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OpenAI agrees to buy Poland-based Neptune, which makes tools for analyzing progress during AI model training; the transaction will be in stock (Dina Bass/Bloomberg)

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IoT security device maker Verkada hit a $5.8B valuation after new funding, source says totaling $100M, led by CapitalG; it passed $1B in annualized bookings (Jaures Yip/CNBC)

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Russia's Roskomnadzor blocks access to Roblox, claiming that it is "rife with inappropriate content" and distributing extremist materials and "LGBT propaganda" (Reuters)

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India says it revoked an order to smartphone makers to preload state-run cybersecurity app Sanchar Saathi on all new smartphones, after protests from lawmakers (Reuters)

Amazon adds an Alexa+ feature to Fire TV that lets Prime Video users skip to movie scenes using natural language descriptions, character names, or famous quotes (Lucas Manfredi/The Wrap)

After a backlash, Amazon Prime Video removes AI-generated English and Spanish dubs that it had quietly rolled out in beta for several anime films and series (James Whitbrook/Gizmodo)

Decentralized exchange Ostium raised a $20M Series A led by General Catalyst and Jump Trading, a source says at a ~$250M valuation, after previously raising $8M (Ben Weiss/Fortune)

TikTok plans to invest $37.7B+ to build a data center near Brazil's port of Pecém, partnering with Omnia and Casa dos Ventos, its first project in Latin America (Bloomberg)

Sources: Microsoft units lowered how much salespeople are supposed to grow sales of certain AI products, a rare move for Microsoft, after missing growth targets (Aaron Holmes/The Information)

Q&A with Valve executive Pierre-Loup Griffais, who helped architect SteamOS and the Steam Deck, on quietly funding open-source tech to play Windows games on ARM (Sean Hollister/The Verge)

Spotify unveils 2025's top 50 most popular US podcasts, led by The Joe Rogan Experience for the fifth consecutive year; 24 of the top 50 now offer video content (Todd Spangler/Variety)

Spotify releases Wrapped 2025, which adds features like Wrapped Party, its first live interactive experience, Top Song Quiz, Listening Age, and Wrapped Clubs (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Uber partners with Avride to launch robotaxi rides in Dallas, marking Uber's fourth US city to offer autonomous ride options, after Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)

Sources and docs: Palantir's Immigration OS helps ICE track undocumented immigrants and deport them; a decade ago, Alex Karp said Trump's plans made "no sense" (Eva Dou/Washington Post)

Some YouTube creators are using AI tools to make videos for kids and babies, raising concerns that such AI content may negatively impact early brain development (Alexandra S. Levine/Bloomberg)

AI Forensics: 354 AI-focused TikTok accounts pushed 43K posts made with GenAI tools that hit 4.5B views, including posts with anti-immigrant and sexual material (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)

Vinci, which uses AI simulations to accelerate chip and other hardware design, raised a $36M Series A led by Xora Innovation, taking its total funding to $46M (Max A. Cherney/Reuters)

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump's American Bitcoin closed down 38.8% on December 2, wiping out ~$1B in market value; TMTG is down nearly 70% so far in 2025 (George Steer/Financial Times)

HBO Max's 4K Mad Men re-release had many problems, including lacking post-production edits in some scenes; a source says Lionsgate delivered the wrong 4K file (Tony Maglio/The Hollywood Reporter)

A look at startups like AGI and Plato, which build replicas of websites to let AI agents learn to navigate the internet and complete tasks, like booking flights (Cade Metz/New York Times)

Half of US states now require users to upload IDs or biometric data to access pornographic content, as Missouri became the 25th state to enact such a law (Samantha Cole/404 Media)

Copper demand is being boosted by AI data centers, which require 27 to 33 tons per MW, over 2x that of conventional data centers, per miner Grupo México (Camilla Hodgson/Financial Times)

London-based Sokin, which develops tech for B2B cross-border payments, raised a $50M Series B led by Prysm Capital at a $300M valuation (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)

Binance names co-founder Yi He as co-CEO alongside Richard Teng, making her one of the few women leading a crypto company; she also has children with ex-CEO CZ (Jeff John Roberts/Fortune)

An analysis of Waymo's data covering ~100M driverless miles across four US cities: Waymo cars have far lower crash rates per million miles than human drivers (Jonathan Slotkin/New York Times)

Waymo's self-driving cars appear to be bending traffic laws and growing impatient with pedestrians as the company seeks to make them "confidently assertive" (Katherine Bindley/Wall Street Journal)

Stripe agrees to acquire Metronome, which offers APIs to help SaaS companies charge customers based on usage and has raised $128M in total funding (Scott Woody/Metronome)

MongoDB stock jumped 22% on December 2 after Q3 revenue rose 19% YoY to $628M, above $592M est., and raises full-year guidance on Atlas growth and AI demand (Samantha Subin/CNBC)

Software testing startup Antithesis raised $105M led by trading firm Jane Street, as demand grows for software to vet code generated by AI coding tools (Financial Times)

YouTube says it will comply with Australia's social media ban for under-16s, after rejecting its inclusion in the crackdown and calling the regulation "rushed" (Angus Whitley/Bloomberg)

After a backlash, India says its pre-installed cybersecurity app is optional for users, who "have complete freedom to activate, or delete the app at any time" (Shruti Srivastava/Bloomberg)

Filing: JD.com's JingDong Industrials, or JDi, a supply chain technology and services provider in China, aims to raise up to ~$420M in its Hong Kong IPO (Reuters)

Sources: Anthropic taps law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin work on its IPO, which could come as soon as 2026, and held preliminary talks with big investment banks (George Hammond/Financial Times)

Check Point is raising $1.5B from the sale of a five-year zero-coupon convertible bond; proceeds will go toward buying back as much as $225M of stock (Bloomberg)

ServiceNow announces a deal to acquire identity security startup Veza, sources say for between $1B and $1.5B; Veza had a private valuation of $808M in March (Valida Pau/The Information)

Arizona AG Kris Mayes sues Temu for allegedly stealing customers' data, including their physical location, and counterfeiting local brands (Sejal Govindarao/Associated Press)

Marvell announces a deal to buy Celestial AI for at least $3.25B, expected to close in Q1 2026; the price can rise to $5.5B if Celestial hits revenue targets (Kif Leswing/CNBC)

Sources say President Trump's efforts to block state-level AI regulations through a preemption proposal are facing significant opposition on Capitol Hill (Axios)

Anthropic's employees self-report using Claude in 60% of work and achieving a 50% productivity boost, often using it for debugging and code understanding, more (Anthropic)

CNN partners with Kalshi to use its real-time prediction data in TV, digital, and social channel reporting, on-air data tickers, analysis, and fact-checking (Sara Fischer/Axios)

Instacart sues New York City to block enforcement of five laws, including rules governing minimum pay for app-based workers and tipping disclosures (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters)

Google debuts Android 16 QPR2, a minor update expanding features for notifications, icons, calling screens, and more, marking the end of annual Android releases (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Bending Spoons acquires Eventbrite for ~$500M in an all-cash deal, following its $1.38B acquisition of Vimeo in September and its pending acquisition of AOL (Cate Lawrence/Tech.eu)

Apptopia: ChatGPT referrals to retailer mobile apps increased 28% YoY during the Black Friday weekend in 2025; Amazon's share of ChatGPT referrals grew to 54% (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Ireland investigates TikTok and LinkedIn over concerns that their illegal content reporting tools are hard to access and don't allow anonymous CSAM reporting (Padraic Halpin/Reuters)

Filings: after EA's buyout, Saudi Arabia's PIF would own 93.4% of EA, implying it needs to put up ~$29B, while Silver Lake and Affinity would own 5.5% and 1.1% (Wall Street Journal)

Israeli startup Zafran, an AI-native threat exposure management service, raised a $60M Series C led by Menlo Ventures, bringing its total funding to $130M (Globes)

Cloud data management startup Eon raised $300M led by Gil Capital at a $4B valuation, almost 3X from $1.4B in November 2024, taking its total funding to $500M (Krystal Hu/Reuters)

Anthropic acquires dev tool maker Bun, a source says for low hundreds of millions, its first acquisition; Claude Code hit $1B in annualized revenue in November (Sri Muppidi/The Information)

Ricursive, founded by ex-Google researchers to automate advanced chip design, raised $35M led by Sequoia at a $750M valuation and plans a product launch in 2026 (Berber Jin/Wall Street Journal)