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February 3, 2025, 7:00 PM
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Top News

Financial Times:
Analysis: Meta has invested $80B+ in AR and VR since 2014 when it bought Oculus, and is on track to top $100B in 2025  —  Tech group reveals it put $19.9bn into its Reality Labs division, which develops its smart glasses and headsets, last year  —  Meta's total investment in virtual …
Bloomberg:
Trump signs an executive action to form a sovereign wealth fund; Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick says it may be used to facilitate a sale of TikTok US  —  - Fund could be used as US facilitates TikTok sale, Lutnick says  — Bessent says fund will be created in the next 12 months
Evan Weinberger / Bloomberg Law:
Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent orders the CFPB to stop all rulemaking, communications, litigation, and other activities; in November, Musk called to “Delete CFPB”  —  Search by Topic  —  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has shut down a wide variety of operations inside …
Musk Watch:
An OPM staffer believes a server Musk's associates installed, with access to federal staff info like SSNs, has not undergone a Privacy Impact Assessment  —  The Musk-connected political hires include two recent high school graduates  —  Several of Elon Musk's associates installed at the Office …
Rochelle Raveendran / CBC News:
In the wake of US tariffs on Canadian goods, the premier of Ontario Doug Ford says he's “ripping up” the province's CA$100M Starlink contract  —  Musk part of President Donald Trump's team that wants to destroy families, Ford says  —  Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
The first ever native iPhone porn app, Hot Tub, arrives in the EU via the alternative app store AltStore PAL, which was made possible by the DMA  —  A native pornography app for iOS is coming to the EU via the approved alternative app store AltStore PAL, made possible by Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Andrew Orr / AppleInsider:
Counterpoint: iPhone 15 led global smartphone sales in 2024, followed by iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, Galaxy A15 5G; global smartphone revenue grew 5% YoY  —  Apple's iPhone 15 led global sales in 2024, with Pro models close behind, as premium device demand drove a revenue rebound.
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
Anthropic details Constitutional Classifiers, a system that aims to guard AI models against jailbreaks, monitoring both inputs and outputs for harmful content  —  Leading tech groups including Microsoft and Meta also invest in similar safety systems  —  Artificial intelligence start …
Bloomberg:
The Seoul High Court upholds an earlier decision clearing Samsung Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee of fraud and stock-rigging, marking a major victory for Samsung  —  - Seoul court upholds Jay Y. Lee's earlier victory on appeal  — The Samsung scion can now focus on turning around the firm
Bloomberg:
A US appeals court panel appeared skeptical of Google's bid to overturn a 2023 jury verdict that declared the Play Store an illegal monopoly in the Epic case  —  - Jury ruled Google violated antitrust law by restricting apps  — Google argues case shouldn't have been decided by jury
Ethan Mollick / One Useful Thing:
OpenAI's Deep Research hands-on: very good at nuanced, complex research, and the first narrow agent to do sophisticated and likely economically valuable work  —  The first narrow agents are here  —  A hint to the future arrived quietly over the weekend.  For a long time …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
OpenAI debuts Deep Research, an AI agent for creating in-depth reports, available to $200/month ChatGPT Pro subscribers and limited to 100 queries per month

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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Building a more inclusive web experience: Our journey toward better accessibility  —  Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)Technology has the power to connect, empower, and transform lives, but only if it's built for all.
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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:00 PM ET, February 3, 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

Washington Post:
More than 500 Voice of America contractors are expected to lose their jobs by June 30; Kari Lake says 584 total employees were terminated across USAGM

Wall Street Journal:
The US DHS says it is considering taking part in a reality show where immigrants compete for US citizenship, an idea that was pitched by producer Rob Worsoff

Mike Scarcella / Reuters:
Filing: advertisers ask a US judge to dismiss X's lawsuit accusing them of boycotting the company, arguing X failed to show that they acted with any common plan

More News

Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Palantir reports Q4 revenue of $828M, up 36% YoY, vs. $776M est., US commercial revenue up 64% YoY; PLTR, which soared 340% in 2024, jumps ~15% after hours
Monique Mulima / Bloomberg:
MicroStrategy says it didn't buy any bitcoin in the prior week, ending 12 consecutive weekly purchases worth $20B+ starting in October 2024, and holds ~$44.7B
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
The Beatles' Now and Then, created using AI and an original 1970s lo-fi demo, won Best Rock Performance at the Grammys; McCartney and Starr completed it in 2021

Earlier Picks

Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
A profile of Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, whose overblown statements about AI replacing humans point to a future that tech companies are working toward
Hayden Field / CNBC:
SoftBank commits $3B annually for itself and its subsidiaries to use OpenAI's tech, and launches SB OpenAI Japan to market OpenAI's enterprise tech in Japan
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