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February 14, 2025, 9:00 PM
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Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta plans major investment in AI-powered humanoid robots, with an initial focus on household chores, and has formed a new team within Reality Labs  —  - Company is aiming to be the engine powering humanoid market  — Ex-Cruise CEO Marc Whitten to run new group in Reality Labs
New York Times:
OpenAI's board rejects the $97.4B bid by Elon Musk and a consortium of investors, saying they reject “Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition”  —  Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI's board, said the artificial intelligence company was “not for sale.”
Bloomberg:
Source: TSMC is considering taking a controlling stake in Intel's factories at the request of Trump's team; it is unclear whether Intel is open to a transaction  —  - TSMC would take controlling stake in potential partnership  — Administration aims to boost manufacturing of advanced chips
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: Dell nears a $5B deal to provide servers with Nvidia's GB200 chips for xAI's supercomputer project in Memphis  —  - Musk's AI startup developing supercomputer project in Memphis  — Dell working to win large share of xAI's Memphis build-out  —  Dell Technologies Inc …
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
In an AMA, Steve Huffman says Reddit is planning to roll out paid subreddits in 2025 and is “laying the foundation” to monetize commerce within subreddits  —  Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's overhaul of Siri faces engineering problems and software bugs; some features, planned for April, may have to be postponed until May or later  —  - Software's makeover is key to Apple Intelligence ambitions  — New Siri features slated for April at risk of being postponed
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 …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Meta announces Project Waterworth, a subsea cable project that will span over 50,000 km and connect five continents  —  Back in November, we broke the news that Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with billions of users accounting for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Instagram is testing a dislike button for comments; Instagram will not show a dislike count and dislikes may eventually count toward ranking comments  —  After users noticed a new button on Instagram to downvote or dislike comments, the company confirmed that it is testing a way for users …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple and Google restore TikTok to their US app stores after its January 18 removal, following Trump admin assurances that a ban won't immediately be enforced  —  - Companies had removed the app to abide by US legislation  — Trump signed executive order to delay a potential ban
Reuters:
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 …
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  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) reduced its stake in British chip firm Arm Holdings by about 44% and exited its holdings in Serve Robotics (SERV.O) …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mastodon is working on a quote posts feature, which it says is a “source of concern” for some and “highly requested” by others  —  Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts.
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”  —  LONDON — The hints first came in Paris.  Rumors were circulating over the two-day Artificial Intelligence Action Summit …
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Sources: around 20 technologists at CFPB were fired on Thursday, gutting a team that specialized in understanding Big Tech's entrance into financial products  —  The terminations leave a gaping hole in the oversight of financial institutions and tech firms venturing into financial technology.
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Filing: Anthropic asks a court to nix a DOJ remedy that would block Google from investing in AI startups, saying it would harm Anthropic and the competition  —  - DOJ proposed sale of Chrome browser to remedy illegal monopoly  — Google has invested at least $3 billion in Anthropic

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:00 PM ET, February 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.

From Mediagazer

Mike Allen / Axios:
Source: the White House plans to impose its own seating chart for briefing room reporters, taking over a function long managed by the reporters through the WHCA

Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
Sources: David Zaslav has started meeting with candidates who could replace film studio heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, whose contracts expire in 2026

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
The BBC says it plans to open new talks with AI providers, invest in short-form platforms like TikTok, expand BBC Verify, and revamp news coverage on iPlayer

More News

Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
DOGE's Tom Krause, the US Treasury's new Fiscal Assistant Secretary, is still the CEO of Cloud Software Group; critics say it may be a conflict of interest
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

Earlier Picks

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
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
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
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