Techmeme
February 7, 2025, 11:20 AM

Top News

Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Sources: in a secret January order, UK security officials demanded that Apple create a backdoor to access all cloud content any Apple user globally has uploaded  —  Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
WBD took $300M in gaming writedowns in 2024; current and former staff blame a lack of a strong, cohesive vision during former games chief David Haddad's tenure  —  Last year, Warner Bros. Discovery took $300 million in losses on gaming.  The near future is rife with additional challenges.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon.com, Inc.:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft warns that attackers are using static ASP.NET machine keys found online to inject malware into ViewState, which controls web form state during reloads  —  Microsoft warns that attackers are deploying malware in ViewState code injection attacks using static ASP.  NET machine keys found online.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to unveil its long-awaited overhaul of the iPhone SE as early as next week, opting to reveal it on its website instead of at a launch event  —  - Revamped SE model is set to be unveiled in the coming days  — Apple plans flurry of 2025 products, including smart home hub
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
Kadrey v. Meta: unsealed emails show Meta allegedly torrented 81.7TB+ of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna's Archive, for AI training  —  Newly unsealed emails allegedly provide the “most damning evidence” yet against Meta in a copyright case raised by book authors alleging …
Wired:
Sources: DOGE is pushing to develop GSAi, a custom generative AI chatbot for the US GSA to boost productivity, analyze contract and procurement data, and more  —  The chatbot is part of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's ambitions to use AI and other technologies to cut costs and modernize the US government.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google edited Gemini's response in a Super Bowl commercial to remove an incorrect statistic about Gouda cheese, regurgitated from seeming SEO-optimized blogs  —  Gemini's response no longer says that Gouda makes up '50 to 60 percent of the world's cheese consumption.'
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI updates o3-mini's chain of thought to help free and paid ChatGPT users “understand how the model thinks”, in response to DeepSeek and other competitors  —  In response to pressure from rivals including Chinese AI company DeepSeek, OpenAI is changing the way its newest AI model …
Reuters:
Sources: Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence is in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $20B+, up from a $5B valuation from its September funding round  —  Safe Superintelligence, an artificial intelligence startup co-founded by OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever last year …
More: TechCrunch
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Mistral partnered with Cerebras to help its Le Chat app respond to user questions at 1,000 words per second, making Le Chat the world's fastest AI assistant  —  Cerebras Systems, an artificial intelligence chip firm backed by UAE tech conglomerate G42, said on Thursday it has partnered …
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
In a meeting with GOP lawmakers, Donald Trump proposed taxing carried interest as ordinary income, a policy that could sharply increase the tax bill for VCs  —  On Thursday, President Trump asked Republican lawmakers to end tax breaks on carried interest.  —  The tax break allows private equity …
Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters:
Take-Two reports Q3 net bookings up 3% YoY to $1.37B, vs. $1.39B est., and reiterates GTA VI is set to launch in the fall of 2025; TTWO jumps 6%+ after hours  —  Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO.O) forecast its fourth-quarter bookings below Wall Street expectations on Thursday …

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More News

Katherine Long / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Julaiza Alvarez / Bloomberg:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Natalie Andrews / Wall Street Journal:
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: