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Andrew Hayward / Decrypt: Donald Trump is promoting a Solana memecoin called TRUMP from his social media accounts, with 200M $TRUMP available now and growing to 1B “over three years”  —  Talk about a Friday night surprise.  President-elect Donald Trump's social media accounts shared what appears …

Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters: Filing: Nasdaq-listed Qorvo reveals activist investor Starboard's 7.7% stake, amid stiff competition and slowing orders for the company's smartphone chips  —  Starboard Value has built a 7.7% stake in Qorvo (QRVO.O), the chipmaker revealed in a filing on Friday, as the activist investor looks to boost the company's weak share price.

Jasper Goodman / Politico: Leading crypto firms have given at least $10M to the Trump inaugural fund; Ripple, a major target of SEC enforcement action, donated $5M in digital tokens  —  Crypto executives and their lobbyists are scrambling to gain sway over the incoming administration.

Antonio Regalado / MIT Technology Review: OpenAI worked with Retro Biosciences to develop GPT-4b micro, an AI model that it says can engineer proteins capable of turning regular cells into stem cells  —  When you think of AI's contributions to science, you probably think of AlphaFold, the Google DeepMind protein-folding program that earned its creator a Nobel Prize last year.

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: TikTok says it will go dark in the US on Sunday unless the Biden admin provides a “definitive statement” to critical service providers assuring non-enforcement  —  TikTok said its services will go dark on Sunday unless the Biden administration gives a definitive statement providing assurances …

Karissa Bell / Engadget: Zuckerberg says there's a “bogus narrative saying I blamed Sheryl for a bunch of stuff” and he was just addressing the origin of “bring your whole self to work”  —  Well, specifically, they want me to know.  —  On Thursday, The New York Times published a lengthy story …

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch: Filing: ChatGPT's head of product, Nick Turley, will testify as a witness for the US DOJ in its antitrust case against Google, as a court decides penalties  —  The U.S. government wants to prove that Google's competitors face overwhelming barriers to entry as part of its antitrust case against the tech giant.

Brady Dale / Axios: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong endorses a US bitcoin strategic reserve in a blog post on “economic freedom” that calls on world leaders to embrace crypto  —  - This is the first time Coinbase has specifically addressed the idea of a strategic bitcoin reserve, doing …

Matt Day / Bloomberg: Amazon suspends drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona to fix the drones' software after two of its latest models crashed in rainy weather at a testing facility  —  - Deliveries halted in Texas, Arizona, pending a software repair  — Drone program suffering setbacks 11 years after its unveiling

Mia Sato / The Verge: Instagram adds a new tab in the Reels feed that will show videos that a user's friends have liked or added commentary to  —  Instagram is bringing back one of its more chaotic features, now reworked for the short-form video era.  —  A new tab in the Reels feed will serve up videos …

Edith Hancock / Wall Street Journal: A group of 18 former European heads of state call on the EC to break up Google's advertising tech business, claiming it erodes Europe's media landscape  —  18 former European heads of state are claiming Google's highly lucrative advertising-technology business erodes Europe's media landscape

Kalley Huang / The Information: Source: Meta plans to break up its civil rights team, which helped develop tech to address racial and other disparities in how Meta distributed ads on its apps  —  Meta Platforms will break up a team that trained employees on civil rights, sought to prevent the company's algorithms …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Perplexity acquires Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals; Read.cv will shut down and let users export their profiles, posts, and more until May 16  —  Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals that competed with LinkedIn, has been acquired by AI-powered search engine Perplexity.

Sarah Wynn / The Block: Digital Currency Group agrees to settle and pay $38.5M in civil penalties to the US SEC over charges that it misled investors via crypto lender Genesis Global  —  - The SEC said that one of Genesis' largest borrowers was asset hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and said on June 13 that the fund “failed to meet a margin call.”

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Bluesky 2024 moderation report: Bluesky gained 23M+ users, its moderation team grew to ~100, and its moderation service received 6.48M reports, up 17x from 2023  —  Bluesky on Friday published its moderation report for the past year, noting the sizable growth the social network experienced …

Jane Lanhee Lee / Bloomberg: TSMC reports Q4 sales up 38.8% YoY to ~$26.38B, net income up 57% YoY to ~$11.4B, both above estimates; stock jumped 80%+ in 2024, its biggest gain since 1999  —  - Revenue, capex projections surpass analysts' estimates  — TSMC is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom

Omkar Godbole / CoinDesk: Jio Platforms partners with Polygon Labs to integrate Web3 and blockchain services into Jio's apps and services; Jio Platforms has over 450M users in India  —  Indian telecom and technology company Jio Platforms (JPL) is taking significant steps to enhance the digital experience for its more than 450 million users.

NBC News: An official says the Biden administration is “exploring options” to implement the law without causing TikTok to go dark for US users on January 19  —  Barring action by the Supreme Court, a ban in the U.S. on the popular app is set to begin on Sunday.

Semafor: Sources: Satya Nadella and Brad Smith had lunch with Trump, Vance, and Musk at Mar-a-Lago on January 15; Microsoft says its two execs had a “Productive meeting”  —  THE SCOOP  —  President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance had lunch with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Wednesday …

Yazhou Sun / Bloomberg: Germany-based Neura Robotics, which is building cognitive, humanoid robots for logistics and other sectors, raised a €120M Series B led by Lingotto Investment  —  Neura Robotics, a German startup that manufactures robots that can “see, hear and touch,” has raised $120 million …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Chinese AI company MiniMax, which has raised ~$850M, debuts three LLMs, including a 456B-parameter model that it claims performs better than Gemini 2.0 Flash  —  Chinese firms continue to release AI models that rival the capabilities of systems developed by OpenAI and other U.S.-based AI companies.

Karen Freifeld / Reuters: The US Commerce Department adds 25 China-based companies, including Alibaba-backed LLM developer Zhipu AI and chip designer Sophgo, to its restricted trade list  —  The Biden administration added more than two dozen Chinese entities to a U.S. restricted trade list on Wednesday, including Zhipu AI …

Lindsay Whitehurst / Associated Press: During oral arguments, SCOTUS seemed open to a Texas law requiring age checks to view online porn, but could send the case back to a lower court  —  The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed open to a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography, though the justices could still send …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: AI researcher François Chollet and Zapier co-founder Mike Knoop launch Ndea, an AI research and science lab focused on “developing and operationalizing AGI”  —  François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to build frontier AI systems with novel designs.

Bloomberg: Sources: Nothing seeks to raise at least $100M in its Series C; it crossed $1B in lifetime sales, sold 7M devices to date, and doubled revenue to $500M+ in 2024  —  - Nothing CEO Pei known for co-founding popular OnePlus brand  — Startup exploring expansion beyond phones, watches and earbuds

Daniel Kuhn / The Block: BitMEX is fined an additional $100M for US Bank Secrecy Act violations between 2015 and 2020; it pleaded guilty in July 2024 and previously agreed to pay $110M  —  - BitMEX has been slapped with an additional $100 million fine for Bank Secrecy Act violations between 2015 and 2020.

Pete Schroeder / Reuters: Block agrees to pay $80M to a group of 48 US state financial regulators that say it had insufficient policies for policing money laundering through Cash App  —  Block Inc (SQ.N) has agreed to pay a fine of $80 million to a group of 48 state financial regulators after the agencies determined …

Washington Post: Sources: Donald Trump is considering issuing an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok sale-or-ban law for 60 to 90 days  —  Trump, the infamous dealmaker, is exploring unconventional ways to rescue the Chinese-owned video app from a nationwide ban …

Rishi Kant / Reuters: Aligned Data Centers, which specializes in AI-related infrastructure, raised over $12B, including $5B+ of new primary equity and $7B+ of new debt commitments  —  Aligned Data Centers, which specializes in AI-related infrastructure, said on Wednesday it had completed another round of capital raise of more than $12 billion.

Jesse Coghlan / Cointelegraph: DappRadar: NFT trading volumes in 2024 fell 19% YoY to $13.7B and sales counts fell 18% YoY to just under 50M, making 2024 the worst performing year since 2020  —  DappRadar found the NFT market last year was the worst since 2020 for trading and sales volumes, with both falling nearly 20% over 2024.

Vince Dioquino / Decrypt: Sony launches Soneium Ethereum L2 platform for creators, after a four-month test that drew 14M+ users; Blockscout: Soneium testnet processed ~47M transactions  —  Sony says it plans to explore ways for protecting creator rights and mechanisms for equitable value distribution between creators and fans.

Financial Times: Sources: the EU is reassessing its DMA probes into US tech giants like Apple, Meta, and Google, launched since March 2024, as US groups urge Trump to intervene  —  Tech groups have urged Donald Trump to intervene against overzealous European regulation  —  Brussels is reassessing …

Lauly Li / Nikkei Asia: Sources: China tightens scrutiny of Apple and other US tech firms' exports under its dual-use export controls, slowing production expansion in SE Asia and India  —  TAIPEI — China is increasing its scrutiny of exports by Apple and other American tech companies, hampering their efforts …

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia: Sources: Apple is finalizing verification of its first cutting-edge chips from TSMC's Arizona plant, with the initial batch expected as early as this quarter  —  TAIPEI — Apple is in the final stage of verifying its first “made in America” cutting-edge processor chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s plant in Arizona.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire: Bellevue, WA-based Truveta, which aggregates medical data from 30 partner institutions, raised $320M from Regeneron, Illumina, and others at a $1B+ valuation  —  Seattle-area health data company Truveta announced $320 million in fresh funding and an ambitious new initiative to create a giant genomic dataset.

Caitlin Chandler / Wired: A look at European tech firms Idemia, SITA, Travizory, and WCC, that offer AI tools to help governments surveil cross-border travelers and predict threats  —  Behind the scenes, companies and governments are feeding a trove of data about international travelers into opaque AI tools that aim to predict who's safe—and who's a threat.

Bloomberg: Sources: Databricks secures $5B+ in its largest debt raise to date, from lenders including Blackstone and Apollo, after raising $10B in equity in December 2024  —  - Blackstone, Apollo, Blue Owl among lenders in private loan  — Financing also includes a $2.5 billion credit line from banks

Todd Spangler / Variety: TikTok denies a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to Elon Musk, calling it “pure fiction”  —  TikTok denied a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational …

Reuters: Docs: Arm was working on a strategy in 2019 to hike prices to boost annual smartphone revenue by ~$1B over 10 years, and has discussed designing its own chips  —  Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F), , a technology supplier to chip firms, is developing a long-term strategy to hike prices by as much as 300% …

Bloomberg: Sources: Chinese officials are evaluating an option involving Elon Musk acquiring TikTok US; X would take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together  —  - ByteDance's preferred strategy is to fight ban, sources say  — Trump has said he would like to delay ban to seek resolution

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Zuckerberg met with Trump on Friday, in part to mediate a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought against Meta over his account suspension after the Jan. 6 riot  —  Meta pursues a MAGA makeover, in the latest political pivot for a company that once banned the now-president-elect from its platforms

Kashmir Hill / New York Times: Texas sues Allstate and its subsidiary Arity, accusing the insurer of illegally collecting and selling data about people's driving behavior through mobile apps  —  The lawsuit accuses Arity, an Allstate subsidiary, of collecting data about people's driving behavior through mobile phone apps …

Todd Bishop / GeekWire: Microsoft is creating a new “CoreAI - Platform and Tools” unit led by Jay Parikh, the ex-Lacework CEO and Meta engineering executive who joined in October 2024  —  Microsoft is creating a new engineering division, led by the former global head of engineering at Facebook (now Meta) …

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: IAC board approves the spinoff of home improvement marketplace Angi; IAC has previously spun off companies like Expedia, Ticketmaster, and LendingTree  —  Barry Diller's IAC said Monday that its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement marketplace the company acquired in 2017.

Dan Mangan / CNBC: The SEC says that two Robinhood broker-dealers agreed to pay $45M in combined penalties to settle charges that they violated over 10 securities law provisions  —  - CNBC Councils  — CNBC on Peacock  — Join the CNBC Panel  — Supply Chain Values  — Select Shopping  — Ad Choices

Che Pan / South China Morning Post: Sources: TSMC cuts ties with Singapore-based PowerAIR due to a potential breach of US export controls, after a TSMC chip was found in a Huawei AI processor  —  The world's largest chip foundry ended its relationship with a Singapore-based firm after a client review

David Shepardson / Reuters: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says TSMC has begun producing advanced 4nm chips “on par in yield and quality with Taiwan” for US customers in Phoenix, Arizona  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW) has begun producing advanced four-nanometer chips for U.S. customers in Arizona …

Rest of World: Sources: Foxconn stops sending Chinese employees to iPhone factories in India and recalls already stationed staff, while China stalls equipment shipments  —  In addition, equipment shipments are delayed, potentially disrupting next-generation iPhone production in India.

Jo Constantz / Bloomberg: A look at the burgeoning underground market connecting job seekers to anonymous employees willing to make a referral at Microsoft, Nvidia, Spotify, and others  —  Recommending strangers to companies like Microsoft and Nvidia has become a side hustle for enterprising employees  —  Copy, paste, refer.

Alex Heath / The Verge: Roy Austin, Meta's VP of Civil Rights and Deputy General Counsel, announces he is leaving the company at the end of March 2025, after joining in January 2021  —  When Roy Austin was hired to run a new civil rights team in 2021, the company called it “an incredibly important role for Facebook and for the tech industry.”