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January 30, 2025, 3:45 PM
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| Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: OpenAI is in early talks to raise up to $40B at a $340B valuation; the startup was last valued at $157B in October, when it raised $6.6B — SoftBank would lead $40 billion round for the ChatGPT maker, some of which would go to Stargate AI infrastructure venture.
More: Reuters and Bloomberg
Bluesky: @trappercreek, @timothydardar, @transylvaniantwist, and @jcl68nyr
X: @wholemarsblog, @tmnxeq, and @silvermanjacob
| Financial Times: |
Sources: SoftBank is in talks to invest $15B to $25B in OpenAI on top of its $15B+ commitment to Stargate; the deal would make SoftBank OpenAI's biggest backer — Deal would make Japanese group biggest financial backer in ChatGPT maker — SoftBank is in talks to invest as much as $25bn into OpenAI …
More: TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, San Francisco Business Times, New York Times, Crunchbase News, CNBC, Proactive, The Decoder, Quartz, Euronews, New York Post, Semafor, ITPro, Tech Startups, Analytics India Magazine, Spyglass, The Guardian, Fortune, PYMNTS.com, Taipei Times, The Paypers, Decrypt, Bloomberg, Verdict, Reuters, Neowin, Australian Financial Review, YourStory.com, Benzinga, Moneycontrol, Tech in Asia, The Information, and Digital Trends
Bluesky: @garymarcus, @marypcbuk, @niedermeyer.online, and @zbs
X: @joshuaogundu, @zachweinberg, and @buccocapital
Forums: r/ValueInvesting and Slashdot
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Microsoft makes OpenAI's o1 model, branded as “Think Deeper”, free for all Copilot users, after launching o1 in October 2024 as a paid Copilot Pro feature — Think Deeper first launched in October as a paid Copilot Pro feature, but it's now free.
More: PCWorld, How-To Geek, Android Headlines, Thurrott, and Windows Central
Bluesky: @quinnypig.com, @jbranchaud, and @techerous
X: @dwkos, @yusuf_i_mehdi, @msftcopilot, @mustafasuleyman, and @tomwarren. LinkedIn: Mustafa Suleyman. Forums: r/technology
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Microsoft unveils Intel-powered Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 for businesses, both Copilot+ PCs, starting at $1,500, or $500 more than Qualcomm variants — Along with a new USB 4 dock, the Surface devices are designed for businesses. — Along with a new USB 4 dock, the Surface devices are designed for businesses.
More: Windows Blog, Tom's Guide, TechSpot, How-To Geek, GeekWire, Thurrott, Microsoft Store, Engadget, Windows Central, BetaNews, Pocket-lint, Tom's Hardware, and Digital Trends
X: @tomwarren, @pavandavuluri, and @zacbowden
| Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: Amazon is ramping up ad spending on X, as companies re-evaluate their stances in a changing political climate; source: Apple considers a return to X — Amazon AMZN -0.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle is ramping up ad spending on Elon Musk's X, according to people familiar with the situation … | Bloomberg: |
Sources: bankers trying to offload ~$3B in X debt claim X had $1.2B in adjusted EBITDA in 2024, roughly flat from before Elon Musk's buyout, a sign of recovery — Investors are starting to get their most complete look yet at the financial picture of social media platform X in the chaotic three years since its buyout by Elon Musk.
More: The Information and Bitcoin News
| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
Google announces a “voluntary exit program” for employees working in the Platforms & Devices group in the US, which includes Android, Chrome, Pixel, and more — Last year, the teams responsible for Pixel hardware and Android software were merged into one division …
More: TechCrunch, Android Authority, The Verge, Business Insider, and Android Headlines
Bluesky: @hellofriend9753, @mjh878, @elkmovie, and @wisdombox
| New York Times: |
Elon Musk is using the same tactics he used during his Twitter takeover at DOGE, including offering exits to federal employees and testing engineering prowess — Federal agencies have offered exits to millions of employees and tested the prowess of engineers — just like when Elon Musk bought Twitter.
More: Gizmodo, New York Magazine, Ars Technica, Wired, Slate, PCMag, and CNN
Bluesky: @justsomedood, @jay117, @taumuyi, @martinsfp, @variousinterests, and @rmac. Mastodon: @arlen@mstdn.social
| Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: |
Europol and German law enforcement arrest two suspects and seize 17 servers to take down Cracked and Nulled, two of the largest hacking forums with 10M+ users — Europol and German law enforcement confirmed the arrest of two suspects and the seizure of 17 servers in Operation Talent …
More: Europol, The Hacker News, CSO, TechCrunch, US Department of Justice, UPI, Cyber Daily, The Record, Security Affairs, CyberInsider, Help Net Security, PCMag, Axios, and CyberScoop
X: @europol, @intelbrokerbf, and @darkwebinformer
| Wired: |
Wiz: DeepSeek left one of its critical databases exposed, leaking more than 1M records including system logs, user prompt submissions, and users' API keys — China-based DeepSeek has exploded in popularity, drawing greater scrutiny. Case in point: Security researchers found more than 1 million records …
More: Wiz Blog, The Register, The Verge, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, CyberScoop, The Hacker News, BleepingComputer, Engadget, Techaeris, The Information, CyberInsider, The Cyber Express, Digital Trends, Gizchina.com, Silicon UK, CSO, SC Media, TweakTown, Infosecurity, TechRadar, Cyber Security News, Wccftech, and argumate
Bluesky: @chirag, @lukaszolejnik, @mattburgess1, @braithwaite.dev, @marypcbuk, @nathanpeck.com, and @marko.social
X: @mavolpi, @lostinsecurity, @wiz_io, @ceo_clickhouse, @miguel_de_vega, @mayazi, @dcuthbert, @0ceans404, @wiz_io, and @joab_jackson
LinkedIn: Krzysztof Pranczk and Casey Bleeker
Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/programmingHungary, r/cybersecurity, r/technews, and r/LocalLLaMA
| Dominic Preston / The Verge: |
Vodafone makes “the world's first” satellite video call using a standard smartphone via SpaceMobile satellites; the service is set to launch in Europe in 2025 — It's partnered with Starlink rival AST SpaceMobile on a direct-to-smartphone satellite service it plans to launch in Europe later this year.
More: Vodafone Group on YouTube, Vodafone.com, 9to5Mac, TechRadar, Telecoms Tech News, The Register, Silicon UK, SamMobile, UPI, eeNews Europe, ISPreview UK, Digital Trends, TelecomTV, RCR Wireless News, Motley Fool, Engadget, Advanced Television, Neowin, PhoneArena, Android Authority, The Indian Express, The Fast Mode, Vodafone UK News Centre, PCMag, GSMArena.com, Bloomberg, BBC, and Metro.co.uk
| Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: |
Threads adds a dedicated media tab globally for photos and video, days after X and Bluesky added video tabs, and will let users tag people in photos — Meta's newer social network Threads announced on Thursday that it's introducing a dedicated “media” tab for both photos and videos …
More: Engadget, Social Media Today, Neowin, Pocket-lint, WinBuzzer, The Standard, and Moneycontrol
| Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac: |
Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to make Facebook “way more culturally influential than it is today” and he is focused on returning to “OG Facebook” in 2025 — Yesterday Meta reported its quarterly earnings, and amid sharing updates on Threads, Instagram, and yes …
More: TechCrunch, The Verge, The Information, TipRanks Financial, Blaze Media, The Independent, The Irish Times, Entrepreneur, and Variety
Bluesky: @joyographic, @erinchampaign, @manswear, @jimcashel, @chepive, @ultranova13, @oliviasolon, @hoatzin99, @clnz, @grantjallen, @noomadunc, @techviews, and @jach37
Threads: @katienotopoulos, @kelseylh87, @thebrianpenny, @karissabe, @renee.diresta, and @parkert
| Bloomberg: |
The US DOJ sues to block HPE's $14B acquisition of Juniper Networks, arguing the deal would harm competition in the enterprise wireless equipment — - Justice Department files complaint in California federal court — Company executives met with DOJ to discuss concerns this week| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
Google Search adds Ask for me, which uses AI to call businesses to inquire about availability and pricing, starting with nail salons and auto shops in the US — Following Daily Listen in early January, Google is launching a new Search Lab called “Ask for me.”| Mistral AI: |
Mistral launches Small 3, a latency-optimized 24B-parameter model that it says is competitive with larger models such as Llama 3.3 70B or Qwen 32B — Apache 2.0, 81% MMLU, 150 tokens/s — Today we're introducing Mistral Small 3, a latency-optimized 24B-parameter model released under the Apache 2.0 license.
More: SiliconANGLE, Hugging Face, VentureBeat, Simon Willison's Weblog, Ai2, and CNBC
X: @maxwinebach, @dchaplot, @maxwinebach, @lmstudio, @usb_type_d, @kaggle, @paul_jacob_, @rseroter, @ollama, @tres_sarcastik, @firstadopter, @mistralai, and @binarybits
LinkedIn: William El Sayed and Sophia Yang, Ph.D.
Forums: Hacker News and r/LocalLLaMA
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Sources: Satya Nadella and Microsoft execs moved quickly to get engineers to test and deploy R1 on Azure and GitHub in 10 days, an unusually fast turnaround — Microsoft was ready for the next step in AI models. — Microsoft was ready for the next step in AI models.
More: PYMNTS.com, Nairametrics, Windows Report, and Analytics India Magazine
| Stephen Eisenhammer / Reuters: |
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum writes to Google arguing that Maps should not accept Trump's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday presented a letter the government is sending to Google arguing the Google Maps platform …
More: Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CNET, Metro.co.uk, BBC, Reuters, TipRanks Financial, Al Jazeera, Macau Business, The Hill, New York Times, Global News, Yahoo News, and Anadolu Ajansı …. Bluesky: @biaggios
| Google Workspace Updates: |
Google announces new Gemini features for Google Sheets, letting Workspace users ask Gemini to generate static charts, analyze data, and more — What's changing — Building data visualizations and identifying trends in data is a critical business function, however it can be time consuming and oftentimes overwhelming.
More: Android Police, KnowTechie, Tech.co, 9to5Google, The Verge, Android Authority, Neowin, and Engadget
| Bloomberg: |
Cybersecurity firms Netskope and Armis say “hundreds” of companies and government agencies globally are moving to block DeepSeek due to data leak concerns — - Ireland, Italy seek details on if citizens' data is protected — Companies and government agencies around the world …
More: Reuters, SiliconANGLE, Visual Studio Magazine, NBC News, and Moneycontrol. Bluesky: @danielasprouse
| David Streitfeld / New York Times: |
An interview with Bill Gates on his memoir, “Source Code: My Beginnings”, social media, crypto, AI, billionaires, tax, Trump, his parents, Microsoft, and more — The older he gets, the more Bill Gates is surprised by what the world dishes up. — Take billionaires.
More: New York Post, Wired, Media Nation, and Fox News
| Ashlee Vance / Core Memory: |
How Hudhayfa Nazoordeen, aka HudZah, a 20-year-old math student and an “AI native” in San Francisco, is building a nuclear fusor under Claude's tutelage — Goodbye, Digital Natives. Hello, AI Natives — AI madness is upon many of us, and it can take different forms.| Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg: |
Sam Altman briefed US policymakers on the need to invest heavily in physical infrastructure with Stargate to support AI development, citing the rise of DeepSeek — OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman briefed US policymakers on the need to continue investing heavily in physical infrastructure … | TechCrunch: |
AI audio startup ElevenLabs raised a $180M Series C co-led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth at a $3.3B post-money valuation, taking its total funding to $281M — ElevenLabs, one of the more popular startups working in the field AI audio, said Thursday that it has raised a Series C round of $180 million …
More: Tech.eu, Reuters, Maginative, Salesforce Ventures, Bloomberg, Tech Funding News, and en.ain.ua
LinkedIn: Maciek Gnutek and Stan Massueras
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More: The Decoder, Tech.co, WinBuzzer, Politico, Search Engine Journal, Reuters, Gizmodo, and Yahoo News
Bluesky: @sportsguymn and @newsguard
X: @newsguardrating, @marionawfal, and @deitaone
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More: Reuters, Pivot to AI, Microsoft Azure, Windows Blog, PCWorld, Engadget, The Register, Directions on Microsoft, The Economic Times, Bloomberg, WinBuzzer, TechCrunch, Thurrott, Fortune, TechRadar, MSPoweruser, Network World, Tom's Guide, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cyber Security News, Gizchina.com, Wccftech, Neowin, Verdict, GSMArena.com, TechPowerUp, Windows Central, BGR, and Tom's Hardware
Bluesky: @danielrubino.com, @fxshaw.com, and @tomwarren.co.uk
X: @azure, @anshelsag, @never_released, @never_released, @javaatmicrosoft, @btibor91, @adamclark_dev, @bgurley, @headinthebox, @windowsdev, and @minimaxir. LinkedIn: Engin Erzengin
Forums: r/AMD_Stock and Slashdot