Kevin Roose / New York Times: DeepSeek challenges the “bigger is better” narrative underpinning the AI arms race in recent years and suggests we may see more investment into smaller startups — A new A.I. model, released by a scrappy Chinese upstart, has rocked Silicon Valley and upended several fundamental assumptions about A.I. progress.
New York Times: A look at the surveillance tech that could power Trump's immigration crackdown; a review of 15K+ contracts shows ICE and USCIS spent $7.8B on tech since 2020 — Border enforcement agencies have spent billions assembling surveillance tools to track and find people.
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 …
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.
New York Times: Instagram and Facebook removed posts from two abortion pill providers; Instagram also suspended accounts; Meta confirmed and restored some of the accounts — Some posts related to obtaining abortion pills were recently hidden on Instagram and Facebook and some accounts were suspended, before being later restored.
Kevin Roose / New York Times: CAIS and Scale AI release “Humanity's Last Exam”, a new evaluation that they claim is the hardest-ever AI test, consisting of ~3,000 multiple-choice questions — If you're looking for a new reason to be nervous about artificial intelligence, try this: Some of the smartest humans …
New York Times: A profile of Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, which says its new open-source DeepSeek-V3 model rivals US models while using fewer AI chips to train, costing just $6M — The company built a cheaper, competitive chatbot with fewer high-end computer chips than U.S. behemoths like Google and OpenAI, showing the limits of chip export control.
New York Times: How Ross Ulbricht's allies, including crypto investors, libertarian politicians, and his mother Lyn Ulbricht, persuaded Trump to pardon the Silk Road founder — Libertarian and crypto allies of Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for distributing drugs on his Silk Road website …
New York Times: Sources: Elon Musk is set to get a West Wing office, putting him close to Trump, after Musk had for many days been asking about his level of access — The world's richest man had been expected to be situated in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, but a West Wing office would give him closer access to President Trump.
Julian E. Barnes / New York Times: A look at the CIA's AI use, including a chatbot that lets analysts talk to virtual versions of foreign presidents and prime ministers to predict their behaviors — The spy agency is trying to give its teams better tools and make it easier for the private sector to develop technology for their secretive work.
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 …
New York Times: Sources: Instagram and YouTube gear up to welcome TikTok users; two Meta employees say execs discussed resource allocation on January 15 to handle TikTok users — Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube are getting ready behind the scenes to welcome TikTok users, should the Chinese-owned app be banned from the United States.
New York Times: Anduril plans to build a $1B factory in Columbus, Ohio called Arsenal-1 to eventually produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems and weapons each year — The company said its Columbus plant could eventually produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems and weapons each year.
New York Times: Brazilian nonprofit Legal Games Institute estimates betting apps draw over $23B in wagers annually, nearly 10 times the Mafia-run animal lottery in the country — Digital gambling could spell the end for a lottery run by criminal gangs that has been a fixture of Brazilian life for decades.
New York Times: OpenAI publishes an “economic blueprint” for AI, calling on the new Trump administration to boost investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations — The maker of ChatGPT hopes to spur investment from the Middle East and avoid strict regulations on the development of new technologies.
Peter Eavis / New York Times: US dockworkers and shipping industry officials reach a tentative labor agreement, overcoming their differences over automated cargo-moving machinery at ports — Dockworkers and employers on the East and Gulf Coasts had until Jan. 15 to reach a new agreement that settled differences over automation.
Eli Tan / New York Times: Religious leaders are experimenting with AI, spurring an industry of faith-based tech companies that offer AI tools to do theological research and write sermons — Rabbi Josh Fixler at Congregation Emanu El in Houston worked with a data scientist to create his experimental “Rabbi Bot.”
New York Times: An investigation details how predatory men engage in the grooming of child influencers on Instagram under the guise of working as social media professionals — Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.
New York Times: About 50% of the 2,200 employees at TSMC's Arizona plant are from Taiwan, seeding a cultural and demographic shift at the edge of Phoenix and the Sonoran Desert — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a global tech giant, brought thousands of workers from Asia to the Phoenix suburbs …
New York Times: How Donald Trump went from backing a TikTok ban in 2020 to backing off in 2024, as he became a political star on the platform with more than 14.7M followers — In 2020, he moved to ban the Chinese-owned app. Now, he is opposing the Biden administration's effort to do just that.
Zachary Small / New York Times: Video game executives say making cinematic games is getting so expensive and time-consuming that investing in graphics is providing diminished financial returns — The gaming industry spent billions pursuing the idea that customers wanted realistic graphics. Did executives misread the market?
New York Times: Electricians are flocking to regions around the US to build data centers, as AI shapes up to be an economy-bending force that creates boom towns — The rural region is changing fast as electricians from around the country plug the tech industry's new, giant data centers into its ample power supply.
New York Times: Japan Airlines halts ticket sales after a cyberattack hit its network equipment, causing delays to more than 40 flights, and says flight safety was not impacted — The airline also temporarily stopped selling tickets for flights departing Thursday, but said that there was no impact on flight safety.
Richard Deitsch / New York Times: Netflix's first livestream of NFL games avoided major buffering and freezing issues that plagued the Tyson-Paul fight for the most part, after early glitches — If you believe in omens, Netflix appeared to be in for a very long day on Wednesday. As the streaming giant began …
William J. Broad / New York Times: How AI hallucinations are transforming scientific discovery, with some scientists calling the term “hallucination” misleading and likening it to exploration — Artificial intelligence often gets criticized because it makes up information that appears to be factual, known as hallucinations.
New York Times: In a first, Telegram is set to be profitable in 2024, with $1B+ in revenue, up from ~$350M in 2023, and ending 2024 with $500M in cash, as it grapples with debt — Even as Telegram faces legal scrutiny and grapples with billions in debt, it is set to be profitable for the first time as it tries cryptocurrencies, subscriptions and ads.
New York Times: The Biden administration opens a trade investigation into China's production of older chips, a move that may lead to tariffs and other measures to block imports — The older-style chips are crucial for a wide array of appliances and other machinery, including weaponry.
Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times: How Britannica survived the Wikipedia era by changing itself into a maker of education software and AI agents, as it reportedly weighs an IPO at a $1B valuation — The encyclopedia maker could have become a casualty of the Wikipedia era. But it has remade itself into a digital learning giant that is weighing going public.
Eli Tan / New York Times: A profile of US ride-hailing startup Empower, which does 100K rides per week in DC despite refusing to register with the city's Department of For-Hire Vehicles — Drivers for the ride-hailing company Empower protest outside a City Council meeting in Washington, D.C.Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times
Noam Scheiber / New York Times: US Senate investigation: senior Amazon execs disregarded internal warnings over the high rates of worker injuries due to concerns about Amazon's performance — A staff report by the Senate labor committee, led by Bernie Sanders, uncovered evidence of internal concern about high injury rates at the e-commerce giant.
Natasha Singer / New York Times: How tech is stoking cycles of violence in US schools, with students using phones and social media to arrange, provoke, record, and spread school brawl videos — Ricardo Martinez, an 11th grader, was in his high school lunchroom in April when a mass brawl erupted.
New York Times: While businesses frequently try to get on an incoming president's good side, the past week's frenzy of tech leaders to woo Trump stood out from other industries — It was a week of frenzied activity, as Silicon Valley billionaires and their companies brandished checks and compliments for the President-elect.
Aimee Ortiz / New York Times: Officials say hackers likely accessed personal data of hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island residents, with a “high probability” that sensitive info was stolen — An “international cybercriminal group” harvested the personal data of potentially hundreds of thousands of people …
Erin Griffith / New York Times: A look at opposing VC models of Benchmark, which maintains its traditional small-scale approach, and Andreessen Horowitz, which pursues aggressive expansion — Three decades ago, five men formed a venture capital firm on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley with a simple pitch: Small is beautiful.
Julia Jacobs / New York Times: The NLRB issues a complaint against Netflix's Love Is Blind and classifies its contestants as employees, a case that may have major implications for reality TV — The National Labor Relations Board's case against the Netflix hit could have ripple effects across the reality TV industry.
Rebecca F. Elliott / New York Times: Exxon says it is in the early stages of designing a natural gas plant for data centers, the first time it would build a plant not supplying its own operations — The country's largest oil company is designing a natural gas power plant outfitted with carbon capture technology to meet the voracious power demand of technology companies.
Ellen Barry / New York Times: Parents and school staff say student activity monitoring software that aims to intercept self-harm before it happens, while helpful, has unintended consequences — Neosho High School in southwestern Missouri. From 2014 to 2018, eight of its 5,000 students died by suicide.
New York Times: Ukrainian officials worry over Telegram, which has soared in popularity during the war with Russia, questioning if its upsides outweigh the its security risks — Telegram's Air Raids Map channel. Roughly 70 percent of Ukrainians use Telegram as a main source of news, according to a recent survey.Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
Jeanna Smialek / New York Times: How FRED, a data tool created in 1991 by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, gained a major following in recent years, hitting nearly 15M website users in 2023 — From Facebook political debates to college classrooms, the St. Louis Fed's data tool has gained a major following. — Fans post about him on social media.
Paula Span / New York Times: Researchers say digital payments and cashless policies, which are picking up pace in the US, disadvantage a number of groups, including older adults — “We're putting another burden on the elderly that we don't have to,” one researcher said. — Some things you can no longer do with cash …
Don Clark / New York Times: Amazon, AMD, and others are beginning to offer credible alternatives to Nvidia's AI chips, especially for inferencing, which is becoming increasingly important — Amazon's new Trainium 2 chips are set to ramp up competition with Nvidia, the dominant maker of artificial intelligence chips.
Jordyn Holman / New York Times: A look at the logistics network of Amazon, Walmart and Target for same-day or next-day delivery; Walmart says it now offers same-day to 86% of US households — Retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target have figured out that if they get you your online order today, you will probably spend more tomorrow.
New York Times: How subsea internet cables off West Africa fell into a nearly 3,000-foot canyon in March 2024, causing major disruptions, and a look at efforts to repair them — In a wireless world, it is easy to forget the all-too-real cables that snake across the turbulent ocean floor. Until they snap.
Elisabetta Povoledo / New York Times: People living in Rome and cultural leaders criticize Airbnb's planned Colosseum experience for 32 guests in May 2025, saying it will demean a cultural treasure — An initiative by officials at the monument in a partnership with Airbnb has prompted an outcry among those who feel it will demean a cultural treasure.
Nico Grant / New York Times: Internal docs: in early 2021, Google's lawyers, policy team, and more worried that its $1.2B Project Nimbus deal with Israel may enable human rights violations — The tech giant, which has defended the deal to employees who oppose supplying Israel's military with technology, feared the project might damage its reputation.
Vanessa Friedman / New York Times: How Amazon Haul, a storefront for fashion, home, and other items at “ultralow prices”, reflects the “haul” shopping phenomenon popularized by YouTube and TikTok — It is the shopping phenomenon of our times, and now it's an Amazon store.
Victoria Kim / New York Times: Details of Australia's social media ban for kids remain unclear, such as how to enforce it and what platforms it covers; kids and parents won't face punishment — The law sets a minimum age for users of platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X. How the restriction will be enforced online remains an open question.
New York Times: Mark Zuckerberg met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on November 27; sources: Zuckerberg, who has had a strained relationship with Trump, initiated the meeting — The president-elect has long been critical of Mr. Zuckerberg's social media platforms, saying they censor conservative viewpoints.
Adam Satariano / New York Times: An interview with Margrethe Vestager, the EU's tech antitrust enforcer since 2014, on her “partly successful” tenure, US collaboration, Trump, the DSA, and more — Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's antitrust regulator, who put technology's harms on the global agenda …
New York Times: Huawei unveils the $760+ Mate 70 series, powered by its HarmonyOS Next, calling the flagship device the “smartest” Mate phone, as it faces US chip curbs — Last year, a chip breakthrough put Huawei on top of the Chinese smartphone market. Now it is rolling out its newest phone, the Mate 70 series.