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Techmeme
January 13, 2025, 9:00 PM
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Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese officials are evaluating an option involving Elon Musk acquiring TikTok US; X would take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together  —  - ByteDance's preferred strategy is to fight ban, sources say  — Trump has said he would like to delay ban to seek resolution
Todd Spangler / Variety:
TikTok denies a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to Elon Musk, calling it “pure fiction”  —  TikTok denied a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational …
Financial Times:
The Biden admin unveils a new chip export rule that gives 18 key allies full AI chips access while requiring licenses from most other countries, including China  —  US semiconductor industry warns move will aid competitors  —  The US is imposing expansive export controls on chips used …
Reuters:
Nvidia criticizes the Biden admin's new chip export rule, saying the regulation would “undermine” the US' AI leadership and “weaken” its global competitiveness  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) on Monday criticized a new effort by the Biden administration to tighten Washington's grip …
Associated Press:
Under a new Biden rule, countries with caps on AI compute are restricted to buying 50K advanced GPUs, which could grow to 100K in deals with the US government
Zeyi Yang / Wired:
Ahead of a likely US TikTok ban, users flee to Chinese apps Xiaohongshu, aka RedNote, and ByteDance's Lemon8, currently the top two apps in the US App Store  —  Some say they joined Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book,” to spite the US government after a ban on TikTok became more likely.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is leaving following a botched app revamp that upset customers and stymied growth; Sonos names board member Tom Conrad as interim CEO  —  - 'We've let far too many‬‭ people down,' company tells staffers  — Former Snap and Pandora executive Tom Conrad named interim CEO
Leena Rao / Business Insider:
Chainalysis buys AI-agent security startup Alterya, sources say for ~$150M; Alterya is still in stealth mode but has clients including Coinbase, Square, Binance  —  - Chainalysis has acquired Alterya, a fraud-detection startup, for $150 million.  — Founded in 2022, Alterya uses AI to detect scams for financial and crypto firms.
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
Jimmy Wales, Mark Ruffalo, others debut Free Our Feeds to raise $30M by 2028 to “billionaire-proof” AT Protocol, by making it easier for users to leave Bluesky  —  Free Our Feeds, which includes support from the Mozilla Foundation, is working with Bluesky to make sure …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft is creating a new “CoreAI - Platform and Tools” unit led by Jay Parikh, the ex-Lacework CEO and Meta engineering executive who joined in October 2024  —  Microsoft is creating a new engineering division, led by the former global head of engineering at Facebook (now Meta) …
Washington Post:
An investigation finds 15 police departments across 12 US states have arrested suspects identified through facial recognition without having any other evidence  —  Confident in unproven facial recognition technology, sometimes investigators skip steps; at least eight Americans have been wrongfully arrested.
Bluesky: @joffirphd, @drewharwell.com, and @hypervisible.  X: @glynco.  Forums: r/technology
New York Times:
OpenAI publishes a “economic blueprint” for “AI in America”, calling on the new Trump admin to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations  —  The maker of ChatGPT hopes to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations on the development of new technologies.
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Texas sues Allstate and its subsidiary Arity, accusing the insurer of illegally collecting and selling data about people's driving behavior through mobile apps  —  The lawsuit accuses Arity, an Allstate subsidiary, of collecting data about people's driving behavior through mobile phone apps …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko plans to transfer Mastodon's ownership to a new non-profit, saying “Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual”  —  Mastodon says the decentralized network ‘should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.’
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
SCOTUS declines to hear Meta's bid to avoid a class action by advertisers that accused the company of overcharging them by inflating their potential ad reach  —  The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by Meta Platforms (META.O) to avoid a multi-billion dollar class action …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
IAC board approves the spinoff of home improvement marketplace Angi; IAC has previously spun off companies like Expedia, Ticketmaster, and LendingTree  —  Barry Diller's IAC said Monday that its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement marketplace the company acquired in 2017.

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From Mediagazer

CNN:
Sources: Pete Hegseth pushed for two F-15 crew members rescued from Iran to join a 60 Minutes story; Bari Weiss lobbied Hegseth to give CBS exclusive access

Sophie Culpepper / Nieman Lab:
An interview with Deep South Today Chief Content Officer Adam Ganucheau and CEO Warwick Sabin on the network's expansion into Arkansas, video success, and more

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:
In an interview, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson says the number of subscribers the outlet gets from Google traffic has grown even as referral traffic has fallen

More News

Dan Mangan / CNBC:
The SEC says that two Robinhood broker-dealers agreed to pay $45M in combined penalties to settle charges that they violated over 10 securities law provisions
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Toronto-based Float Financial, which offers expense management software and corporate credit cards, raised a $48.5M Series B led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity
Wall Street Journal:
Donald Trump Jr. is joining prediction-market startup Kalshi as a strategic adviser; CFTC called Kalshi “an online casino” in a December filing

Earlier Picks

Kerry Flynn / Axios:
T-Mobile agrees to acquire Vistar Media, which focuses on programmatic digital out of home advertising, for $600M in cash; the deal is expected to close in Q1
New York Times:
Sources detail DOGE, which is likely to work as more of a brand linked by Signal group chats coordinating US policy or personnel recommendations and recruitment
Counterpoint Research:
Global smartphone shipments grew 4% YoY in 2024 after a decade-low in 2023; top two brands, Samsung and Apple, were mostly flat, while Xiaomi grew 12% YoY
Keir Starmer / Financial Times:
The UK's PM debuts plans to increase its public sector compute over 20x to spark a “national renewal”, saying the UK doesn't need to walk a US or EU path on AI
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