Tech Roundup: DeepSeek Buzz, Threads Ads & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]
  • Chinese AI lab DeepSeek claims its new open-source DeepSeek-V3 mixture-of-experts language model rivals Silicon Valley models, while using fewer AI chips to train; takes on DALL-E with a family of openly available models called Janus Pro for image generation and vision processing tasks, as its R1 reasoning model has been found to stick to Chinese government restrictions on sensitive topics like Tiananmen Square, Taiwan and the treatment of Uyghurs in China, once again demonstrating those who train the AI models get to decide what the truth is.
    • The censorship issues aside, the fact that R1 is open-source, unlike OpenAI's o1, means that it can be fine-tuned for various use-cases. The AI tool's privacy policy has also highlighted broad data collection practices and says user data, along with all the conversations and prompts, is stored on servers in China, unless a user opts to run the model locally.
    • DeepSeek's Android and iOS app have since dethroned ChatGPT to become the #1 app on respective app stores in several marks.
    • DeepSeek's astronomical rise in popularity and apparent cost efficiency has also sparked a major selloff in global tech stock, with Nvidia's stock price dropping 16.86%, wiping out nearly US$ 600 billion in market cap, more than twice as much as any U.S. company has ever dropped in a single day.
    • OpenAI has since also claimed it has uncovered evidence that DeepSeek used its proprietary models to train R1 through "distillation," a technique where smaller models learn from larger ones' outputs, potentially violating the company's terms of service. According to Bloomberg, OpenAI and Microsoft reportedly investigated and blocked accounts in August 2024 for suspected terms of service violations, which were said to be associated with DeepSeek.
  • Apple says iOS 18 has been installed on 68% of all iPhones (as of January 21) and 76% of models from the last four years; reveals 53% of all iPads are running iPadOS 18 and 63% of the tablets from the last four years run the tablet operating system.
  • Alibaba's Qwen team releases Qwen2.5-VL, a new series of AI models that can control PCs and phones, as well as perform a number of text and image analysis tasks; also releases Qwen 2.5-Max, an AI model that the company's cloud unit claims "outperforms" GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B "almost across the board."
  • TikTok owner ByteDance releases an update to its flagship AI model, Doubao-1.5-pro, with improved reasoning capabilities; comes amid a global race to create AI models capable of tackling complex problems while also challenging the market share of OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta and others.
  • Meta begins a "limited, early test" of ads in Threads in the U.S. and Japan with the goal of making the ads "as interesting as organic content"; tests a new feature that will allow iOS users to log into WhatsApp through different accounts within the same app.
  • Google agrees to sanction U.K. businesses using fake reviews to boost star ratings; rolls out the ability for all users to schedule posts, up to 75 days in advance; releases a new support page centralises account management tools in one place.
  • Google faces legal setback after a U.S. court rejects its motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a user's web and app activities.
  • OpenAI updates ChatGPT's Canvas feature with o1 model support and HTML and React code rendering, making it a direct competitor to Claude's Artifacts; announces partnership with the U.S. National Laboratories to supercharge their scientific research using our latest reasoning models.
  • Apple releases iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3, enabling Apple Intelligence by default on supported devices but disabling AI summaries for news apps.
  • Meta says its cross-platform chatbot Meta AI will use account information from all its apps to give personalised suggestions; also adds a memory feature that allows users to ask Meta AI to "remember" specific things. (These features are enabled by default with no option for an opt-out.)
  • X rival Bluesky adds a new video tab to user profiles after rolling out a TikTok-like custom video feed.
  • Google open sources the source code that powered Pebble smartwatches, nearly eight years after Fitbit acquired Pebble and the former was acquired by Google in 2021; announces plans to discontinue Chrome Sync in its web browser in early 2025 for Chrome versions older than four years.
  • Encrypted messaging app Signal rolls out new feature that lets users sync their message history (including media from the last 45 days) to newly linked desktop and iPad devices.
  • Uber denies claims that it sets ride prices based on a user's phone model following reports that aggregator services are using differential pricing for Android and Apple.
  • Meta-owned Threads surpasses 320 million monthly active users, up from 275 million in November 2024 and 300 million last month, as Bluesky crosses 30 million users; reports 3.35 billion active daily people on average for December 2024 across its family of apps.
  • Microsoft adds DeepSeek's R1 model to Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, and plans to make a distilled, smaller version of R1 available to run locally on Copilot+ PCs.
  • Netflix now lets iPhone and iPad app users download an entire TV show season with one tap, a much-requested feature that first launched on Android in 2021; comes on the heels of the company's fourth-quarter earnings, which showed the addition of a record-setting 19 million subscribers.
  • Google rolls out Gemini 2.0 Flash and Imagen 3 to all desktop and mobile users of the AI chatbot and a new Gemini feature in Sheets to "perform actions or answer questions to address a wide variety of scenarios" and generate charts; to display verification badges on approved VPN apps on Google Play as a way to "highlight apps that prioritise user privacy and safety."

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