Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise
Techmeme
February 20, 2025, 2:40 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Get our daily newsletter and never miss a story!   ⓧ Newsletter

Top News

Kate Rooney / CNBC:
OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap says the company hit 400M weekly active users in February 2025, up from 300M in December 2024, and 2M paying enterprise customers  —  OpenAI appears to be growing quickly despite increasing competition.  —  The San Francisco-based tech company had 400 million weekly active users …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Amazon plans to discontinue its Appstore for Android and its Coins digital currency, used to purchase games and apps, on August 20, 2025  —  Amazon will discontinue its app store for Android on August 20 this year.  The company sent a notice to developers indicating that they will no longer be able to submit new apps to the store.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Global Witness: ahead of German elections, TikTok's and X's For You feeds showed a substantial far-right bias; 78% of TikTok's recommendations supported the AfD  —  Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias …
Matt Novak / Gizmodo:
Elon Musk says he will “fix” Community Notes as they are “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media”, after disagreeing with notes about Ukraine  —  The billionaire has a history of manipulating X to fit his far-right worldview.
Wired:
Investigation: Google's Display & Video 360 ad platform lets users target Americans' sensitive personal data, despite Google's rules against such practices  —  Google enables marketers to target people with serious illnesses and crushing debt—against its policies—as well as the makers …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Spotify begins accepting AI-narrated audiobooks recorded using ElevenLabs software; Spotify already allows AI-recorded audiobooks, with several restrictions  —  A new ElevenLabs partnership aims to help authors bring AI-narrated audiobooks to Spotify listeners.
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
Palantir's stock fell 10% on February 19 after the WaPo reported US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to cut military spending; PLTR is up 50%+ in 2025  —  - Spending shift would affect 8% of US defense spending  — AI-focused Palantir has become major government contractor
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
CISA and the FBI: attackers deploying Ghost ransomware breached victims from multiple industry sectors across 70+ countries, including critical infrastructure  —  CISA and the FBI said attackers deploying Ghost ransomware have breached victims from multiple industry sectors across over 70 countries …
Nikkei Asia:
Tokyo-based Sakana AI details its AI CUDA Engineer, which it says can speed up AI training and inference by 10x to 100x by “breeding” efficient instructions  —  TOKYO — Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI says it has developed a system capable of accelerating artificial intelligence development …
Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: top X executives hinted to Interpublic and other ad firms that not spending on X could lead to legal woes, due to X's lawsuit against some advertisers
Pew Research Center:
US survey: views of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk tilt negative; Democrats and Republicans view Zuckerberg unfavorably; Musk is polarizing along party lines  —  Americans' views of two prominent tech executives - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - tilt more negative than positive.
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The US SEC announces the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit to protect investors from bad actors in crypto and AI, replacing the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit  —  - The agency announced the new unit on Thursday, calling it the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, or CETU.
Kim Zetter / Wired:
Source: 19-year-old Edward Coristine and Kyle Schutt, both DOGE engineers, are now on staff at the CISA; Coristine was briefly an intern for Neuralink  —  DOGE technologists Edward Coristine—the 19-year-old known online as “Big Balls”—and Kyle Schutt are now listed as staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
RT Watson / The Block:
Nansen: 86% of traders lost $251M in total on the Solana memecoin Libra that Argentine President Milei promoted, while the remaining traders profited $180M  —  - Citing onchain data, Nansen Research said that through Tuesday, 86% of traders lost a total of $251 million on the LIBRA token …
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson announces an inquiry into “Big Tech censorship”, which he says is “un-American” and “potentially illegal”  —  - FTC Chair Ferguson invites public comment about tech platforms  — Conservatives claim ideas, affiliations have been censored

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Back your gut feeling with behavioral assessments  —  Imagine someone gives you a mystery box.  What's the first thing you'd do?  You'd likely assess the box and try to predict what is inside.
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

Spotlight On:
 Graphite's Merrill Lutsky on Revolutionizing Code Review for the AI Era
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Techmeme Ride Home:
 OpenAI Closes The Biggest Private Tech Round Ever
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
Invest Like the Best:
 Darren Farber - The Business of Defense
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
 CEO Matt Bromberg on ending Unity's 'war' against its customers
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Diggnation:
 GTA 6, Helicopter Joysticks, AI Psychics, and Live Show Regret
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht give you their unique, sometimes awkward, and always hilarious take on the edges of the internet.
Subscribe to Diggnation.
Grit:
 From India to Silicon Valley: The Jay Chaudhry & Zscaler Story
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Add your postcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:40 PM ET, February 20, 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

CNBC:
Newsmax shares jumped 179% on Tuesday and have risen 1,500%+ since their Monday debut, bringing the company's market cap to ~$20.8B, above WBD's and Fox Corp's

Stephen Battaglio / Los Angeles Times:
Steve Kornacki signs a deal with NBC News and NBC Sports and departs from MSNBC, which Comcast is spinning off into a new corporate entity

American Journalism Project:
John Thornton, founder of The Texas Tribune, co-founder of the American Journalism Project, and venture capitalist, has died at age 59

More News

Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Oppo launches the Find N5, the world's thinnest foldable at 8.93mm closed and 4.21mm open, with IPX6, X8, and X9 ratings, in Europe and Asia for ~$1,870

Earlier Picks

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google is removing Gemini support from the main Google app on iOS, pushing users to download the standalone Gemini app that launched in November 2024
Andy Chalk / PC Gamer:
Valve releases a Team Fortress 2 SDK with the game's client and server code, letting users build new Team Fortress 2-based games licensed for non-commercial use
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Muse AI, a first-of-its-kind generative AI model that can generate a game environment based on visuals, players' controller actions, or both
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter