~techmeme | Bookmarks (1028)

Ann Cao / South China Morning Post: Alibaba Cloud partners with 01.AI, the Beijing-based AI unicorn founded by former Google China head Kai-Fu Lee, to set up an “industrial large model laboratory”  —  Alibaba Cloud signs a deal with start-up 01.AI to develop AI model solutions for business clients

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Sources: Apple and Google removed over six VPN apps, including Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1, from their Indian app stores after the government issued removal orders  —  More than half-a-dozen VPN apps, including Cloudflare's widely-used 1.1.1.1, have been pulled from India's Apple App Store …

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority: Google's Nest Hub and Nest Audio have stopped responding to basic commands, like questions on the weather and time, for many users over the past few days  —  Update: Google says the issue is being investigated but should be resolved for most users.  —  TL;DR

Bloomberg: Car rental app Turo, which uses a risk algorithm to screen drivers, was used to book trucks in both fatal New Year's Day incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans  —  - Startup uses risk algorithm to determine price of each rental  — Attacks in New Orleans, Las Vegas, used Turo vehicles

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter: Anthropic agrees with publishers to stop Claude from providing lyrics to their songs or new lyrics based on copyrighted content, with a court ruling pending  —  While the case is proceeding, Anthropic's Claude will no longer provide lyrics to songs owned by the music publishers or new lyrics based on copyrighted material.

John Thornhill / Financial Times: Paris is vying with London as Europe's top AI hotspot, with 34 of the 40 best-performing startups at the Station F incubator in 2024 focused on AI  —  Momentum has been slowing but the country boasts enviable technical skills and a burgeoning entrepreurial culture

Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg: Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon pleads not guilty before a US federal judge in New York to nine counts, including wire fraud, over the $40B TerraUSD collapse  —  - Kwon was extradited from Montenegro earlier this week  — He is also facing fraud prosecution in his native South Korea

Bloomberg: Sources: China-backed hackers accessed the computers of senior US Treasury officials; the department's email system and classified data were not breached  —  - Treasury was compromised via third-party software provider  — Email system, classified data weren't breached by attackers

Wall Street Journal: Many advertisers on TikTok say they will shift ad dollars if and when a US ban actually takes effect, as the yearslong saga has dulled any real sense of urgency  —  Status-quo videos still proliferate on the Chinese-owned app, and Madison Avenue remains upbeat just weeks before potential U.S. ban

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch: Spotify debuts a Partner Program in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia, letting popular podcast hosts monetize video content, after announcing it in November  —  Spotify announced Thursday the launch of its new “Partner Program” that lets popular podcast hosts monetize their video content.

The Information: Email: NYC-based Level, which raised a $27M Series A in 2021 to help companies offer staff benefits, shuts down after an effort to sell the company fell through  —  Benefits startup Level has told its clients that it is shutting down after an effort to sell the company fell through …

Michael Wayland / CNBC: Short seller Hindenburg shorts Carvana claiming the company's turnaround is a “mirage” that's being propped up by unstable loans and accounting manipulation  —  Noted short seller Hindenburg Research disclosed a bet against Carvana on Thursday, claiming the online used car …

David Shepardson / Reuters: A US appeals court rules the FCC did not have legal authority to reinstate net neutrality rules; incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr opposed the 2024 reinstatement  —  A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday the Federal Communications Commission did not have the legal authority to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules.

Semafor: Meta appoints Joel Kaplan as Chief Global Affairs Officer, replacing Nick Clegg, who is leaving the company; Kaplan is Meta's most prominent Republican  —  THE SCOOP  —  Meta is overhauling its global policy team, replacing President Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, his deputy and the company's …

Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk: The T3 Financial Crime Unit says it has frozen $100M of USDT used by illicit actors since the unit was formed in September 2024 by Tron, TRM Labs, and Tether  —  The T3 Financial Crime Unit, a collaboration between the Tron blockchain, stablecoin issuer Tether and blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs …

Blake Brittain / Reuters: GlobalFoundries and IBM settle dueling lawsuits claiming that GlobalFoundries breached a contract with IBM and that IBM misused the chipmaker's trade secrets  —  GlobalFoundries (GFS.O) and IBM (IBM.N) said on Thursday that they have settled dueling lawsuits claiming that GlobalFoundries breached …

Stephanie Stacey / Financial Times: Experts warn of a rise in personalized phishing emails targeting corporate executives with personal details probably obtained via AI analysis of online profiles  —  Fast-developing technology gives hackers ability to craft ‘perfect’ fraudulent emails  —  Corporate executives are being hit …

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: Q&A with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev about the company's aggressive plans for 2025, including competing with prediction markets like Kalshi  —  Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has a lot to celebrate this holiday season.  After a bumpy few years following Robinhood's 2021 IPO …

Ram Anand / Bloomberg: Malaysia says X and Google haven't applied for a new social media license; X cites under 8M Malaysian users, while Google disputes YouTube's classification  —  Elon Musk's X and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which operates video streaming platform YouTube, have not applied for a social media …

Iris Deng / South China Morning Post: China's Wingtech, supplier to Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and others, plans to sell its contract manufacturing business to Luxshare after being sanctioned by the US  —  The Shanghai-listed company says it will sell its consumer-electronics contract manufacturing business to focus on semiconductors

Financial Times: Nvidia invested $1B across 50 funding rounds and several corporate deals in 2024, up from $872M in 2023; majority of deals were with “core AI” companies  —  Group emerges as crucial backer of start-ups seeking to gain from the tech revolution its chips are powering

Washington Post: Sources: Chinese government hackers breached the US Treasury Department's OFAC, which administers economic sanctions, and two other Treasury offices  —  Treasury's sanctions office hacked by Chinese government, officials say A troubling series of breaches of U.S. firms and agencies …

Samantha Cole / 404 Media: Pornhub now blocks users in 17 US states, including almost all of the South, after blocking Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina due to age verification laws  —  As of today, three more states join the list of 17 that can't access Pornhub because of age verification laws.

Nikkei Asia: Huawei Rotating Chair Meng Wanzhou says the company is helping train 300,000+ tech students per year, in cooperation with 3,000+ universities in 110 countries  —  TAIPEI — China's Huawei Technologies said it has built tech “academies” in 110 nations to cultivate hundreds of thousands of engineers a year …