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January 24, 2025, 4:35 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 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.
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
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
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  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order on artificial intelligence Thursday …
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
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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
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  —  The founder of GameOn, a San Francisco artificial intelligence startup, has been indicted for running a “brazen and wide-ranging” …
Zoho:
Zoho Writer's year in review and a sneak peek at 2025!  —  Here's to a year full of creativity and possibilities!  As we are stepping into 2025, it's time to pause and reflect on an incredible year of innovation and progress with Zoho Writer.  This year was all about making Zoho Writer work harder …
Sponsor Post
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
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 …

Sponsor Posts

Microsoft:
6 AI Trends to Watch in 2025  —  Explore insight from Microsoft on key AI advancements that will shape our work and daily lives in the coming year.
Genesys:
The Levels of Experience Orchestration  —  What's your vision for the future of customer experience?  See how AI can transform your business - and take you to the next level.
Zoho:
Zoho Writer's year in review and a sneak peek at 2025!  —  Here's to a year full of creativity and possibilities!  As we are stepping into 2025, it's time to pause and reflect on an incredible year of innovation and progress with Zoho Writer.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
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Newest

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 loopFind
30 minutes ago
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 MuskFind
3½ hours ago
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI faces challenges in transitioning to for-profit status, including valuing Microsoft's stake; its charitable arm could be worth $30BFind
3½ hours ago
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Texas Instruments reports Q4 revenue down 1.7% YoY to $4.01B, net income down 12% YoY to $1.2B, and projects Q1, 2025 sales between $3.74B and $4.06BFind
4 hours ago
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
PE firm Everstone acquires Delhi-based Wingify, whose flagship product Visual Website Optimizer helps businesses improve online conversion rates, for $200MFind
5 hours ago
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 ChinaFind
5½ hours ago
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 worldFind
7 hours ago
Full Time-Sorted List

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Mark Thompson previews CNN's paid streaming service, says CNN plans to launch a subscription in 2025 for “lifestyle” content, and cuts ~200 jobs in its TV unit

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:
Chicago Public Media offers buyouts to Chicago Sun-Times journalists and WBEZ business staff; CEO Melissa Bell is aiming to shave $3M-$5M from the annual budget

Brier Dudley / The Seattle Times:
Washington state legislators introduce a bill to provide journalism grants that would be funded by increasing a business tax surcharge on big software companies

More News

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
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

Earlier Picks

Munir Ahmed / Associated Press:
Pakistan's parliament passes a controversial bill giving the government sweeping controls on social media, including prison terms for spreading “disinformation”
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
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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