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Techmeme
July 25, 2025, 8:30 PM

Top News

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Meta will no longer accept political, election, or social issue ads in the EU from October, like Google, with both citing incoming regulation  —  Meta on Friday said starting in October it will no longer accept political, election or social issue ads in the European Union …
NBC News:
Tea says hackers accessed a database from more than two years ago, leaking 72,000 images, including 13,000 verification photos and images of government IDs  —  The viral app requires new users to take selfies, which it says it deletes after review.  —  Hackers have breached the Tea app …
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Angela Yang / NBC News:
Ina Fried / Axios:
Mark Zuckerberg names Shengjia Zhao, the former OpenAI researcher who co-created ChatGPT, as chief scientist at Meta's new superintelligence lab  —  Shengjia Zhao — formerly of OpenAI — will be chief scientist at Meta's new Superintelligence Lab, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Threads on Friday.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is investigating whether a leak in its early alert system for cybersecurity companies let Chinese hackers exploit SharePoint flaws  —  A program to share information with cybersecurity companies may have exposed unpatched flaws in the company's SharePoint service.
Reuters:
Michael Acton / Financial Times:
Morgan Sung / KQED:
Sen. Alex Padilla grants the Internet Archive federal depository status, making it a part of a network of over 1,100 libraries that archive government documents  —  The San Francisco-based Internet Archive now has federal depository status, joining a network of over 1,100 libraries …
Wired:
The UK starts enforcing new online child safety laws, requiring websites that host porn, self-harm, suicide, and eating disorder content to verify users' age  —  Starting today, UK adults will have to prove their age to access porn online.  Experts warn that a global wave of age-check laws threatens …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft previews Copilot Appearance, a virtual character with real-time expressions, voice, and conversational memory, for some users in the US, UK, Canada  —  Microsoft has a new Copilot Appearance virtual character that responds with real-time expressions.
The Information:
Sources: Ramp is in talks to raise $350M led by Iconiq at a ~$21B valuation, after raising $200M at a $16B valuation in June  —  Ramp, a six-year-old corporate card and expense management startup, is in discussions with investors to raise $350 million at a valuation of about $21 billion with the investment …
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Sources: GPT-5 shows improved performance in coding, particularly in practical software engineering tasks, outperforming prior OpenAI models and Claude Sonnet 4  —  GPT-5 is almost here, and we're hearing good things.  The early reaction from at least one person who's used the unreleased version was extremely positive.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Google is testing a vibe-coding tool called Opal that lets users create mini web apps using text prompts or remix existing apps, available in the US via Labs  —  AI-powered coding tools have become so popular over the past few months that almost every major tech company is either using one or making its own.
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Emma Haidar / Bloomberg:
Recent grads and PhDs are being recruited by AI companies like Handshake to provide specialized training data in fields like music and law for $30-$160 per hour  —  Ever since he picked up a trombone in middle school, Jackson Spellman has wanted to pursue a career in music.
Financial Times:
Bluesky: @shlead, @mims, @dannygroner, and @jessefelderLinkedIn: Benjamin SteveninForums: Slashdot

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Warp:
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Lauren Goode / Wired:
Tom Warren / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Meir Orbach / CTech:
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: