Techmeme
January 19, 2025, 1:35 PM

Top News

Wes Davis / The Verge:
Avery Lotz / Axios:
Donald Trump says he will sign an EO on Monday to delay enforcing the TikTok ban and argues for a TikTok JV with 50% US ownership  —  President-elect Trump said he will sign an executive order Monday to delay enforcing the U.S. ban on TikTok, just hours after the popular app went dark,
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Card game Marvel Snap, published by ByteDance-owned Nuverse, cuts off access for US gamers, as the TikTok divest-or-ban law impacts other ByteDance-linked apps  —  The divest-or-ban law aimed at TikTok is also taking down other ByteDance-linked apps, including the popular card game Marvel Snap.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
In a rare move, Apple publishes a statement and a document listing all ByteDance apps inaccessible in the US alongside TikTok, including Lemon8 and Lark  —  Amid the TikTok shutdown, in a rare move, Apple published a statement and a support document listing all affected apps that are inaccessible …
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
TikTok is not available for download on the App Store and Play Store in the US as the divest-or-ban law takes effect  —  Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores Saturday night, complying with a law requiring China's ByteDance to divest the social app or see it face an effective ban in the U.S.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Ana Faguy / BBC:
Politico:
Congressional leaders seem flummoxed by the growing popularity of Chinese-owned apps Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, an unintended consequence of the TikTok ban  —  The Chinese apps RedNote and Lemon8 have exploded in popularity as TikTok faces an imminent ban and the Supreme Court upheld the law forcing its sale.
Nitish Pahwa / Slate:
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple is unlikely to acquire Sonos, but Amazon, Spotify, Roku, Samsung and others might consider the idea, with Amazon being the most natural fit  —  The woes of speaker maker Sonos have raised the prospect of a takeover, but who might want to buy it?  Also: iPhone SE inventory shrinks ahead …
Axios:
Sources: a breakthrough in AI super-agents for complex human tasks may be announced soon; Sam Altman set up a closed-door briefing for US officials on Jan. 30  —  - Build from scratch: Imagine telling your agent, “Build me new payment software.” … - Make sense of chaos …
Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
Coinbase and Binance plan to list the TRUMP token, with Binance opening trading on Jan. 19; CoinGecko: $TRUMP is trading on Bitget, Kraken, and other exchanges  —  The ‘official’ memecoin of the second Donald Trump administration will be listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase …
Axios:
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Danny Park / The Block:
Blockchain security firm Scam Sniffer reports scams luring crypto investors into malicious Telegram groups jumped 2,000% between November 2024 and January 2025  —  - Blockchain security firm Scam Sniffer reported that malware crypto scams on Telegram increased by 2,000% between November and January.
Forbes:
Collate, which is developing tech to automate paperwork for life science companies, emerges from stealth with a $30M seed led by Redpoint at a $100M+ valuation  —  Surbhi Sarna sold her last startup, nVision Medical, for $275 million.  Now she's leaving a partner role at Y Combinator to launch Collate …
Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering:
A close look at some privacy implications of AI interfacing with messaging apps and other E2EE systems, Apple's approach to “Private Cloud Compute”, and more  —  Recently I came across a fantastic new paper by a group of NYU and Cornell researchers entitled “How to think about end-to-end encryption and AI.”

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