online, from March 17
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