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February 5, 2025, 4:05 AM
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Alphabet Inc:
Alphabet reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to $96.47B, net income up 28% YoY to $26.54B, Services revenue up 10% to $84.1B, and Other Bets revenue down 39% to $400M  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - February 4, 2025 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2024.
Reuters:
Alphabet expects 2025 capex of ~$75B, vs. ~$58B est., and reports Google Cloud Q4 revenue up 30% YoY to $11.96B, vs. $12.16B est.; GOOG drops 7%+ after hours  —  Alphabet (GOOGL.O) said on Tuesday it will spend $75 billion on its AI buildout this year, 29% more than Wall Street expected …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Alphabet reports YouTube Q4 ad revenue up 14% YoY to $10.47B, vs. $10.23B est.; together, Google Cloud and YouTube ended 2024 at a $110B annual revenue run rate
Washington Post:
Google drops language from its AI Principles that said it would not pursue AI applications “likely to cause overall harm”, such as for weapons and surveillance  —  In 2018 the company updated its policies to explicitly exclude applying AI to weapons.  Now that promise is gone.
Zeyi Yang / Wired:
The USPS halts all inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong, after President Trump ended the “de minimis” exemption, sending the e-commerce industry into chaos  —  As part of new tariffs on Chinese imports, President Donald Trump eliminated an exemption for small packages …
Ian King / Bloomberg:
AMD reports Q4 revenue up 24% YoY to $7.66B, Data Center revenue up 69% to $3.86B, vs. $4.09B est., and forecasts Q1 sales of $6.8B to $7.4B, vs. $7.04B est.  —  - Results suggest the chipmaker is still lagging behind Nvidia  — Company fares better in PC market, making gains on Intel
New York Times:
Sources: the US SEC is moving to scale back a special unit of 50+ lawyers and staff members that had been dedicated to bringing crypto enforcement actions  —  Some in a special unit of 50 lawyers and staff members that had been assigned to regulate cryptocurrency are being reassigned in the agency.
Olivia Reingold / The Free Press:
Andreessen Horowitz hires ex-Marine Daniel Penny, who was recently acquitted in a controversial NYC subway chokehold case, to work on its American Dynamism team  —  “Daniel acted with courage in a tough situation,” said partner David Ulevitch in a statement explaining the hire.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sources: Sonos will release an Android-based streaming box in the coming months, priced between $200 and $400, that combines content from Netflix, Max, and more  —  After the most tumultuous nine months in Sonos' history, the brand is trying to find its footing again.
Jonathan Bell / Wallpaper*:
OpenAI unveils a visual rebrand, featuring a new bespoke typeface called OpenAI Sans, a refined logo, and a new color palette  —  A new typeface, word mark, symbol and palette underpin all the ways in which OpenAI's technology interacts with the real world  — Sign up to our newsletter -
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Elon Musk accused an X user, who named federal staff in a post X then removed, of “a crime”, showing what actual government social media censorship looks like  —  For years, we've watched self-proclaimed “free speech warriors” hyperventilate about imaginary government control of social media content moderation.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple debuts Invites, an app to help plan events like birthdays, graduations, and more, with Image Playground and Writing Tools tie-ins, for iCloud+ subscribers  —  Apple today announced the launch of a new app called “Invites,” which is designed to allow users to plan events like birthday parties …
Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times:
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman poaches three Google DeepMind former colleagues, including two who built NotebookLM's Audio Overviews and worked on Astra  —  Rival companies in fierce battle for talent in race to build powerful artificial intelligence ‘agents’
Lina M. Khan / New York Times:
Lina Khan says that DeepSeek's breakthroughs highlight how US Big Tech's monopolistic practices may actually be hampering the US' technological leadership  —  When Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley and Wall Street with its powerful new A.I. model …
More: Nikkei Asia.  Threads: @carnage4life.  X: @nhegde, @atabarrok, @tysonbrody, and @bigblackjacobin.  LinkedIn: Yann LeCun.  Forums: r/neoliberal
Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac:
The Iconfactory debuts Tapestry for iOS and iPadOS, bringing Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS, YouTube, and more into one timeline, with a $1.99/month tier to remove ads  —  The Iconfactory, makers of the now-discontinued Twitterrific app, have today launched the spiritual successor to their Twitter client.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe adds “contract intelligence capabilities” to Acrobat's $4.99-per-month AI Assistant, letting the PDF manager summarize complicated language in contracts  —  The new contract surfaces key terms and dates within complex agreements.  —  The new contract surfaces key terms and dates within complex agreements.
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Memo: Cruise lays off “approximately 50%” of its staff, after GM cut robotaxi operations funding and shifts its focus to tech like hands-free driver assistance  —  Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is laying off “nearly” 50% of its workforce — cuts that extend to the CEO and several …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple raises the monthly AppleCare+ price for iPhone users by $0.50 in the US and will only offer one-time AppleCare+ purchase options in its online store  —  Apple this week increased the prices for its monthly AppleCare+ subscription prices for the iPhone, raising the cost by 50 cents for all models in the United States.
Bloomberg:
How India kept its satellite internet market closed to Starlink, Amazon, and more, despite poor rural connectivity; a regulator is set to publish rules in 2025  —  As global resistance to Starlink dies down, Elon Musk wants to beam connectivity across the world's most populous country.
Nikkei Asia:
Chinese chip firms blacklisted by the US are turning to universities, state-backed labs, and “pilot production lines” to keep their development efforts on track  —  TAIPEI — Chinese chip and chip equipment makers blacklisted by the U.S. are turning to universities and state-backed chip labs and …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The EC releases its prohibited AI practices guidelines under the EU's AI Act, like using AI to track employees' emotions or to manipulate app and website users  —  Employers will be banned from using artificial intelligence to track their staff's emotions and websites will not be allowed …
Henry Chandonnet / Fast Company:
An interview with Twitch CEO Dan Clancy on competition with YouTube and Kick, exclusivity contracts, content moderation, Twitch's expansion plans, and more  —  Business leaders are often reluctant to speak about their competition.  It's rare that you'll hear Netflix's Ted Sarandos talk about Disney+ …
Darren Loucaides / Wired:
A look at Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's arrest in Paris and its aftermath; a source says more than half of Telegram's $1B revenue in 2024 came from its ad platform  —  The Russian-born CEO styles himself as a free-speech crusader and a scourge of the surveillance state.
Patpicha Tanakasempipat / Bloomberg:
Thailand cuts power, internet, and fuel supplies to parts of Myanmar suspected of housing online scam centers, ahead of PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra's China visit  —  - Move comes ahead of Thai PM's meeting with Xi Jinping Thursday  — Scam operations in neighboring country hurt tourism, PM says

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:05 AM ET, February 5, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian:
Reuters journalist Raphael Satter sues the Indian government for revoking his Overseas Citizen status, after he wrote about hack-for-hire company Appin in 2023

Washington Post:
John Feinstein, a Washington Post sportswriter who wrote more than 40 books including A Season on the Brink, about basketball coach Bob Knight, has died at 69

Charles Ornstein / ProPublica:
A look at three examples of how ProPublica has used AI to analyze data, including how journalists wrote AI prompts, with staff reviewing and confirming results

More News

Earlier Picks

Associated Press:
A US judge says Elon Musk's claims of harm from OpenAI are a “stretch”, but she wouldn't stop the case from moving to trial as soon as next year
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
ByteDance researchers demo OmniHuman-1, an AI system trained on 19K hours of video from undisclosed sources and that appears to beat prior deepfake techniques
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