Techmeme
January 29, 2025, 9:00 AM

Top News

Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether a DeepSeek-linked group obtained a large amount of data from OpenAI's API in an unauthorized manner  —  Microsoft's security researchers in the fall observed individuals they believe may be linked to DeepSeek exfiltrating a large amount …
Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Sources: the US Office of Personnel Management's highest ranks are now controlled by former employees of Elon Musk's companies, like xAI and the Boring Company  —  Sources tell WIRED that the OPM's top layers of management now include individuals linked to xAI, Neuralink, the Boring Company, and Palantir.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has been working with SpaceX and T-Mobile to add Starlink support from iOS 18.3; T-Mobile is testing it with some users, exclusively for texting  —  - T-Mobile begins pushing offering in limited beta test to users  —  Apple Inc. has been secretly working with SpaceX …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers detail two Apple silicon side-channel attacks that could leak secrets: SLAP, affecting M2, A15, and newer chips, and FLOP, affecting M3, M4, and A17  —  Apple-designed chips powering Macs, iPhones, and iPads contain two newly discovered vulnerabilities that leak credit card information …
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google's maps unit reclassifies the US as a “sensitive country”, a designation for states with strict governments or border disputes, after Trump's map changes  —  Google's maps division on Monday reclassified the U.S. as a “sensitive country,” a designation it reserves for states …
Eduardo Baptista / Reuters:
Alibaba releases Qwen 2.5-Max, an AI model that the company claims “outperforms” GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3, and Llama-3.1-405B “almost across the board”  —  Chinese tech company Alibaba (9988.HK) on Wednesday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model …
New York Times:
Meta executives say DeepSeek's breakthrough shows that upstarts now have a chance to innovate and compete with AI giants and vindicates the open-source strategy  —  The Silicon Valley giant was criticized for giving away its core A.I. technology two years ago for anyone to use.  Now that bet is having an impact.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Sony names CFO Hiroki Totoki as CEO, succeeding Kenichiro Yoshida, and PlayStation co-CEO Hideaki Nishino as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, from April 1  —  The corporate shuffle, effective April 1, was approved late Tuesday by the electronics and entertainment giant's board of directors in Tokyo.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
The US Navy instructs its members to avoid using DeepSeek “in any capacity” due to “potential security and ethical concerns”  —  The U.S. Navy has instructed its members to avoid using artificial intelligence technology from China's DeepSeek, CNBC has learned.
Radhika Rajkumar / ZDNET:
Block introduces an on-device, open-source AI agent called Goose, which allows developers to choose their preferred LLM to automate engineering tasks  —  Whether for developer needs or mundane tasks, the artificial intelligence (AI) tide appears to be turning in favor of open-source solutions.
Jyoti Mann / Business Insider:
In an internal memo, Andrew Bosworth says Meta's Reality Labs beat nearly all its sales and user targets for 2024, growing sales “>40% YoY overall”  —  - Meta's Reality Labs exceeded nearly all its 2024 sales and user targets, an internal memo said.
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
An ex-OpenAI safety researcher says he's “terrified” by AI development's pace and that labs racing to AGI can cut corners on alignment, pushing all to speed up  —  Steven Adler expresses concern industry taking ‘very risky gamble’ and raises doubts about future of humanity
bellingcat:
A look at MrDeepFakes, a site with obscure ownership that hosts non-consensual deepfake porn, has close to 650K members, and gets millions of visits per month  —  This article is the result of a collaboration with German YouTube channel STRG_F.  You can watch their documentary here.

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.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Why navigation breaks down in unified software—and how QuickNav fixes it  —  In unified software environments, navigation stops being a convenience issue and becomes a structural one.When work spans CRM records …
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

Hard Fork:
Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School
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.
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.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
AI is critical for humanity's survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel
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.
Cheeky Pint:
Reiner Pope of MatX on accelerating AI with transformer-optimized chips
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:00 AM ET, January 29, 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.

More News

Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Ryan Knappenberger / Courthouse News Service:
More: 9to5Mac, MediaPost, and MLex
Bluesky: @quinnypig.comX: @balancecrafting, @jason_kint, and @vidushi_lawForums: r/apple

Earlier Picks

Victoria Song / The Verge:
Tim De Chant / TechCrunch:
Hugh Son / CNBC: