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January 24, 2025, 5:40 AM
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Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI releases a “research preview” of its Operator AI agent that can automate web-based tasks, launching in the US to subscribers of the $200/month Pro tier  —  OpenAI is releasing a “research preview” of an AI agent called Operator that can “go to the web to perform tasks for you,” according to a blog post.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI partners with DoorDash, Instacart, Priceline, StubHub, and Uber to ensure that Operator respects these businesses' terms of service agreements  —  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman kicked off this year by saying in a blog post that 2025 would be big for AI agents, tools that can automate tasks and take actions on your behalf.
Every:
Hands-on with Operator: limited in what it can browse, can perform repetitive workflows, and can do lengthy tasks on its own with minimal prompting
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Trump signs an EO to create a crypto working group led by David Sacks to consider a national digital asset stockpile “potentially derived” from seized crypto  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to promote the advancement of cryptocurrencies in the U.S …
Associated Press:
Trump signs an EO to develop AI systems “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas”, revoking Biden policies that “act as barriers” to innovation  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order on artificial intelligence Thursday …
Politico:
Although Trump downplayed Elon Musk's Stargate criticism, assuring reporters “they're putting up the money”, key White House sources say they're furious at Musk  —  “It's clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” said one ally of the president.
Financial Times:
Sources: Stargate lacks a fully developed plan, hasn't secured funding yet, will get no government support, and will exclusively serve OpenAI once operational
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers detail Subaru's now-fixed web vulnerabilities that would've let them unlock and start millions of Subarus via Starlink in the US, Canada, and Japan  —  Now-fixed web bugs allowed hackers to remotely unlock and start millions of Subarus.  More disturbingly, they could also access …
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Epic launches a free games program on mobile and promises to pay the Apple Core Technology Fee for participants in the program on iOS for one year  —  Epic Games is adding nearly 20 third-party games onto its mobile app store worldwide on Android and in the European Union on iOS and launching …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Google rolls out the first public beta of Android 16 for Pixel devices, introducing Live Updates, a limited version of Apple's Live Activities, and more  —  Android 16's first public beta will start rolling out later today, bringing with it dynamic lockscreen notifications for ride-sharing and food delivery …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic debuts Citations, a new API feature letting developers “ground” answers in source documents, available for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Haiku  —  In an announcement perhaps timed to divert attention away from OpenAI's Operator, Anthropic Thursday unveiled a new feature …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Perplexity launches Perplexity Assistant in its Android app, which can take “multi-app actions” like hailing a ride, initially free for users in 15 languages  —  AI-powered search engine Perplexity has launched an “agent,” of sorts, called Perplexity Assistant …
Kyle Chan / High Capacity:
How China's progress across a range of overlapping industries like smartphones, AI, robotics, and drones creates a mutually reinforcing feedback loop  —  EVs, batteries, lidar, drones, robotics, smartphones, AI.  China's progress across a range of overlapping industries creates a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.
Forums: r/China
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
The US DOJ charges the former CEO of AI chatbot startup GameOn and his wife for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $60M between 2018 and 2024  —  The founder of GameOn, a San Francisco artificial intelligence startup, has been indicted for running a “brazen and wide-ranging” …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:40 AM ET, January 24, 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

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Major brands were replaced by direct-response advertisers during commercial breaks of CBS News' December 13 town hall with Erika Kirk, moderated by Bari Weiss

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

More News

Bloomberg:
At Davos, Trump blasts EU for targeting Apple, Google, and Meta, describing regulatory cases as “a form of taxation”, and references Apple's €13B Irish tax bill
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Brave Search rolls out Rerank to let users boost or downgrade domains from their search results through thumbs up or thumbs down buttons

Earlier Picks

Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review: fastest Blender benchmark score ever, DLSS4 frame generation works well, and good cooling but very expensive and power hungry
Munir Ahmed / Associated Press:
Pakistan's parliament passes a controversial bill giving the government sweeping controls on social media, including prison terms for spreading “disinformation”
Bloomberg:
ByteDance board member Bill Ford says ByteDance is exploring alternatives to selling TikTok US, including a change to local control to comply with the US law
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
CAIS and Scale AI release “Humanity's Last Exam”, which they claim is the hardest AI test yet, consisting of ~3,000 multiple-choice and short answer questions
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
The UK CMA opens investigations into Apple's and Google's mobile ecosystems, including OSes, app stores, and browsers, to see the impact on users and businesses
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google acquihires “some of the HTC VIVE engineering team” in Taiwan with “a proven track record in VR” for $250M in cash, to “accelerate” Android XR development
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