Welcome to the Tech Me Right Home for Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, all the headlines from today's Samsung event, including the S25 lineup. The Silk Road creator gets a pardon, a huge joint venture for a new AI data center effort. Will Elon take half of TikTok in the US, the other half? And guess what? Netflix is raising prices again. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.
Samsung held its unpacked event today where, as expected, they unveiled the Galaxy S25 lineup. Let's focus on the flagship device, the S25 Ultra. The design has been upgraded with rounded corners but flat edges that suggest the look of the S series. It's got Qualcomm's top-of-the-line chip, a new ultrawide camera, and the price is staying the same. It starts at $1,299 and ships February 7th, quoting The Verge.
Something about the shift from curved edges to flat sides makes the S25 Ultra look hefty in photos, like if the Cybertruck were a phone. But it's actually slightly smaller and lighter than last year's device, even with a bigger 6.9-inch screen, thanks to slimmer bezels. It's equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor tuned for Galaxy devices. That's true for all S25 series phones sold in all regions, which hasn't been the case recently.
And it still comes with one more strong spec, seven years of OS updates and security patches. Camera hardware is largely unchanged from the previous model except for a new 50 megapixel ultrawide replacing a 12 megapixel module. Samsung claims that an upgrade to the S25's algorithmic image processing has improved detail in zoomed images. On the video side, Samsung now offers a Galaxy Log profile along with a custom loot, end quote.
Bixby is no longer the default virtual assistant. Samsung is leaning on Google Gemini. Long press the wake button to summon the AI. The S Pen no longer supports Bluetooth, so those gee whiz gesture controls are gone. the S Pen is a very basic stylus. Quoting TechCrunch, the handset supports a 6.9-inch display and a quartet of rear-facing cameras, a 50-megapixel ultrawide, 200-megapixel wide, and a pair of telephoto lenses with 3x and 5x optical zoom, respectively.
The S25 Ultra and S25 Plus have access to ProScaler. The AI image sharpening feature apparently requires their QHD Plus display resolution to function properly. Gaming graphics enhancements, meanwhile, arrive by the way of the Snapdragon's... on-device Vulcan engine and ray tracing features, device cooling is accomplished by way of a 40% larger vapor chamber, end quote. That was mostly about the Ultra, but as mentioned, there are a basic S25 and S25 Plus as well.
The S25 starts at $799.99, and the Plus model comes in at $999.99, with pre-orders open now ahead of the February 7th ship date. President Trump yesterday granted a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road creator and a crypto cult hero serving a life sentence since 2015 on money laundering charges and drug charges, quoting the New York Times.
In doing so, Mr. Trump fulfilled a promise that he made repeatedly on the campaign trail as he courted political contributions from the crypto industry, which spent more than $100 million to influence the outcome of the election. A Bitcoin pioneer, Mr. Albrecht...
Forty was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015, after he was convicted on charges that included distributing narcotics on the internet. In its nearly three years of existence, Silk Road, which operated in a shady corner of the internet known as the Dark Web, became an international drug marketplace, facilitating more than 1.5 million transactions including
sales of heroin, cocaine, and other illicit substances. The site generated over $200 million in revenue, according to authorities. In court, prosecutors claim that Mr. Ulbricht had also solicited the murders of people whom he considered threats, but acknowledged
that there was no evidence that the killings took place. Despite his crimes, Mr. Ulbricht has remained popular with crypto enthusiasts because Silk Road was one of the first venues where people used Bitcoin to buy and sell goods. For years, his supporters have argued that his sentence was overly... punitive, and adopted the slogan Free Ross online and at industry gatherings.
It's hard to argue that Ross Ulbricht wasn't the most successful and influential entrepreneur of the early Bitcoin era, said Pete Rizzo, an editor at the news publication Bitcoin Magazine. This is the industry banding together and saying, we're going to reclaim our own, end quote. OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle have announced a $500 billion AI data center company. It's called the Stargate Project, a joint venture to invest in USAI infrastructure, committing $100 billion now.
and then up to that $500 billion number in the next four years. Again, for all the fears of an AI bubble popping, as long as you see the big players committing money to this sort of scale, you've got to figure they don't see this mania ending anytime soon. Although, more on that in a second, quoting TechCrunch.
The companies made the announcement during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday, where President Donald Trump spoke about plans for investment in U.S. infrastructure. SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison were in attendance. is also involved in Stargate as a tech partner. So our ARM and NVIDIA Middle East AI fund MGX will join SoftBank in its investment. MGX's first public deal was an investment in OpenAI.
SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle are also listed as initial equity investors in Stargate. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility, the statement continued. Masayoshi Son will be the chairman of Stargate as part of Stargate. Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system, end quote.
The data centers could house chips designed by OpenAI someday. The company is said to be aggressively building out a team of chip designers and engineers and working with semiconductor firms Broadcom and TSMC to create an AI chip for running models that could arrive as soon as 2021. SoftBank is already an investor in OpenAI, having reportedly committed $500 million toward the AI startup's last funding round and an additional $1.5 billion to allow OpenAI staff to sell shares in a tender offer.
Oracle, meanwhile, has an ongoing deal with OpenAI to supply AI computing resources. SoftBank also earlier pledged to invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. have had a close working relationship since 2016 during Trump's first term when Sun announced that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in US startups to create 50,000 jobs, end quote. Now, having said what I said at the top of this, worth mentioning that
Elon Musk tweeted, and I quote, they don't actually have the money. SoftBank has well under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority, end quote. Also, allow me to quote this from M.G. Siegler. Neither seemingly has enough capital on hand to equal a $100 billion commit, let alone $500 billion. SoftBank has about $30 billion in cash. MGX started last year as a $100 billion fund, but they've already made several commitments, notably to
OpenAI itself. But they also apparently can mobilize more capital as needed, which seems key here, especially since Oracle only has about $11 billion in cash and OpenAI is a cash-burning machine at the moment, end quote. Speaking of the president and of Elon Musk and Oracle and joint ventures, potential ones anyway.
Trump also said yesterday he would be open to Elon Musk or Larry Ellison purchasing TikTok US as part of a joint venture that would give the US government 50% ownership, quoting Bloomberg. I have the right to make a deal, Trump said at an event alongside Ellison at the White House on Tuesday. So what I'm thinking about saying to somebody is buy it and give half to the United States of America, half, and we'll give you the permit and they'll have a great partner. You have an asset.
that has no value or has a trillion dollar value, Trump said. It all depends on whether or not the United States gives the permit, end quote. Other potential bidders are already lining up as well. A group of American investors assembled by tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, that included Mr. Beast, the internet's most followed and highest earning content creator, announced a bid earlier Tuesday.
Billionaire Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary, made a formal offer to buy TikTok earlier this month. O'Leary has already met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the bid, and McCourt has made clear he'd be happy to buy TikTok without the service's coveted content algorithm, which ByteDance and China's government have said is not for sale.
We're not conflicted in any way, and we have the cash, O'Leary told Bloomberg News in an interview. His bid of $20 billion is derived from a rough calculation based on TikTok's U.S. operations as a share of ByteDance's overall value, he said. it a much cleaner proposition, satisfying people concerned about Chinese spyware embedded within, he added.
Unlike Musk, who may face antitrust concerns as he already owns X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, O'Leary's group has no complications that could slow or prevent a deal. I think we could close it in 90 days, the Shark Tank star said, end quote. you
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From the smart glasses are rapidly becoming a thing file, sources are telling Bloomberg that Meta aims to debut glasses with a built-in display and new Oakley-branded smart glasses for athletes in 2025. Other products underway would compete with Apple's smartwatch and AirPods, the people said. And the company is making headway on its first true augmented reality product, a holy grail for the tech industry, for release around 2027. A representative for Meta, which owns Facebook...
Instagram, and WhatsApp declined to comment on the company's plans. The flurry of products is part of a bid to reposition Meta as an AI innovator with a focus on hardware that can usher in the next era of computing. Meta currently sells Ray-Ban glasses that are embedded with cameras, microphones, and other technology.
Though they stop short of being an AR device, one that superimposes data and images on real-world views, the Spectacles can take pictures, analyze the surrounding environment, play music, and handle calls. That product line, internally codenamed... Supernova will be expanded in three major ways. First, the company is planning to introduce its
current Ray-Ban glasses to new markets. Second, Meta is broadening its smart glasses technology to other fashion brands owned by partner Luxottica Group SA. That includes a new version dubbed Supernova 2. that is based on Oakley's Sephira glasses. This model, which shifts the camera to the center of the glasses frame, will be aimed at cyclists and other athletes. The biggest upgrade this year will be a new higher-end offering that uses a
design that's closer to the current Ray-Ban glasses. Codenamed Hypernova, this model will include a display on the bottom portion of the right lens that projects information into a user's field of view. People would be able to run simple software apps, view notifications, and see photos taken by the device.
capabilities that get a bit closer to the long-promised AR experience. The device would carry a higher price tag. Some employees involved in the project expect the Hypernova glasses to cost around $1,000, compared with a $299 starting price for the current Meta Ray-Bans.
Meta is testing an approach that lets users rely on a wrist strap, dubbed Series, to control the glasses. The Menlo Park, California-based company has discussed offering this accessory in the same box as the Hypernova Spectacles, which will also have touch controls on the frame's The temple approach would be the standard input method if the wrist accessory doesn't pass muster. The strap controller would be similar to one used by Meta's Orion prototype AR glasses.
an unreleased product that the company showed off last year. The Hypernova product also may work with a smartwatch, but Meta doesn't yet offer such a device, end quote. Meta will soon let users link WhatsApp accounts with Instagram and Facebook, allowing cross posts of WhatsApp statuses as stories on Instagram and Facebook. Quoting TechCrunch.
With this integration, users will be able to cross-post their WhatsApp status as stories on Instagram and Facebook, getting rid of the need to post multiple times. It will also allow users to log into multiple apps with the same account through the single sign-on feature, which is an authentication option that allows you to do things like use your Facebook account information to log into Instagram.
Adding your WhatsApp account to Account Center is optional and off by default. Meta notes that your WhatsApp messages and calls will remain end-to-end encrypted if you choose to connect your WhatsApp account to the hub, end quote. As mentioned, you can find this in Account Center, which is a setting section inside MetaApps that was first introduced in 2020 to do exactly this, manage your activity and content across their family of apps.
So additional features like managing avatars and Meta AI stickers is coming to Account Center too soon. Meta also cautioned that even though this is rolling out globally, it might take months for every user to see it. If you have it now, you'll see it inside your WhatsApp settings. Finally today, earnings season is back, led off as always by Netflix, which reported Q4 revenue up 16% year-on-year to $10.2 billion.
and 301.6 million global subscriptions, adding 18.9 million subscribers in the quarter alone, amazingly, which was more than double Wall Street estimates. Netflix's stock jumped more than 14% on the news. According to Nielsen, Netflix captured 8.5% of all US streaming viewership in December, its highest share since... July 2023, in part due to those live NFL games they ran. YouTube, by the way, still leads in streaming hours with 11.1% of total viewership. But...
Probably the most pertinent news for you and I, Netflix raised prices again in the US, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina. The standard US plan rises from $15.49 to $17.99. and Standard with Ads jumps $1 to $7.99 a month. Quoting the Times, Netflix's subscribers watch seven films a month on average, the company said. In addition to Carry On, original films that performed well on the service included Richard Curtis's That Christmas and Tyler Perry's The Six Triple Eight.
It Ends With Us, a film from Sony Pictures that generated many headlines because of conflicts between the film's two stars, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, also generated big audiences for the service. No single title drives our acquisition or engagement, co-chief executive Greg Peters said on a call with investors on Tuesday. It's really the whole service that's working that delivered the upside that we saw this quarter, end quote.
Though its recent entry into live programming has yielded some of its largest subscriber numbers, the company reiterated that it was, quote, not focusing on acquiring rights to larger season sports packages. Ted Sarandos, the company's other co-chief executive, called full season sports. acquisitions quote, extremely challenging during the call with investors. The company has a history, though, of abruptly changing its strategy.
Quote, two of Netflix's official 2025 priorities are increasing ad revenue and developing more live programming, said Ross Bennis, senior analyst with eMarketer. What was recently anathema is now among the company's top priorities. Expect the company to continue adapting by embracing strategies it said it wouldn't, end quote. nothing more for you today I'm on my way into the city for a doctor's appointment talk to you tomorrow