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Techmeme
January 29, 2025, 7:50 AM
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Top News

Financial Times:
OpenAI says it has seen some evidence that DeepSeek used “distillation” to train its open-source competitor by using outputs from OpenAI's proprietary models  —  White House AI tsar David Sacks raises possibility of alleged intellectual property theft
Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
David Sacks says there's “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek “distilled knowledge out of OpenAI models and I don't think OpenAI is very happy about this”  —  White House artificial intelligence czar David Sacks said there's “substantial evidence” …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAI's API was obtained in an unauthorized manner by a group linked to DeepSeek  —  Microsoft's security researchers in the fall observed individuals they believe may be linked to DeepSeek exfiltrating a large amount …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has been working with SpaceX and T-Mobile to add Starlink support in iOS 18.3; T-Mobile is testing with some users, only for texting initially  —  - T-Mobile begins pushing offering in limited beta test to users  —  Apple Inc. has been secretly working with SpaceX …
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Sources: the US Office of Personnel Management's highest ranks now include former employees of Elon Musk's companies, including xAI and the Boring Company  —  Sources tell WIRED that the OPM's top layers of management now include individuals linked to xAI, Neuralink, the Boring Company, and Palantir.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers detail two Apple silicon side-channel attacks that could leak secrets: SLAP, affecting M2, A15, and newer chips, and FLOP, affecting M3, M4, and A17  —  Apple-designed chips powering Macs, iPhones, and iPads contain two newly discovered vulnerabilities that leak credit card information …
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google's maps unit reclassified the US as a “sensitive country”, reserved for states with strict governments or border disputes, after Trump's map changes  —  Google's maps division on Monday reclassified the U.S. as a “sensitive country,” a designation it reserves for states …
Eduardo Baptista / Reuters:
Alibaba releases Qwen 2.5-Max, an AI model that the company claims “outperforms” GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3, and Llama-3.1-405B “almost across the board”  —  Chinese tech company Alibaba (9988.HK) on Wednesday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
ASML reports Q4 net profit of €2.69B on €9.26B net sales, net bookings up 169% QoQ to €7.09B, and expects 2025 net sales of €30B to €35B, up from €28.3B in 2024  —  Dutch semiconductor giant ASML on Wednesday reported a big jump in fourth-quarter net bookings …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet says cheaper AI “could mean more applications” and “more demand over time”, and “cost and energy” are the big issues to address
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Sony names CFO Hiroki Totoki as CEO, succeeding Kenichiro Yoshida, and PlayStation co-CEO Hideaki Nishino as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, from April 1  —  The corporate shuffle, effective April 1, was approved late Tuesday by the electronics and entertainment giant's board of directors in Tokyo.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
The US Navy instructs its members to avoid using DeepSeek “in any capacity” due to “potential security and ethical concerns”  —  The U.S. Navy has instructed its members to avoid using artificial intelligence technology from China's DeepSeek, CNBC has learned.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Hugging Face researchers unveil Open-R1, a project to “systematically reconstruct DeepSeek-R1's data and training pipeline” for the open-source community  —  Barely a week after DeepSeek released its R1 “reasoning” AI model — which sent markets into a tizzy …
Radhika Rajkumar / ZDNET:
Block introduces an on-device, open-source AI agent called Goose, which allows developers to choose their preferred LLM to automate engineering tasks  —  Whether for developer needs or mundane tasks, the artificial intelligence (AI) tide appears to be turning in favor of open-source solutions.
Jyoti Mann / Business Insider:
In an internal memo, Andrew Bosworth says Meta's Reality Labs beat nearly all its sales and user targets for 2024, growing sales “>40% YoY overall”  —  - Meta's Reality Labs exceeded nearly all its 2024 sales and user targets, an internal memo said.
bellingcat:
A look at MrDeepFakes, a site with obscure ownership that hosts non-consensual deepfake porn, has close to 650K members, and gets millions of visits per month  —  This article is the result of a collaboration with German YouTube channel STRG_F.  You can watch their documentary here.
Wall Street Journal:
US officials and Google researchers: China, Iran, and 18+ others are using AI, including Gemini, to bolster their cyberattacks against US and global targets  —  A cyber-threat report from Google is shedding light on how foreign actors are leveraging generative AI to boost their hacking prowess.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:50 AM ET, January 29, 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

Dan Shanoff / The Athletic:
Nielsen: the 2026 World Cup final drew 38.9M viewers on Fox and 22M+ on Telemundo; taken together, the US audience size rivaled that of NFL playoff games

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
ESPN's cuts are part of larger Disney layoffs; sources say some corporate functions, film studios, and Disney Entertainment TV are expected to be impacted

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Reach reports H1 revenue down 9% YoY to £232.9M, pre-tax profit down 5% to £40.3M, and says it will move “away from volume” to focus on original content

More News

Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
The UK National Audit Office says the government was operating at least 228 “legacy” computer systems as of March 2024, increasing the risk of a disruptive hack

Earlier Picks

Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
An ex-OpenAI safety researcher says he's “terrified” by AI development's pace and that labs racing to AGI can cut corners on alignment, pushing all to speed up
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Garmin smartwatch users report their devices are bricking after starting any activity that uses GPS; Garmin says it is looking into the issue
Tim De Chant / TechCrunch:
Fusion reactor startup Helion, which has a deal to supply Microsoft with electricity by 2028, raised a $425M Series F, valuing the company at $5.245B
Hugh Son / CNBC:
X announces X Money Account, a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payments service with Visa as its launch partner, debuting “later this year”
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