|
January 9, 2026, 6:30 PM
|
Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| 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
More: BBC, Wired, Reuters, Connected Places, The Verge, CyberScoop, AppleInsider, Breitbart, 404 Media, Semafor, MediaPost, Fortune, WinBuzzer, UPI, Mirror, CNN, Canary, Music Ally, PetaPixel, The American Bazaar, eWeek, The Hollywood Reporter, Silicon UK, Social Media Today, and Eschaton
X: @miles_brundage, @mikeisaac, @brianod_news, and @grok
LinkedIn: Rory Brooke and Jess Asato MP
Bluesky: @toilandtroublemedia.com, @seachange12, @samleecole, @joeuchill, @justinhendrix, @mantzarlis.com, @climateadam, @joenoonan, @socialmedialab.ca, @gsoh31, @missingthept, @brexitpirates, @davidgerard.co.uk, @missingthept, @gadget44027447, @bastardsheep.com, @trufflehog, @seanjones.org, @peterwalker99, @andyscollick, @carnage4life, @stormageddon, @docbaty, @ketanjoshi.co, @pogue.omg.lol, @mattburgess1, @glynmoody, @margaretmorgan, @mrrobertbob, @petefrasermusic, @metacurity.com, @kyledchurch, and @mgraalum
Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to and @xtaldave@social.vivaldi.net
Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/tech, and r/grok
| Robert Hart / The Verge: |
X is restricting Grok's image capabilities via the @grok command for free users, but they can still create sexual deepfakes via X's “Edit image” or Grok's app — X's sexual deepfake machine is still running, despite Grok saying otherwise.
More: NBC News, 404 Media, Tech Brew, Associated Press, The A.V. Club, Ars Technica, MobileSyrup, Reuters, Deadline, The Record, MacRumors, Le Monde, Digit, Axios, Mashable, Silicon Republic, Kotaku, Gizmodo, Euractiv, Moneycontrol, Variety, Irish Independent, and HuffPost
X: @benjamingoggin. Bluesky: @zombiewretch, @prietschka, @carolinehaskins, @danny.page, @drsmith, @newschambers, and @samadams
Forums: r/technology, r/EnoughMuskSpam, r/google, r/Futurology, r/Fauxmoi, r/technology, r/politics, r/oregon, r/technology, and r/apple
| The Guardian: |
More: Metro.co.uk, Business Today, Quartz, Mirror, Gizchina, and Screen Rant
Forums: r/LabourUK and r/unitedkingdom
| Jennifer Hiller / Wall Street Journal: |
Meta signs deals with nuclear power providers Vistra, TerraPower, and Oklo to buy power and support new reactor projects, securing up to 6.6GW of power by 2035 — Facebook parent will back nuclear projects with Oklo, Bill Gates-backed TerraPower and Vistra
More: Meta Newsroom, The Verge, TechCrunch, Oklo, Financial Times, CNBC, PYMNTS.com, Times of India, GeekWire, Yahoo Finance, TerraPower, Wired, Wall Street Journal, Proactive, The Register, Plain Dealer, Entrepreneur, Quartz, Livemint, Power Engineering, Dow Jones Newswires, DatacenterDynamics, Barron's Online, Forbes, Bloomberg, ESG Dive, WinBuzzer, The Columbus Dispatch, POWER Magazine, ZeroHedge News, Utility Dive, UPI, Investopedia, Sherwood News, Inc.com, Vistra Corp, Axios, and The Hill
X: @ns123abc, @joel_kaplan, @oklo, @stocksavvyshay, @joel_kaplan, @shanumathew93, @terrapower, @aniruddh_mohan, @briangitt, @dr_keefer, @metanewsroom, and @dekmartrades
LinkedIn: John Hanson, Rachel Peterson, Mike Rencheck, Chris Rinkus, Susan Buehler, and Steffan Szumowski. Threads: @andymstone
| 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 …
More: Andreessen Horowitz, a16z crypto, TechCrunch, Crunchbase News, San Francisco Business Times, Decrypt, Yahoo Finance, Cryptonews, Newcomer, NFTgators, The Crypto Times, The Information, Howie Town, Reuters, CryptoNinjas, The Block, CNBC, and Tracxn
X: @a16z, @brian_armstrong, @packym, @danprimack, @jenniferhli, @bhorowitz, @gerstenzang, @tkexpress11, @jorgecondebio, @espricewright, @austin_rief, @vcbrags, @jaltma, @sriramk, @davidu, @a16z, and @davidu
LinkedIn: Marc Andrusko, David George, and Mukund Mohan
| Iain Martin / Forbes: |
a16z captured 18%+ of all venture capital allocated in the US in 2025 and now manages $90B in assets, vs. Sequoia Capital's $56B and General Catalyst's $43B — Andreessen Horowitz has raised $15 billion for five new growth and venture funds in one of the largest-ever raises for a venture capital fund.| 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 …
More: Decrypt, The Verge, Reuters, WinBuzzer, Techstrong.ai, and NewsMax.com
X: @slow_developer, @teortaxestex, @_simonsmith, @jukan05, @andrewcurran_, and @zephyr_z9. Forums: r/LocalLLaMA
| 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 …
More: Financial Conduct Authority, Ripple, ZyCrypto, Ventureburn, The Crypto Times, Decrypt, CoinGape, The Coin Republic, BeInCrypto, Coinspeaker, Bitcoin Insider, The Crypto Basic, Crypto Briefing, Coinpedia Fintech News, Cryptonews, Blockonomi, Cointelegraph, CryptoPotato, and Yahoo Finance
LinkedIn: Joe Hayden, Oonagh van den Berg, James Burnie, and George Morris
| 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 …
More: The Information, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Reuters, OpenAI, Yahoo Finance, Financial Times, WinBuzzer, and Forbes
LinkedIn: David Fernandes, SB Energy, and Rich Hossfeld
| Andrew Dunn / Endpoints News: |
Boltz, which is developing open frontier AI models for biomolecular research, raised a $28M seed led by Zetta, Amplify, and a16z at a valuation of $125M — While the newest AlphaFold model took a leap forward in 2024 by predicting structures of nearly all biomolecules instead of just proteins, it also took a step back in openness.
More: Boltz. X: @dhaliwas, @mackenziejem, @communityjameel, @jayrughani, and @a16z. LinkedIn: Gabriele Corso
| 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 …
More: Rain, SiliconANGLE, FinSMEs, crypto.news, Crunchbase News, Bloomberg, Ventureburn, Bitcoin Insider, The Block, NFTgators, PYMNTS.com, Cryptonews, Cointelegraph, and VC News Daily
X: @cnaut, @theoneandomsy, @alliance, @lightspeedvp, @hosseeb, @mottice, @sytaylor, @lmrankhan, and @raincards
| Ann Gehan / The Information: |
Amazon files planning documents in Illinois to construct a 225,000 square foot big-box store, a return to a “Target-like” retail concept it previously shelved — Amazon has started laying the groundwork to open a big-box retail store in the Chicago suburbs, according to planning documents.
More: Bloomberg, CNBC, The Verge, Orland Park, IL Patch, and Business Insider
| Mark Sweney / The Guardian: |
Filings: X's UK revenue fell 58.3% YoY from £69.1M in 2023 to £28.9M in 2024; pre-tax profit fell from £8.5M in 2022 and £2.2M in 2023 to £767K in 2024 — Elon Musk-owned site reports plunging profits amid outcry over use of AI tool Grok to create sexually explicit imagery
More: The Information and Proactive
| Emily Mason / Bloomberg: |
Source: OnePay, the fintech firm behind Walmart's “super app”, recently bought back shares from employees at a price that values the startup at more than $4B — OnePay, the Walmart Inc.-backed fintech firm behind the “super app” that the world's largest retailer is incorporating for customers … | David Shepardson / Reuters: |
The FCC approves SpaceX's request to deploy an additional 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites, bringing the total to 15,000 satellites worldwide — The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it has approved SpaceX's request to deploy another 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites … | Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: |
Chinese humanoid robotics companies dominated CES 2026, but a wide gap remains between choreographed demonstrations and large-scale, real-world deployment — One of Elon Musk's worries was on full display at CES in Las Vegas this week. Chinese-made human-like robots were everywhere across …
More: Implicator.ai, CNBC, Internet of Things News, RTÉ, and Nikkei Asia
Sponsor Posts
Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Beyond productivity: Why live captions belong in every meeting — You join a meeting, someone starts talking, and within a minute, there are names, numbers, ideas, and unfamiliar terms flying around. You could ask them to repeat it.
Beyond productivity: Why live captions belong in every meeting — You join a meeting, someone starts talking, and within a minute, there are names, numbers, ideas, and unfamiliar terms flying around. You could ask them to repeat it.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
Sources:
Factory CEO on why AGI is already here
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Meta's Muse Revival, Frontier AI Under Threat, The Rise Of Dopamine Sites
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Meta's New $1300 Glasses and the Fight to Control AI
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Great Chat:
Doomers at Dreamforce
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
About This Page
This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:30 PM ET, January 9, 2026.
The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.
From Mediagazer
Tierney Sneed / CNN:Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal:
Upcoming Tech Events
More News
| Jordan Moreau / Variety: |
More: Gizmodo, The A.V. Club, Deadline, Business Wire, Gold Derby, WWD, The Hollywood Reporter, and Marie Claire
Bluesky: @daviduzumeri, @joeuchill, @caseynewton, and @cheryllynneaton
| Jennifer Swann / Wired: |
More: Doc Searls Weblog. Bluesky: @jenlucpiquant, @ajillianreasons, and @craignewmark
Forums: r/technology, r/UpliftingNews, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
| Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg: |
More: BeInCrypto, CryptoNinjas, Bitcoin Insider, The Crypto Times, Coinspeaker, Cryptonews, Artemis, crypto.news, and Cointelegraph
X: @wublockchain, @aservais1, and @mdudas
| Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg: |
Earlier Picks
| Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal: |
More: The Information, MediaPost, Tom's Hardware, Adweek, and Implicator.ai
X: @daveschoools. LinkedIn: Alison Wagonfeld and Samer Kamal. Bluesky: @caseynewton. Forums: r/NvidiaStock
| Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: |
| Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land: |
More: Microsoft Advertising, Digital Trends, PayPal Newsroom, Computerworld, Pureinfotech, Search Engine Roundtable, PCMag, Retail TouchPoints, eWeek, Motley Fool, Digit, GeekWire, Axios, TestingCatalog, Microsoft, and Windows Central
X: @protonvpn, @paypal, @kross_roads, @kimmonismus, @acce, and @msftnews
LinkedIn: Ricky Ranjan, Carolina Puerto, and Jeff Pomeroy
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
More: The Keyword, CNBC, 9to5Google, Wired, BleepingComputer, WBIR-TV, Windows Central, DevX, Newser, Barchart.com, ITPro, International Business Times, Ars Technica, Türkiye Today, Benzinga, Ghacks, NDTV Profit, Moneycontrol, The Indian Express, Phandroid, Business Standard, Analytics India Magazine, Digit, Baller Alert, SiliconANGLE, Fast Company, PCMag, 9to5Google, and 9to5Google
X: @sundarpichai, @google, @polynoamial, @gmail, @royalhansen, @brij, @stockmktnewz, @paternalpath, @_philschmid, @kosuke_agos_en, @officiallogank, @sarthakgh, @clmt, @glenngabe, and @chanduthota
LinkedIn: Kamal Manglani, Jaishankar Sundararaman, Blake Barnes, Josh Fleetwood, Prachi Gupta, Will Hart, Emanuel, and Benedict Evans
Bluesky: @markriedl, @stevekovach, @tomwarren.co.uk, and @jaypeters.net
Forums: r/Bard, r/technews, r/technology, and Slashdot