Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise
Techmeme
April 18, 2025, 8:40 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Get our daily newsletter and never miss a story!   ⓧ Newsletter

Top News

The Verge:
Nintendo says Switch 2 preorders will start in the US on April 24, with the price staying at the initially announced $450; prices of accessories will go up  —  The company delayed its original preorder date in the US. … Nintendo has announced a new date for when Switch 2 preorders will kick off in the US; April 24th.
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Memo: CEO Lip-Bu Tan flattens Intel's leadership team, with important semiconductor groups reporting directly to him, and names Sachin Katti as CTO and AI chief  —  Intel's (INTC.O) new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, is flattening the semiconductor giant's leadership team, with important chip groups reporting directly …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the EU planned to penalize Meta and Apple on April 15 but delayed the announcement, avoiding conflict with the Trump administration before trade talks  —  Officials postponed an announcement initially planned for this week  —  The European Union recently delayed penalizing Apple …
Vince Quill / Cointelegraph:
Oregon sues Coinbase, alleging it's selling unregistered securities; Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer says it's a “copycat case” of SEC's now-dropped lawsuit  —  While winning legal victories at the federal level, the crypto industry still faces regulatory hurdles at the state level in the United States.
Erin Woo / The Information:
A look at Google's efforts to improve Search with AI; sources: its leaders have struggled to articulate a vision for how they want Search features to evolve  —  Next week, a federal judge will start the process of determining how to fix Google's search engine, which he ruled last summer was an illegal monopoly.
Douglas Gillison / Reuters:
A US judge temporarily halts mass firings at the US CFPB after the agency fired between 1,400 and 1,500 workers, eliminating as much as 90% of its workforce  —  A federal judge on Friday halted the mass firings carried out Thursday afternoon at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau …
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Experts say two federal judges declaring Google a monopoly within a year signals a judicial shift toward addressing anticompetitive behavior in digital markets  —  Within a year, two federal judges declared the tech giant a monopoly in search and ad technology.  The tide may be turning for antitrust.
Bloomberg:
In her ruling, Judge Brinkema says Google did not meet the monopoly definition for tools used to buy display ads, but did for ad exchanges and website ad tools
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI says its new o3 and o4-mini AI models hallucinate more often than its previous reasoning and traditional models, and the company doesn't know why  —  OpenAI's recently launched o3 and o4-mini AI models are state-of-the-art in many respects.  However, the new models still hallucinate …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
ChatGPT users are figuring out the location of photos using o3's image-analyzing capabilities paired with its web search functionality, raising privacy concerns
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
US consumers are flocking to Chinese shopping apps DHgate and Taobao, which let them buy direct from manufacturers, as Shein and Temu prices rise amid tariffs  —  The Chinese e-commerce marketplace app DHgate, which is now the No. 2 free iPhone app in the U.S., isn't the only one that's oddly benefiting …
Matthew Gault / 404 Media:
A Nevada judge rules that “tower dumps”, the law enforcement practice of grabbing vast troves of private personal data from cell towers, is unconstitutional  —  This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records.
IDC:
China's Q1 2025 smartphone shipments grew 3.3% YoY to 71.6M units; Xiaomi led with 18.6% market share, Apple was the only foreign brand in top 5 with 13.7%  —  Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, China's smartphone market shipped 71.6 million units in 1Q25, a 3.3% year-on-year (YoY) increase.

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:
WhatsApp-CRM: Drive business growth with efficient customer communication  —  This is a guest post by WAPlus.For many businesses, WhatsApp has become an indispensable channel for customer communication.
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:
 State Of The AI Coding Landgrab
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
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
 Tyler Cowen on how AI will reorder economies, schools, and spirituality
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Bluesky Wasn't Supposed to be a Twitter Rival. Now It Is.
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.
Invest Like the Best:
 John Zito - Inside Apollo
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Spotlight On:
 Vercel's Guillermo Rauch on bold visions for the future delivered incrementally
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
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.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:40 PM ET, April 18, 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

Peter White / Deadline:
Sources: WBD initiates a round of layoffs in its cable TV divisions, affecting well under 100 employees and largely impacting the Discovery side of the company

Max Tani / Semafor:
UnitedHealthcare sues The Guardian for defamation over a May 21 story about nursing home cost-cutting, accusing the outlet of capitalizing on its CEO's killing

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Newsweek acquires adtech firm Adprime, a demand-side platform focused on healthcare marketers, to strengthen its health vertical and grow B2B revenue

More News

The Information:
Sources: Meta asked Microsoft, Amazon, and others over the past year to fund Llama training costs in exchange for incentives, as part of a “Llama Consortium”
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple Intelligence features, such as Writing Tools, are no longer available in Meta's iOS apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads

Earlier Picks

Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica:
Google rolls out Gemini 2.5 Flash in preview, with support for Canvas for working on text or code; developers can disable thinking or set a token limit for it
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google is offering its Google One AI Premium plan for free to US college students until spring 2026; students have until June 30, 2025, to sign up
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter