OpenAI says it has seen some evidence that DeepSeek used “distillation” to train its open-source competitor by using outputs from OpenAI's proprietary models
White House AI tsar David Sacks raises possibility of alleged intellectual property theft
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 …
David Sacks says there's “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek “distilled knowledge out of OpenAI models and I don't think OpenAI is very happy about this”
White House artificial intelligence czar David Sacks said there's “substantial evidence” …
Alibaba releases Qwen 2.5-Max, an AI model that the company's cloud unit 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 …
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.
Sources detail Elon Musk's time in government, bringing his friends and employees, as he races to cut staff; Musk's plane has not left DC since the inauguration
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/u... X: Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer : NEW: Elon Musk's fingerprints are all over these controversial memos from the Office of Personnel Management. In fact, Musk showe...
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 …
Meta executives say DeepSeek's breakthrough shows that upstarts now have a chance to innovate and compete with AI giants, vindicating its 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.
DeepSeek-R1 refuses to answer ~85% of 1,360 prompts on sensitive topics in China, but the restrictions can be bypassed via simple jailbreaking
promptfoo :
The US could encourage future DeepSeeks to happen inside the US by funding the NAIRR, a pilot project providing compute power to university-level researchers
Reed Albergotti / Semafor :
The US Copyright Office says using AI tools to assist in creative processes doesn't compromise copyright protections as long as the content has human authorship
The U.S. Copyright Office declared Wednesday that the use of artificial intelligence tools to assist in the creative process does not undermine the copyright of a work.
Ampere: users spent $465M on Microsoft games in December, making it the biggest publisher, ahead of EA's $366M; Call of Duty HQ had 38M MAUs in November 2024
NEARLY $0.5BN WAS SPENT ON XBOX GAMES ACROSS STEAM, PLAYSTATION AND XBOX IN DECEMBER — $465 million was spent on Microsoft games …
US officials and Google researchers: China, Iran, and 18+ others are using AI, including Gemini, to bolster their cyberattacks against US and global targets
A cyber-threat report from Google is shedding light on how foreign actors are leveraging generative AI to boost their hacking prowess.
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 …
Comcast starts rolling out its “pioneering new, ultra-low lag connectivity experience” to select US cities, using the L4S standard to significantly cut latency
The new technology is based on a standard called L4S, which can significantly reduce latency to help things like video games feel smoother.
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 …
Google says that “'sensitive' is simply used in our internal systems for countries that see different official names in Maps”, after adding the US and Mexico
that's all there is to it. This is common & includes dozens of countries. Adding the U.S. & Mexico
Huawei adds DeepSeek's R1 to its ModelArts Studio platform, saying the free model is “Ascend-adapted”, referencing its data center GPUs, but offers few details
Nvidia has competition in China. … The tech company explicitly said this version is “Ascend-adapted,” as in Huawei's Ascend data center GPUs.
Appfigures: ChatGPT's app has grossed $529M since its May 2023 release, around 4x the second-highest earner, as AI app spending grew ~4x YoY to $1.4B in 2024
- US spends more on AI apps than other top 10 markets combined — OpenAI's app has earned several times more than next rival
DeepSeek's app tops the US Play Store; Appfigures says the DeepSeek app has 1.9M+ downloads on the App Store and 1.2M+ on the Play Store since mid-January 2025
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch :
Netflix now lets iPhone and iPad app users download an entire TV show season with one tap, a much-requested feature that launched on Android in 2021
The new feature lets users download an entire season of a show with one tap.
DeepSeek's app is unavailable on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store in Italy, after its data protection regulator says it questioned DeepSeek
The Chinese artifical intelligence application DeepSeek appeared to be unavailable on Wednesday in Apple and Google app stores in Italy on Wednesday.
ASML reports Q4 net profit of €2.69B on €9.26B net sales, net bookings up 169% QoQ to €7.09B, and expects 2025 net sales of €30B to €35B, up from €28.3B in 2024
Dutch semiconductor giant ASML on Wednesday reported a big jump in fourth-quarter net bookings …
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet says cheaper AI “could mean more applications” and “more demand over time”, and “cost and energy” are the big issues to address
not less r/AMD_Stock : ASML expects new low-cost models like the one rolled out by China's DeepSeek to lead to more rather than less demand for AI chips, CEO Christophe Fouquet told CNBC Wednesday. r/...
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. Bluesky: @mikefulk , @beaudonelly , @bellingcat.com , @herdaleg , @bellingcat.c...
How employees at Meta, Google, and more have quietly protested tech's rightward shift, as Mark Zuckerberg and others embrace Trump and muffle internal dissent
As Mark Zuckerberg and other tech titans have embraced President Trump and muffled internal dissent at their companies … Bluesky: @daniloc.xyz . X: @mikeisaac Bluesky: Danilo / @daniloc.xyz : Can't as...
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Vandatrack: retail traders bought a net $562M of Nvidia's stock on January 27, a record, and $360M on January 28, after DeepSeek's AI model sent NVDA crashing
Financial Times :
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 review: slim, lightweight, reasonable power draw, and DLSS 4, but mild generational performance uplift and spotty availability at launch
Ben Wilson / Windows Central :
The UK National Audit Office says the government was operating at least 228 “legacy” computer systems as of March 2024, increasing the risk of a disruptive hack
Depends what you mean by ‘legacy’, though - Windows 2000 was, well, 25 years ago. [embedded post] Mark O'Neill / @radiobeartime.com : The words “at least” are doing a hell of a lot of work there. [e...
A look at Huawei's HarmonyOS Next, a China-only OS decoupled from Android that is still missing many third-party apps, despite supporting some key ones in China
Bloomberg : X: @danawollman and @vladsavov X: Dana Wollman / @danawollman : An evolving look and format for @business's product reviews. Our product coverage doesn't have affiliate links, and we're n...
Paris-based online corporate event booking marketplace Naboo raised a €20M Series A led by Notion Capital, and says its 2024 booking volumes grew 4x YoY to €60M
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch :
Samsung and LG unveil new OLED tech, including stretchable and transparent screens, to counter Chinese rivals, which held a 33% market share in 2024, per DSCC
Nami Matsuura / Nikkei Asia :
Carta data shows that 966 US-based startups shut down in 2024, compared to 769 in 2023, with enterprise SaaS startups accounting for 32% of the closures
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch : LinkedIn: Mary Ann Azevedo LinkedIn: Mary Ann Azevedo : “The working hypothesis is that VCs as an asset class did not get better at picking winners in 2021. In fact, ...
A US federal judge denied a motion by Apple to intervene as a defendant in the remedy trial of the DOJ vs. Google case, saying Apple's motion was untimely
Apple: “It's impossible to tell whether or not we're resisting because we do absolutely nothing quickly.” [embedded post] X: @balancecrafting : Apple's untimely post-liability phase Xmas Eve Eve moti...
Crypto risk modeling firm Gauntlet estimates the $TRUMP memecoin has generated at least $11.4M in fees for entities linked to President Trump since its launch
Muyao Shen / Bloomberg :
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”
He did NOT say Meta grew sales “>40% YoY” BTW. — He actually says “growing *RL sales* >40% YoY”. — I.E., VR/XR sales in stores. Which isn't impressive if (as likely) 2023 was slow for retail. … X...
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
Hiroki Totoki is now the President and CEO. — Hideaki Nishino CEO of SIE. — Herman Hulst will continue to “lead the development, publishing and business operations of SIE's first party-content.” ...
MGM Resorts agrees to pay $45M to settle 14 class action lawsuits related to a data breach in 2019 and a ransomware attack the company experienced in 2023
Jonathan Greig / The Record :
Block introduces an on-device, open-source AI agent called Goose, which allows developers to choose their preferred LLM to automate engineering tasks
Radhika Rajkumar / ZDNET :
Sources: Arm China picks Chen Feng, an ex-executive at China-based chipmaker Rockchip Electronics, as its CEO; Liu Renchen and Eric Chen will resign as co-CEOs
Bloomberg :
The US Navy instructs its members to avoid using DeepSeek “in any capacity” due to “potential security and ethical concerns”
they'll forget tiktok hysteria was ever even a thing (or that they spent three years freaking out only to pass a meta-written law that's now being ignored) Jordan Uhl / @jordanuhl.com : They're just g...
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
and my top reasons to not panic just yet. — In the end, though, I really do think it could give AI labs license to invest less in safety www.platformer.news/deepseek-ai- ... [image] Zachary Miller ...