~techmeme | Bookmarks (1028)

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post: Trump signs an EO to end “federal censorship” of online platforms, and directs the AG to probe if the Biden admin engaged in censorship of Americans' views  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to stop “government censorship,” a sweeping action …

David Shepardson / Reuters: Trump revokes a 2023 executive order signed by Biden that sought to reduce the risks that AI poses to consumers, workers, and national security  —  U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday revoked a 2023 executive order signed by Joe Biden that sought to reduce the risks that artificial intelligence poses …

Matt Novak / Gizmodo: During a speech following Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon Musk delivered what many saw as two “Nazi salutes”  —  The billionaire Tesla CEO has a history of racist comments. … Elon Musk gave what appeared to be Nazi salutes at a rally held at Capitol One Arena on Monday …

Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: Jan. 17 filing: the US NHTSA said it “upgraded” its April 2024 probe into Ford's BlueCruise, a driver assistance system that was active during two fatal crashes  —  A U.S. federal safety regulator has “upgraded” its investigation into Ford's hands-free advanced driver assistance system known …

Hafiz Rashid / New Republic: Did Elon Musk Seriously Just Do a Nazi Salute at Trump's Inauguration?  —  During a speech at Capitol One Arena Monday following Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon Musk appeared to deliver a Roman salute not once, but twice.  —  The gesture is associated with Nazi Germany …

PYMNTS.com: Stuttgart-based robotics startup Sereact, which develops Vision Language Action Models and whose customers include BMW and Daimler Truck, raised a $26M Series A  —  German tech company Sereact has raised $26 million for its AI-powered robotics efforts.  —  The company's Series A round …

Tim Copeland / The Block: A memecoin named Official Barron Trump hit a $460M market cap before falling 95%; a Pump.fun user behind it has debuted other unofficial coins called “official”  —  - A memecoin called Official Barron Trump rose to a $460 million market cap on speculation that it might have been launched by Barron Trump himself.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Metropolis, an AI-powered parking service, acquires Oosto, formerly known as AnyVision, for just $125M in stock, well under the $380M it raised over the years  —  The general hype around all things AI is not lifting all boats, as certain startups continue to struggle and look for exits.

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: Chinese AI lab DeepSeek debuts DeepSeek-R1, an MIT-licensed model that does well with math, code, and reasoning tasks, alongside other open and distilled models  —  DeepSeek are the Chinese AI lab who dropped the best currently available open weights LLM on Christmas day, DeepSeek v3.

Financial Times: Democratic Republic of Congo lawyers say Belgium has started a criminal probe into allegations that Apple has knowingly sourced “blood minerals” from the DRC  —  Lawyers for DRC allege iPhones and other electronics use minerals supplied by armed groups behind atrocities

Richard Lawler / The Verge: Card game Marvel Snap, published by ByteDance-owned Nuverse, cuts off access for US gamers, as the TikTok divest-or-ban law impacts other ByteDance-linked apps  —  The divest-or-ban law aimed at TikTok is also taking down other ByteDance-linked apps, including the popular card game Marvel Snap.

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC: TikTok is not available for download in the App Store and Play Store in the US, as the app halts service in the country to comply with the divest-or-ban law  —  Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores Saturday night, complying with a law requiring China's ByteDance to divest …

NBC News: ByteDance's TikTok and CapCut suspend service in the US, telling users “Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok”  —  Users reported being unable to access TikTok Saturday after a pop-up message from the company came up on their screens saying “a law banning TikTok has been enacted.”

Will Oremus / Washington Post: TikTok bans in countries around the world have played out quite differently; Instagram Reels largely replaced TikTok in India, following TikTok's ban in 2020  —  India's 2020 crackdown helped give rise to Instagram Reels, which has largely replaced it there.  But TikTok has proved more resilient elsewhere.

Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: A close look at some privacy implications of AI interfacing with messaging apps and other E2EE systems, Apple's approach to “Private Cloud Compute”, and more  —  Recently I came across a fantastic new paper by a group of NYU and Cornell researchers entitled “How to think about end-to-end encryption and AI.”

Kevin Roose / New York Times: As the TikTok eulogies pour in from some creators, very few Americans seem concerned that one of the nation's most popular social media apps will disappear  —  So this may be the way TikTok ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper.  —  Over the past few weeks, as the Jan. 19 deadline loomed …

Joseph Menn / Washington Post: A whistleblower complaint claims Amazon paid $380M for licensing robot maker Covariant's tech and hiring its staff, and the deal merits antitrust scrutiny  —  Filing details $400 million license for smart robot system and claims retail giant's “reverse acquihire” contract limits competition and merits antitrust scrutiny.

Hayden Field / CNBC: Source: Perplexity AI made a TikTok US bid to ByteDance, proposing a merger that brings video to Perplexity, with ByteDance investors retaining their stakes  —  Perplexity AI officially made a play for TikTok on Saturday, submitting a bid to its parent company, ByteDance …

Financial Times: A profile of Charlwin Mao, founder of Xiaohongshu or “Little Red Book”, who claims the name references the color of his university Stanford and ex-employer Bain  —  A sudden surge of US users on Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, could threaten China's Great Firewall

Politico: Congressional leaders seem flummoxed by the growing popularity of Chinese-owned apps Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, an unintended consequence of the TikTok ban  —  The Chinese apps RedNote and Lemon8 have exploded in popularity as TikTok faces an imminent ban and the Supreme Court upheld the law forcing its sale.

NBC News: Trump says he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve after he takes office on Monday “because it's appropriate”  —  Trump spoke to NBC News' Kristen Welker in an exclusive phone interview Saturday, discussing his plans on what to do about the popular social media app.

Ana Faguy / BBC: The White House says TikTok's threat to shut down is a “stunt” as there is “no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions” before Trump takes office  —  The White House has said a threat by TikTok to shut down in the US on Sunday unless tech firms get assurances …

Zack Abrams / The Block: Vitalik Buterin outlines “large changes” to Ethereum Foundation leadership structure, after fellow Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin called for new EF leadership  —  - Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, in a post on X, said “large changes” to the leadership structure of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) are underway.

Wes Davis / The Verge: Instagram now lets users upload Reels that are up to 3 minutes long, doubling the 90-second limit, as TikTok is set to go dark on Sunday  —  Instagram will now let you upload Reels that are up to 3 minutes long, doubling the 90-second limit the platform had in place before, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced today.