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Techmeme
January 24, 2025, 1:15 PM
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Top News

Politico:
While Trump downplayed Elon Musk's Stargate criticism, assuring reporters “they're putting up the money”, key White House sources say they're furious with Musk  —  “It's clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” said one ally of the president.
Financial Times:
Sources: Stargate lacks a fully developed plan, hasn't yet secured funding, will get no government financing, and will exclusively serve OpenAI once operational  —  Donald Trump has called the SoftBank-backed venture a 'resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential'
Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is planning to invest $60B to $65B in capex in 2025, will end the year with 1.3M+ GPUs, and plans to grow its AI teams “significantly”  —  Meta Platforms (META.O) will invest $60 billion to $65 billion in capital expenditure in 2025, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Friday.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
The FBI warns that North Korean IT workers are abusing their access to steal source code and extort US companies that have been tricked into hiring them  —  The FBI warned today that North Korean IT workers are abusing their access to steal source code and extort U.S. companies that have been tricked into hiring them.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US SEC revokes SAB 121, a controversial accounting rule added in 2022 that forced banks to treat BTC and other tokens as a liability on their balance sheets  —  After years of lobbying by the crypto industry, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has rescinded an accounting rule …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple moved Kim Vorrath, a company veteran known for fixing troubled products, to its AI group to help improve Siri and Apple Intelligence  —  - Kim Vorrath previously worked on Vision Pro, iPhone software  — The company is racing to catch up in artificial intelligence
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
The CMA says Google has agreed to curb UK businesses using fake reviews to boost star ratings and must report to the CMA on its efforts for the next three years  —  Google will take firmer action against British businesses that use fake reviews to boost their star ratings on the search giant's reviews platform.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Trump signs an EO to create a crypto working group led by David Sacks to consider a national digital asset stockpile “potentially derived” from seized crypto  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to promote the advancement of cryptocurrencies in the U.S …
Associated Press:
Trump signs an EO to develop AI systems “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas”, revoking Biden policies that “act as barriers” to innovation
Financial Times:
X refuses to remove a video of the stabbing of a Sydney bishop watched by Axel Rudakubana minutes before murdering three kids in UK's Southport last summer  —  Axel Rudakubana was able to view Australian clip before murdering three young children despite pleas from authorities
Jon Keegan / Sherwood News:
DeepSeek's latest AI model R1 sticks to Chinese government restrictions on sensitive topics like Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, and the treatment of Uyghurs in China  —  Those who train the AI models get to decide what the truth is.  —  5H  —  The AI world was abuzz this week with the release …
New York Times:
Instagram suspended the accounts of two abortion pill providers and Facebook removed their posts; Meta blamed “over-enforcement” and restored some accounts  —  Some posts related to obtaining abortion pills were recently hidden on Instagram and Facebook and some accounts were suspended, before being later restored.
Kyle Chan / High Capacity:
How China's progress across overlapping industries like lidar, drones, robotics, smartphones, AI, EVs, and batteries forms a mutually reinforcing feedback loop  —  EVs, batteries, lidar, drones, robotics, smartphones, AI.  China's progress across a range of overlapping industries creates a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
ShopMy, which lets brands run influencer marketing efforts, raised a $77.5M Series B led by Bessemer and Bain, sources say at a $410M valuation vs. $80M in 2024  —  Tech firms that speed up and automate brands' partnerships with social-media influencers are becoming hot commodities as advertisers scramble to reach consumers online
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
Sources: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance is buying Nvidia's AI chips and plans to build a 3GW data center in Jamnagar, India, set to be the world's largest by capacity  —  - Reliance joins rush of tech companies building data centers … Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group is building what may become …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI releases a “research preview” of its Operator AI agent that can automate web-based tasks, launching to US subscribers of its $200/month ChatGPT 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, eBay, Instacart, Priceline, StubHub, Uber, and other companies to ensure that Operator respects their terms of service agreements

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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:15 PM ET, January 24, 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

Sara Fischer / Axios:
PBS and a public TV affiliate in Minnesota sue the Trump administration, saying his executive order to cut federal funding violated PBS' First Amendment rights

Brian Stelter / CNN:
OAN chief Pentagon correspondent Gabrielle Cuccia says she was fired after criticizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's media restrictions at the Pentagon

Max Tani / Semafor:
The California State Senate opens an inquiry into whether Paramount's reported $15M proposed settlement with Trump violated bribery and unfair competition laws

More News

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta begins a “limited, early test” of ads in Threads in the US and Japan, with the goal of making the ads “as interesting as organic content”
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
The US DOJ charges the former CEO of AI chatbot startup GameOn and his wife for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $60M between 2018 and 2024

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic debuts Citations, a new API feature that lets developers “ground” answers in source documents, available for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Haiku
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
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
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
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
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