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December 29, 2025, 8:20 PM

December 29, 2025

6:50 PM •	Meta: Meta says it will continue to operate and sell the Manus service, and Manus' talent will join Meta to deliver agents across Meta products, including Meta AI
6:20 PM •	Financial Times: UK-based Octopus Energy reaches a deal to sell about $1B of equity in Kraken Technologies, its tech spin-off, at an $8.65B valuation to a syndicate of investors
5:35 PM •	Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: Meta agrees to acquire Singapore-based startup Manus, which makes an AI agent it sells to SMBs; Manus said in December its annual revenue run rate was $125M+
4:30 PM •	Financial Times: How diamonds are being converted to quantum sensors by inserting tiny imperfections, opening up potential uses in medicine, brain-computer interfaces, and more
3:00 PM •	Calder McHugh / Politico: A look at the rift in the Democratic party over AI and data centers, as pro-business Democrats oppose the fiery, anti-AI politics of the progressive wing
2:10 PM •	Katria Alampay / Bloomberg: How Japan's viral horse racing game Umamusume, developed by Cygames, passed 30M downloads in Asia, spurring anime adaptations, concerts, and new racetrack fans
12:20 PM •	Vikki Blake / Eurogamer.net: Michał Kiciński, co-founder of CD Projekt and DRM-free digital games store GOG, has acquired 100% of the shares in GOG from CD Projekt
10:25 AM •	Reuters: China's SMIC plans to acquire the remaining 49% stake in its SMNC unit for ~$5.8B, making the unit wholly owned; SMNC focuses on 12" integrated circuit wafers
9:20 AM •	Rajesh Pandey / Android Police: Samsung and Google partner to bring Google Photos to TizenOS-powered TVs, launching in March 2026 and showing curated memories, ahead of CES 2026
8:50 AM •	Bloomberg: SoftBank agrees to acquire NYSE-listed DigitalBridge, a PE firm that invests in data centers and digital infrastructure operators, for $4B, including debt
8:35 AM •	Washington Post: Sources detail how JD Vance, David Sacks, and others brokered a fragile truce between President Trump and Elon Musk, who threatened to fund an America Party
8:05 AM •	Ellesheva Kissin / Financial Times: ACCA, the world's largest accounting body, says it is ending remote exams to combat a rise in students cheating by using AI tools when taking tests
7:30 AM •	Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters: SEC filing: Nvidia acquires Intel shares worth $5B, carrying out a transaction announced in September, buying 214.7M shares for $23.28 each
7:10 AM •	Timmy Shen / The Block: China's central bank unveils an overhaul of its digital yuan framework, including saying that commercial banks will soon begin paying interest on holdings
6:25 AM •	Shinhye Kang / Bloomberg: Coupang says it is offering $1B+ in compensation to all 33.7M customers affected by South Korea's biggest-ever data breach, after an ex-staffer accessed data
6:00 AM •	Emma Roth / The Verge: Framework says it is raising DDR5 RAM prices to charge $10 per GB, after a price hike earlier in December due to “substantially higher costs” amid the AI boom
5:25 AM •	George Hammond / Financial Times: PitchBook: the biggest US private startups raised $150B in 2025, surpassing the previous high of $92B in 2021, boosted by large funding rounds by AI startups
4:35 AM •	Aisha Down / The Guardian: A Kapwing study of the 15,000 top YouTube channels finds 278 of them have only posted AI-generated “slop” videos, amassing 63B+ views and 221M+ subscribers
4:05 AM •	Bloomberg: Sources: SoftBank is in advanced talks to buy NYSE-listed DigitalBridge, a private equity firm that invests in data centers and digital infrastructure operators
3:50 AM •	Joel Khalili / Wired: Since the GENIUS Act's passage in July, the total value of stablecoins circulating rose from ~$250B to $300B+, as they become the “respectable” face of crypto
12:05 AM •	Lydia Wheeler / Wall Street Journal: Sources and a memo: the US DOJ is using a novel reading of a federal anti-fraud law to probe contractors, including Google and Verizon, over their DEI programs

December 28, 2025

10:50 PM •	Cecilia Kang / New York Times: In 2025, Big Tech got almost everything it wanted from President Trump, as he backs policies that let the industry grow unfettered, worrying some conservatives
7:00 PM •	Noam Scheiber / New York Times: How tech worker activism has grown more cautious as companies crack down and once-privileged workers realize they don't have much leverage
3:55 PM •	Stephanie Stacey / Financial Times: Global hotel groups are intensifying efforts to get customers to book directly, as they seek to save on online platform commissions and prepare for AI agents
1:00 PM •	Patrick Oster / Bloomberg: Lou Gerstner, a former IBM CEO and chairman credited with turning the company around, died at 83; IBM's market value rose from $29B to ~$168B during his tenure
10:15 AM •	Sean McLain / Wall Street Journal: How executives at humanoid robot startups like Agility Robotics and Weave Robotics are managing safety risks and tempering expectations for the technology
6:15 AM •	Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Tracxn: VC funding for Indian startups fell 17%+ YoY to $10.5B in 2025 across 1,518 deals, down ~39% YoY; AI startups raised $643M, up 4% YoY, across 100 deals
2:15 AM •	Martha Muir / Financial Times: US data center developers, facing grid access wait times of up to seven years, are turning to aeroderivative turbines and diesel generators to power the AI boom
2:00 AM •	Pranav Mukul / The Economic Times: Bengaluru-based quick grocery delivery startup Zepto confidentially files for a ~$1.3B India IPO; Zepto raised $450M at a $7B valuation in October 2025
1:55 AM •	Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: Ubisoft reopens Rainbow Six Siege after shutting down the servers amid a breach exploiting the game's internal systems, and says the Marketplace remains closed
1:00 AM •	Cheyenne MacDonald / Engadget: Sam Altman says OpenAI is seeking a new Head of Preparedness, noting “the potential impact of models on mental health was something we saw a preview of in 2025”
12:40 AM •	Dan Primack / Axios: Sources: ~90% of Groq employees will join Nvidia and be paid cash for all vested shares; most shareholders will get per-share payouts tied to the $20B valuation
12:00 AM •	Washington Post: ChatGPT told a teen who died by suicide to call for help 74 times over months but also used words like “hanging” and “suicide” very often, say family's lawyers

December 27, 2025

11:05 PM •	Bloomberg: China's draft rules on the use of human-like AI would require companies to inform users they are dealing with AI when they log on and at two-hour intervals
5:15 PM •	Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: A profile of the Digital Security Helpline, run by Access Now, which gives 24/7 help to reporters and others who suspect they are victims of government spyware
3:45 PM •	New York Times: Q&A with Edison Scientific CEO Sam Rodriques about Kosmos, Edison's AI tool for scientific research, why AI probably won't cure diseases anytime soon, and more
2:30 PM •	Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times: A look at Chinese food delivery giant Meituan's subsidy war with Alibaba and JD.com, leading Meituan to a big Q3 loss and internal debate over global expansion
11:40 AM •	Lien Hoang / Nikkei Asia: A study finds that foreign direct investment accounts for 98% of Vietnam's electronics exports, “signaling limited technology spillovers” to the local economy
9:40 AM •	Virginie Malingre / Le Monde: The European Commission claims €80B of €120B in post-EU Chips Act investments remain on track, despite the stalled GlobalFoundries-STMicro project in France
6:40 AM •	New York Times: Sources: Peter Thiel and Larry Page may leave California over a proposed ballot measure, opposed by Gov. Newsom, that levies a one-time 5% tax on $1B+ in assets
2:35 AM •	Gavin Baker / @gavinsbaker: As inference splits into prefill and decode, Nvidia's Groq deal could enable a “Rubin SRAM” variant optimized for ultra-low latency agentic reasoning workloads
2:15 AM •	Brody Ford / Bloomberg: ServiceNow has spent $12B+ on acquisitions and investments in 2025 amid concerns about revenue growth, projected to fall below 20% in 2026 without acquisitions
1:55 AM •	Manish Singh / India Dispatch: Facing disruption from GenAI, the $250B Indian IT industry has adapted by focusing on preparatory work AI requires, such as data cleanup and system integration
12:40 AM •	Alex Harring / CNBC: Despite Palantir's high trailing P/E ratio of ~450, retail traders have poured billions of dollars into the stock, which is up ~3,000% in the past three years

December 26, 2025

10:05 PM •	Andre Revilla / Engadget: NY Gov. Kathy Hochul signs a law requiring social platforms with features like addictive feeds to show warning labels about mental health impacts on young users
9:00 PM •	M.G. Siegler / Spyglass: The Groq deal secures key talent for Nvidia, including CEO Jonathan Ross, creator of the TPU, and keeps them from companies that may try to make their own chips
7:15 PM •	Reuters: Indian IT services provider Coforge agrees to acquire Encora, which offers AI tools for product, cloud, and data engineering, at an enterprise value of $2.35B
5:50 PM •	Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg: Five FaZe Clan influencers exit after failed contract talks with new management; Matt Kalish, who invested $10M, calls FaZe's current structure “unsustainable”
4:15 PM •	Felix Day / WRGB: Governor Hochul signs law for mental health warnings on addictive social media features
3:05 PM •	Muyao Shen / Bloomberg: Coinbase says a former customer service agent was arrested in India, following a May breach where hackers bribed contractors to access sensitive customer data
1:50 PM •	Alfred Ng / Politico: Federal records show ICE has increased its surveillance tech spending to $300M+ under Trump, as the White House lowered privacy guardrails around citizens' data
11:55 AM •	Joe Rennison / New York Times: Refinitiv: AI infrastructure companies borrowed $100B+ in 2025; small companies face higher interest rates given investor wariness over unproven AI businesses
10:25 AM •	Jordan Novet / CNBC: Oracle stock fell 30% this quarter, its steepest drop since Q3 2001, when it slid ~34%, amid skepticism about its ability to open more data centers for OpenAI
9:05 AM •	Pranshu Verma / Washington Post: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google pledged a combined $67.5B in Indian investments since October, 80% of those in December, as part of an AI spending frenzy in India
8:05 AM •	Reuters: Government data: shipments of foreign-branded mobile phones in China, primarily iPhones, rose 128.4% YoY in November 2025 to 6.93M units
6:25 AM •	Naomi Nix / Washington Post: Internal documents show Instagram's aggressive campaign to win back teens, including by boosting teen-friendly influencers, adjusting its algorithm, and more
5:55 AM •	Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: A Google support page in Hindi says the company is rolling out an option to let users change their Gmail addresses while retaining all data and services
2:00 AM •	Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times: The top 10 US tech billionaires collectively added $550B+ to their combined net worth in 2025, reaching $2.5T by December 24, up from $1.9T at the year's start
12:55 AM •	Reuters: Chinese state media: China launches three VC funds of $7.1B+ each to back early-stage “hard technology” startups valued below ¥500M, or about $71M
12:05 AM •	Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez / Fortune: Cursor CEO Michael Truell warns that “vibe coding” advanced projects may create “shaky foundations” and eventually “things start to kind of crumble”

December 25, 2025

9:45 PM •	Annie Palmer / CNBC: As startups flood the market with AI shopping agents, Amazon is playing defense by blocking agents' access to its site and investing heavily in its own tools
7:05 PM •	Aishvarya Kavi / New York Times: A US judge temporarily blocks the Trump administration from detaining CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed, one of the Europeans the US barred on claims of promoting censorship
6:00 PM •	Finian Hazen / MIT Technology Review: An interview with Citizen Lab founder Ronald Deibert about the US adopting authoritarian digital practices, the research group's accomplishments, and more
4:20 PM •	Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: Apple settles with a Brazilian regulator to allow alternative app stores; report: Apple will charge a 5% fee for alt app stores and 15% on App Store link-outs
2:40 PM •	Siddharth / GSMArena.com: Xiaomi unveils the $995+ Xiaomi 17 Ultra in China with a 200MP periscope camera, a 50MP 1" sensor, and an ultrawide; Leica edition gets a mechanical zoom ring
12:50 PM •	Alicia Park / Forbes: The AI sector minted 50+ new billionaires in 2025; Crunchbase: investors poured $200B+ into AI startups in 2025, or ~50% of global funding, up from 34% in 2024
10:30 AM •	Jack Ewing / New York Times: Tesla's robotaxi service in Austin significantly trails Waymo, deploying an estimated 30 cars with safety drivers, vs. Waymo's 200 cars without human monitors
8:25 AM •	Lisa Bonos / Washington Post: A look at the humans employed to rescue robotaxis; Waymo uses the Honk app to pay $20 to $24 to manually close robotaxi doors and $60 to $80 to tow its cars
6:50 AM •	Paresh Dave / Wired: A look at Detroit's Apple Developer Academy, launched after the BLM protests, which spends $20K per student, nearly 2x the budget of local community colleges
4:05 AM •	Nikou Asgari / Financial Times: PitchBook: crypto M&A hit $8.6B across 267 deals in 2025 vs. $2.17B in 2024; 11 crypto IPOs raised $14.6B worldwide, up from $310M from four IPOs in 2024
2:00 AM •	Theodore Schleifer / New York Times: How Larry Ellison is helping his son David build a media empire, including making the case to Trump for why Paramount, not Netflix, should acquire WBD
1:00 AM •	The Information: Sources: Nvidia's licensing deal with Groq, which has raised ~$1.8B, includes payouts to Groq's key execs and investors, including BlackRock and Tiger Global
12:05 AM •	Takehiro Hasegawa / Nikkei Asia: A teardown of Huawei's Mate 70 Pro and Pura 80 Pro shows 57% of components were made in China; similarly priced Huawei phones in 2023 had 32% Chinese components

December 24, 2025

9:40 PM •

Sandro Iannaccone / Wired: Q&A with Google DeepMind VP of Research Pushmeet Kohli on launching AlphaFold 2 five years ago, hallucinations, building an “AI co-scientist”, and more

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