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February 19, 2025, 10:25 AM
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Top News

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
HP plans to acquire assets from Humane for $116M, wind down Humane's Ai Pin business, and add Humane's team, including its founders, as an AI-focused division  —  - Humane's Ai pin business to be wound down after rocky launch  — New unit at HP will focus on implementation of AI in devices
Aaron Souppouris / Engadget:
Humane says Ai Pin's online features will stop working at 12PM PT on February 28, when it will delete all customer data, and it will refund some newer customers  —  Humane is discontinuing the AI Pin and selling out to HP.  —  AI hardware startup Humane has given its users just ten (10!) …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Signal updates its app with phishing protections after Google warned Russia-linked hackers are using fake QR codes for group invites to trick Ukrainian soldiers  —  Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages.
VentureBeat:
Sources: Chinese game publisher NetEase has been directed to divest its overseas holdings, starting with hit game Marvel Rivals, which laid off its Seattle team  —  Chinese game publisher NetEase raised fears with recent moves that it is unloading as much as all of its overseas holdings …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Niantic is in talks to sell its video games unit to Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely for ~$3.5B; the deal would include Pokémon Go and its other mobile games  —  A deal could be announced in coming weeks.  The price being discussed is about $3.5 billion, according to one of the people.
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
Source: in text messages, Libra co-creator Hayden Davis bragged he could “control” Argentine President Javier Milei by making payments to Milei's sister, Karina  —  A key player behind the Libra token bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei's inner circle months …
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Solana has lost ~25% of its market value, or ~$20B, since February 14 after Argentine President Javier Milei drew criticism for promoting Solana memecoin Libra
Emilia David / VentureBeat:
OpenAI researchers, using the SWE-Lancer benchmark, find that real-world freelance software engineering work remains challenging for frontier language models  —  Large language models (LLMs) may have changed software development, but enterprises will need to think twice about entirely replacing …
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Sources: X is in talks to raise funds at a $44B valuation, matching the price Elon Musk paid for Twitter in 2022, as his proximity to Trump alters X's prospects  —  - Valuation is the same as Musk's 2022 Twitter acquisition  — Billionaire has recently tapped private markets for big sums
Ina Fried / Axios:
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announces Thinking Machines Lab, a new AI startup that she's leading, with Barret Zoph as CTO and John Schulman as chief scientist  —  - “Instead of focusing solely on making fully autonomous AI systems, we are excited to build multimodal systems that work …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
French privacy startup Murena unveils the €539 Murena Pixel Tablet, running its open-source, forked /e/OS, after releasing a “deGoogled” smartphone in 2023  —  Murena, the French privacy firm that's forked Android to deliver so-called deGoogled smartphones, has repeated the trick with a tablet.
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Intel shares closed up 16.1% following a February 15 report that both Broadcom and TSMC are potentially weighing deals that could break the chipmaker in two  —  Intel shares rallied 16.1% on Tuesday following a Wall Street Journal report that both Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Silver Lake is in exclusive, advanced talks to acquire a majority stake in Intel's Altera unit; Intel bought Altera for ~$17B in 2015
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti review: a capable GPU for 4K gaming, DLSS 4 multi-frame gen, and runs cool, but prices fluctuate wildly and $750 is expensive for mid-range  —  But good luck finding one at that price.  —  It's honestly difficult to remember the simpler days of video card shopping …
Reuters:
President Trump says tariffs on semiconductors would start at “25% or higher” and that he planned to provide some time for chip makers to set up US factories  —  U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he intends to impose auto tariffs “in the neighborhood of 25%” …
Bloomberg:
Internal documents, emails, and federal data suggest Indian IT giant TCS has used L-1A manager visas in ways that raise concerns about undercutting US workers  —  New data show how TCS makes heavy use of employment visas reserved for managers.  Ex-staffers say it was to get around H-1B rules.
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
Asus ROG Flow Z13 review: the ~$2,300 convertible tablet's integrated GPU in its AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip offers performance comparable to a GeForce RTX 4060  —  Looking at this thing, you might expect to see it propped up at an airport bar, in front of somebody talking into wireless headphones about Tim in Product.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:25 AM ET, February 19, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sources: New York Sun owner Dovid Efune is launching a new “British bid” to buy The Telegraph with backing from Brexit backer Jeremy Hosking and Nadhim Zahawi

Washington Post:
More than 500 Voice of America contractors are expected to lose their jobs by June 30; Kari Lake says 584 total employees were terminated across USAGM

Financial Times:
Sources: BT is in advanced talks to sell its 50% stake in TNT Sports UK to WBD, its joint venture partner, and could announce the deal as early as next week

More News

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Play Books for iOS now lets users complete their e-book or audiobook purchase on the Google Play website, under Apple's “reader apps” exception
José Adorno / BGR:
Protector, an iOS app that offers on-demand personal security, including armed agents, debuts in NYC and LA; adviser Nikita Bier calls it “Uber with guns”
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Starting on February 19, Meta will store Facebook Live broadcasts for 30 days instead of storing them indefinitely and will remove videos older than 30 days
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