TikTok Still Ticking, The $500 Billion Project Stargate, Google Buys HTC VR Tech

TikTok Survives The Week. On January 19, 2025, 170 million U.S. TikTok users woke up to a new world as ByteDance shuttered the app in compliance with PAFACA, which mandated a sale of its U.S. operations to a U.S.-based company by this date. By noon, President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to issue an executive order to allow time for ByteDance to work with the new administration on a long-term solution. Apple and Google, however, are going to keep the app out of their stores for now. The companies could face billion dollars fines for reinstating the app in their stores prematurely if the executive order is overturned. TikTok’s competitors Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts wasted no time in courting popular TikTok influencers with cash to move to their platforms.

The day after taking office, US President Donald Trump announced Project Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. The companies pledged an initial $100 billion investment, which they say will create 100,000 U.S. jobs and build 20 massive data centers, starting in Texas. Presumably the $500 Billion will also fund their power needs as well, but the parties did not address that. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son credited Trump’s reelection for the deal while OpenAI’s Sam Altman praised Trump’s role. Altman later sparred with the notably absent techbro-in-chief, Elon Musk, who was dismissive of the deal. “They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on X. He is trying to prevent OpenAI, which he co-founded, from transitioning from not-for-profit to a for-profit company, which would compete with Musk’s own Xai. Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor, and its principal cloud partner, is losing its designation as exclusive provider of computing capacity for the artificial intelligence startup.

Google is acquiring HTC VIVE VR engineering talent and licensing its intellectual property in a deal worth $250M. Google released Android XR, a new operating system for headsets and smart glasses in December 2024. Developed in collaboration with Samsung and Qualcomm, it integrates Google’s Gemini AI. Therefore, it seems unlikely the deal is about software. Hardware development and manufacturing, on the other hand, is notoriously slow and expensive, and Google, having killed its AR Project Iris, Google Glass and Google Daydream, might be looking for help in this area. But why? Google bought HTC’s mobile business years ago to make its popular Pixel smartphones. So they should have manufacturing expertise. It doesn’t make any sense. The Google/Samsung/Qualcomm collab on a pass-through mixed reality headset, Project Moohan, was officially unveiled by Samsung yesterday. It will use Google’s new Android XR OS. The Meta Quest 3 had disappointing holiday sales, and the disheartening Apple Vision Pro has halted production. I thought Google’s play was owning the XR OS to counter Apple and Meta’s own XR operating systems, but something else is afoot now, too. Since the details of the deal aren’t public, where that leaves HTC for now is also a mystery.

DeepSeek’s AI Model Challenges OpenAI’s o1. Chinese AI research firm DeepSeek has unveiled DeepSeek-R1, an open-source reasoning model that reportedly matches the performance of OpenAI’s o1 on specific benchmarks using much less compute. Despite U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips, Chinese firms have rapidly advanced their AI capabilities. Tech CEOs have argued the imposition of AI regulations would cause them to fall behind their Chinese and other foreign competitors who face no such constraints.

Virbela Founder Alex Howland re-acquires his Metaverse platform from EXP Realty. EXP Realty CEO Glenn Stanford liked what Virbela did for his fledgingly real estate business so much, he bought the company six years ago. This was prescient, since Virbela was one of the big winners in Covid lockdown collaboration solutions. Howland says he and his co-founder, CTO Erik Hill, plan to launch a new web-based version launching in Q2 2025, finally freeing the platform from software downloads that corporate networks hate.

Trump Pardons Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht. He had been serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole since his 2015 conviction on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking. Famously, Silk Road used cryptocurrency to keep transactions private. At the time of his arrest, the stealthy Ulbricht was hiring a hitman to take out a rival.

Mistral AI to Go Public, Leading a New Wave of Tech IPOs. With a valuation of around $2 billion after its December funding round, the French company’s IPO could be the first of many in what’s shaping up to be a strong year for tech public offerings. The ongoing AI boom, coupled with improving market conditions, suggests that other high-growth startups may soon follow suit. As the industry pivots toward commercialization, Mistral’s success—or struggles—on the public market could set a precedent for the next generation of AI firms. In a bull market, this may just be the beginning of a wave of AI and tech IPOs.

The Whole Story of How NFL QB Jayden Daniels Trains With VR Is In This Twitter thread. It’s not exactly breaking news. The NY Times wrote about it in October. The “flight simulator for QBs” the star QB relies upon has resurfaced in the news this week, as Daniels leads the Washington Commanders into the NFC Championship game Sunday, January 22nd. In 2015, QB Carson Palmer of the Arizona Cardinals used a VR system from SRTRIVR that utilized 360 video. This simulation is more like a video game. It’s from a European company, Cognilize, that was previously focused on soccer training.

Cinematic AI

Created using Google Veo 2, this AI short film delivers visuals so realistic, you’ll think you’re watching a Hollywood blockbuster. The results are genuinely jaw-dropping!

This column is also a podcast hosted by its author, Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, former studio executive and co-founder of Red Camera, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guest is Elizabeth Baron, Founder, Immersionary Enterprises, LLC, Senior Advisor, Intelligent Immersive Simulation, UNMC iEXCEL. Formerly Global Lead, Immersive Reality for Ford Motor Company Product Development. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.

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