Techmeme
January 4, 2026, 12:10 PM

Top News

Herb Scribner / Axios:
A new Polymarket account bet $30K on Maduro's capture just hours before Trump's announcement, renewing questions on insider information in prediction markets  —  - These bets — many of which were on Maduro's capture, and are now on what happens next to the ousted leader …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Hands-on with Xreal's Neo, a $99 battery pack and mini-dock that acts as a passthrough converter so the company's glasses can work with the Nintendo Switch  —  I loved playing Switch games on the Xreal 1S glasses, but getting them connected is a little awkward.
Jasmine Sun / New York Times:
Tech workers in Silicon Valley are increasingly experimenting with gray-market peptide drugs from China, legal for personal use, for improving focus and more  —  Jayden Clark first heard about Chinese peptides at his Fourth of July party this past year.  —  In the backyard of a San Francisco …
Jiyoung Sohn / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of June Paik, CEO of Seoul-based chip startup FuriosaAI, valued at ~$700M, whose AI chip dubbed “RNGD” is slated to enter mass production this month  —  June Paik spurned a takeover offer from Meta Platforms last year.  Now his South Korean company, FuriosaAI, has an AI chip entering mass production.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Xreal unveils the $449 1S, a pair of AR glasses with 1200p, 700 nits brightness, 52 degree FOV, and 16:10 aspect ratio; the 1S can convert any 2D video into 3D  —  Despite the spec bump, the Xreal 1S are $50 cheaper than their predecessor. … At CES 2026, Xreal announced an upgraded …
More: Ubergizmo
Meir Orbach / CTech:
Sources: Cisco is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity company Axonius for $2B; Axonius has raised ~$700M and was valued at $2.6B during earlier rounds  —  Exclusive: The deal would follow a string of major acquisitions as Cisco strengthens its enterprise security portfolio.
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Fueled partly by US tech companies, governments worldwide are racing to deploy GenAI in schools and universities, even as agencies such as UNICEF urge caution  —  In early November, Microsoft said it would supply artificial intelligence tools and training to more than 200,000 students and educators in the United Arab Emirates.
Jared Perlo / NBC News:
A look at AVA, an AI chatbot developed by Alaska's court system to provide aid in the probate process, which has been plagued by delays and hallucinations  —  A yearlong effort to build an AI probate assistant reveals the limits of government chatbot development.
Financial Times:
Dating apps are pivoting to Asia as swipe-right fatigue hits the West; India, China, and Indonesia ranked among the top five markets by downloads in 2025  —  Rising numbers of ‘goal-orientated’ women are using the apps as stigma over online dating fades  —  Online dating companies are pivoting …
More: Tech in Asia
Mishal Husain / Bloomberg:
Q&A with Kara Swisher on Sam Altman's determination to “do anything to make OpenAI win”, Elon Musk, the tech industry's Trump pivot, and more  —  After a year of dominating mega-deals and driving stock-market gains, the tech industry is poised for a pivotal 2026 that centers largely …

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Earlier Picks

Michael Kan / PCMag:
Maggie Harrison Dupré / Futurism:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: