Techmeme
January 4, 2025, 2:30 PM

Top News

Aroon Deep / The Hindu:
Mike Allen / Axios:
Sources: Tim Cook will personally donate $1M to President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural committee in the spirit of unity; Apple is not expected to donate  —  The company is not expected to give.  — Cook, with a consistent presence in Washington, has made it clear over the years …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Samsung and Google plan to enable Eclipsa Audio, a new open-source 3D audio standard, on some YouTube videos later in 2025 via Samsung's 2025 TVs and soundbars  —  Samsung and Google are ready to push a new standard, Eclipsa Audio. … Over the years, Samsung notably hasn't supported Dolby Vision HDR …
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
After a backlash, Meta says newly viral AI-generated profiles on Facebook and Instagram were created in 2023 in “an early experiment”, and it is deleting them  —  Earlier this week, Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times that the company is going to roll …
Max Woolf / Max Woolf's Blog:
In a test, iteratively asking Claude 3.5 Sonnet to “write better code” improved the code's features and speed, but aggressive prompt engineering introduced bugs  —  In November 2023, after OpenAI added the ability for ChatGPT to generate images from DALL-E 3 within the ChatGPT web interface …
Eli Tan / New York Times:
Religious leaders are experimenting with AI, spurring an industry of faith-based tech companies that offer AI tools to do theological research and write sermons  —  Rabbi Josh Fixler at Congregation Emanu El in Houston worked with a data scientist to create his experimental “Rabbi Bot.”
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Microsoft says it is on track to invest ~$80B in FY 2025 to build out datacenters to train AI and deploy AI and cloud apps, with 50%+ of the spending in the US  —  Microsoft expects to spend $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on the construction of data centers that can handle artificial intelligence workloads …
The Block:
The GMCI Meme index, which tracks leading memecoins by market cap, delivered 320% returns in 2024, outpacing AI at 91% and the top 30 cryptocurrencies at 88%  —  - The GMCI Meme index represents broader market trends rather than specific token performance.  — The following is an excerpt …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Belgium-based Swave Photonics, which is developing its Holographic eXtended Reality platform for smart glasses and heads-up displays, raised a $28.27M Series A  —  Swave Photonics, a holographic display company, has raised $28.27 million in funding as it prepares components for AI-powered smartglasses and heads-up displays.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
The 90-day recognition cliff: Why praise programs fade, and what keeps them alive  —  Recognition programs often start with enthusiasm.  Employees participate, managers share shoutouts, and teams have a new way to celebrate achievements.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next
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.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Sources:
Factory CEO on why AGI is already here
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Meta's Muse Revival, Frontier AI Under Threat, The Rise Of Dopamine Sites
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Great Chat:
Doomers at Dreamforce
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

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More News

Molly White / Citation Needed:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
More: Reuters and The Information
Bluesky: @sisco.  X: @davidclinchnews and @unusual_whales.  LinkedIn: Paul Melcher.  Forums: Slashdot
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Victoria Song / The Verge: