Techmeme: Italy accuses Amazon of evading €1.2B in VAT payments; sources: the claim is linked to the sale of goods from China and other non-EU countries from 2019 to 2021 (Financial Times)

Jason Koebler / 404 Media:

The doge.gov website tracking Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government pulls from a database that anyone can edit, say two sources who found the vulnerability — The doge.gov website that was spun up to track Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government is insecure and pulls from a database …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

Sources: Apple plans to launch its AI features in China as early as May 2025, using its own on-device models and Alibaba software to censor or filter the output — - Company to use own models, with help from Alibaba and Baidu — Work includes system to censor or block content for government

More: Engadget, MacRumors, Sherwood News, BGR, PhoneArena, MacDailyNews, The Independent, Neowin, MSPoweruser, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Mobile World Live, Tech in Asia, and Yahoo Finance

Bluesky: @paleofuture. X: @markgurman, @markgurman, and @sino_market. Forums: r/apple

Qianer Liu / The Information:

Sources: Apple continues to work with Baidu to develop an AI-powered Siri search feature for iPhone users in China, even after onboarding new partner Alibaba

More: TechNode, The Register, Bloomberg, Reuters, and MacRumors

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

The UK renames its AI Safety Institute to AI Security Institute, in a pivot to cybersecurity, and is exploring ways to use Anthropic's Claude in public services — The U.K. government wants to make a hard pivot into boosting its economy and industry with AI, and as part of that …

More: GOV.UK, GOV.UK, Tech Monitor, Infosecurity, Fortune, Reuters, AI Now Institute, TechRadar, ITPro, Silicon Republic, Maginative, Verdict, The Stack, The Times, Bloomberg Law, The Independent, and UKTN

Bluesky: @ewaluger. Mastodon: @jonpsp@mstdn.social. LinkedIn: Azeem Azhar, Jeremy Kahn, and Ajit Jaokar

Forums: r/singularity and Slashdot

Tom Bristow / Politico:

The UK recasting its AI Safety Institute as an AI Security Institute, without bias concerns, followed JD Vance's speech criticizing “hand-wringing about safety”

More: The Standard. X: @kevinbankston

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google's Gemini can now recall and “reference past chats for more tailored help”, rolling out in English for Advanced subscribers on the web and in the app — Google today is rolling out a new Gemini app feature for Advanced subscribers that can recall and “reference past chats for more tailored help.”

More: The Keyword, TechCrunch, ZDNET, Business Standard, The Verge, Ghacks, Mashable, Shelly Palmer, Digital Trends, Android Headlines, Engadget, Neowin, Tech in Asia, TheCable, Android Police, PhoneArena, Droid Life, How-To Geek, and Android Authority

Mastodon: @glenngabe@mas.to. X: @ai_for_success

New York Times:

Sources: banks sold ~$4.7B of X's debt on February 13, more than the $3B that they originally intended to sell, leaving ~$1B of X debt on their balance sheets — The social media company is attracting investor interest because of Elon Musk's close ties to President Trump and a recent jump in revenue.

More: Financial Times, Business Insider, and Bloomberg

Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:

Coinbase reports Q4 revenue up 138% YoY to $2.27B, vs. $1.88B est., transaction revenue up 194% to $1.56B, vs. $1.29B est., and trading volume up 185% to $439B — Coinbase Thursday reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results and its biggest quarterly revenue in three years …

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:

Sources: Mark Zuckerberg cozying up to President Trump has made employees uncertain and is part of an effort to shift antitrust scrutiny off Meta and onto Apple — Mark Zuckerberg kicked off 2025 with an Instagram video that outlined his vision for what he called restoring “free expression” …

Bluesky: @annmlipton. Forums: Hacker News

The European Commission's digital chief, Henna Virkkunen, says the EU is reducing regulation to boost AI investments, not due to US Big Tech or Trump pressure — Henna Virkkunen says efforts to cut red tape are not prompted by US pressure — The EU is cutting back tech regulation …

More: European Commission, TechCrunch, Politico, and European Commission

Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:

Ubisoft reports revenue for the nine months ending December 31, 2024, down 31.4% YoY to €990M, net booking down 34.8% to €944M, but remains optimistic about Q4 — Firm also experienced a 51.8% drop in net bookings during its third quarter — Ubisoft has released its financial results …

More: Game World Observer, PC Gamer, PC Games Insider, Reuters, and 80 Level

Forums: r/pcgaming and r/Games

Sources: President Xi will chair a symposium on February 17 to boost private sector sentiment, with Tencent CEO Pony Ma and other tech executives set to attend — Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to chair a symposium to boost private sector sentiment next week that will be attended …

More: Agence France-Presse and Yahoo Finance

Baidu says it plans to open source its next-generation AI model, Ernie 4.5, from June 30, a major shift in strategy as competition heats up following DeepSeek — China's Baidu (9888.HK) said on Friday that it would make the next-generation artificial intelligence model Ernie open-source from June 30.

More: Reuters, Pandaily, CNN, Verdict, South China Morning Post, and South China Morning Post

Bloomberg:

Memo: Meta hires the former CEO of luxury goods marketplace The RealReal as VP of retail, as it seeks to boost sales of Quest, Ray-Ban Meta, and AI wearables — - Company hires John Koryl as retail VP reporting to its CTO — Meta wants to improve retail experience for new AI wearables

X: @markgurman

Sources: the White House plans to renegotiate some Chips Act awards after changing current requirements, and has signaled delays to some upcoming disbursements — The White House is seeking to renegotiate U.S. CHIPS and Science Act awards and has signaled delays to some upcoming semiconductor disbursements …

More: Tom's Hardware, Engadget, The Korea Herald, Sherwood News, Benzinga, Seeking Alpha, Reuters, Center for Technology …, and Tech in Asia

X: @jonathanlanday. Forums: r/politics

Sources: Arm is recruiting executives from its own customers in a push to sell its own chips, and is competing against Qualcomm to sell data center CPUs to Meta — Arm (O9Ty.F) has begun recruiting from its own customers and competing against them for deals as it pushes toward selling its own chips …

More: Ars Technica, eeNews Europe, The Guardian, Hackster.io, UKTN, and Benzinga

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Sources: Arm plans to launch its own chip in 2025, expected to be a CPU for servers in large data centers, after securing Meta as one of its first customers

More: Engadget, Computerworld, PC Gamer, TechPowerUp, TrendForce News, Sherwood News, Fortune, PYMNTS.com, Seeking Alpha, SiliconANGLE, Motley Fool, Quartz, and Bloomberg

X: @masasoncap and @dylanonchips

Forums: r/hardware and Slashdot

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From Mediagazer

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Paramount has offered $15M to settle with Trump; Trump's team wants more than $25M, is seeking an apology from CBS News, and threatened another lawsuit

Ben Johansen / Politico:

Sources: all 800 full-time VOA staff are expected to receive reduction-in-force notices this week, after ~600 VOA contractors were dismissed earlier in May

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Memo: David Leavy, who became CNN's COO in 2023, is leaving; sources say the longtime key lieutenant of David Zaslav is returning to Warner Bros. Discovery

More News

Italy accuses Amazon of evading €1.2B in VAT payments; sources: the claim is linked to the sale of goods from China and other non-EU countries from 2019 to 2021

More: Reuters and RTÉ

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:

Filing: Nvidia cut its Arm stake by 43.8% to 1.1M shares in Q4, valuing its remaining shares at ~$181M as of February 13, and discloses 1.7M shares in WeRide

More: Finbold, The Motley Fool, Wall Street Pit, Yahoo Finance, Sherwood News, Seeking Alpha, CNBC, and Reuters

Sources: Shein's UK IPO may be delayed to H2 2025 after President Trump's import crackdown; Shein had told investors a London IPO could happen as soon as Easter

More: PYMNTS.com, City A.M., and Reuters

PYMNTS.com:

London-based OneID, which provides a bank-verified digital ID service, raised £16M+ led by ACF Investors; 200+ UK, Swedish, and US angel investors also invested

More: The Paypers, OneID Limited, FinSMEs, and EU-Startups

Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg:

Eudia, which provides in-house legal teams with AI agents and other tools for common tasks, exits stealth with an up to $105M Series A led by General Catalyst

More: Pulse 2.0, Verdict, Tech in Asia, Eudia, eudia.com, General Catalyst, and VC News Daily

Kendra Barnett / Adweek:

Reddit says content licensing deals with Google and OpenAI account for ~10% of its revenue but it's focused on its ad revenue business, which grew 60% YoY in Q4

More: The Wrap, Search Engine Land, CNBC, Bloomberg, and Digiday

Bluesky: @kendrabarnett. Threads: @mattnavarra. Forums: Slashdot

The Indian Express:

JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar officially merge to launch JioHotstar, a new streaming service in India that brings together content from the two platforms

More: WORLD SCREEN, Advanced Television, The Hindu, Moneycontrol, Trak.in, Digit, JioHotstar helpdesk, Livemint, Business Today, Hindustan Times, TechCrunch, Inc42 Media, Deadline, and Tech in Asia

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

OpenAI removes “warning” messages in ChatGPT that indicated when content might violate its terms of service, to cut down on “gratuitous/unexplainable denials”

More: WinBuzzer and Platformer

Threads: @crumbler. X: @laurentia___, @nickaturley, @mark_k, @joannejang, and @kimmonismus

Earlier Picks

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Roku reports Q4 revenue up 22% YoY to $1.2B, vs. $1.15B est., a net loss of $35.5M, and streaming households up 12% YoY to 89.8M; ROKU jumps 10%+ after hours

More: CNBC, Proactive, Kiplinger, Sherwood News, MediaPost, Motley Fool, Associated Press, Crypto Briefing, MarketWatch, The Wrap, Roku, The Desk, Reuters, Deadline, Benzinga, The Hollywood Reporter, Barron's Online, and Cord Cutters News

J. Edward Moreno / Sherwood News:

Airbnb Q4: revenue up 12% YoY to $2.48B, Nights and Experiences Booked up 12% to 111M, Gross Booking Value up 13% to $17.6B, vs. $17.2B est.; ABNB jumps 13%+

More: Quartz, Kiplinger, Yahoo Finance, Benzinga, Airbnb, Bloomberg, Airbnb Newsroom, and Reuters

Chainalysis:

In 2024, crypto scams received at least $9.9B on-chain, up 40% YoY and likely a record; scams marketplace Huione Guarantee received $376M+ in crypto in 2024

More: crypto.news, Coinmonks, Dark Reading, The Block, The Week, Blockonomi, Bitcoin Insider, Yahoo Finance, Infosecurity, and CoinDesk. LinkedIn: Jacqueline Burns Koven

Dan Primack / Axios:

Slow Ventures raised $60M+ for a fund to invest in creators who are authorities on niche areas like automotive; the fund appears to be the first of its kind

More: Bloomberg and Business Insider

Bluesky: @danprimack. X: @lessin, @lessin, @captainhahaa, @slow, @mikeisaac, and @othman

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:

Sources: Italian spyware maker SIO created malicious Android apps that masquerade as WhatsApp and other apps; a researcher says they were likely used in Italy

More: Metacurity. Bluesky: @zackwhittaker. X: @lorenzofb

Emma Roth / The Verge:

Tim Cook teases an announcement of “the newest member of the family” on February 19; Mark Gurman reported Apple would update the iPhone SE

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:

YouTube updates Shorts to integrate Google DeepMind's latest video model Veo 2, letting creators generate AI video clips to add to any of their Shorts

More: YouTube Official Blog, Android Authority, Music Ally, The Verge, Ghacks, Analytics India Magazine, Business Standard, MSPoweruser, Maginative, Business Today, The Keyword, Search Engine Journal, Android Police, WinBuzzer, Trusted Reviews, and Neowin

Bluesky: @scriibble, @carljanderson, and @ilarias

X: @youtubecreators, @almostmedia, @newsfromgoogle, @doomie, @scobleizer, @googledeepmind, and @googledeepmind. Forums: r/Bard