Techmeme
February 6, 2025, 12:35 PM

Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Stanford and University of Washington AI researchers claim they trained AI reasoning model s1, distilled from a Gemini 2.0 model, for under $50 in cloud compute  —  AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits …
Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal:
Email: Google eliminates its goal of hiring more employees from historically underrepresented groups and is reviewing some DEI programs after Donald Trump's EOs  —  Search giant is eliminating goals to hire more minority employees and reviewing DEI programs, part of a pullback across Silicon Valley
Emma Roth / The Verge:
OpenAI opens ChatGPT search to users who are not logged in, after launching it to paying subscribers in October 2024 and logged-in users in December 2024  —  OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible.  —  OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple is at the center of an escalating US-China geopolitical fight spanning tariffs, regulatory probes, and a backlash due to growing anti-US rhetoric in China  —  - The iPhone is in crosshairs of 10% tariffs on Chinese imports  — China also is weighing a probe into company's App Store fees
Stephanie Hughes / Bloomberg:
Payments software company Lightspeed says it plans to continue operating as a publicly traded company and will buy back up to $400M of stock; LSPD falls 15%+  —  - Board of directors ‘unanimously’ agreed not to go private  — Shares slide 16% after company announces results of review
Bluesky: @sheepmachine
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Roblox reports Q4 revenue up 32% YoY to $988.2M, bookings up 21% YoY to $1.36B, vs. $1.37B est., and DAUs up 19% YoY to 85.3M, vs. 88.4M est.; RBLX falls 15%+  —  - Roblox had 85.3 million daily active users in fourth quarter  — The company's quarterly bookings reached $1.36 billion
Casey Hall / Reuters:
Trump's de minimis cancellation is likely to hit Shein harder than online dollar-store Temu, which has shifted to an Amazon-like bulk overseas shipment strategy  —  The Trump administration move to stop low-cost imports entering the U.S. tariff-free is likely to hit fast fashion retailer Shein harder …
Henry Stockdale / UploadVR:
Interviews with nearly two dozen VR studios on shipping games on Quest, Meta's increased focus on Horizon Worlds, concerns over declining game sales, and more  —  With concerns about declining sales and discoverability, UploadVR spoke with nearly two dozen VR studios to discuss the state of VR development for Quest.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI is expected to air its first TV ad during Super Bowl LIX; MediaRadar says AI companies spent $332M on ads in 2024, over double their 2023 spend  —  The TV spot marks the artificial-intelligence company's biggest foray into consumer advertising to date
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Mistral releases iOS and Android apps and unveils several updates to its AI assistant Le Chat, including a $14.99 per month Pro tier  —  Mistral, the company that is sometimes considered as Europe's great hope for AI, is releasing several updates to Le Chat, its AI assistant product.
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says Arm has withdrawn its October 2024 breach notice against Qualcomm and Arm no longer plans to end its Qualcomm license agreement  —  Qualcomm's (QCOM.O) Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon on Wednesday said Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F) has withdrawn a threat …
Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Politico:
The Senate Commerce Committee approves the Kids Off Social Media Act to ban under-13s from social media, clearing the way for consideration by the full Senate  —  The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Wednesday to ban children under 13 from social media.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Kaspersky researchers found apps in Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store that use OCR to steal crypto wallet recovery phrases from images on users' devices  —  Android and iOS apps on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store contain a malicious software development kit (SDK) …
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
GitHub announces updates for Copilot, including Vision for Copilot to generate interfaces, code, and alt text from a screenshot, photo, or a diagram  —  GitHub has announced a slew of updates for Copilot, while also giving a glimpse into a more agentic future for its AI-powered pair programmer.
Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
US SEC filing: Sequoia's evergreen fund has grown from $13.6B in early 2023 to $19.6B, , a signal that the firm continues to grow despite a VC funding slowdown  —  The fund's total includes new cash commitments, shares of now-public companies that Sequoia previously backed and cash returns from mergers and acquisitions.

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More News

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Earlier Picks

Karissa Bell / Engadget:
404 Media:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
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Wall Street Journal:
Jason Shubnell / The Block: