Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Firecrawl, which offers an open-source web crawler for developers and AI agents, raised a $14.5M Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)

Techmeme

The White House launches an official TikTok account, aiming to communicate President Trump's policies; the first video shows Trump declaring "I am your voice" (Steve Holland/Reuters)

Techmeme

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says Intel must give the government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds; INTC closed up 7% (CNBC)

Techmeme

Microsoft rolls out a COPILOT function in Excel for users in the Beta Channel, letting them use text prompts to categorize data, summarize feedback, and more (Sean Endicott/Windows Central)

Techmeme

Alibaba releases Qwen-Image-Edit, the image editing version of Qwen-Image, supporting modifications of Chinese and English text while preserving font and style (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat)

Techmeme

Austin-based Aalo Atomics, which is building a modular nuclear reactor and data center, set to finish construction in 2026, raised a $100M Series B led by Valor (Julia Hornstein/Business Insider)

Techmeme

Federal prosecutors charge an Oregon man with operating the Rapper Bot, one of the most powerful DDoS botnets ever seen, which knocked X offline earlier in 2025 (Robert McMillan/Wall Street Journal)

Techmeme

Bullish says it has received all $1.15B in capital raised from its IPO in stablecoins, including USDC, USDG, and PYUSD, marking a first for US public markets (Krisztian Sandor/CoinDesk)

Techmeme

Wyoming launches a stablecoin, FRNT, marking the first time a US state has issued a blockchain-based, fiat-pegged token to be used by retail and enterprises (Daniel Kuhn/The Block)

Techmeme

Source: Pylon, which uses AI to automate B2B customer service, raised $31M led by a16z and Bain Capital at a valuation in the hundreds of millions of dollars (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information)

Techmeme

Meta rolls out AI-powered voice translations for creators on Facebook and Instagram globally, supporting English-Spanish translations with lip syncing (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Techmeme

Robinhood, in partnership with Kalshi, launches a sports prediction market on Robinhood Derivatives, letting users trade on pro and college football games (RT Watson/The Block)

Techmeme

Google will pay $30M to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it violated kids' privacy on YouTube by collecting data without parental consent for targeted ads (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters)

Techmeme

Sources: Meta considers downsizing its AI division, with some executives expected to leave, and is exploring using third-party models for its AI products (New York Times)

Techmeme

Memo: Meta restructures Superintelligence Labs; Alexandr Wang heads TBD Lab, Robert Fergus heads FAIR, Nat Friedman heads products, Aparna Ramani heads Infra (Riley Griffin/Bloomberg)

Techmeme

Google proposes Play Store changes in the EU, like making it easier for developers to direct users to websites and a new tiered fee structure, after EU scrutiny (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)

Techmeme

Functionize, which offers a cloud platform that uses AI to speed up software testing, raised a $41M Series B, bringing its total funding to $67M+ (Maria Deutscher/SiliconANGLE)

Techmeme

Tether hires Bo Hines, who stepped down as White House Crypto Council Executive Director earlier in August, as an adviser to help it expand in the US (Prakhar Srivastava/Reuters)

Techmeme

What to expect from Google's "Made by Google" Pixel hardware event on August 20: four Pixel 10 phones, including a Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 4, and Pixel Buds 2A (Dominic Preston/The Verge)

Techmeme

NYC-based Keychain, which makes AI-based software that helps manufacturers manage their product cycles, raised a $30M Series B, taking its total funding to $68M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Techmeme