~techmeme | Bookmarks (1043)

Kenrick Cai / Reuters: A look at Google's plans to shape public perception and policies on AI, including building out educational programs, ahead of a global wave of AI regulation  —  Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google, already facing an unprecedented regulatory onslaught, is looking to shape public perception and policies …

Wall Street Journal: Despite assurances, advertisers worry Meta's tools may not prevent ads from appearing near offensive content as the new content moderation approach takes effect  —  Social-media giant's loosening of speech restrictions is unsettling advertisers, who say a decade of efforts to protect their reputations is at risk

Bobby Allyn / NPR: Sources: the Trump admin is in talks for Oracle and a group of US investors to take over TikTok's global operations, with ByteDance retaining a minority stake  —  The Trump administration is working on a plan to save TikTok that involves tapping software company Oracle and a group …

John Gruber / Daring Fireball: Siri with Apple Intelligence is a massive regression from the old Siri, which recognized its limitations and provided a list of search links to answer a query  —  Writing about the current state of Apple Intelligence yesterday, I mentioned how utterly stupid and laughably wrong Siri is when asked …

Zeyi Yang / Wired: DeepSeek, which started as a deep-learning research branch of Chinese quant hedge fund High-Flyer, is now giving US AI giants a run for their money  —  When Chinese quant hedge fund founder Liang Wenfeng went into AI research, he took 10,000 Nvidia chips and assembled a team of young, ambitious talent.

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: After pouring tens of millions into Trump's campaign, the crypto industry has been paid back handsomely during his first week back, with EOs, rule changes, more  —  Crypto executives, companies and investors are getting an early return on their investment in Donald Trump.

Caiwei Chen / MIT Technology Review: Rather than weakening China's AI capabilities, US sanctions appear to be driving startups like DeepSeek to innovate by prioritizing efficiency and collaboration  —  The AI community is abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model.  —  The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek …

New York Times: Some crypto executives worry Trump's memecoin undercut the industry's credibility at the very moment crypto is seeking a prominent place in mainstream finance  —  The president's promotion of a speculative digital coin left some crypto investors feeling blindsided, while others saw it as a gimmick …

Bloomberg: Sources: people affiliated with DOGE have met with representatives of various public blockchains as they explore using a blockchain to track federal spending  —  - Conversations said to be held with multiple public blockchains  — The technology may be used to track government spending

Victoria Song / The Verge: Hands-on with the live translation feature of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses: adept at translating a basic conversation, but struggles with slang and faster speech  —  I was in middle school the last time I took a Spanish class.  I remember enough for toddler talk — phrases like …

Politico: Supporters and skeptics of the TikTok ban in Congress say Trump's US ownership proposal bewilders them, claiming it doesn't comply with the divest-or-ban law  —  Members of Congress are declaring themselves bewildered by Donald Trump's latest proposal to save TikTok by brokering a joint-ownership deal.

New York Times: Elon Musk's first moves suggest DOGE will be closer to an IT project than the sweeping operation to slash $2T+ from the federal budget that he once predicted  —  The rebranding of a former White House digital office into the new Department of Government Efficiency signals its potential limits, budget experts said.

The Guardian: An investigation reveals how the Israeli military's reliance on Microsoft's cloud and AI systems surged during the most intensive phase of the Israel-Hamas war  —  Leaked documents shed light on how Israel integrated the US tech giant into its war effort to meet growing demand for cloud and AI tools

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: OpenAI faces challenges in transitioning to for-profit status, including valuing Microsoft's stake; its charitable arm could be worth $30B  —  ChatGPT-maker in complex talks over splitting from its non-profit arm in move opposed by Elon Musk  —  OpenAI's board is locked …

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 $4.06B  —  - Factory expansion weighs on chipmaker's profit projection  — Tepid outlook follows better-than-expected quarterly results

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: PE firm Everstone acquires Delhi-based Wingify, whose flagship product Visual Website Optimizer helps businesses improve online conversion rates, for $200M  —  Private equity firm Everstone has reached a deal to acquire a majority stake in Wingify, one of India's earliest bootstrapped software …

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 China  —  Those who train the AI models get to decide what the truth is.  —  5H  —  The AI world was abuzz this week with the release …

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 world  —  - Reliance joins rush of tech companies building data centers … Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group is building what may become …

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” …

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  —  Donald Trump has called the SoftBank-backed venture a 'resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential'

Akila Quinio / Financial Times: HSBC shuts Zing, its payments app launched in January 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 after it launched …

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

Donald Judd / CNN: Trump shrugs off Elon Musk's criticism of AI announcement: ‘He hates one of the people’  —  President Donald Trump on Thursday shrugged off an ugly back-and-forth between tech CEOs Elon Musk and Sam Altman that pitted one of Trump's most visible lieutenants against a key participant …