Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise
Techmeme
March 17, 2025, 8:35 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Get our daily newsletter and never miss a story!   ⓧ Newsletter

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 …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
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:
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 …
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.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
 How DoorDash Has Quietly Been Killing It
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Sponsor this podcast
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
 Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wants to build the everything app
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
 Bret Taylor's Journey Leading Salesforce, Sierra & OpenAI
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
 The Steve Ballmer Interview
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
 Why Uber's CPO delivers food on weekends | Sachin Kansal
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
The Social Radars:
 Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:35 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

Max Tani / Semafor:
Sources: in May 2024, Business Insider sent some staff a recommended reading list that included seemingly AI-generated books that did not appear to exist

Ally Jarmanning / New Hampshire Public Radio:
The US charges addiction treatment network founder Eric Spofford with orchestrating vandalism at NHPR reporters' homes after a report into alleged sexual abuse

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Taylor Swift is the most business-savvy artist alive, reacquiring her music by driving negotiations between major music groups, streamers, and social networks

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”
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter