Journals

Washington Post: Some TikTok users say the app has changed, expressing trepidation and paranoia over its complimentary mentions of Trump in its goodbye and welcome back messages  —  After TikTok briefly went dark, some users started seeing it in a… Read More »Some TikTok users say the app has changed, expressing trepidation and paranoia over its complimentary mentions of Trump in its goodbye and welcome back messages (Washington Post)

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… Read More »How Ross Ulbricht’s allies, including crypto investors, libertarian politicians, and his mother, Lyn Ulbricht, persuaded Trump to pardon the Silk Road founder (New York Times)

Andy Chalk / PC Gamer: A GDC survey of 3K+ developers finds 80% are currently making PC games, up from 66% in 2024, versus 38% for the PlayStation 5 and 34% for the Xbox Series X/S  —  Interest in PC… Read More »A GDC survey of 3K+ developers finds 80% are currently making PC games, up from 66% in 2024, versus 38% for the PlayStation 5 and 34% for the Xbox Series X/S (Andy Chalk/PC Gamer)

Jonathan Briskman / Sensor Tower: State of Mobile 2025: in 2024, app downloads on iOS and Google Play dropped ~1% YoY to 136B, while revenue from IAP, paid apps, and games rose 13% YoY to $150B  —  The mobile market… Read More »State of Mobile 2025: in 2024, app downloads on iOS and Google Play dropped ~1% YoY to 136B, while revenue from IAP, paid apps, and games rose 13% YoY to $150B (Jonathan Briskman/Sensor Tower)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: An Indian tribunal suspends restrictions preventing WhatsApp from sharing user data with Meta for ads, temporarily lifting a five-year ban imposed by the CCI  —  An Indian tribunal on Thursday suspended restrictions that would have barred… Read More »An Indian tribunal suspends restrictions preventing WhatsApp from sharing user data with Meta for ads, temporarily lifting a five-year ban imposed by the CCI (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: Neko Health, a startup co-founded by Daniel Ek that offers AI-based full-body scans, has raised $260M led by Lightspeed, sources say at a $1.7B valuation  —  Spotify founder’s body-scanning start-up valued at $1.7bn in new… Read More »Neko Health, a startup co-founded by Daniel Ek that offers AI-based full-body scans, has raised $260M led by Lightspeed, sources say at a $1.7B valuation (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Song Jung-a / Financial Times: SK Hynix’s Q4 operating profit grew over 20x YoY to ~$5.6B, beating Samsung’s for first time, with HBM chips accounting for 40% of its total DRAM chip revenue  —  South Korean chipmaker expects sales of… Read More »SK Hynix’s Q4 operating profit grew over 20x YoY to ~$5.6B, beating Samsung’s for first time, with HBM chips accounting for 40% of its total DRAM chip revenue (Song Jung-a/Financial Times)

Reuters: Saudi digital security firm Elm Company agrees to acquire business services firm Thiqah from Saudi Arabia’s PIF, which is also Elm’s majority owner, for $906M  —  Saudi Arabian digital security firm Elm Company (7203.SE) said on Wednesday that it… Read More »Saudi digital security firm Elm Company agrees to acquire business services firm Thiqah from Saudi Arabia’s PIF, which is also Elm’s majority owner, for $906M (Reuters)

Naomi Nix / Washington Post: An interview with Pinterest CEO Bill Ready on why his company is backing US state laws to restrict cellphone use in classrooms  —  The photo-sharing app is backing state laws that restrict cellphone use in… Read More »An interview with Pinterest CEO Bill Ready on why his company is backing US state laws to restrict cellphone use in classrooms (Naomi Nix/Washington Post)

Reuters: ByteDance launches Doubao-1.5-pro, an upgraded AI model, claiming it outperforms OpenAI’s o1 in AIME benchmarks, joining DeepSeek in China’s AI reasoning push  —  TikTok owner ByteDance on Wednesday released an update to its flagship AI model aimed at challenging… Read More »ByteDance launches Doubao-1.5-pro, an upgraded AI model, claiming it outperforms OpenAI’s o1 in AIME benchmarks, joining DeepSeek in China’s AI reasoning push (Reuters)