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January 23, 2025, 3:55 PM
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Top News

Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI releases a “research preview” of its Operator AI agent that can automate web-based tasks, launching in the US to subscribers of the $200/month Pro tier  —  OpenAI is releasing a “research preview” of an AI agent called Operator that can “go to the web to perform tasks for you,” according to a blog post.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI partners with DoorDash, Instacart, Priceline, StubHub, and Uber to ensure that Operator respects these businesses' terms of service agreements  —  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman kicked off this year by saying in a blog post that 2025 would be big for AI agents, tools that can automate tasks and take actions on your behalf.
Every:
Hands-on with Operator: limited in what it can browse, can perform repetitive workflows, and can do lengthy tasks on its own with minimal prompting
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers detail Subaru's now-fixed web vulnerabilities that would've let them unlock and start millions of Subarus via Starlink in the US, Canada, and Japan  —  Now-fixed web bugs allowed hackers to remotely unlock and start millions of Subarus.  More disturbingly, they could also access …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Microsoft and OpenAI were arguing over Microsoft's ability to fulfill OpenAI's computing needs, in the months leading up to the Stargate announcement  —  The partnership that launched the AI boom has been strained by disagreements over computing resources
The Information:
Sources: Sam Altman told some colleagues that OpenAI and SoftBank will each commit $19B to Stargate, and OpenAI would effectively hold a 40% interest in the JV
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
The UK CMA opens investigations into Apple's and Google's mobile ecosystems, including OSes, app stores, and browsers, to see the impact on users and businesses  —  LONDON — Britain's competition regulator on Thursday launched an investigation into Apple and Google's huge mobile ecosystems …
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Epic launches a free games program on mobile and promises to pay the Apple Core Technology Fee for participants in the program on iOS for one year  —  Epic Games is adding nearly 20 third-party games onto its mobile app store worldwide on Android and in the European Union on iOS and launching …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Q&A with former CISA Director Jen Easterly, appointed in 2021, on leaving the agency, Donald Trump, China's Salt Typhoon, Russia, unfinished business, and more  —  Chinese hacks, rampant ransomware, and Donald Trump's budget cuts all threaten US security.
Bloomberg:
ByteDance board member Bill Ford says ByteDance is exploring alternatives to selling TikTok US, including a change to local control to comply with the US law  —  - Firm's options with Trump team include change of control  — Bill Ford runs General Atlantic, which owns stake in ByteDance
Justin Sink / Bloomberg:
Fox News interview: Donald Trump downplays TikTok's national security risk, saying China makes smartphones, PCs, and more, and “isn't that a bigger threat?”
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
CAIS and Scale AI release “Humanity's Last Exam”, which they claim is the hardest- AI test yet, consisting of ~3,000 multiple-choice and short answer questions  —  If you're looking for a new reason to be nervous about artificial intelligence, try this: Some of the smartest humans …
Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg:
France says David Balland, a co-founder of French crypto wallet startup Ledger, was kidnapped on January 21 and freed on January 22 after a police operation  —  - A crypto ransom has been partly paid, traced and seized  — Balland's partner was also kidnapped and released on Thursday
Reuters:
ByteDance debuts Doubao-1.5-pro, claiming its latest flagship AI model outperforms OpenAI's o1 in AIME benchmarks, joining DeepSeek in China's AI reasoning push  —  TikTok owner ByteDance on Wednesday released an update to its flagship AI model aimed at challenging Microsoft-backed OpenAI's …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google acquihires “some of the HTC VIVE engineering team” in Taiwan with “a proven track record in VR” for $250M in cash, to “accelerate” Android XR development  —  To “accelerate” Android XR development, Google announced this evening that it …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Google rolls out the first public beta of Android 16 for Pixel devices, introducing Live Updates, a limited version of Apple's Live Activities, and more  —  Android 16's first public beta will start rolling out later today, bringing with it dynamic lockscreen notifications for ride-sharing and food delivery …
Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Sources: India's technology ministry asked Apple, Google, and other smartphone makers to provide Indians direct access to the state-backed GOV.in app store  —  India is trying to pry open the doors of the world's biggest app stores, setting up a likely clash with Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc …
Bloomberg:
At Davos, Trump blasts EU for targeting Apple, Google, and Meta, describing regulatory cases as “a form of taxation”, and references Apple's €13B Irish tax bill  —  - Comments mark start of clash between Trump, EU over tech  — Apple lost case last year over $14.4 billion Irish tax bill
New York Times:
How Ross Ulbricht's allies, including crypto investors, libertarian politicians, and his mother Lyn Ulbricht, persuaded Trump to pardon the Silk Road founder  —  Libertarian and crypto allies of Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for distributing drugs on his Silk Road website …
Andy Chalk / PC Gamer:
A GDC survey of 3,000+ developers: 80% are currently making PC games, up from 66% in 2024, compared to 38% for the PlayStation 5 and 34% for the Xbox Series X/S  —  Interest in PC game development is higher than ever.  —  It's kind of funny to look back on all the times PC gaming has been declared dead …
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review: fastest Blender benchmark score ever, DLSS4 frame generation works well, and good cooling but very expensive and power hungry  —  It's the fastest video card I've ever seen, but it's not meant for mere mortals.  —  A $2,000 video card for consumers shouldn't exist.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Brave Search rolls out Rerank to let users boost or downgrade domains from their search results through thumbs up or thumbs down buttons  —  Brave Search has introduced a new feature called Rerank, which allows users to define search results ordering preferences and set specific sites rank higher.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Perplexity launches Perplexity Assistant in its Android app, which can take “multi-app actions” like hailing a ride, initially free for users in 15 languages  —  AI-powered search engine Perplexity has launched an “agent,” of sorts, called Perplexity Assistant …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:55 PM ET, January 23, 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

Peter White / Deadline:
Sources: WBD initiates a round of layoffs in its cable TV divisions, affecting well under 100 employees and largely impacting the Discovery side of the company

Liam Scott / Columbia Journalism Review:
Q&A with Tamara Bralo, the head of journalist safety at Radio Free Asia, on Trump's cuts, the future of at-risk visa holders, jailed staffers abroad, and more

Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
AMC Entertainment reaches an agreement with National CineMedia to run ads right before the start of a film, starting July 1

More News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI fixes issues that caused a major ChatGPT outage and downtime for its API on January 23, after disruptions in December 2024

Earlier Picks

Muyao Shen / Bloomberg:
Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation back Etherealize, a NYC-based startup to market Ethereum to financial firms, as ether lags behind bitcoin's gains
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Neko Health, a startup co-founded by Daniel Ek that offers AI-based full-body scans, raised a $260M Series B led by Lightspeed, sources say at a $1.7B valuation
Song Jung-a / Financial Times:
SK Hynix's Q4 operating profit grew over 20x YoY to ~$5.6B, beating Samsung's for the first time, with HBM chips making up 40% of its total DRAM chip revenue
Patrick G. Eddington / Cato Institute:
A US district judge rules that the FBI's warrantless “backdoor” searches of FISA's Section 702 databases violate the Fourth Amendment
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