Techmeme
February 17, 2025, 6:10 PM

Top News

Reuters:
South Korea's data protection authority says DeepSeek app downloads have been suspended in the country after DeepSeek failed to follow its personal data rules  —  South Korea's data protection authority on Monday said it had temporarily suspended the domestic service of Chinese AI app DeepSeek since Saturday.
Matt Binder / disruptionist:
X shows error messages when trying to share Signal's Signal.me links in DMs, posts, and profile pages, and a warning page if users click on already posted links  —  Signal has been a primary method of communication for federal workers looking to blow the whistle on DOGE.
Bloomberg:
President Xi meets Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, and others, signaling Beijing's support for the long-marginalized private sector  —  - Meeting signals a more supportive stance toward private firms  — Xi promises relief from excessive fines, level playing field
Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
Source: Ilya Sutskever's startup Safe Superintelligence is raising $1B+ led by Greenoaks Capital Partners, which plans to invest $500M, at a valuation of $30B+  —  - SSI raising more than $1 billion, including from Greenoaks  — Former OpenAI chief scientist left the company last year
More: SiliconANGLE
Max Tani / Semafor:
Documents: the NYT greenlights using select internal and external AI tools for editorial and product staff, including from OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft  —  The Scoop  —  The New York Times is greenlighting the use of AI for its product and editorial staff, saying that internal tools …
Namanyay Goel / N's Blog:
New junior developers are reliant on Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools, meaning foundational coding knowledge is missing, potentially creating future problems  —  100k+ views 70+ votes 50+ votes  —  Something's been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Mistral debuts Mistral Saba, a 24B-parameter custom-trained model for Arabic language and culture, via its API; Saba bests Mistral Small 3 for Arabic content  —  The next frontier for large language models (LLMs), one of the key technologies underpinning the boom in generative AI tools, might be geographical.
Politico:
X challenges a German court ordering it to share metrics such as likes and shares with researchers before the February 23 election, in a test of the EU's DSA  —  Elon Musk's X has challenged a German court decision that instructed the platform to share data with researchers, the court confirmed to POLITICO.

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Niantic Spatial:
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Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Jason Blum Built a Hit-Making Movie Machine. Does It Still Work?
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Cheeky Pint:
The economics and trends of the restaurant industry, with Tony Xu of DoorDash
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
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Invest Like the Best:
Alex Karnal - The Trillion-Dollar Health Revolution
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Tim Cook Steps Down — With Joanna Stern
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Grit:
From Airbnb to Linear: How Karri Saarinen Redefined Product Design
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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More News

David Barnett / The Guardian:

Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: