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February 15, 2025, 12:00 AM
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| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Meta plans major investment in AI-powered humanoid robots, with an initial focus on household chores, and has formed a new team within Reality Labs — - Company is aiming to be the engine powering humanoid market — Ex-Cruise CEO Marc Whitten to run new group in Reality Labs
More: The Verge, Seattle Business Journal, Reuters, PYMNTS.com, MacRumors, iPhone in Canada Blog, Engadget, Motley Fool, Quartz, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, TechCrunch, Neowin, SlashGear, The Information, TweakTown, Proactive, Forbes, VICE, ZeroHedge News, Sherwood News, and MediaPost
Bluesky: @golikehellmachine.com, @golikehellmachine.com, @kurtwagner, @warrenterra, @hypervisible, @golikehellmachine.com, @zachrabiroff.com, @soregashi, @alexandergruchala, @harjovarjo, @sccoast, @razoroccam, and @ohnoerik
Threads: @young.mete, @szed_ar, @young.mete, and @jetscott
X: @rihardjarc, @garymarcus, @markgurman, @markgurman, @andrewcurran_, @markgurman, @solvingkasada, @cixliv, and @scobleizer
Forums: r/artificial and MacRumors Forums
| New York Times: |
OpenAI's board rejects the $97.4B bid by Elon Musk and a consortium of investors, saying they reject “Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition” — Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI's board, said the artificial intelligence company was “not for sale.”
More: The Economic Times, Washington Post, Business Standard, Livemint, Reuters, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Australian Financial Review, Le Monde, Business Insider, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Business Times, The Wrap, The Independent, The Times, TechCrunch, Engadget, NBC News, The Hollywood Reporter, The Information, Axios, CNN, Neowin, Big Technology, The Verge, Semafor, and Thurrott
Bluesky: @dead.place and @gloriasin
X: @openainewsroom, @shiringhaffary, and @benfritz
| Bloomberg: |
Source: TSMC is considering taking a controlling stake and fully running Intel's US factories after a Trump team request, as Trump aims to boost manufacturing — - TSMC would take controlling stake in potential partnership — Administration aims to boost manufacturing of advanced chips
More: Benzinga, TweakTown, Yahoo Finance, The Information, Reuters, Wall Street Pit, Motley Fool, Oregonian, Forexlive, and Livemint
Bluesky: @cdmasterzang. X: @scottlincicome, @ericjhonsa, @angelicaoung, @calebwatney, @noahpinion, @ericjhonsa, @jukanlosreve, @mackhawk, and @newsynick
Forums: r/neoliberal, r/hardware, r/PortlandOR, and r/wallstreetbets
| Brody Ford / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Dell nears a $5B deal to provide servers with Nvidia's GB200 chips for xAI's supercomputer project in Memphis — - Musk's AI startup developing supercomputer project in Memphis — Dell working to win large share of xAI's Memphis build-out — Dell Technologies Inc … | Gillian Tan / Bloomberg: |
Source: xAI is canvassing potential investors, including Sequoia Capital and a16z, for a roughly $10B funding round that would value the company at about $75B — - Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Valor in talks to participate — Company last fundraised at $51 billion valuation per Pitchbook| Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: |
Perplexity releases Deep Research, offering five queries daily to free users and 500 to subscribers, available now on the web and soon on iOS, Android, and Mac — Perplexity shattered the artificial intelligence market's status quo today by launching Deep Research, a tool …
More: Perplexity, Livemint, Analytics India Magazine, The Verge, Neowin, TestingCatalog, and Digital Trends
Threads: @dkasper. X: @perplexity_ai, @aravsrinivas, @iruletheworldmo, @kimmonismus, @deedydas, @aravsrinivas, @gergelyorosz, @perplexity_ai, @rauchg, @perplexity_ai, @ludwigabap, and @amasad. LinkedIn: Pelin Bicen
| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Apple's overhaul of Siri faces engineering problems and software bugs; some features, planned for April, may have to be postponed until May or later — - Software's makeover is key to Apple Intelligence ambitions — New Siri features slated for April at risk of being postponed
More: France 24, Tom's Guide, TechCrunch, PhoneArena, 9to5Mac, BGR, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Le Monde, Mashable, and Business Standard
Mastodon: @ashleygjovik@mastodon.social. X: @patrickmoorhead, @ashleygjovik, @markgurman, @markgurman, and @zoneoftech
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Meta announces Project Waterworth, a subsea cable project that will span over 50,000 km and connect five continents — Back in November, we broke the news that Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with billions of users accounting for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic …
More: Engineering at Meta, The White House, eWeek, DatacenterDynamics, Business Standard, Engadget, and Gizmodo
Bluesky: @antonshadow. X: @ingridlunden. LinkedIn: Robert Clarke, Omar Baldonado, and Santosh Janardhan
| Eric Geller / Wired: |
Memo: CISA halts election security work and reviews related activities conducted since 2017, to comply with Trump's January 20 EO on “ending federal censorship” — The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has frozen efforts to aid states in securing elections, according to an internal memo viewed by WIRED
More: New York Post. Bluesky: @cityplanning and @couts. Mastodon: @mattblaze@federate.social
X: @ericgeller, @ericgeller, @ericgeller, @ericgeller, @ericgeller, and @ericgeller. Forums: r/cybersecurity
| Scharon Harding / Ars Technica: |
In an AMA, Steve Huffman says Reddit is planning to roll out paid subreddits in 2025 and is “laying the foundation” to monetize commerce within subreddits — Huffman previously showed interest in potentially introducing a new type of subreddit with “exclusive content or private areas” that Reddit users would pay to access.
More: Gizmodo, Engadget, SFist, and Digital Trends
| Sharon Goldman / Fortune: |
Harvey, which builds generative AI tools for law firms, raised a $300M Series D led by Sequoia at a $3B valuation; CEO Winston Weinberg says ARR surpassed $50M — Harvey, a San Francisco AI startup focused on the legal industry, has raised $300 million in a funding round led by Sequoia …
More: Harvey, Artificial Lawyer, Law360, and Crunchbase News
| Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: |
Instagram is testing a dislike button for comments; Instagram will not show a dislike count and dislikes may eventually count toward ranking comments — After users noticed a new button on Instagram to downvote or dislike comments, the company confirmed that it is testing a way for users …
More: Engadget, MacRumors, Digital Trends, Neowin, PhoneArena, Trusted Reviews, Android Headlines, Baller Alert, Daily Mail, New York Post, Pocket-lint, and The Verge
Bluesky: @paulginva, @campuscodi.risky.biz, and @eighthdayarts
Threads: @mosseri, @heaney_555, and @amandahughes.uk
| Heather Haddon / Wall Street Journal: |
Uber sues DoorDash, accusing it of anticompetitive practices like coercing restaurants to exclusively work with DoorDash for parts of their delivery business — Lawsuit accuses DoorDash of strong-arm tactics that inflate restaurants' costs; DoorDash disputes Uber's allegations| Bloomberg: |
Sources: humanoid robot startup Figure is in talks to raise $1.5B led by Align Ventures and Parkway VC at a $39.5B valuation, up from $2.6B in February 2024 — Backed by OpenAI and Microsoft, Figure is discussing a $1.5 billion funding round. … The deal is set to be led by Align Ventures …
More: PYMNTS.com, Reuters, and TechCrunch
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Mastodon is working on a quote posts feature, which it says is a “source of concern” for some and “highly requested” by others — Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts.
More: Mastodon Blog, The Verge, and Neowin
Bluesky: @bartwilleman, @johnspurlock.com, @mackuba.eu, @stefan.stefanbohacek …, and @MastodonEngineering …
Mastodon: @ianb@mastodon.well.com, @jalefkowit@vmst.io, and @jeridansky@sfba.social. Threads: @parkert. Forums: r/Mastodon
| The Information: |
Sources: Anthropic expects to burn $3B in 2025, down from $5.6B in 2024, and make up to $3.7B in revenue in 2025, as it seeks to catch up with OpenAI — After burning $5.6 billion in cash last year, Anthropic said it would reduce that amount by nearly half in 2025 and projected up to $3.7 billion …
More: The Verge, Observer, and The Indian Express
| Lucy Adams / Tech.eu: |
Fal.ai, a Turkish startup specializing in AI-generated media for enterprise use, raised a $49M Series B led by Notable Capital, taking its total funding to $72M — The funding will support infrastructure expansion, a model marketplace, and team growth. — Turkish mediatech startup … | Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Spotify hopes to launch a Music Pro tier in 2025, a $6/month add-on that will include higher-quality audio, early access to concert tickets, and more — - Spotify is hoping to roll out its new Music Pro this year — Customers may get early access to concert tickets, other perks| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Filing: Trump Media reports 2024 revenue down 12% YoY to $3.6M and a $400M net loss, up from $58.2M in 2023; the company has a $6.6B market cap — Trump Media & Technology Group shares were down about 1% in extended trading on Friday after the operator of Truth Social released its 2024 results.| Molly White / Citation Needed: |
How crypto companies like Coinbase co-opted legitimate concerns about “debanking” to fight regulation, threatening to derail meaningful progress on the issue — Listen to me read this post here (not an AI-generated voice!), subscribe to the feed in your podcast app, or download the recording for later.
More: Bloomberg, Coinpedia Fintech News, CryptoSlate, crypto.news, and New York Post. X: @molly0xfff
| Jason Koebler / 404 Media: |
The doge.gov website tracking Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government pulls from a database that anyone can edit, say two sources who found the vulnerability — The doge.gov website that was spun up to track Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government is insecure and pulls from a database …
More: Ars Technica, Techdirt, The Verge, 404 Media, WinBuzzer, Wired, Mashable, New Republic, The Independent, Above the Law, Security Boulevard, Breitbart, Raw Story, Futurism, Mediaite, Engadget, Fortune, PCMag, and Alternet.org
Bluesky: @karlbode.com, @josephcox, @lmatsakis, and @jasonkoebler.mastodon …
Mastodon: @sjvn@mastodon.social, @davidaugust@mastodon.online, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, @mistakenotmy@mastodon.social, @404mediaco@mastodon.social, @cryptadamist@universeodon.com, and @RaffKarva@photog.social
Forums: Hacker News, r/Prepping4Democracy, r/Hasan_Piker, r/politics, r/thebulwark, r/law, r/technology, r/programming, r/theprimeagen, r/womenintech, r/inthenews, r/politics, r/somethingiswrong2024, r/uspolitics, r/LeopardsAteMyFace, r/programminghorror, r/IronFrontUSA, r/Destiny, r/facepalm, r/cybersecurity, r/EnoughMuskSpam, r/hacking, r/hackernews, r/technology, r/houstonwade, r/themayormccheese, r/Qult_Headquarters, r/musked, and Beehaw
| Taylor Kerns / Android Police: |
Google deactivates an Android feature that crowdsources device sensor data to provide earthquake warnings in Brazil after mistakenly sending notifications — - Android disabled earthquake alerts in Brazil after mistakenly sending notifications. — Civil Defense of São Paulo confirmed no earthquakes took place.| Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: |
Kadrey v. Meta: Meta paused some AI-related book licensing efforts in April 2023 after contacting publishers and seeing “slow uptake” and logistical setbacks — New court filings in an AI copyright case against Meta add credence to earlier reports that the company “paused” … Sponsor Posts
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