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March 17, 2025, 8:35 PM
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Top News

Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for ~$30B; Alphabet was close to a $23B deal for Wiz last summer before talks ended  —  A deal worth some $30 billion could come together soon, after talks fizzled last summer  —  Google parent Alphabet …
Qianer Liu / The Information:
Sources: Google plans to partner with Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek to design and produce its next-gen TPUs, set for 2026, but will still work with Broadcom  —  Google plans to work with a new firm to help design and produce some of its artificial intelligence chips: MediaTek.
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.
Zhiye Liu / Tom's Hardware:
Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, G2 Gen 2, and G1 Gen 2 for gaming handhelds, saying the G3 Gen 3 offers a CPU 30% faster than the previous generation  —  Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, Snapdragon G2 Gen 2, and Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 enter the ring.  —  Qualcomm expanded its Snapdragon G series …
Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Sources: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered restructuring Intel's AI approach and cutting staff to address a slow and bloated middle management layer  —  Intel's incoming CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered significant changes to its chip manufacturing methods and artificial intelligence strategies ahead …
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Some owners of devices running Roku OS report seeing autoplaying video ads before they can access the home screen; Roku says it is just a test  —  Now, Roku is testing what it might look like if it took things a step further and forced people to watch a video ad play before getting to the Roku OS home screen.
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
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 …
Andrew Liszewski / The Verge:
Snap updates Spectacles AR glasses to add GPS support for Lenses, improved hand tracking, an AR keyboard, and more  —  The augmented reality smart glasses can now point you in the right direction. … Lenses — what Snap calls the Spectacles' various AR effects …
Karen Freifeld / Reuters:
Sources: US Commerce Department bureaus informed staffers in recent weeks that DeepSeek is banned on their government devices  —  U.S. Commerce department bureaus informed staffers in recent weeks that Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek is banned on their government devices …
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Mistral debuts Mistral Small 3.1, a 24B-parameter multimodal and multilingual open-source model it says outperforms Gemma 3 and GPT-4o-mini and runs on 32GB RAM  —  French artificial-intelligence startup Mistral AI unveiled a new open-source model today that the company says outperforms similar offerings …
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
Robinhood partners with Kalshi to launch a prediction markets hub in the US for retail traders, starting with bets on the federal funds rate and March Madness  —  Prediction markets have grown in popularity among investors, spurred on by the surge of wagers ahead of the November US presidential race …
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 …
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.
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.
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 …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:35 PM ET, March 17, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Nectar Gan / CNN:
Chinese nationalists and state media praise Trump's decision to dismantle VOA, RFA, and other US-funded media outlets that broadcast to authoritarian regimes

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

Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
UMG files a motion to dismiss Drake's lawsuit, says he's suing because he “lost a rap battle” with Kendrick Lamar and took legal action to “salve his wounds”

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
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

Earlier Picks

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
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
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”
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