Techmeme
April 15, 2025, 5:00 PM

Top News

The Verge:
Sources: OpenAI is in the early stages of building its own X-like social network, focused on ChatGPT image generation, and is asking some outsiders for feedback  —  Is Sam Altman ready to up his rivalry with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg? … OpenAI is working on its own X-like social network …
Bloomberg:
FTC v. Meta: Mark Zuckerberg testified about his acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, including a 2012 email exchange rationalizing the apps' acquisition  —  - Meta CEO asked in email if deal may ‘neutralize a competitor’  — FTC claims acquisitions created a social networking monopoly
Bloomberg:
A 2018 email from Mark Zuckerberg explored spinning off Instagram; he testified his thinking at the time took into account where politics seemed to be going  —  Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram into a separate company in 2018 as he increasingly became concerned that the photo …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Mark Zuckerberg's $1B Instagram and $19B WhatsApp deals, central to the FTC's antitrust case, were mocked at the time, and the trial hinges on hypotheticals  —  Meta's antitrust trial, in which the government contends the company killed competition by buying young rivals …
Reuters:
Chinese state media: police in Harbin accuse the NSA of launching “advanced” cyberattacks during the Asian Winter Games in February 2025 and name three agents  —  Chinese police in the northeastern city of Harbin have accused the United States National Security Agency (NSA) …
Ben Sherry / Inc:
Anthropic's Claude adds Research, capable of searching the web and internal documents to give comprehensive answers, in beta for Max, Team, Enterprise plans  —  The integration should make Claude even more effective as a virtual assistant.  Plus, there's a new ‘Research’ mode.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google rolls out its text-to-video AI model Veo 2 to Gemini Advanced subscribers and makes its Whisk Animate tool available for Google One AI Premium users  —  A new Whisk Animate tool is coming to Google One AI Premium users, as well. … Google is letting Gemini Advanced subscribers try out Veo 2 …
Bloomberg:
Sources: activist investor Elliott has built a position worth $1.5B+ in HPE, making it one of the company's top five shareholders; HPE is down ~30% in 2025  —  Elliott Investment Management has built a large position worth more than $1.5 billion in Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., according to people familiar with the matter.
Jenna McLaughlin / NPR:
Whistleblower: at NLRB, DOGE staff disabled monitoring tools, deleted logs, one worked on “NxGenBdoorExtract”; one DOGE account tried to log in via a Russian IP  —  In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived …
Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware:
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Japan's FTC orders Google to stop alleged abuse of its market power over local smartphone manufacturers, ahead of high-stakes US trade negotiations this week  —  Japan's Fair Trade Commission ordered Alphabet Inc.'s Google to stop alleged abuse of its market power over local smartphone manufacturers …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out a Play services update, including an Android security feature to auto-reboot phones and tablets that are “locked for three consecutive days”  —  With the latest Google Play services update, Android is rolling out a new security feature that automatically restarts …
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
4chan is down after an apparent hack late on April 14; an Imgur post seems to show a hacker gained shell access to 4chan's hosting server and doxxed some users  —  More like 404chan, amirite?  —  4chan, the controversial forum known for birthing early meme culture and Gamergate, is down, following an apparent hack.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nvidia unveils its RTX 5060 family, including the RTX 5060 Ti with 4,608 CUDA cores for $379 with 8GB of VRAM or $429 for 16GB of VRAM, launching on April 16  —  The $299 RTX 5060 is also releasing in May to give PC gamers more GPU options. … Nvidia is announcing its RTX 5060 family of GPUs today …
Wall Street Journal:
Nvidia's $500B US spending plan follows a familiar pattern of companies trying to please President Trump and offers few details on what AI gear would be US-made  —  The chip maker's plan to build AI tech in Texas comes on the heels of a new tariff threat  —  Chip maker Nvidia unveiled plans Monday …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Sponsor Posts

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.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
How to turn employees into your brand's biggest supporters  —  Turning your employees into your brand's biggest advocates is one of the most powerful ways to grow your brand.  When employees feel connected to your mission …
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:
Zuck Trying To Make Fetch Happen
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:
Is Google Breaking Up? + Seasteading Is Back + Tool Time
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 Logan Bartlett Show:
Blake Scholl (Founder and CEO, Boom Supersonic) on Why Supersonic Flight Failed & How Boom is Bringing it Back
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
BG2 Pod:
Tariffs, Free Trade, Export Controls, H20 & Rare Earth Ban
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
Founders need prenups, too
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:00 PM ET, April 15, 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

David Pierce / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
Reuters: