Top stories today:

1. Adobe releases AI assistant in Reader, Acrobat
2. Signal launches usernames, allowing users to keep phone number private
3. Top hedge fund manager, Israel Englander, earns $2.8B in 2023
4. YouTube, Netflix continue to lead in streaming viewership in U.S.
5. Groq, AI chip company, conquers social media with record token generation speed
6. Palo Alto Networks stock -21% after guidance cut

0. Data and calendar

1. Adobe releases AI assistant in Reader, Acrobat

• Today: beta version available for paying Acrobat users.

• The AI Assistant can craft summaries and insights from long documents, answer questions, and format data sharing in reports and presentations.

• Works with Word and PowerPoint too.

• Firefly image generation AI model integration in Adobe’s plans.

2. Signal launches usernames, allowing users to keep phone number private

• Phone number still required to create an account.

• Roll out in “coming weeks,” as the feature is still in beta.

4. Top hedge fund manager, Israel Englander, earns $2.8B in 2023

5. YouTube, Netflix continue to lead in streaming viewership in U.S.

6. Groq, AI chip company, conquers social media with record token generation speed

Groq has the highest tokens per second, when compared to public cloud providers:

• Groq is building AI chips called Language Processing Units (LPUs), which they claim are faster than NVIDIA's GPUs.

• It is likely that similar speeds are possible today with NVIDIA-type GPUs, but cloud companies opt not to offer them to the public due to high costs.

7. Palo Alto Networks stock -21% after guidance cut

• $1.46 EPS and $1.98B revenue beat market expectations.

Guidance for 2024 growth was cut by 6 p.p. for billings and 3 p.p. for revenue

8. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

9. Other headlines

AI

• Microsoft developing AI Server gear to reduce NVIDIA dependence.

• Scale AI to help Pentagon with testing, evaluating LLMs.

• Anthropic's $7B fundraising: a look at.

Tech

• Apple Ring could be released “sooner, rather than later”: sources.

• Walmart acquires Vizio in $2.3B deal, seeking to boost its ad business.

• Apple Music introduces monthly version of Replay.

• Bezos finishes planned sale of $8.5B in Amazon stock.

• Mastodon, X rival, targeted by spam attacks.

• Apple acoustics VP replaced.

• Anti-loneliness startups: a look at.

• citizenM has 14 tech-ready hotels stateside for the best night's sleep of your life.*

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Tech & law

• Japan investing $67B in chip manufacturing.

• App Store's reformed EU policies don't go far enough: Microsoft.

• Apple could adopt RCS due to China law.

• Sergey Brin faces wrongful-death suit after his plane crashed.

• CapCut head in China, raising worries at TikTok.

Biotech

• LLM for biotech: Bioptimus raises $35M seed.

• Visceral fat linked to greater cognitive decline in later life.

Business

• HSBC's pretax profit -80% to $1B in Q4.

• Canadian inflation shows relief.

• China tightens control on quant hedge funds.

Crypto

• Circle ending support for USDC on Tron blockchain.

• Winklevoss twins give $5M to crypto super PAC.

• tea Protocol: click to subscribe to tea's newsletter and learn more about how to get rewards for your open-source contributions.*

*Sponsored.

U.S. politics

• GOP privately expects government shutdown: sources.

• Biden ends Jan. with $56M, Trump $30M.

• Trump again compares himself to Navalny.

  • On McConnell: “don’t know that I can work with him.”

• NYAG: prepared to seize Trump assets if $455M penalty not paid.

World

• Russian anti-satellite nuclear weapon in space this year: U.S. tells allies.

  • Putin denies it.

• Navalny's prison chief promoted by Putin.

• UN ceasefire resolution vetoed by U.S., as it pushes alternative version.

• “Major sanctions” against Russia promised by White House.

• Chinese companies setting up private militias.

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