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Techmeme
January 13, 2025, 9:10 PM
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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 …
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 …
Reuters:
Nvidia criticizes the Biden admin's new chip export rule, saying the regulation would “undermine” the US' AI leadership and “weaken” its global competitiveness  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) on Monday criticized a new effort by the Biden administration to tighten Washington's grip …
Associated Press:
Under a new Biden rule, countries with caps on AI compute are restricted to buying 50K advanced GPUs, which could grow to 100K in deals with the US government
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.
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 …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is leaving following a botched app revamp that upset customers and stymied growth; Sonos names board member Tom Conrad as interim CEO  —  - 'We've let far too many‬‭ people down,' company tells staffers  — Former Snap and Pandora executive Tom Conrad named interim CEO
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.
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) …
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.
Bluesky: @joffirphd, @drewharwell.com, and @hypervisible.  X: @glynco.  Forums: r/technology
New York Times:
OpenAI publishes a “economic blueprint” for “AI in America”, calling on the new Trump admin to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations  —  The maker of ChatGPT hopes to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations on the development of new technologies.
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 …
Caitlin Chandler / Wired:
A look at European tech firms Idemia, SITA, Travizory, and WCC, that offer AI tools to help governments surveil cross-border travelers and predict threats  —  Behind the scenes, companies and governments are feeding a trove of data about international travelers into opaque AI tools that aim to predict who's safe—and who's a threat.
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko plans to transfer Mastodon's ownership to a new non-profit, saying “Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual”  —  Mastodon says the decentralized network ‘should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.’
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
IAC board approves the spinoff of home improvement marketplace Angi; IAC has previously spun off companies like Expedia, Ticketmaster, and LendingTree  —  Barry Diller's IAC said Monday that its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement marketplace the company acquired in 2017.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
SCOTUS declines to hear Meta's bid to avoid a class action by advertisers that accused the company of overcharging them by inflating their potential ad reach  —  The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by Meta Platforms (META.O) to avoid a multi-billion dollar class action …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:10 PM ET, January 13, 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

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Disney and OpenAI sign a three-year deal to bring 200+ Disney characters to Sora; Disney makes a $1B investment in OpenAI and will become a major OpenAI client

Dominick Mastrangelo / The Hill:
President Trump told reporters “it's imperative” for CNN to be sold: “Any deal it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately”

Dan Friedman / Mother Jones:
Jack Posobiec, a new Pentagon press corps member, seems to be working in coordination with the Pentagon to threaten a journalist writing about a DoD official

More News

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
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Toronto-based Float Financial, which offers expense management software and corporate credit cards, raised a $48.5M Series B led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity
Wall Street Journal:
Donald Trump Jr. is joining prediction-market startup Kalshi as a strategic adviser; CFTC called Kalshi “an online casino” in a December filing

Earlier Picks

Kerry Flynn / Axios:
T-Mobile agrees to acquire Vistar Media, which focuses on programmatic digital out of home advertising, for $600M in cash; the deal is expected to close in Q1
New York Times:
Sources detail DOGE, which is likely to work as more of a brand linked by Signal group chats coordinating US policy or personnel recommendations and recruitment
Counterpoint Research:
Global smartphone shipments grew 4% YoY in 2024 after a decade-low in 2023; top two brands, Samsung and Apple, were mostly flat, while Xiaomi grew 12% YoY
Keir Starmer / Financial Times:
The UK's PM debuts plans to increase its public sector compute over 20x to spark a “national renewal”, saying the UK doesn't need to walk a US or EU path on AI
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