Brian McCullough (0:04)

Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride home from Monday, February 3rd, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today OpenAI unveils Deep Research, an AI agent. Just for that I'll explain. Are Shehan and Temu first up to feel the brunt of the new Trump tariffs? Apple canceled the AR project I assumed they would be pivoting toward and the Beatles won a Grammy last night with the first AI augmented song ever to win a Grammy. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Over the weekend, OpenAI unveiled Deep Research, an AI agent for creating in depth reports available to $200 per month ChatGPT Pro subscribers and limited to 100 queries per month. Quoting TechCrunch, OpenAI said in a blog post published Sunday that this new capability was designed for people who do intensive knowledge work in areas like finance, science, policy and engineering, and need thorough, precise and reliable research. It can also be use, the company added, for anyone making purchases that typically require careful research like cars, appliances and furniture. Basically, ChatGPT, deep research is intended for instances where you don't just want a quick answer or summary, but instead need to assiduously consider information from multiple websites and other sources. Quoting the Verge, Instead of simply generating text, it shows a summary of its process in a sidebar with citations and a summary showing the process used for reference. Users can ask questions using text, images and additional files like PDFs or spreadsheets to add context, and then it will take anywhere from five to 30 minutes to develop a response provided in the chat window, with promises that in the future it will also be able to include embedded images and charts. OpenAI also notes limitations for Deep Research, saying it can sometimes hallucinate and makes up facts, struggle with telling the difference between authoritative info and rumors, and register how certain it should rate a response and quoting the Guardian, OpenAI said deep research was for professionals who work in areas such as finance, science and engineering, but it can also examine purchases such as cars and furniture. It is based on O3, OpenAI's latest reasoning model, which takes longer to process queries than conventional models and has yet to be released in full publicly. It comes after OpenAI announced the release on Friday of another derivation of O3, a free, slimmed down version called O3 Mini. Deep research will be available in the US for users of OpenAI's Pro tier, which costs $200 a but at a limit of up to 100 queries a month, reflecting the cost of processing every query under the tool. It is not available in the UK and Europe, end quote. You may have heard a little something about tariffs over the weekend, and in the flurry of executive orders and whatnot, I've found a tech angle. President Trump's recent executive order for levies on China says the day minimus exemption for items under $800 no longer applies would seriously affect Alibaba, JD.com, sheehan, Temu and others because that loophole was sort of their main advantage. Quoting Bloomberg, Trump's executive orders directing 25% levies on Canada and Mexico plus a 10% duty on China specify that the de minimis exemption for small packages no longer applies. Under the exemption, products below that dollar amount are able to enter the US without tariffs, a boon for China's e commerce retailers, who often ship cheaper wares directly to consumers in the Washington is taking aim at a loophole that retailers from PDD holdings Temu to fashion focused Shein have exploited for years to expand rapidly in the US that's given Chinese linked e commerce companies, which grew by hawking smaller packages in much higher volumes to consumers, huge advantages over market incumbents such as Amazon. Critics say the flood of parcels from China is hard to monitor and may contain illegal or dangerous goods. Trump's decision, while earlier than some analysts expected, had been largely anticipated by Temu and Shein. Since last year, they've begun diversifying their logistics chains, expanding networks in the US and moving to bigger bulk orders. Still, a formal closure is expected to hit a fast growing market segment. TAMU US accounts for a low teen percentage of PDD's revenue, Jefferies has estimated Alibaba Group holding and JD.com have thriving US businesses, and it raises questions about Shein's highly anticipated initial public offering, a megadebut investors expect to take place as soon as this year, end quote. But it's not just from that angle that they're facing new headwinds. Sources say the EU Commission and four member nations are planning a probe into Shein specifically over illegal products, opening the fast fashion marketplace up to potential fines Quoting a different Bloomberg piece, the Chinese founded massive online marketplace Shein faces potential fines with the European Union imminently set to open a probe into its compliance with consumer laws over the sale of illegal products, the bloc's executive branch, the European Commission, will lead national consumer protection regulators in a coordinated action against the fast fashion marketplace, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss confidential plans. The commission is increasingly relying on a mechanism known as the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network, which aims to marshal national authorities to form a unified front against large online platforms suspected of breaching consumer protection rules. Chinese owned E commerce service Temu and Apple also faced similar actions in November for potential violations. Companies found to have broken the law can be hit by fines by now national regulators in individual EU member states. End quote. I continue to be fascinated by Tether. They recently reported that they had $13 billion in net profits in 2024, including around $7 billion from its U.S. treasuries and repo holdings, and $5 billion from unrealized appreciation of gold and bitcoin holdings. But they're just the largest face of a whole movement. As TechCrunch points out, stablecoins are becoming a core part of financial infrastructure in emerging markets, expanding beyond cross border payments into consumer finance and more. Five years ago, SpaceX launched Starlink, which has since grown into its biggest revenue driver, expanding to more than 100 countries. But as Starlink scaled, it faced a major hurdle, accepting payments in developing markets where traditional banking infrastructure is unreliable, slow and prone to blocking transactions. Many local banks across Africa, Latin America and Asia struggle with international payments, forcing SpaceX to look for alternatives to bypass these challenges. SpaceX turned to stablecoins, a fast growing method for cross border payments already widely used in emerging markets. The company partnered with Bridge, a stablecoin payments platform, to accept payments in various currencies and instantly convert them into stablecoins for its global treasury. This move positioned Bridge as a viable alternative to correspondent banks in markets where traditional financial systems fall short. Soon after, Stripe took notice, acquiring the startup for more than $1 billion and solidifying Bridge's reputation and driving up its valuation as an infrastructure player solving inefficiencies in global finance. The rise of stablecoins, now a $205 billion market, is driven by real world utility, not speculation, particularly in emerging markets where the most compelling use cases unfold. Cross border payments in those regions are typically slow and expensive, involving multiple intermediaries. For example, a textile manufacturer in Brazil paying a supplier in Nigeria might have to go through several banks and currency exchanges, each adding fees and delays. Stablecoins remove this friction, enabling cheaper near instant transactions. This growing demand has led to massive transaction volume growth for startups, providing stablecoin cross border solutions for businesses in Africa and emerging markets. Yellow Card, which provides a platform that lets users convert Fiat to crypto and back to Fiat, doubled its annual transaction volume to $3 billion in 2024 from 1 and billion in 2023. Conduit, which enables stablecoin payments for import export businesses in Africa and Latin America saw its annualized TPV jump to $10 billion from $5 billion. Lagos based Juicyway, which facilitates cross border payments using stablecoins, has processed $1.3 billion in total payments volume to date. Investor interest has also surged with top venture firms backing stablecoin powered fintechs targeting these markets. Tether itself invested a sizable check in an African stablecoin infra and liquidity provider TechCrunch. Meanwhile, Conduit, which raised a $6 million seed round last year, is finalizing another round with some big name backers. End Quote if someone would have told me that there are science backed ingredients that could help me feel 15 years younger in a matter of months, I wouldn't have believed it. Then I tried Qualio Senolytic as we age, everyone accumulates senescent cells in their body. 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