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January 13, 2025, 10:35 PM
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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
Will Knight / Wired:
The US' new chip export rule enters a 120-day consultation period, requiring the Trump admin to listen to input, perhaps modify the rule, and then enforce it
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.
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
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 …
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) …
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 …
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 Update.  Bluesky: @joffirphd, @drewharwell.com, and @hypervisible.  X: @glynco.  LinkedIn: Douglas MacMillan.  Forums: r/technology
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.
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.
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.’
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

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:35 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

Dan Mangan / CNBC:
President Trump files a $10B defamation lawsuit against the BBC, alleging it intentionally doctored a Panorama documentary to misrepresent his January 6 speech

Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
The Boston Globe says Brian McGrory will return as editor, after Nancy Barnes' departure at the end of 2025; McGrory previously was editor from 2012 to 2023

Sara Fischer / Axios:
WSJ launches Free Expression, a newsletter-focused opinion brand that will be available via its own channels and Substack, initially offering free content

More News

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
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

Earlier Picks

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
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
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