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January 24, 2025, 9:05 AM
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Top News

Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI releases a “research preview” of its Operator AI agent that can automate web-based tasks, launching to US subscribers of its $200/month ChatGPT Pro tier  —  OpenAI is releasing a “research preview” of an AI agent called Operator that can “go to the web to perform tasks for you,” according to a blog post.
Every:
Hands-on with Operator: limited in what it can browse, can autonomously perform repetitive workflows, and can do lengthy tasks on its own with minimal prompting
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI partners with DoorDash, eBay, Instacart, Priceline, StubHub, Uber, and other companies to ensure that Operator respects their terms of service agreements
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
OpenAI says Operator is powered by Computer-Using Agent, or CUA, which combines GPT-4o's vision capabilities with “reasoning” abilities of more advanced models
Politico:
Although Trump downplayed Elon Musk's Stargate criticism, assuring reporters “they're putting up the money”, key White House sources say they're furious at Musk  —  “It's clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” said one ally of the president.
Financial Times:
Sources: Stargate lacks a fully developed plan, hasn't secured funding yet, will get no government support, and will exclusively serve OpenAI once operational  —  Donald Trump has called the SoftBank-backed venture a 'resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential'
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Trump signs an EO to create a crypto working group led by David Sacks to consider a national digital asset stockpile “potentially derived” from seized crypto  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to promote the advancement of cryptocurrencies in the U.S …
Associated Press:
Trump signs an EO to develop AI systems “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas”, revoking Biden policies that “act as barriers” to innovation
Jon Keegan / Sherwood News:
DeepSeek's latest AI model R1 sticks to Chinese government restrictions on sensitive topics like Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, and the treatment of Uyghurs in China  —  Those who train the AI models get to decide what the truth is.  —  5H  —  The AI world was abuzz this week with the release …
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Epic launches a free games program on mobile and promises to pay the Apple Core Technology Fee for participants in the program on iOS for one year  —  Epic Games is adding nearly 20 third-party games onto its mobile app store worldwide on Android and in the European Union on iOS and launching …
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
Sources: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance is buying Nvidia's AI chips and plans to build a 3-gigawatt data center in Jamnagar, India, set to be the largest in the world  —  - Reliance joins rush of tech companies building data centers … Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group is building what may become …
New York Times:
Instagram and Facebook removed posts from two abortion pill providers; Instagram also suspended accounts; Meta confirmed and restored some of the accounts  —  Some posts related to obtaining abortion pills were recently hidden on Instagram and Facebook and some accounts were suspended, before being later restored.
Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg:
On January 31, the EC will question Meta, X, Snap, Google, TikTok, and LinkedIn on their plans to counter disinformation ahead of elections in Germany  —  - X, Google, Snap and LinkedIn to be tested on disinformation  — EU is working to combat false information around elections
More: Reuters
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic debuts Citations, a new API feature letting developers “ground” answers in source documents, available for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Haiku  —  In an announcement perhaps timed to divert attention away from OpenAI's Operator, Anthropic Thursday unveiled a new feature …
Kyle Chan / High Capacity:
How China's progress across a range of overlapping industries like smartphones, AI, robotics, and drones creates a mutually reinforcing feedback loop  —  EVs, batteries, lidar, drones, robotics, smartphones, AI.  China's progress across a range of overlapping industries creates a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.
Forums: r/China
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Substack launches a $20M Creator Accelerator Fund to lure US creators who have $2K+ per month in recurring revenue away from other subscription-based platforms  —  Substack on Thursday announced the launch of its Creator Accelerator Fund, which provides a $20 million funding guarantee aimed …

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From Mediagazer

Antonio Zappulla / Thomson Reuters Foundation:
The Thomson Reuters Foundation says its news brand, Context, will be “phased down”, some staffers will lose jobs, and the site will remain up as an archive

Bloomberg:
Meta and Snap report minimal impact from Australia's teen social media ban as it affects a small number of users who aren't high-value targets for advertisers

Brendon Kleen / Awful Announcing:
Memo: The Banner in Maryland plans to expand sports staff to cover Washington, DC, teams, hiring beat reporters to cover the Nationals and Commanders, and more

More News

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
The US DOJ charges the former CEO of AI chatbot startup GameOn and his wife for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $60M between 2018 and 2024
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Google rolls out the first public beta of Android 16 for Pixel devices, introducing Live Updates, a limited version of Apple's Live Activities, and more

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
At Davos, Trump blasts EU for targeting Apple, Google, and Meta, describing regulatory cases as “a form of taxation”, and references Apple's €13B Irish tax bill
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Perplexity launches Perplexity Assistant in its Android app, which can take “multi-app actions” like hailing a ride, initially free for users in 15 languages
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Brave Search rolls out Rerank to let users boost or downgrade domains from their search results through thumbs up or thumbs down buttons
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review: fastest Blender benchmark score ever, DLSS4 frame generation works well, and good cooling but very expensive and power hungry
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
The UK CMA opens investigations into Apple's and Google's mobile ecosystems, including OSes, app stores, and browsers, to see the impact on users and businesses
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google acquihires “some of the HTC VIVE engineering team” in Taiwan with “a proven track record in VR” for $250M in cash, to “accelerate” Android XR development
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