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Hi friends,
Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a newsletter containing my recent Bloomberg News stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.
Image of the week, above
It’s been too long since I shared a photo of our gorgeous Ginger. Here she is. Out on a recent jaunt.
My Bloomberg latest
For an edition of our Tech in Depth newsletter earlier this month, I wrote about the popularity of DeepSeek here in Hong Kong.
The hed: DeepSeek Takes Over Hong Kong in ChatGPT’s Absence. 
<– gift link
I wrote:
Hong Kong for a long time felt like an artificial intelligence no man’s land, caught between east and west.
Major American services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude aren’t offered by their makers here, even though Hong Kong has never been subject to the mainland’s internet restrictions. And many Chinese AI apps have been difficult to access, with companies like Baidu Inc. prioritizing the billion-plus population on the mainland and making signups from Hong Kong complex.
The city’s consumers have largely been watching the AI revolution from the sidelines. They’ve been forced to use workarounds such as virtual private networks to try the most advanced services ushering in generative AI.
No more. Now DeepSeek is here.
Then on Thursday I had a scoop (scoop-let?) on Meta’s longtime Asia-Pacific business head departing the company.
The hed: Meta’s Asia-Pacific Chief Quits After a Decade-Long Growth Spurt <– gift link
It began:
Meta Platforms Inc. is losing its senior-most business executive for the Asia-Pacific, an industry veteran who shepherded some of the social media company’s largest international markets over a decade-long tenure.
Dan Neary, the company’s vice president for the region, assumed the role in 2013 and oversaw the rapid expansion of the company’s user base from Australia to Greater China and Southeast Asia. The Singapore-based executive announced his departure in an internal post. He left for personal reasons, a Meta spokesperson said Thursday.
Here are 10 items worth your time this week:
1) 
A remarkable story that surely you saw, but in case not: “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans” – The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg
2) 
For more on the incident, national security-focused publication Lawfare has had some podcast episodes.
3) 
“Oleg Gordievsky, Britain’s most valuable Cold War spy inside the KGB, dies at 86” – The AP.
(If you haven’t read the excellent 2018 Ben Macintyre book about Gordievsky, don’t miss it: “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War.”)
4) 
“Bankrupt 23andMe’s DNA Data Gets Sale Nod as Concerns Linger” – Bloomberg News
5) 
Here’s an excerpt from my former WSJ colleague Keach Hagey’s new book, “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future."
6) 
“Reid Hoffman: ‘Start using AI deeply. It is a huge intelligence amplifier’” – The Guardian
7) 
“Giant, fungus-like organism may be a completely unknown branch of life” – Live Science
8) 
“Experience the Virtual Sun, our human-centric virtual skylight.” – INNERSCENE
9) 
TV Garden: watch TV from countries around the world
10) 
“What I Found on the 365-Mile Trail of a Lost Folk Hero” – Sam Anderson in the New York Times Magazine
What I’ve been listening to:
I’ve been enjoying Charley Crockett’s new album, Lonesome Drifter. (Thanks for the pointer, PB!)
Dog-related video of the week:
Justice is what you would call an enthusiastic cuddler.
•••
Fist bump from Hong Kong,
Newley