Techmeme
March 19, 2025, 3:10 PM

Top News

Barbara Moens / Financial Times:
The EU Commission orders Apple to open iOS to third-party connected devices, and in preliminary findings charges Google with breaking the DMA in search and apps  —  EU continues Big Tech crackdown under landmark Digital Markets Act  —  Brussels is pressing ahead with regulatory action …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Google unveils the $499+ Pixel 9a, with no camera bump, a 48MP rear camera, a 6.3" display, a Tensor G4 chip, and IP68 water resistance, shipping in April 2025  —  Google is confirming what we learned from a slew of leaks. … Google just announced the Pixel 9A, surprising nobody because it's been leaked to all heck.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google says it is “checking on a component quality issue” for the Pixel 9a, delaying its release from March to sometime in April; pre-orders are not yet open  —  Google isn't yet taking preorders for a phone it just announced, which is unusual.  A “small number” of early devices exhibited the unspecified issue.
Sam Rutherford / Engadget:
Financial Times:
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
A three-judge panel in US appeals court ruled, in a case involving AI generated poetry, that the Copyright Act requires human authorship for registration  —  A computer scientist who tried to register an artwork that credited an artificial intelligence system as the sole author lost his appeal on Tuesday.
Dylan Patel / SemiAnalysis:
A look at Nvidia's GTC 2025 announcements, including a focus on addressing pre-training and post-training scaling and inference time scaling working in tandem  —  The Reasoning Token Explosion  —  AI model progress has accelerated tremendously, and in the last six months, models have improved more than in the previous six months.
Tobias Mann / The Register:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google updates Google Wallet to let kids with Android phones tap to pay in stores in the US, the UK, Australia, Spain, and Poland, with parental supervision  —  Google announced on Wednesday that kids with Android phones can now tap to pay at stores using Google Wallet in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, and Poland.
The Citizen Lab:
A look at Israeli spyware company Paragon, which makes Graphite: suspected deployments in Australia, Canada, Israel, and others, a WhatsApp zero-click, and more  —  Key Findings  — Introducing Paragon Solutions.  Paragon Solutions was founded in Israel in 2019 and sells spyware called Graphite.
CoinDesk:
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the US SEC is set to drop its appeal in its case against Ripple, nearing the end of a legal battle over XRP ongoing since 2020  —  Earlier reports said that the long-standing legal battle between Ripple and the agency is nearing its end.  —  What to know:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Plex is increasing Plex Pass prices for the first time in a decade and making remote playback for personal media a paid feature at $1.99/month or $19.99/year  —  Streaming service and software maker Plex is raising its prices.  The company announced on Wednesday its first price increase …
Makena Kelly / Wired:
Current and former FTC staff say the FTC removed 300+ Biden-era business guidance blog posts, including info on AI consumer protection and its Big Tech lawsuits  —  Business-guidance content published during the Biden administration has been removed from the Federal Trade Commission website.
New York Times:
Counterpoint Research:
Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, with Meta's market share hitting 77%; Vision Pro shipments fell 43% QoQ in Q4, but its enterprise sales grew  —  - Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, marking their third consecutive year of declines due to the continued weak consumer demand.
Variety:
Q&A with Netflix's Ted Sarandos on his 25-year anniversary at Netflix, his cameo on Apple TV+ series The Studio, competing with suppliers like Disney, and more  —  In a few weeks, Ted Sarandos will make his acting debut — playing Ted Sarandos.  The co-CEO of Netflix is lampooning himself …
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
Flashpoint: attackers stole 3.2B credentials from organizations in 2024, up 33% YoY, 2.1B of which was via info-stealing malware infecting 23M hosts and devices  —  Inexpensive information-stealing malware surged in 2024, infecting 23 million hosts, according to Flashpoint.  —  Learn more.

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.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
Introducing subflows and outgoing webhooks in Zoho Flow  —  We're excited to announce two powerful additions to Zoho Flow—subflows and outgoing webhooks.  These features are designed to help you build workflows easier …
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:
The Death Of The Blue Screen Of Death
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Hard Fork Live, Part 1: Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap of OpenAI
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Through the Wall Like Kool-Aid Man', With Chance Miller
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Great Chat:
Much ado about acquihires
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.
Diggnation:
A First Look at Digg iOS
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht give you their unique, sometimes awkward, and always hilarious take on the edges of the internet.
Subscribe to Diggnation.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to become a Substack Star with Emily Sundberg
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:10 PM ET, March 19, 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

Akash Sriram / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Harry McCracken / Fast Company: