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, 9:25 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 the exchange is selling unregistered securities; Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal 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 …
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
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
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.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
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

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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
 Big Meta/Anduril Deal Is A Big Deal
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
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.
Hard Fork:
 The A.I. Jobpocalypse + Building at Anthropic with Mike Krieger + Hard Fork Crimes Division
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.
Add your postcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:25 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

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

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

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

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”

Earlier Picks

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple Intelligence features, such as Writing Tools, are no longer available in Meta's iOS apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads
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