Techmeme
February 6, 2025, 9:20 AM

Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Stanford and University of Washington AI researchers claim they trained AI reasoning model s1, distilled from a Gemini 2.0 model, for under $50 in cloud compute  —  AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits …
Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal:
Email: Google eliminates its goal of hiring more employees from historically underrepresented groups and is reviewing some DEI programs after Donald Trump's EOs  —  Search giant is eliminating goals to hire more minority employees and reviewing DEI programs, part of a pullback across Silicon Valley
Emma Roth / The Verge:
OpenAI opens ChatGPT search to users who are not logged in, after launching it to paying subscribers in October 2024 and logged-in users in December 2024  —  OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible.  —  OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible.
Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Arm reports Q3 revenue up 19% YoY to $983M, vs. $946.7M est., royalty revenue up 23% YoY to $580M, and lowers is FY revenue guidance; ARM drops 5%+  —  Chip tech provider Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F), said on Wednesday it will no longer meet the top end of its previous full-year guidance …
Greg Bensinger / Reuters:
Amazon announces an Alexa-focused event on February 26 in New York; sources say the company will preview its long-delayed Alexa generative AI revamp  —  Amazon (AMZN.O) is set to release its long-awaited - and delayed - Alexa generative artificial intelligence voice service …
Politico:
The Senate Commerce Committee approves the Kids Off Social Media Act to ban under-13s from social media, clearing the way for consideration by the Senate  —  The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Wednesday to ban children under 13 from social media.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Kaspersky researchers found apps in Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store that use OCR to steal crypto wallet recovery phrases from images on users' devices  —  Android and iOS apps on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store contain a malicious software development kit (SDK) …
Henry Stockdale / UploadVR:
Interviews with nearly two dozen VR studios on shipping games on Quest, Meta's increased focus on Horizon Worlds, concerns over declining game sales, and more  —  With concerns about declining sales and discoverability, UploadVR spoke with nearly two dozen VR studios to discuss the state of VR development for Quest.
Casey Hall / Reuters:
Trump's de minimis cancellation is likely to hit Shein harder than online dollar-store Temu, which has shifted to an Amazon-like bulk overseas shipment strategy  —  The Trump administration move to stop low-cost imports entering the U.S. tariff-free is likely to hit fast fashion retailer Shein harder …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: banks sold $5.5B in debt that X borrowed, at $0.97 on the dollar, after strong investor demand; they had planned to sell ~$3B at ~$0.95 on the dollar  —  X CEO tells investors that the financial health of social-media company is improving  —  Elon Musk's power in Washington …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google adds Gemini 2.0 Flash, 2.0 Flash-Lite, and 2.0 Pro Experimental to Gemini's API, and 2.0 Pro Experimental and 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental to its apps  —  Gemini 2.0 AI updates include cheaper access for developers, and AI that can use other Google apps like YouTube.
Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
SEC filing: Sequoia's evergreen fund has grown to $19.6B, up from $13.6B in early 2023, a signal that the firm continues to grow despite a VC funding slowdown  —  The fund's total includes new cash commitments, shares of now-public companies that Sequoia previously backed and cash returns from mergers and acquisitions.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sonos lays off ~200 employees, or 12% of its staff, as it reorganizes to make its product teams “flatter, smaller, and more focused”, weeks after losing its CEO  —  Sonos Inc. said it's cutting about 12% of its staff, or 200 workers, in a bid to make its product teams “flatter, smaller and more focused.”

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More News

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

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