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January 16, 2025, 8:30 AM
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Washington Post:
Sources: Donald Trump is considering issuing an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok sale-or-ban law for 60 to 90 days  —  Trump, the infamous dealmaker, is exploring unconventional ways to rescue the Chinese-owned video app from a nationwide ban …
NBC News:
An official says the Biden administration is “exploring options” to implement the law without causing TikTok to go dark for US users on January 19  —  Barring action by the Supreme Court, a ban in the U.S. on the popular app is set to begin on Sunday.
New York Times:
Sources: TikTok CEO Shou Chew plans to attend Trump's inauguration after being invited to sit on the dais, joining Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk at the event  —  Shou Chew will join tech moguls like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk at President-elect Donald J. Trump's inauguration as the fate of the app hangs in the balance.
Reuters:
Source: over 700K new users joined Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, in just two days; Sensor Tower: the app's US downloads were up more than 200% YoY this week  —  New users have piled in to Chinese social media app RedNote just days before a proposed U.S. ban on the popular social media app TikTok …
Lindsay Whitehurst / Associated Press:
During oral arguments, SCOTUS seemed open to a Texas law requiring age checks to view online porn, but could send the case back to a lower court  —  The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed open to a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography, though the justices could still send …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Nintendo teases the Switch 2, featuring a new kickstand design and backward compatibility for physical and digital games, with more details on April 2, 2025  —  The console looks a lot like the original, but it's bigger.  In the video, the Joy-Con controllers are black with colored accents, and they attach to the console magnetically.
Daniel Kuhn / The Block:
BitMEX is fined an additional $100M for US Bank Secrecy Act violations between 2015 and 2020; it pleaded guilty in July 2024 and previously agreed to pay $110M  —  - BitMEX has been slapped with an additional $100 million fine for Bank Secrecy Act violations between 2015 and 2020.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
AI researcher François Chollet and Zapier co-founder Mike Knoop launch Ndea, an AI research and science lab focused on “developing and operationalizing AGI”  —  François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to build frontier AI systems with novel designs.
Jane Lanhee Lee / Bloomberg:
TSMC reports Q4 sales up 38.8% YoY to ~$26.38B, net income up 57% YoY to ~$11.4B, both above estimates; stock jumped 80%+ in 2024, its biggest gain since 1999
Karen Freifeld / Reuters:
The US Commerce Department adds 25 China-based companies, including Alibaba-backed LLM developer Zhipu AI and chip designer Sophgo, to its restricted trade list  —  The Biden administration added more than two dozen Chinese entities to a U.S. restricted trade list on Wednesday, including Zhipu AI …
Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
The US unveils new rules calling for TSMC, Samsung, and other chip producers to step up their scrutiny and due diligence of customers, especially Chinese firms
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Four current Meta employees, citing internal discussions, say the actual number of full-time staff who will have to relocate from California to Texas is limited  —  Mark Zuckerberg said content moderation teams in California will relocate to Texas to help reduce bias.
Omkar Godbole / CoinDesk:
Jio Platforms partners with Polygon Labs to integrate Web3 and blockchain services into Jio's apps and services; Jio Platforms has over 450M users in India  —  Indian telecom and technology company Jio Platforms (JPL) is taking significant steps to enhance the digital experience for its more than 450 million users.
William Langley / Financial Times:
Canalys: China smartphone shipments rose 4% YoY to 285M units in 2024, with Vivo up 11% to a 17% market share, Huawei up 37% to 16%, and Apple down 17% to 15%  —  US tech giant faces competition on mainland as it struggles to introduce AI features on its flagship product
Pete Schroeder / Reuters:
Block agrees to pay $80M to a group of 48 US state financial regulators that say it had insufficient policies for policing money laundering through Cash App  —  Block Inc (SQ.N) has agreed to pay a fine of $80 million to a group of 48 state financial regulators after the agencies determined …
Maggie Eastland / Bloomberg:
E-commerce marketing startup Rokt agrees a secondary share sale at a $3.5B valuation ahead of a 2026 IPO, and acquires customer data startup mParticle for $300M  —  - Rokt separately agrees to $300 million purchase of mParticle  — E-commerce group has plans to go public in first half of 2026
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune:
Eve, which makes AI tools for law firms, raised a $47M Series A led by a16z, and says its revenue has grown by 5x over the past eight months  —  For about a year, I've been hearing that lawyers are using AI in droves.  But it wasn't until I talked to Jennifer Gore last week that I started to understand what that meant in practice.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:30 AM ET, January 16, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
BBC DG Matt Brittin says the BBC and UK public service broadcasting face “real jeopardy” as license fee erosion drives BBC's third consecutive annual deficit

Todd Spangler / Variety:
The Writers Guild of America sues Paramount and WBD in an effort to stop their merger, claiming the deal would hurt wages and working conditions for writers

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:
Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist Pat Oliphant, 90, has died in Santa Fe, NM; at the height of his career, he was syndicated in as many as 500 newspapers

More News

Earlier Picks

Jesse Coghlan / Cointelegraph:
DappRadar: NFT trading volumes in 2024 fell 19% YoY to $13.7B and sales counts fell 18% YoY to just under 50M, making 2024 the worst performing year since 2020
Jaffer Zaidi / The Keyword:
Google says it has partnered with the AP to deliver a feed of real-time information to enhance the usefulness of results displayed in the Gemini app
Reuters:
The FTC sues John Deere, alleging it illegally drove up repair costs by making its software repair tool available only to its authorized dealers
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