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Techmeme

Q&A with Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis on AGI, next breakthroughs like continual learning, his vision for AI glasses, whether AI progress is slowing, more (Alex Kantrowitz/Big Technology)

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Filing: Chinese chip designer Montage plans to raise up to ~$902M in a Hong Kong IPO; Montage's Shanghai-listed shares rose 100%+ in 2025 to a ~$27B valuation (Dave Sebastian/Bloomberg)

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Darren Aronofsky's Primordial Soup debuts its short-form Revolutionary War series, made using Google DeepMind's AI tools and human voice actors (Todd Spangler/Variety)

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Apple's Q1 sales in greater China surged 38% to $25.5B; Tim Cook attributed the increase to users upgrading and switching from other platforms to iPhone 17 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

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Apple expects Q2 revenue to grow 13% to 16% YoY, vs. 10% est.; it's currently constrained by iPhone processor supply and expects memory costs to rise after Q2 (Reuters)

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OpenAI plans to retire several models from ChatGPT on February 13, including GPT‑4o, GPT‑4.1, and o4-mini, saying only 0.1% of users still choose GPT-4o (Ashley Capoot/CNBC)

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Perplexity signs a deal with Microsoft; sources say the $750M, three-year commitment will let Perplexity deploy AI models through Microsoft's Foundry service (Bloomberg)

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Sources: the Pentagon is clashing with Anthropic over safeguards limiting the use of its tech to target weapons autonomously and conduct domestic surveillance (Reuters)

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Sources: special agents with the US Commerce Department investigated claims by ex-Meta contractors that Meta staff had "unfettered" access to WhatsApp messages (Jake Bleiberg/Bloomberg)

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Sources: OpenAI is laying the groundwork for an IPO in Q4 2026, and its executives have privately expressed concerns about Anthropic beating OpenAI to an IPO (Wall Street Journal)

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Sources: SpaceX is considering a potential merger with Tesla, an idea some investors are pushing, while separately exploring a tie-up between SpaceX and xAI (Bloomberg)

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Sandisk reports Q2 revenue up 61% YoY to $3.03B, vs. $2.69B est., and net income up 672% to $803M, as AI drives demand upward; SNDK jumps 11%+ after hours (Elias Schisgall/Wall Street Journal)

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Apple reports Q1 revenue from Services up 14% YoY to $30B, in line with estimates, as Apple's installed base of active devices has surpassed 2.5B (Todd Spangler/Variety)

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Apple reports Q1 revenue up 16% YoY to $143.76B, vs. $138.48B est., net income up 16% YoY to $42.1B, and EPS of $2.84, above $2.67 est. (Kif Leswing/CNBC)

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Apple Q1: iPhone up 23% YoY to $85.27B, vs. $78.65B est., Mac down 7% to $8.39B, iPad up 6% to $8.6B, and Wearables, Home, and Accessories down 2% to $11.49B (Apple)

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Microsoft shares fell ~10% on Thursday following an earnings report that disappointed some investors, the stock's sharpest daily decline since March 2020 (Jordan Novet/CNBC)

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Sources: Microsoft is focusing on fixing the core issues of Windows 11 over the coming months after persistent bugs, ads, and bloatware eroded user trust (Tom Warren/The Verge)

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Sources: Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50B in OpenAI, which is seeking up to $100B in new capital, a round that could value it at as much as $830B (Wall Street Journal)

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Grubhub plans to remove delivery and service fees on restaurant orders over $50 starting Feb. 2; Grubhub's US market share fell to ~4% in 2025 from 10% in 2023 (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)

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The Q.ai acquisition could be Apple's second-largest ever and marks founder Aviad Maizels' second exit to Apple, which bought his startup PrimeSense in 2013 (Omer Kabir/CTech)

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A San Francisco jury finds former Google engineer Linwei Ding guilty of stealing trade secrets related to AI chip technology to build a startup in China (Isaiah Poritz/Bloomberg Law)

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Source: SpaceX and xAI are in talks to merge ahead of a planned IPO this year; under the proposed deal, shares of xAI would be exchanged for shares in SpaceX (Reuters)

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Appfigures: Sora's app downloads dropped 32% month-over-month in December and 45% in January to 1.2M; consumer spending on the app fell 32% MoM as of January (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

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Social media app UpScrolled hits #1 on Apple's US app store following allegations that TikTok suppresses anti-ICE videos; its founder says it crossed 1M users (Conor Murray/Forbes)

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OpenAI has hired 7+ employees from AI coding startup Cline, including Nik Pash, who left Cline after posting "imagine the smell" on X regarding an xAI hackathon (Kevin McLaughlin/The Information)

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Apple acquires Q.ai, whose tech can analyze facial expressions and could enable non-verbal discussions with AI assistants; sources: the deal values Q.ai at ~$2B (Financial Times)

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Google launches Project Genie, which lets users create interactive worlds using Genie 3, Nano Banana Pro, and Gemini, for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US (Jay Peters/The Verge)

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A coalition of music publishers, including UMG, filed a second lawsuit against Anthropic, seeking $3B over allegations of copyright infringement of 20k+ songs (Murray Stassen/Music Business Worldwide)

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Deezer makes its AI music detection tool available for businesses to buy and says daily deliveries of AI tracks averaged 60K in January, ~39% of total uploads (Emma Roth/The Verge)

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Talos, which develops digital asset trading infrastructure, raised a $45M extension from Robinhood and others to its $105M Series B, at a $1.5B valuation (Will Canny/CoinDesk)

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Russia says a crypto regulatory framework will come into force July 1, 2027; it will ban privacy coins like monero and cap retail investor purchases at ~$4K (Olivier Acuna/CoinDesk)

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Google expands Gemini's hands-free conversational capabilities to walking and cycling modes in Google Maps, available on iOS and rolling out on Android (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

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Nvidia launches a native GeForce NOW app for Linux, starting with Debian-based Ubuntu, after releasing a Steam Deck app in 2025; in a hands-on, it works well (Ben Wilson/Windows Central)

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Waymo says a robotaxi struck a child at 6 mph near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23, resulting in minor injuries; the NHTSA opens a probe (Sean O'Kane/TechCrunch)

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Waymo says it hopes to launch its London robotaxi service as soon as September, after an April pilot; the UK government plans to change regulations in H2 2026 (Zoe Kleinman/BBC)

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Dow plans to cut 4,500 staff to save costs and will rely on AI to boost productivity, resulting in $1.1B to $1.5B in charges; it currently employs ~34,000 staff (Rob Curran/Wall Street Journal)

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Apple's iPhone 16 was the world's best-selling smartphone in 2025, followed by the 16 Pro Max and 16 Pro; Apple took 7 of the top 10 spots and Samsung took 3 (Counterpoint Research)

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Crypto exchange Bybit plans to offer banking services via "MyBank" accounts that can hold USD and other currencies, set to launch in February pending approvals (Ryan Weeks/Bloomberg)

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Sources: ByteDance and Alibaba both plan to release flagship AI models around China's mid-February Lunar New Year holiday, including ByteDance's Doubao 2.0 (The Information)

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Nothing CEO Carl Pei says the company's flagship Phone 4 won't launch in 2026: "We're not just going to churn out a new flagship every year for the sake of it" (Dominic Preston/The Verge)

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Munich-based RobCo, which makes robotic arms and factory automation software, raised $100M led by Lingotto and Lightspeed, a source says at a $500M+ valuation (Mark Bergen/Bloomberg)

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Amazon reported hundreds of thousands of pieces of potential CSAM in AI training data to NCMEC in 2025; child safety officials say Amazon didn't give the source (Bloomberg)

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Samsung and SK Hynix executives say they expect global memory supply shortages will persist until 2027 due to AI demand, after the companies reported earnings (Kim Jaewon/Nikkei Asia)

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Chinese media: China executed 11 members of the Ming mafia family that ran online scam centres in Myanmar; five Bai family members are also sentenced to death (Koh Ewe/BBC)

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Alibaba's Cainiao logistics unit merges with Chinese robovan company Zelos, creating a business sources say valued at ~$2B with a fleet set to hit 20K+ vehicles (Jiahui Huang/Wall Street Journal)

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The US SEC clarifies its tokenized stock rules, saying they are subject to securities and derivatives rules and issuer approval is required for true ownership (Sam Reynolds/CoinDesk)

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Tesla plans to scrap its premium S and X models and convert its California factory into an Optimus manufacturing hub, as Elon Musk refocuses on robotics and AI (Financial Times)

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STMicro reports Q4 net revenue up 0.2% YoY to $3.33B, operating income down 66% YoY to $125M, and forecasts Q1 2026 net revenue of $3.04B, above $2.92B est. (Christina Kyriasoglou/Bloomberg)

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Amazon's $35M marketing campaign for Melania is ~10x the budget for similar documentaries like CNN's RBG; some suggest Amazon is currying favor with Trump (New York Times)

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SAP reports Q4 revenue up 3% YoY to €9.68B, adjusted operating profit up 27% to €2.83B, and forecasts 2026 cloud revenue to grow 23%+ to €25.8B; SAP falls 14%+ (Bloomberg)

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