Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
January 21, 2025, 7:15 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle announce The Stargate Project, a JV to invest in US AI infrastructure, committing $100B now and up to $500B in the next four years  —  OpenAI says that it will team up with both the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and with Oracle, along with others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S.
Bloomberg:
Trump says he would be open to Elon Musk or Larry Ellison purchasing TikTok US as part of a joint venture that would give the US government 50% ownership  —  “I have the right to make a deal,” Trump said at an event alongside Ellison at the White House on Tuesday.
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Trump signs an EO seeking to pause the TikTok ban for 75 days, in a bid to give him time to negotiate a resolution and protect TikTok's providers from liability  —  President Trump signed an executive order on Monday seeking to hit pause on a law banning TikTok and to provide a liability shield …
Washington Post:
Legal experts and lawmakers: Trump's EO halting the TikTok ban may not protect companies that host or distribute the app, as Trump cannot overturn Congress' law
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue up 16% YoY to $10.2B and 301.6M global subs, adding 18.9M subs, more than doubling Wall Street estimates; NFLX jumps 13%+ after hours  —  - Netflix is raising subscription prices in its biggest market  — Report marks the end of regular quarterly customer updates
Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
Netflix raises prices in the US, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina; the standard US plan rises from $15.49 to $17.99, standard with ads jumps a dollar to $7.99  —  The company said those results were buoyed by programming in recent months that exceeded internal expectations.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta aims to debut glasses with a built-in display and new Oakley-branded smart glasses for athletes in 2025; it has resumed work on watches, earbuds  —  - Company resumes work on smartwatch and develops AirPods rival  — First real AR glasses, dubbed ‘Artemis,’ are planned for 2027
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Microsoft says it has a new deal with OpenAI that gives Microsoft “right of first refusal”, meaning it's no longer OpenAI's exclusive cloud provider  —  Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models.  No longer.
Radhika Rajkumar / ZDNET:
DeepSeek's new MIT-licensed AI models can be accessed via DeepSeek's API at a fraction of the cost of comparable OpenAI models but there are censorship concerns  —  Open-source artificial intelligence (AI) has reached another milestone — and the cost differences it represents could shake up the industry.
Jeff Cox / CNBC:
The SEC launches a “Crypto 2.0” task force led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, to create a “comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets”  —  The Trump administration took its firs steps Tuesday toward an expected lowering of regulatory barriers for cryptocurrency.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple says installing macOS Sequoia 15.3, iOS 18.3, or iPadOS 18.3 will turn on Apple Intelligence automatically on compatible devices; users can opt out later  —  When installing macOS Sequoia 15.3, iOS 18.3, or iPadOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence will be turned on automatically on compatible devices …
Anna Gross / Financial Times:
The UK debuts digital driving licenses and veteran ID cards, launching in 2025 via the GOV.UK Wallet, and AI tools, nicknamed “Humphrey”, to help civil servants  —  New app will also include documents showing criminal record checks and proof of eligibility for state benefits
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Trump signs an EO renaming the US Digital Service as the US DOGE Service, directing agency heads to form “DOGE Teams” of at least four employees within 30 days  —  The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory commission spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk recommending deep cuts …
New York Times:
Sources: Elon Musk is likely to get a West Wing office, putting him close to Donald Trump, after Musk had for many days been asking about his level of access
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta says it will offer eligible TikTok creators free verification, content deals, and up to $5,000 in bonuses to post Reels  —  Meta is luring TikTok creators over to its platforms with the promise of cash bonuses, content deals, and support to grow their communities.
Counterpoint Research:
Chinese smartphone sales fell 3.2% YoY in Q4 2024, the only negative quarter in 2024; Apple fell 18.2% to a 17.1% share and Huawei rose 15.5% to an 18.1% share  —  - During the quarter, Huawei secured the top spot, followed by Xiaomi.  Huawei's sales grew 15.5% YoY, supported by the release of the Mate 70 series in early December.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Card game Marvel Snap, published by ByteDance's Nuverse, is back online in the US; developer Second Dinner plans to find a new publisher to avoid future bans  —  Marvel Snap is back online in the US after access was cut off Saturday night due to the law that banned TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps.
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
ByteDance-owned video editing app CapCut is now working in the US, but is still not in app stores, after Trump signed an EO attempting to pause the TikTok ban

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Turn financial data into better business decisions  —  This is a guest blog by ScaleXP.For CEOs and CFOs of growing small and mid-sized businesses, financial data is everywhere.  Invoices, expenses, subscriptions …
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.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
 'Bad Dates', With Jason Snell
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Hard Fork:
 At the Pentagon, OpenAI is In and Anthropic Is Out
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Big Technology Podcast:
 Anthropic vs. The Pentagon, Bloodbath at Block, The Citrini Selloff
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
 Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:15 PM ET, January 21, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

New York Times:
Sources: WBD staff are bracing for widespread layoffs as David Ellison wants $6B in “synergies”; the internal mood is grim as staff preferred Netflix's proposal

CNN:
CNN employees and viewers have serious concerns about whether Ellison will uphold CNN's editorial independence amid severe political pressure

Henry Dyer / The Guardian:
UK minister Josh Simons resigns over allegations that a think tank he led has probed some journalists and falsely linked them to a “pro-Kremlin” network

More News

Drew Lerner / Awful Announcing:
Nielsen: Netflix captured 8.5% of all US streaming viewership in December 2024, its highest share since July 2023, in part due to NFL games; YouTube had 11.1%
Max Goldbart / Deadline:
Parrot Analytics estimates Severance season 1 earned $200M+, with ~50% coming in the year following the finale; Ted Lasso generated $609.4M from Q3'20 to Q3'24

Earlier Picks

James Hunt / The Block:
MicroStrategy bought 11K bitcoin for ~$1.1B from January 13 to 20, at an average of $101,191 per BTC, taking its holding to 461K, worth $48B+, or 2%+ of supply
Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
How purchasing Trump's memecoin, of which he reportedly holds $50B+ at January 19 prices, could be used to buy favors without actually transferring him funds
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Brendan Carr becomes FCC chair, and plans to focus on tech and media regulation, combating China, spectrum licenses, infrastructure, the space economy, and more
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Trump revokes Biden's 2023 executive order that sought to reduce the risks that AI poses to consumers, workers, and national security, fulfilling a GOP pledge
Matt Novak / Gizmodo:
During a speech after Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon Musk delivered what many saw as two “Nazi salutes”; Musk posted a three-minute video of his speech to X
More: The Guardian, Wired, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Deadline, AV Club, Raw Story, HuffPost, Rolling Stone, BBC, Global News, One America News Network, Republic World, New York Times, The Independent, Boing Boing, 9News, Raw Story, WUSA, The Mirror, New York Daily News, AS USA, Newsweek, Times of India, and The Forward
Bluesky: @karlbode.com, @karlbode.com, @jeffjarvis, @katie-drummond, @ahjohnson, @walkerbragman, @ahjohnson, @fredericl, @miasato, @cameronwilson, @cameronwilson, @marypcbuk, @rmac, @edbott.com, @grumpyzeus, @wademinter.com, @waxmonkey, @supremebeing504, @davidcolarusso.com, @mnateshyamalan, @thedailyshow.com, and @thedextriarchy
Threads: @yannlecun, @shabazzstuart, @benjamin_goggin_, @theheatherashley, @realjuddlegum, @_disparition_, @kenpopehat, @sharon.a.life, @aaron.rupar, @parkert, @fathernathan, @theheatherashley, @vocino, @pstomlinson, and @yasharali
X: @adl, @aoc, @rpsagainsttrump, @coribush, @pinko69420, @rpsagainsttrump, @elonmusk, @esjesjesj, @gianmarcosoresi, @atrupar, @nikitabier, @elonmusk, @tszzl, @emmavigeland, @bungarsargon, @loudmouthjulia, @lrozen, @devahaz, @elonmusk, @naval, @aidancramer, @andyorin, @nkulw, @dougboneparth, @gfodor, @yoda, @nkulw, @silvermanjacob, @jake_hanrahan, @shashj, @libsoftiktok, @yoda, @nkulw, @jphilllllll, and @sawyerhackett
Forums: Hacker News, r/InternationalNews, r/Uniteagainsttheright, r/popculturechat, r/centrist, r/the_everything_bubble, r/Social_Democracy, r/Republican_misdeeds, r/AuthoritarianNewsHub, r/IHateElonHub, r/ParlerWatch, r/politics, r/politics, r/millenials, r/RealTesla, r/interestingasfuck, r/europe, r/politics, r/interestingasfuck, r/pics, r/gifs, r/MurderedByWords, r/EnoughMuskSpam, r/AnythingGoesNews, and r/politics
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter