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
Amazon plans to discontinue its app store 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.
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 …
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
Valve has also released major updates to all Source-engine multiplayer games adding 64-bit support, scalable HUDS, “and a lot of other improvements.”
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.
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
Oppo's Find N5 is the thinnest book-style foldable yet, and it's launching worldwide — but it's another foldable the US just won't get.
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.
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 …
Kuo: all iPhone 17 models will use Apple's in-house Wi-Fi chips, enhancing connectivity and cutting costs; only the slim iPhone 17 will use the C1 modem chip
Apple just launched its brand new C1 modem yesterday with the iPhone 16e. But there's another new Apple-designed chip coming soon …
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 …
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 …
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
Google is informing iOS users that it will be removing Gemini support from the main Google app as it pushes users over to the full Gemini app.
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.
Chinese game giant NetEase reports Q4 net profit up 33% YoY to ~$1.2B, above ~$1.05B est., and revenue down 1.4%, a sign its gaming business is turning around
The company's revenue fell 1.4% but was slightly better than analysts' expectations — Chinese videogame giant NetEase returned …
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
Interpublic recently signed an advertising agreement with the platform; other agencies are also in negotiations
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 …
Rabbit R1 maker Rabbit demos its “generalist Android agent”, showing it controlling apps on a tablet, building on its LAM Playground, a “generalist web agent”
Watch Rabbit's AI agent, but not the Rabbit R1, do things in Android apps.
Twitch plans to implement a 100-hour storage cap for Highlights and Uploads from April 19, automatically deleting content from streamers who exceed the limit
Streamers who have exceeded this limit will have their content automatically deleted until it meets the threshold.
Twitch rolls out changes to its violation enforcement system, including letting minor infractions expire after 90 days and serious ones in one or two years
Depending on severity, this will take 90 days to two years. — Twitch has rolled out a number of changes to its violation enforcement system.
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
Maybe Microsoft should spend more time figuring out how to quit screwing over their successful studios … X: @xboxwire : Introducing Muse, a new kind of generative AI model that lets you play and creat...
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 …
Sources: X's financials showing a ~$1.4B profit given to investors fall outside corporate accounting norms; the 2023 figures were audited, but 2024 was not
- Heavily adjusted figures, advertising rebound boost outlook — Leverage ratio remains a burdensome nine times adjusted profit
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.
AI hiring startup Mercor, founded by 21-year-old Thiel fellow Brendan Foody, raised $100M led by Felicis at a $2B valuation, up from $250M in September 2024
- Mercor uses AI to help with hiring for employers and workers — Felicis, General Catalyst and Menlo backed $100 million deal
Q&A with Satya Nadella on Microsoft's AGI plan, the quantum breakthrough with Majorana 1, how Muse will change gaming, AI's legal barriers, AI safety, and more
Also that's not what “quantum” means. Ed Zitron / @edzitron.com : So this is a really weird interview on many different levels. — But one thing I'd really start worrying about is that the CEO of Mic...
Nvidia launches Signs, a new AI platform to teach American Sign Language and create a validated dataset for sign language learners and ASL app developers
Nvidia has unveiled a new AI platform for teaching people how to use American Sign Language to help bridge communication gaps.
The European Commission approves €920M in German state aid to Infineon to build a new chip plant in Dresden, set to reach full capacity in 2031
Perplexity open sources R1 1776, a version of the DeepSeek R1 model that Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas says was “post-trained to remove the China censorship”
DeepSeek-R1 is a fully open-weight large language model (LLM) … Unite.AI : DeepSeek's R1: A Useful Reminder Markus Kasanmascheff / WinBuzzer : Perplexity Releases Censorship-Free Version of China's De...
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 8% YoY to ~$38.6B, the fastest growth in over a year and above ~$38B est., and a ~$6.7B net income, as AI boosts its business
Bloomberg :
Meta says Mark Zuckerberg went to the US Capitol on February 19 to lobby Senators on AI and talk about issues like US tech leadership
Zuckerberg met with senators one day after his personal charity announced it was ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Australia eSafety Commissioner study: social media platforms likely have ~1.3M under-13 Australian users, suggesting a lack of preparation for the under-16 ban
Angus Whitley / Bloomberg :
Clearview AI co-founder and President Hoan Ton-That resigns, after stepping back as CEO in December 2024, and says he will continue serving as a board member
After he led the company through controversy and lawsuits, the company struggled to secure big federal contracts. — Now, Clearview is focused on selling to the Trump border effort and the Pentagon. ...
Together AI, which provides users access to AI computing, raised $305M co-led by General Catalyst and Saudi Arabia's Prosperity7 at a $3.3B valuation
Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg :
Sources: Google is close to deciding on locations in India for its first physical retail stores outside the US; the company currently has five stores
Aditya Kalra / Reuters :
Russian search and ad giant Yandex reports 2024 revenue up 37% YoY to a record ~$12.3B and expects 2025 revenue up 30%+, after splitting from Nebius Group
Paris-based Spore.Bio, which has developed a pre-trained deep learning algorithm to speed up microbiology testing, raised a $23M Series A led by Singular
We now know it. … Spore.Bio : We just raised a $23M Series A led by Singular! One year ago, we were a team of 10 with a bold vision: reinvent microbiology testing with AI. …
Ethereum transaction fees' seven-day moving average fell to $0.77 on February 15, a 70% week-over-week drop from $2.57 and the lowest since July 2020
The Block : Forums: r/ethtrader Forums: r/ethtrader : Ethereum transaction fees plummet 70%, hitting lowest levels since 2020
Sanas, whose tech changes call center workers' accents in real time using AI, raised a $65M Series B at a $500M+ valuation led by Quadrille and Teleperformance
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch :
Sources: a US grand jury is investigating criminal misconduct at fintech Synapse, where up to $96M in user funds went missing, and has questioned an executive
Alexander Saeedy / Wall Street Journal :
Labour MP Graeme Downie, the chair of the UK's cross-party coalition on secure technology, warns that Chinese components in smart devices pose a sabotage threat
Lucy Fisher / Financial Times :
An interview with Accel's Harry Nelis, who led early investments in Zepz and Kayak, on how the European startup industry has changed, the AI boom, and more
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times :
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
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.