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January 13, 2026, 7:10 PM
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Mediagazer
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| Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: |
Meta confirms it is laying off Reality Labs staff and will “reinvest the savings” in wearables; CTO Andrew Bosworth says 1,000+ staff will be notified Tuesday — Meta Platforms Inc. is beginning to cut more than 1,000 jobs from the company's Reality Labs division …
More: Video Games Chronicle, Gizmodo, SFGATE, Road to VR, Engadget, Kotaku, Fast Company, Reuters, Gematsu, PC Gamer, MediaPost, Bloomberg, Sharecafe, Forbes, Proactive, Polygon.com, Mashable, Thurrott, International Business Times, iPhone in Canada, Sherwood News, Entrepreneur, UploadVR, WinBuzzer, Benzinga, Road to VR, Android Headlines, Forbes, eWeek, PYMNTS.com, PCMag, GamesIndustry.biz, Silicon Republic, Social Media Today, GeekWire, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider, The Verge, New York Times, and Axios
X: @vladtheinflator, @bmfshow, @grummz, @lunayian, @benz145, @thejobchick, @stocksavvyshay, @amitisinvesting, @nathievr, @scobleizer, @samsolid57, @p_remarks, @mikeisaac, @sadlyitsbradley, @caktusjaxk1, @eringriffith, @xuwu, @lunayian, @lunayian, @mikeisaac, @anshelsag, and @ibrews
LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski and John Thompson
Bluesky: @ohheymarc, @ianbetteridge.com, @handpressed.net, @quinnypig.com, @elucidating …, and @gematsu.com
Threads: @wongmjane, @jank0, @karissabe, and @firerock31
Forums: r/TwoBestFriendsPlay, r/Slycooper, r/SonicTheHedgehog, r/Games, r/PSVR, r/virtualreality, r/augmentedreality, and Slashdot
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
As part of its Reality Labs cuts, Meta is closing three VR gaming studios and will stop developing new content and features for its VR fitness app Supernatural — Developers from Twisted Pixel Games and Sanzaru Games have posted about their studios being closed down.
More: Engadget, UploadVR, Game Developer, GameSpot, WebProNews, VG Charts, TechRaptor, TheSixthAxis, and Shacknews
X: @andythps, @thedowd, @bangbangclick, @neogamespark, @afoxdesign, @sophiebaybey, @karn_ex, @hero_kvatch, @mauronl3, @jasteinerman, @asychov, @dbloodworth2, @glitchfandango, @vescosein, @killian_c_u, @victor_lucas, @raeljamsesh, @bmfshow, and @tomwarren
Bluesky: @davelee.me, @themoonis.gay, and @marioprime
Threads: @kathrynyu and @denny_cloudhead
Forums: r/pcgaming and r/Games
| Bloomberg: |
More: PYMNTS.com, MarketScreener, Reuters, and The Information
X: @danielelepido, @stocksavvyshay, @neilcybart, @skeptrune, and @edludlow
| Todd Bishop / GeekWire: |
Microsoft changes its data center approach, pledging to pay its own power costs, reject tax breaks, and replenish more water than it uses, amid local opposition — President Trump was right about Microsoft — but he only leaked part of the story. — Microsoft is changing its approach …
More: Microsoft, DatacenterDynamics, The Hill, The Register, PCMag, Wired, Yahoo Finance, Quartz, The Seattle Times, Proactive, Wall Street Journal, Axios, CNBC, Bloomberg, New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, Techstrong.ai, The Verge, Barron's Online, Washington Post, Constellation Research, Times of India, and Business Insider
LinkedIn: Noelle Walsh and Gaby DelaGarza. Bluesky: @carnage4life. Truth Social: @realDonaldTrump …. Forums: Slashdot
| Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: |
Apple unveils Apple Creator Studio, a “groundbreaking collection” of creative apps like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro for $13/month or $129/year — Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, which it describes as a “groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed …
More: Apple, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, AppleInsider, The Verge, Six Colors, AppleInsider, MacRumors, iDrop News, Digital Trends, WebProNews, 9to5Mac, Ars Technica, The Mac Observer, Appleosophy, Gizmodo, Neowin, Tao of Mac, Macworld, Variety, How-To Geek, Bloomberg, Livemint, MacTech.com, Computerworld, Creative Bloq, Moneycontrol, Engadget, CNET, Thurrott, TechCrunch, Cult of Mac, Barron's Online, 512 Pixels, The Shortcut, PetaPixel, Benzinga, Michael Tsai, Mashable, The Economic Times, AppAdvice, BGR, PCMag, and Reuters
X: @gregjoz, @bruvimtired, @socoloffalex, @otsukimiotsu, @zollotech, @markgurman, @lukemiani, @geerlingguy, @sankew06, @stufflistings, @zollotech, @leakerapple, @markgurman, @aaronp613, @film_girl, @stevemoser, @stephenrobles, @stevemoser, @samhenrigold, @mweinbach, and @avstorm
LinkedIn: Jonathan Hadida, Klaas Schoenmaker, John Danty, and Alexa Joyce, PhD
Bluesky: @hilarybaumann.com, @zollotech, @cachiporra, @kithrup, and @parkerortolani.com. Threads: @parkerortolani
Mastodon: @stroughtonsmith …, @ernie@writing.exchange, @Migueldeicaza@mastodon.social, and @geerlingguy@mastodon.social
Forums: r/mac, r/apple, r/finalcutpro, r/LogicPro, r/technology, r/pixelmator, and Slashdot
| Bloomberg: |
Under new licensing requirements, the US Commerce Department says exports of Nvidia's H200 chips and AMD's MI325X chips will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis — The Trump administration moved closer to allowing Nvidia Corp. to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China …
More: Bloomberg Law, Politico, Reuters, South China Morning Post, and WebProNews
| John Sakellariadis / Politico: |
President Trump renominates Sean Plankey to be the next director of CISA, which has been running without a full-time chief since Trump's return to office — Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) scotched Plankey's confirmation in 2025, reportedly due to a Coast Guard ship-building contract.| Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET: |
Salesforce makes Slack's new AI-powered Slackbot generally available, helping users answer workflow questions, draft documents, schedule meetings, and more — ZDNET's key takeaways Salesforce made Slackbot generally available.Slackbot is an AI agent for work built in Slack.Business … | Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: |
A look at Confer, an open-source AI assistant project from Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike that is designed to provide end-to-end encryption for AI chats — Moxie Marlinspike—the pseudonym of an engineer who set a new standard for private messaging with the creation of the Signal Messenger …
More: Gizmodo. X: @jasoncrawford, @sandeepssrin, @moxie, and @moxie. Bluesky: @smcgrath.phd
Mastodon: @dangoodin@infosec.exchange, @mattburgess@infosec.exchange, @tommorris@mastodon.social, and @tomgag@infosec.exchange
Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/privacy, r/signal, Lobsters, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
| Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: |
Google makes improvements to Veo 3.1's Ingredients to Video feature to make videos “more expressive”, and adds native vertical video generation and 4K upscaling — Videos should now be more consistent with the images they're based on, including those in portrait orientations.
More: The Keyword, Ars Technica, Android Headlines, WinBuzzer, Neowin, Android Authority, Social Media Today, TechCrunch, and TechEBlog
X: @minchoi, @jocarrasqueira, @googleworkspace, @googleai, @googledeepmind, @_philschmid, @sundarpichai, @joshwoodward, @tkipf, @nealmohan, and @officiallogank. Forums: r/singularity
| Hayden Field / The Verge: |
Anthropic shakes up its C-suite; chief product officer Mike Krieger will become the co-lead of its Labs incubator; head of product Ami Vora will become CPO — Chief product officer Mike Krieger will change roles and join the “Labs” team. … Mike Krieger, the Instagram co-founder …
More: Anthropic. X: @omarshaikdev, @shensi_, @mikeyk, @anthropicai, and @yenkel. LinkedIn: Hayden Field
| Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: |
Apple and Google say Apple Foundation Models based on Gemini will help power not only a more personalized Siri, but also “future Apple Intelligence features” — Google today announced that its AI platform Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but a range of future Apple Intelligence features.
More: The Keyword, 9to5Mac, WebProNews, Unite.AI, Tech Brew, AppleInsider, VICE, Deal N Tech, Shelly Palmer, TechCentral.ie, Ghacks, Reuters, Daring Fireball, TechRadar, Creative Strategies, BleepingComputer, Washington Post, BetaNews, Bloomberg, Neowin, MacDailyNews, Macworld, Moneycontrol, Android Headlines, Search Engine Land, and CNBC
X: @newsfromgoogle, @erfon, and @neilcybart
Bluesky: @eighthdayarts and @uzionmain
Forums: r/privacy, r/google, r/technology, r/Applelntelligence, and MacRumors Forums
| Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: |
The US FCC waives a rule that forced Verizon to unlock phones 60 days after they are activated, which could make it harder for people to switch from Verizon — The Federal Communications Commission is letting Verizon lock phones to its network for longer periods, eliminating a requirement …
More: Android Police, Tom's Guide, WebProNews, Interesting Engineering, 9to5Mac, Fierce Network, Droid Life, Android Headlines, SamMobile, and iClarified
X: @kwiens and @agomezfcc
Forums: r/politics, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
IDC: global PC shipments rose 9.6% YoY to 76.4M units in Q4 2025, helped by Microsoft ending Windows 10 support and OEMs pulling forward inventory amid tariffs — IDC expects the PC market to be volatile this year ahead of anticipated price increases.
More: IDC, The Register, Ars Technica, 9to5Mac, XDA Developers, PCWorld, Mobile News, The Mac Observer, Thurrott, MacRumors, and PCMag
| David Gilbert / Wired: |
Roblox's AI-powered age verification system, which expanded globally last week using tech from a company called Persona, faces criticism for misidentifying ages — Kids are being identified as adults—and vice versa—on Roblox, while age-verified accounts are already being sold online.
More: Engadget
| Google Research: |
Google announces MedGemma 1.5 with improved medical imaging support, and MedASR for medical dictation, both available on Hugging Face and Vertex AI — Daniel Golden, Engineering Manager, and Fereshteh Mahvar, Software Engineer, Google Research — We are updating our open MedGemma model with improved medical imaging support.
X: @_philschmid, @kimmonismus, @mahmoudhsssnn, @osanseviero, @googleaidevs, and @sundarpichai. Forums: r/singularity
| Philip Stafford / Financial Times: |
Warhammer maker Games Workshop says it banned its staff from using AI in its content or designs and “will be maintaining a strong commitment to protect” its IP — Group behind Warhammer taking ‘very cautious’ approach and says it will ‘respect our human creators’
More: IGN, TechRaptor, Polygon.com, The Times, The Independent, Gizmodo, GameSpot, Telegraph, City A.M., thisismoney.co.uk, and The Times
| Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: |
Mercedes pauses the rollout of Drive Pilot, a Level 3 “eyes off” driving feature available in Europe and the US, citing low demand and high production costs — The automaker is instead forging ahead with its new point-to-point Level 2 system that rivals Tesla's Full Self-Driving.
Forums: Slashdot
| Politico: |
Governor Gavin Newsom says he has been negotiating for four months to neutralize California's wealth tax ballot proposal; a compromise does not appear imminent — A compromise does not appear imminent. A union official cast doubt on the possibility of a deal, saying the two sides … | Natalia Kniazhevich / Bloomberg: |
Liftoff, which helps companies place ads in mobile apps, files for a US IPO, reporting a $25.6M net loss on $491.6M in revenue in the nine months up to Sept. 30 — Liftoff Mobile Inc., a company that helps place ads within mobile applications and lets publishers manage their inventory, filed for a US initial public offering.
More: GamesBeat and MarketWatch
| Li Liu / Bloomberg: |
Taiwan issues an arrest warrant for OnePlus CEO Pete Lau for allegedly illegally hiring 70+ Taiwanese engineers, as it tries to stop China from raiding workers — Prosecutors in Taiwan issued an arrest warrant for the chief executive officer of the Chinese smartphone company OnePlus … | Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times: |
Sources: Amazon is seeking supplier discounts, from low single digits to 30%, as it moves to reverse concessions made to limit the shock of Trump's tariffs — Tech giant moves to reverse concessions made to limit the shock of US President Donald Trump's trade levies| Bloomberg: |
The US Senate passes the Defiance Act that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images, amid furor over Grok images — The US Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images …
More: The Verge, Engadget, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin …, CBS News, Global News, Fast Company, and The Economic Times
X: @senatordurbin and @benbrodydc
Bluesky: @themilfmag.net and @themilfmag.net
| The Information: |
Sources: AI chipmaker Cerebras is in talks to raise ~$1B, valuing the startup at $22B before the new investment, up from an $8.1B valuation in September 2025 — AI chip startup Cerebras Systems is in talks to raise about $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion before the new investment … | Dina Bass / Bloomberg: |
Sources: AI chip startup Etched raised $500M led by Stripes at a $5B valuation, bringing its total funding to almost $1B — AI chip startup Etched raised about $500 million in a new funding round, according to people familiar with the matter, part of an effort to compete with Nvidia Corp …
X: @dinabass
| Ben Weiss / Fortune: |
Polygon buys crypto startups Coinme and Sequence for a total of $250M+, as it seeks to bolster its stablecoin and fintech infrastructure and compete with Stripe — Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron (left) and Polygon Foundation founder Sandeep Nailwal.COURTESY OF POLYGON LABS| Juro Osawa / The Information: |
The US House passes a bipartisan bill that expands export controls to restrict Chinese companies' remote access to US AI chips from data centers outside China — The House of Representatives on Monday passed a bipartisan bill that expands U.S. export controls to restrict Chinese companies' ability …
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