Max Goldbart / Deadline:
Study: in South Korea, users with active YouTube accounts spent 210 minutes/day on the service in Q4, while Netflix subs spent 96 minutes/day on the streamer — Koreans who subscribe to Netflix spent less than half that time (96 minutes) watching the streamer, which airs Korean hits like Squid Game, Love Next Door and Queen of Tears.
China bans automakers from using “smart driving” or “autonomous driving” in ads for driver-assist tech and tightens scrutiny after a fatal Xiaomi EV crash (Reuters)
Reuters:
China bans automakers from using “smart driving” or “autonomous driving” in ads for driver-assist tech and tightens scrutiny after a fatal Xiaomi EV crash — China is banning automakers from using the terms “smart driving” and “autonomous driving” …
Docusign unveils AI contract agents, which can analyze agreements and surface issues that usually require human intervention, available by the end of 2025 (Larry Dignan/Constellation Research)
Larry Dignan / Constellation Research:
Docusign unveils AI contract agents, which can analyze agreements and surface issues that usually require human intervention, available by the end of 2025 — Docusign launched AI contract agents, which will analyze agreements, highlight risks and surface issues that usually require human intervention.
Sources: OpenAI and SoftBank are considering investing in the UK for Stargate as part of an international expansion, if the project proves successful in the US (Financial Times)
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI and SoftBank are considering investing in the UK for Stargate as part of an international expansion, if the project proves successful in the US — US $500bn data centre venture looks overseas to build out global infrastructure capacity — Stargate, the $500bn US data …
Auradine, which manufactures Bitcoin miners and offers AI infrastructure, raised a $153M Series C, with $138M in equity and $15M in debt, led by StepStone Group (Yogita Khatri/The Block)
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Auradine, which manufactures Bitcoin miners and offers AI infrastructure, raised a $153M Series C, with $138M in equity and $15M in debt, led by StepStone Group — – Auradine has raised $153 million in new funding to grow its bitcoin mining and AI infrastructure businesses.
xAI announces a memory feature for Grok in beta that enables the AI chatbot to remember details from past conversations and give more personalized responses (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
xAI announces a memory feature for Grok in beta that enables the AI chatbot to remember details from past conversations and give more personalized responses — Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is slowly bringing its Grok chatbot to parity with top rivals like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Sources: Perplexity is in discussions to integrate its AI assistant on Samsung’s devices and has reached an agreement to preload Perplexity on Motorola’s phones (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg:
Sources: Perplexity is in discussions to integrate its AI assistant on Samsung’s devices and has reached an agreement to preload Perplexity on Motorola’s phones — Perplexity AI Inc., an artificial intelligence startup vying with Google and OpenAI, is ramping up efforts to get prime placement for its virtual assistant on smartphones.
Discord requires some UK and Australian users to verify their age by scanning their face or ID to access sensitive material; Discord says it’s “an experiment” (Chris Scullion/Video Games Chronicle)
Chris Scullion / Video Games Chronicle:
Discord requires some UK and Australian users to verify their age by scanning their face or ID to access sensitive material; Discord says it’s “an experiment” — THE COMPANY SAYS THE AGE VERIFICATION FEATURE IS “AN EXPERIMENT” — Discord has added a new age verification system …
A US judge grants a permanent injunction against an Ohio law that required platforms to verify users are at least 16 and seek parental consent for younger users (Bloomberg Law)
Bloomberg Law:
A US judge grants a permanent injunction against an Ohio law that required platforms to verify users are at least 16 and seek parental consent for younger users — A federal judge struck down Ohio’s law limiting teen social media use, marking another court win for the tech industry group …
Google is making Gemini Live camera and screen sharing features free for all Android users in the coming weeks after launching them for Advanced users last week (Abner Li/9to5Google)
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google is making Gemini Live camera and screen sharing features free for all Android users in the coming weeks after launching them for Advanced users last week — Last week, Google started widely rolling out Gemini Live camera and screen sharing to Advanced subscribers …