Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise
Techmeme
January 13, 2025, 9:00 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Get our daily newsletter and never miss a story!   ⓧ Newsletter

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese officials are evaluating an option involving Elon Musk acquiring TikTok US; X would take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together  —  - ByteDance's preferred strategy is to fight ban, sources say  — Trump has said he would like to delay ban to seek resolution
Todd Spangler / Variety:
TikTok denies a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to Elon Musk, calling it “pure fiction”  —  TikTok denied a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational …
Financial Times:
The Biden admin unveils a new chip export rule that gives 18 key allies full AI chips access while requiring licenses from most other countries, including China  —  US semiconductor industry warns move will aid competitors  —  The US is imposing expansive export controls on chips used …
Reuters:
Nvidia criticizes the Biden admin's new chip export rule, saying the regulation would “undermine” the US' AI leadership and “weaken” its global competitiveness  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) on Monday criticized a new effort by the Biden administration to tighten Washington's grip …
Associated Press:
Under a new Biden rule, countries with caps on AI compute are restricted to buying 50K advanced GPUs, which could grow to 100K in deals with the US government
Zeyi Yang / Wired:
Ahead of a likely US TikTok ban, users flee to Chinese apps Xiaohongshu, aka RedNote, and ByteDance's Lemon8, currently the top two apps in the US App Store  —  Some say they joined Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book,” to spite the US government after a ban on TikTok became more likely.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is leaving following a botched app revamp that upset customers and stymied growth; Sonos names board member Tom Conrad as interim CEO  —  - 'We've let far too many‬‭ people down,' company tells staffers  — Former Snap and Pandora executive Tom Conrad named interim CEO
Leena Rao / Business Insider:
Chainalysis buys AI-agent security startup Alterya, sources say for ~$150M; Alterya is still in stealth mode but has clients including Coinbase, Square, Binance  —  - Chainalysis has acquired Alterya, a fraud-detection startup, for $150 million.  — Founded in 2022, Alterya uses AI to detect scams for financial and crypto firms.
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
Jimmy Wales, Mark Ruffalo, others debut Free Our Feeds to raise $30M by 2028 to “billionaire-proof” AT Protocol, by making it easier for users to leave Bluesky  —  Free Our Feeds, which includes support from the Mozilla Foundation, is working with Bluesky to make sure …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft is creating a new “CoreAI - Platform and Tools” unit led by Jay Parikh, the ex-Lacework CEO and Meta engineering executive who joined in October 2024  —  Microsoft is creating a new engineering division, led by the former global head of engineering at Facebook (now Meta) …
Washington Post:
An investigation finds 15 police departments across 12 US states have arrested suspects identified through facial recognition without having any other evidence  —  Confident in unproven facial recognition technology, sometimes investigators skip steps; at least eight Americans have been wrongfully arrested.
Bluesky: @joffirphd, @drewharwell.com, and @hypervisible.  X: @glynco.  Forums: r/technology
New York Times:
OpenAI publishes a “economic blueprint” for “AI in America”, calling on the new Trump admin to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations  —  The maker of ChatGPT hopes to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations on the development of new technologies.
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Texas sues Allstate and its subsidiary Arity, accusing the insurer of illegally collecting and selling data about people's driving behavior through mobile apps  —  The lawsuit accuses Arity, an Allstate subsidiary, of collecting data about people's driving behavior through mobile phone apps …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko plans to transfer Mastodon's ownership to a new non-profit, saying “Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual”  —  Mastodon says the decentralized network ‘should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.’
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
SCOTUS declines to hear Meta's bid to avoid a class action by advertisers that accused the company of overcharging them by inflating their potential ad reach  —  The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by Meta Platforms (META.O) to avoid a multi-billion dollar class action …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
IAC board approves the spinoff of home improvement marketplace Angi; IAC has previously spun off companies like Expedia, Ticketmaster, and LendingTree  —  Barry Diller's IAC said Monday that its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement marketplace the company acquired in 2017.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
How AI is redefining BGV inside Zoho Recruit  —  Background checks still rely on manual document reviews, repetitive data entry, and back-and-forth emails.  The process works, but it's slow, error-prone …
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

Lenny's Podcast:
 How to build a team that can "take a punch": A playbook for building resilient, high-performing teams | Hilary Gridley (Head of Core Product, Whoop)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Invest Like the Best:
 Dinakar Singh - A Father's Call To Action
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Techmeme Ride Home:
 Omnibus 06/09
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
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
 'Live From WWDC 2025', With Joanna Stern and Nilay Patel
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Hard Fork:
 Meta Bets on Scale + Apple's A.I. Struggles + Listeners on Job Automation
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
 How Chris Degnan Built Snowflake's Sales Org From Scratch
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:00 PM ET, January 13, 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

Ben Johansen / Politico:
Sources: USAGM told employees of VOA's Persian-language service who were placed on administrative leave to return to their roles amid the Iran-Israel conflict

Liam Scott / Freedom of the Press Foundation:
An interview with US Press Freedom Tracker Senior Reporter Stephanie Sugars on documenting nearly 62,000 anti-press social posts by Trump over the past 10 years

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Mediahuis Ireland, which owns the Belfast Telegraph, Irish Independent, and others, says it has 100K+ digital subscribers after launching paywalls in 2020

More News

Dan Mangan / CNBC:
The SEC says that two Robinhood broker-dealers agreed to pay $45M in combined penalties to settle charges that they violated over 10 securities law provisions
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Toronto-based Float Financial, which offers expense management software and corporate credit cards, raised a $48.5M Series B led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity
Wall Street Journal:
Donald Trump Jr. is joining prediction-market startup Kalshi as a strategic adviser; CFTC called Kalshi “an online casino” in a December filing

Earlier Picks

Kerry Flynn / Axios:
T-Mobile agrees to acquire Vistar Media, which focuses on programmatic digital out of home advertising, for $600M in cash; the deal is expected to close in Q1
New York Times:
Sources detail DOGE, which is likely to work as more of a brand linked by Signal group chats coordinating US policy or personnel recommendations and recruitment
Counterpoint Research:
Global smartphone shipments grew 4% YoY in 2024 after a decade-low in 2023; top two brands, Samsung and Apple, were mostly flat, while Xiaomi grew 12% YoY
Keir Starmer / Financial Times:
The UK's PM debuts plans to increase its public sector compute over 20x to spark a “national renewal”, saying the UK doesn't need to walk a US or EU path on AI
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter