Techmeme
January 14, 2025, 3:40 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese officials are evaluating an option involving Elon Musk acquiring TikTok US; X would take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together  —  - ByteDance's preferred strategy is to fight ban, sources say  — Trump has said he would like to delay ban to seek resolution
Todd Spangler / Variety:
TikTok denies a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to Elon Musk, calling it “pure fiction”  —  TikTok denied a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational …
Zeyi Yang / Wired:
Ahead of a likely US TikTok ban, users flee to Chinese apps Xiaohongshu, aka RedNote, and ByteDance's Lemon8, currently the top two apps in the US App Store  —  Some say they joined Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book,” to spite the US government after a ban on TikTok became more likely.
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Texas sues Allstate and its subsidiary Arity, accusing the insurer of illegally collecting and selling data about people's driving behavior through mobile apps  —  The lawsuit accuses Arity, an Allstate subsidiary, of collecting data about people's driving behavior through mobile phone apps …
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
Jimmy Wales, Mark Ruffalo, others debut Free Our Feeds to raise $30M by 2028 to “billionaire-proof” AT Protocol, by making it easier for users to leave Bluesky  —  Free Our Feeds, which includes support from the Mozilla Foundation, is working with Bluesky to make sure …
Niket Nishant / Reuters:
Sygnum, a Switzerland and Singapore-based digital asset bank and crypto trading platform, raised $58M led by Fulgur Ventures at a $1B valuation  —  Crypto-focused bank Sygnum secured a valuation of $1 billion after raising $58 million in its latest funding round, it said on Tuesday.
Financial Times:
The Biden admin unveils a new chip export rule that gives 18 key allies full AI chips access while requiring licenses from most other countries, including China  —  US semiconductor industry warns move will aid competitors  —  The US is imposing expansive export controls on chips used …
Associated Press:
Will Knight / Wired:
Reuters:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft is creating a new “CoreAI - Platform and Tools” unit led by Jay Parikh, the ex-Lacework CEO and Meta engineering executive who joined in October 2024  —  Microsoft is creating a new engineering division, led by the former global head of engineering at Facebook (now Meta) …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Bellevue, WA-based Truveta, which aggregates medical data from 30 partner institutions, raised $320M from Regeneron, Illumina, and others at a $1B+ valuation  —  Seattle-area health data company Truveta announced $320 million in fresh funding and an ambitious new initiative to create a giant genomic dataset.
Leena Rao / Business Insider:
Chainalysis buys AI-agent security startup Alterya, sources say for ~$150M; Alterya is still in stealth mode but has clients including Coinbase, Square, Binance  —  - Chainalysis has acquired Alterya, a fraud-detection startup, for $150 million.  — Founded in 2022, Alterya uses AI to detect scams for financial and crypto firms.
Washington Post:
An investigation finds 15 police departments across 12 US states have arrested suspects identified through facial recognition without having any other evidence  —  Confident in unproven facial recognition technology, sometimes investigators skip steps; at least eight Americans have been wrongfully arrested.
More: Biometric UpdateBluesky: @joffirphd, @drewharwell.com, and @hypervisibleX: @glyncoLinkedIn: Douglas MacMillanForums: r/technology
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
The SEC says that two Robinhood broker-dealers agreed to pay $45M in combined penalties to settle charges that they violated over 10 securities law provisions  —  - CNBC Councils  — CNBC on Peacock  — Join the CNBC Panel  — Supply Chain Values  — Select Shopping  — Ad Choices
Financial Times:
Amazon's AGI lead Rohit Prasad says Alexa will relaunch as an AI agent as Amazon works to address challenges in the system's AI overhaul  —  Rollout of upgraded voice assistant hit by delays as Big Tech group toils to overcome technical hurdles  —  Amazon is gearing up to relaunch …
Lauly Li / Nikkei Asia:
Sources: China tightens scrutiny of Apple and other US tech firms' exports under its dual-use export controls, slowing production expansion in SE Asia and India  —  TAIPEI — China is increasing its scrutiny of exports by Apple and other American tech companies, hampering their efforts …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
How much will a CRM actually cost you?  Use this free calculator to find out  —  You've finally decided to invest in a CRM.  You've done the research, shortlisted a few tools, and maybe even bookmarked a pricing page or two.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 06/11 - o3-pro
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Scott Frank on Netflix, the future of Hollywood, and Dept. Q
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Marc Andreessen from a16z
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Spotlight On:
CrowdStrike's George Kurtz on the security arms race
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
OpenAI's CPO on what's coming next: Hardware, GPT-5, Jony Ive, agents, more
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
Invest Like the Best:
Bill Gurley - The Gift and The Curse of Staying Private
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:40 AM ET, January 14, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
New York Times:
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
New York Times: