Romance scams may rise as isolation grows and generative AI helps scammers scale; the FBI says US victims lost nearly $4.5B to such scams over the past decade — Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated, and generative AI helps scammers scale …
Argentina's president Javier Milei backtracks on an X post promoting a memecoin called Libra, which rose to a $4.4B market cap before plunging by 95%+ — Milei deleted his original promotional tweet and revealed that he wasn't aware of its details. — What to know:
CB Insights: a record 1,200 VC-backed unicorns have yet to IPO or get acquired; Carta: fewer than 30% of 2021 unicorns raised funding in the past three years — The billion-dollar startup bubble is deflating, and more than $1 trillion in value is locked up in companies with dwindling prospects.
A profile of Watch Duty creator John Clarke Mills, who wants the fire-tracking app to become a one-stop shop for information during any disaster — Watch Duty proved indispensable during the recent LA wildfires. John Mills, the app's creator, wants it to be the one place to go for tracking disasters.
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg's overtures to President Trump have unsettled employees and are part of an effort to shift antitrust scrutiny off Meta and onto Apple — Mark Zuckerberg kicked off 2025 with an Instagram video that outlined his vision for what he called restoring “free expression” …
The doge.gov website tracking Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government pulls from a database editable by anyone, say two sources who found the vulnerability — The doge.gov website that was spun up to track Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government is insecure and pulls from a database …
Sources: the White House plans to renegotiate some Chips Act awards after reassessing requirements, and has signaled delays to some upcoming disbursements — The White House is seeking to renegotiate U.S. CHIPS and Science Act awards and has signaled delays to some upcoming semiconductor disbursements …
Sony reports PlayStation 5 sales in Q3 were 9.5M, the best quarter since its launch, and hits 75M total PS5 sales; MAUs across its platform rose 43% YoY to 129M — PS5 SHIPMENTS ARE NOW NECK-AND-NECK WITH PS4 — PlayStation 5 enjoyed its best-ever holiday period in 2024 …
Elon Musk and right-wing influencers redefine “doxxing” to include reporting on government employees; free speech advocates say they aim to intimidate the press — Right-wing influencers are criticizing journalists who have published public information about government employees.
Experts say Southeast Asian students in Taiwan's work-study programs often end up as low-paid labor in the chip industry under the guise of “practical training” — Student-interns are paid for low-skill factory tasks and spend little time in the classroom.
A letter to US senator Ron Wyden shows data broker Datastream, which was selling US military location data, got the data from Lithuanian adtech company Eskimi — In a letter to a US senator, a Florida-based data broker says it obtained sensitive data on US military members in Germany from a Lithuanian firm …
Analysis of credit and debit card data: Shein's US sales fell 16% to 41% for five days from February 5 and Temu fell up to 32% after Trump targets China trade — Online shopping giants Temu and Shein have seen a sustained drop in sales in the week after US President Donald Trump scrapped …
Researcher Johann Rehberger shows a hack to override Gemini's prompt injection defenses, letting long-term memories be permanently planted for future sessions — In the nascent field of AI hacking, indirect prompt injection has become a basic building block for inducing chatbots …
At the AI Action Summit in Paris, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the bloc plans to mobilize €200B to invest in AI to catch the US and China — The announcement underscores efforts from the EU to position itself as a key player in the AI race
Sam Altman says “OpenAI is not for sale” and “OpenAI's mission is not for sale”, especially to “a competitor who is not able to beat us in the market” — - “OpenAI is not for sale. … - Altman said the board has not determined a valuation for OpenAI's operations yet …
Financial Times : Sources: private capital giant Apollo Global has shorted loans and rapidly cut exposure to the enterprise software sect...
