Techmeme
January 9, 2026, 9:20 PM

Top News

Jennifer Hiller / Wall Street Journal:
Robert Hart / The Verge:
Helena Horton / The Guardian:
Grok says image generation and editing are now limited to paid subscribers, after outcry over its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery  —  X to limit editing function to paying subscribers after platform threatened with fines and regulatory action
The Guardian:
Dan Primack / Axios:
a16z raises $15B+ across five new funds, including $6.75B for its fifth growth fund, the largest sum, and $3B for unspecified “other venture strategies”  —  Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose past investments included Airbnb and Coinbase, on Friday announced …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Anthropic adds safeguards to prevent third-party apps, like OpenCode, from spoofing Claude Code to access Claude models for more favorable pricing and limits  —  Anthropic has confirmed the implementation of strict new technical safeguards preventing third-party applications from spoofing …
Bloomberg:
OpenAI and SoftBank says they will each invest $500M in SB Energy to support the infrastructure company's growth as a data center developer and operator  —  OpenAI and SoftBank Group Corp. have jointly invested $1 billion in SB Energy, an infrastructure company that's working with the tech firms …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Italy fines Cloudflare €14.2M for refusing to block pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service; CEO Matthew Prince says he will discuss it with US officials  —  Italy fined Cloudflare 14.2 million euros for refusing to block access to pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service …
The Information:
Sources say DeepSeek will launch V4, its next-generation model, in the coming weeks and say it outperformed Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT series in coding  —  Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is expected to launch its next-generation AI model that features strong coding capabilities in the coming weeks …
Wired:
Documents: OpenAI is asking contractors to upload their work from current or previous jobs to evaluate its models, leaving it to them to scrub confidential info  —  To prepare AI agents for office work, the company is asking contractors to upload projects from past jobs …
Pragyan Kalita / Reuters:
Rain, which helps businesses issue stablecoin-linked Visa cards, raised a $250M Series C led by ICONIQ at a $1.95B valuation, taking its total funding to $338M+  —  Stablecoin firm Rain said on Friday it has raised $250 million in a funding round led by ICONIQ, valuing the company at $1.95 billion …
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The UK FCA grants Ripple approval for its Electronic Money Institution license and crypto asset registration, clearing the way for Ripple's UK expansion  —  Partner offers  —  Quick Take  — The Financial Conduct Authority granted Ripple approval for its Electronic Money Institution license …

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Featured Podcasts

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More News

Andrew Dunn / Endpoints News:
Jordan Moreau / Variety:

Earlier Picks

Jennifer Swann / Wired:
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg:
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Jay Peters / The Verge: