Techmeme
February 14, 2025, 6:10 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta plans major investment in AI-powered humanoid robots, with an initial focus on household chores, and has formed a new team within Reality Labs  —  - Company is aiming to be the engine powering humanoid market  — Ex-Cruise CEO Marc Whitten to run new group in Reality Labs
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
The doge.gov website tracking Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government pulls from a database that anyone can edit, say two sources who found the vulnerability  —  The doge.gov website that was spun up to track Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government is insecure and pulls from a database …
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: Dell nears a $5B deal to provide servers with Nvidia's GB200 chips for xAI's supercomputer project in Memphis  —  - Musk's AI startup developing supercomputer project in Memphis  — Dell working to win large share of xAI's Memphis build-out  —  Dell Technologies Inc …
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
In an AMA, Steve Huffman says Reddit is planning to roll out paid subreddits in 2025 and is “laying the foundation” to monetize commerce within subreddits  —  Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Instagram is testing a dislike button for comments; Instagram will not show a dislike count and dislikes may eventually count toward ranking comments  —  After users noticed a new button on Instagram to downvote or dislike comments, the company confirmed that it is testing a way for users …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Meta announces Project Waterworth, a subsea cable project that will span over 50,000 km and connect five continents  —  Back in November, we broke the news that Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with billions of users accounting for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mastodon is working on a quote posts feature, which it says is a “source of concern” for some and “highly requested” by others  —  Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts.
Bloomberg:
Source: TSMC is considering taking a controlling stake in Intel's factories at the request of Trump's team; it is unclear whether Intel is open to a transaction  —  - TSMC would take controlling stake in potential partnership  — Administration aims to boost manufacturing of advanced chips
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Sources: around 20 technologists at CFPB were fired on Thursday, gutting a team that specialized in understanding Big Tech's entrance into financial products  —  The terminations leave a gaping hole in the oversight of financial institutions and tech firms venturing into financial technology.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:
Ubisoft reports revenue for the nine months ending December 31, 2024, down 31.4% YoY to €990M, net booking down 34.8% to €944M, but remains optimistic about Q4  —  Firm also experienced a 51.8% drop in net bookings during its third quarter  —  Ubisoft has released its financial results …
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
DOGE's Tom Krause, the US Treasury's new Fiscal Assistant Secretary, is still the CEO of Cloud Software Group; critics say it may be a conflict of interest  —  An email sent to workers at the US Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service said DOGE's Tom Krause is “currently” the CEO of the Cloud Software Group.
Reuters:
Sources: the White House plans to renegotiate some Chips Act awards after changing current requirements, and has signaled delays to some upcoming disbursements  —  The White House is seeking to renegotiate U.S. CHIPS and Science Act awards and has signaled delays to some upcoming semiconductor disbursements …
Taylor Kerns / Android Police:
Google deactivates an Android feature that crowdsources device sensor data to provide earthquake warnings in Brazil after mistakenly sending notifications  —  - Android disabled earthquake alerts in Brazil after mistakenly sending notifications.  — Civil Defense of São Paulo confirmed no earthquakes took place.
Cade Metz / New York Times:
OpenAI's board rejects the $97.4B bid by Elon Musk and a consortium of investors, saying they reject “Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition”  —  Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI's board, said the artificial intelligence company was “not for sale.”

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Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: