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January 23, 2025, 7:00 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
OpenAI releases a “research preview” of its Operator AI agent that can automate web-based tasks, launching in the US to subscribers of the $200/month 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.
More: OpenAI, OpenAI on YouTube, XDA Developers, Android Authority, Decrypt, TechCrunch, The Register, Wired, Engadget, Thurrott, CNBC, The Information, Neowin, VentureBeat, The Decoder, TechRadar, Quartz, Axios, WinBuzzer, Bloomberg, Silicon UK, AIM Media House, Digital Trends, and MakeUseOf
Bluesky: @taumuyi. Mastodon: @glenngabe@mas.to. Threads: @benedictevans. X: @gdb, @maxwinebach, @kylebrussell, @swyx, @karpathy, @levie, @delrey, @sama, @gneubig, @sierracatalina1, @dorialexander, @scobleizer, @aibreakfast, @rowancheung, @altryne, @altryne, @sierracatalina1, @altryne, @minimaxir, @rowancheung, @rowancheung, @gneubig, @danshipper, @binarybits, @gneubig, @gregpr07, @gneubig, @altryne, @emollick, @rowancheung, @0xkarmatic, @levie, @rowancheung, @fanahova, @0xkarmatic, @woj_zaremba, and @gneubig
LinkedIn: Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, Ph.D., David Richter, and Diane Techer
| Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: |
OpenAI partners with DoorDash, Instacart, Priceline, StubHub, and Uber to ensure that Operator respects these businesses' terms of service agreements — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman kicked off this year by saying in a blog post that 2025 would be big for AI agents, tools that can automate tasks and take actions on your behalf.| Every: |
Hands-on with Operator: limited in what it can browse, can perform repetitive workflows, and can do lengthy tasks on its own with minimal prompting — Operator (Could you help me do this task?) … Today, OpenAI announced Operator, a new research preview of ChatGPT that acts as an agent for your repetitive tasks.
More: Ars Technica, TechCrunch, OpenAI, and Simon Willison's Weblog
| 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 …
More: The White House, New York Times, Unchained, DL News, CoinDesk, TechCrunch, Axios, Reuters, The Information, Decrypt, The Block, Fortune, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Barron's Online, Wired, CoinGape, The Hill, Atlantic Council, Benzinga, Blockchain.News, NBC News, BTC Times, The Daily Hodl, CryptoSlate, Watcher Guru, CryptoPotato, and Bloomberg
| 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 — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on artificial intelligence Thursday …
More: SiliconANGLE, Reuters, The White House, Healthcare IT News, and Unite.AI
Bluesky: @thebluenami, @igraywill, and @frydawolff
| Donald Judd / CNN: |
| Andy Greenberg / Wired: |
Researchers detail Subaru's now-fixed web vulnerabilities that would've let them unlock and start millions of Subarus via Starlink in the US, Canada, and Japan — Now-fixed web bugs allowed hackers to remotely unlock and start millions of Subarus. More disturbingly, they could also access …
More: Sam Curry, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, Carscoops, Engadget, Jalopnik, and iPhone in Canada Blog
Bluesky: @joymwilliams, @agreenberg, @willoremus.com, and @hypervisible. Mastodon: @sethmlarson@fosstodon.org
LinkedIn: Dilpreet Matharoo and Arin Waichulis
Forums: Hacker News, r/SubaruForester, r/cars, r/netsec, r/subaru, and r/technews
| Kevin Roose / New York Times: |
CAIS and Scale AI release “Humanity's Last Exam”, which they claim is the hardest AI test yet, consisting of ~3,000 multiple-choice and short answer questions — If you're looking for a new reason to be nervous about artificial intelligence, try this: Some of the smartest humans … | 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 …
More: PYMNTS.com, MacRumors, How-To Geek, AppleInsider, Bloomberg, Engadget, Thurrott, IGN, Eurogamer.net, TechCrunch, Polygon, Reuters, and Mobilegamer.biz
X: @ign and @timsweeneyepic
Forums: r/Android and MacRumors Forums
| 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 — Android 16's first public beta will start rolling out later today, bringing with it dynamic lockscreen notifications for ride-sharing and food delivery … | 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 — LONDON — Britain's competition regulator on Thursday launched an investigation into Apple and Google's huge mobile ecosystems …
More: GOV.UK, Android Police, CNET, SiliconANGLE, Engadget, Reuters, GOV.UK, The Keyword, 9to5Mac, Associated Press, The Register, iPhone in Canada Blog, Financial Times, Computerworld, Wall Street Pit, TechCrunch, MarketWatch, iClarified, AppleInsider, Proactive, Yahoo Finance, Gulf News, Android Headlines, iDownloadBlog.com, Agence France-Presse, MacRumors, Silicon UK, ComputerWeekly.com, and NewsBytes
| Lily Hay Newman / Wired: |
Q&A with former CISA Director Jen Easterly, appointed in 2021, on leaving the agency, Donald Trump, China's Salt Typhoon, Russia, unfinished business, and more — Chinese hacks, rampant ransomware, and Donald Trump's budget cuts all threaten US security.
Mastodon: @chrismerkel@infosec.exchange and @lhn@mastodon.online
Forums: r/politics and r/cybersecurity
| 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 — AI-powered search engine Perplexity has launched an “agent,” of sorts, called Perplexity Assistant …
More: SiliconANGLE, The Verge, WinBuzzer, Neowin, Digital Trends, The Decoder, and Android Police
Bluesky: @vega. X: @perplexity_ai, @aravsrinivas, @forevermylapore, @arrington, @aravsrinivas, @harjtaggar, @aravsrinivas, and @aravsrinivas
| Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg: |
France says David Balland, a co-founder of French crypto wallet startup Ledger, was kidnapped on January 21 and freed on January 22 after a police operation — - A crypto ransom has been partly paid, traced and seized — Balland's partner was also kidnapped and released on Thursday
More: New York Times, The Block, The Block, Cointelegraph, CoinGape, DL News, Protos, Decrypt, The Crypto Basic, Gizmodo, crypto.news, and Crypto Briefing. X: @lopp
| Reuters: |
ByteDance debuts Doubao-1.5-pro, claiming its latest flagship AI model outperforms OpenAI's o1 in AIME benchmarks, joining DeepSeek in China's AI reasoning push — TikTok owner ByteDance on Wednesday released an update to its flagship AI model aimed at challenging Microsoft-backed OpenAI's …
More: Computerworld, Doubao Team, and BGR
| 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 …
More: The Verge, Substack Reads, Tubefilter, and Bloomberg
| 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 — - Comments mark start of clash between Trump, EU over tech — Apple lost case last year over $14.4 billion Irish tax bill
More: 9to5Mac, The Information, The Hill, TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, and The Block
Mastodon: @JapanProf@mastodon.social. X: @acyn, @megatron_ron, @cturnbull1968, @trumpwarroom, @bradhuston, and @pat_hedger. Forums: Slashdot
| Bloomberg: |
ByteDance board member Bill Ford says ByteDance is exploring alternatives to selling TikTok US, including a change to local control to comply with the US law — - Firm's options with Trump team include change of control — Bill Ford runs General Atlantic, which owns stake in ByteDance
More: PYMNTS.com, 9to5Mac, Ars Technica, GSMArena.com, HotHardware, RetailWire, The Hill, VICE, and Private Equity Insights
| 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 …
More: Anthropic. X: @crisgiardina, @alexalbert__, @alexalbert__, and @anthropicai. Forums: Hacker News
| Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg: |
Sources: India's technology ministry asked Apple, Google, and other smartphone makers to provide Indians direct access to the state-backed GOV.in app store — India is trying to pry open the doors of the world's biggest app stores, setting up a likely clash with Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc …
More: 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, Malwarebytes, BroBible, Dexerto, UPI, Macworld, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, PCMag, and PetaPixel. Threads: @bloombergbusiness
| 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 — To “accelerate” Android XR development, Google announced this evening that it …
More: HTC VIVE, Engadget, The Keyword, SiliconANGLE, XR Today, Thurrott, PC Gamer, Neowin, PhoneArena, Android Central, Road to VR, Android Headlines, RCR Wireless News, and SamMobile
Forums: r/virtualreality and r/Android
| Akila Quinio / Financial Times: |
HSBC shuts Zing after launching the payments app in Jan. 2024 to compete with Revolut and Wise, marking the latest failed fintech venture by a traditional bank — Closure marks latest failed fintech effort by traditional bank — HSBC is shutting its payments app Zing just a year …
More: Reuters, PYMNTS.com, The Independent, The Sun, and The Paypers
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Daniel Guarnera, a DOJ lawyer who helped file US antitrust lawsuits against Google and Apple, has been picked to lead the FTC's Bureau of Competition — - Daniel Guarnera picked to lead FTC's Bureau of Competition — Chris Mufarrige tapped to head Bureau of Consumer Protection
Bluesky: @schock.cc
| Kate Knibbs / Wired: |
Q&A with Stanford professor and IP lawyer Mark Lemley on deciding to quit representing Meta in AI copyright case Kadrey v. Meta, Trump, DEI, Elon Musk, and more — In an exclusive interview with WIRED, celebrated intellectual property lawyer Mark Lemley elaborates on why he quit and what he makes of the AI copyright battlefield.
Bluesky: @wired.com
| 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 — Brave Search has introduced a new feature called Rerank, which allows users to define search results ordering preferences and set specific sites rank higher.
More: Brave, CNBC, Thurrott, Search Engine Land, Windows Central, MediaPost, and TechCrunch. Bluesky: @agentzeronine
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