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January 2, 2026, 1:50 PM
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| Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times: |
Yann LeCun says Llama 4's “results were fudged a little bit”, and that the team used different models for different benchmarks to give better results — The AI pioneer on stepping down from Meta, the limits of large language models — and the launch of his new start-up
More: Business Insider and Implicator.ai
| Bloomberg: |
xAI's Grok says “lapses in safeguards” led it to create sexualized images of minors in response to user prompts on X; the images have been taken down — Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has created sexualized images of people including minors on the social media platform X …
More: Ars Technica, CNBC, Reuters, The Guardian, BBC, Politico, Engadget, Axios, The Hill, The Present Age, Financial Times, Futurism, seangoedecke.com, The Economic Times, The Decoder, CBS News, Telegraph, Euractiv, Tom's Guide, CNBC-TV18, PetaPixel, Metro.co.uk, MediaNama, The Hans India, New Republic, and KnowTechie
Bluesky: @sundersays, @charliekirchoff.com, @durumcrustulum.com, @heidykhlaaf, @hypervisible.blacksky.app, @jael, and @justinhendrix. Forums: r/EnoughMuskSpam
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
India orders X to fix Grok to block the generation of obscene content, giving it 72 hours to submit an action-taken report or risk losing “safe harbor” immunity — India has ordered Elon Musk's X to make immediate technical and procedural changes to its AI chatbot Grok after users … | Dan Wang: |
Tech analyst Dan Wang reflects on the Chinese Communist Party vs. Silicon Valley, AI and manufacturing, and how China and the US are building the future — One way that Silicon Valley and the Communist Party resemble each other is that both are serious, self-serious, and indeed, completely humorless.
More: Marginal Revolution, Blockchain.News, and CNBC
X: @mikeelgan, @hassankhan, @zhengdongwang, @buccocapital, @nabeelqu, @birdyword, @zdch, @eric_is_weird, @s8mb, @rtylercrown, @discoplomacy, @sbanjo, @phequals7, @rmcentush, @kevinakwok, @mattzeitlin, @renesellmann, @mylesudland, @chr1sa, @stevehou, @conorsen, @ctbeiser, @joshdcaplan, @danwwang, @greg_ip, @richardhanania, @jchengwsj, @mattzeitlin, @richardhanania, and @bgurley
LinkedIn: James Lloyd and Mark Pesce
Bluesky: @gnat, @frankpasquale, and @conorsen. Mastodon: @yiningkarlli@mastodon …. Forums: Hacker News
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Pebble unveils Pebble Round 2 smart watch with a rounded screen and basic health and activity tracking but no heart rate monitor, shipping in May for $199 — Shortly after bringing back the Pebble smart watch and launching a low-cost AI smart ring, Pebble is readying yet another new product: the Pebble Round 2.
More: Pebble, PCMag, XDA Developers, CNET, 9to5Google, ZDNET, The Verge, Engadget, How-To Geek, iPhone in Canada, Phandroid, Techaeris, Digital Trends, and T3. Forums: r/gadgets
| Rishabh Jaiswal / Reuters: |
SpaceX plans to lower its Starlink satellites from orbiting at ~550km to ~480km in 2026 to improve space safety and reduce the likelihood of debris collisions — Starlink will begin a reconfiguration of its satellite constellation by lowering all of its satellites orbiting at around 550 km …
More: PCMag, Gizmodo, The Register, SpaceNews, Cord Cutters News, The Independent, Interesting Engineering, ISPreview UK, iPhone in Canada, Nairametrics, Moneycontrol, Neowin, Tech in Asia, Business Today, Channels Television, Digit, Analytics India Magazine, Business Insider, The Verge, Engadget, Hürriyet Daily News, and Computerworld
X: @michaelnicollsx, @wagamemnonglenn, @marcushouse, @philipjohnston, @bassonbrain, @iniallanderson, @justin_je_mabie, @teslatino, @yrouel86, @blaze_r935, and @seattle_rt. Bluesky: @fack
Mastodon: @jknodlseder@mastodon.social, @knud@mastodon.social, and @hannorein@mastodon.social. Forums: r/space
| Simon Goodley / The Guardian: |
Uber rewrote its UK driver contracts to act as an agent rather than a supplier of taxi services outside London, to avoid UK's new 20% “taxi tax” on total fares — Hailing app will now act as agent rather than supplier outside London, avoiding VAT requirement| Rachel Clun / BBC: |
UK crypto buyers are required to share their account details with tax officials starting January 1 or face penalties, as the UK seeks to collect unpaid taxes — People buying cryptocurrency in the UK now need to share their account details or face penalties, in changes that came into effect on 1 January.| The Circuit on YouTube: |
An interview with analyst Benedict Evans on the role of productization in AI adoption, AI bubble, OpenAI, comparing Nvidia to Sun Microsystems, and more — In this conversation, Ben Bajarin and Jay Goldberg engage with Benedict Evans to explore the current state of AI development, its historical context, and future predictions.
X: @hobie_tweets, @howardlindzon, @buccocapital, and @benbajarin
| Bill Allison / Bloomberg: |
Filing: OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman donated $25M to Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., in H2 2025; Crypto.com operator Foris DAX donated $20M — President Donald Trump's super political action committee raised $102 million in the second half of 2025, fueled by eight-figure donations …
More: HuffPost
| Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: |
Sources: OpenAI is taking steps to improve its audio AI models, in preparation for its AI-powered personal device, which is expected to be largely audio-based — OpenAI is taking steps to improve its audio AI models, in preparation for its eventual release of an AI-powered personal device, said a person with knowledge of the effort.
More: TechCrunch, PYMNTS.com, 9to5Mac, The American Bazaar, KnowTechie, International Business Times, MacDailyNews, Proactive, AIN, Benzinga, Tech in Asia, Wccftech, The Indian Express, Techstrong.ai, Digit, Implicator.ai, SiliconANGLE, and The Decoder
X: @zhihuipikachu, @jukan05, @gregkamradt, @keytryer, @mark_k, @andrewcurran_, @beffjezos, @jukan05, @kimmonismus, @steph_palazzolo, @kylebrussell, and @btibor91. LinkedIn: Billy Aldea-Martinez
Bluesky: @druce.ai and @carnage4life
Forums: r/singularity and r/OpenAI
| Kieran Smith / Financial Times: |
How Nokia has reinvented itself for the AI revolution by expanding into cloud services, data centers, and optical networks, and by partnering with Nvidia — Finnish company that brought the world the 3310 has reinvented itself for the AI revolution — Few digital sounds have burrowed into the human brain like the Nokia ringtone.
More: iPhone in Canada and COINOTAG
LinkedIn: Gennaro Cuofano, Dr Marko Sjoblom, Robert Byggmästar, and Justin Hotard. Bluesky: @robertscotthorton. Forums: Slashdot
| Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal: |
How Meta's Reels became a hit, with a $50B+ annual run rate; Sensor Tower: users spend 27 minutes/day on Instagram Reels, 21 on YouTube Shorts, and 44 on TikTok — Once a TikTok wannabe, Instagram's video feature is now a hit with users and advertisers. Can it make the leap to television?| Vincent Chow / South China Morning Post: |
DeepSeek researchers detail mHC, a new architecture they used to train 3B, 9B, and 27B models, finding it scaled without adding significant computational burden — DeepSeek has published a technical paper co-authored by founder Liang Wenfeng proposing a rethink of its core deep learning architecture
More: arXiv.org, Business Insider, Bloomberg, WinBuzzer, Implicator.ai, Bloomberg, Computerworld, SiliconANGLE, Pandaily, and Blockonomi
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Zoho:
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| Philosopher Count: |
X: @briancalbrecht, @saikatc, @harryh, @jankulveit, @daniel_271828, @krishnanrohit, @besttrousers, @jsevillamol, @mortenstostad, @robinhanson, @t_holden, @erikbryn, @daveg, @dwarkesh_sp, @stevehou, @deepdishenjoyer, @alltheyud, @elocinationn, @garrytan, @garrytan, @briancalbrecht, @pawtrammell, @pawtrammell, @yonashav, @briancalbrecht, @tszzl, @jackwiseman_, @alltheyud, @digeconlab, @mylesudland, @ks_kulk, @garrytan, @drydenwtbrown, @dwarkesh_sp, @dwarkesh_sp, and @dwarkesh_sp
LinkedIn: Octavian Adrian Tanase and Viktor Shvets
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| Adi Robertson / The Verge: |
| Angel Au-Yeung / Wall Street Journal: |
More: Newser. X: @jasoncolavito, @anothercohen, and @roguepotusstaff. LinkedIn: Angel Au-Yeung
Bluesky: @metacurity.com and @diedfrombeing.labeledrude …