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January 15, 2026, 4:30 AM
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Top News

Kylie Robison / @kyliebytes:
Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, with Soumith Chintala taking over the role; sources say the termination is due to “unethical conduct”  —  BREAKING: Thinking Machines has terminated its CTO, Barret Zoph, due to unethical conduct according to two sources familiar with the matter. CEO Mira Murati announced the news at an all-hands with employees today. Soumith Chintala will be taking over as CTO.
Fidji Simo / @fidjissimo:
Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz are returning to OpenAI from Thinking Machines and the move “has been in the works for several weeks”  —  Excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back to OpenAI! This has been in the works for several weeks, and we're thrilled to have them join the team. Barret will report to me; Luke and Sam will report into Barret. More to come on what they'll focus on soon!
Politico:
California AG Rob Bonta opens an investigation into xAI over the proliferation of nonconsensual, sexualized images generated by Grok, and urges xAI to act  —  California Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI over the proliferation of nonconsensual …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
X updates Grok to prevent the “editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis” and geoblocks it for all users “where it's illegal”  —  The company is also blocking image generation entirely from non-subscribers.
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Elon Musk claims he's “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok” and that Grok's operating principle is to “obey the laws of any given country”
Wall Street Journal:
OpenAI strikes a multibillion-dollar agreement to buy 750 MW of computing capacity from Cerebras over three years; sources say the deal is worth more than $10B  —  The ChatGPT-maker is racing to secure more computing power, especially for responding to user queries
Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET:
Google launches Personal Intelligence, a Gemini feature that links to Gmail, Google Photos, Search, and YouTube history to tailor answers, for paid subscribers  —  ZDNET's key takeaways  — Personal Intelligence scans your apps to improve Gemini answers.  — The feature is off by default and won't train on sensitive data.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Coinbase pulls support from the US Senate's crypto market structure bill ahead of a key vote; CEO Brian Armstrong says there are “too many issues” with the bill  —  CEO Brian Armstrong said there were “too many issues” with the bill.  —  Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange …
Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg:
President Trump signs an order to impose a 25% tariff on chips “transshipped through the US to other foreign countries”, as part of the Nvidia H200 export deal  —  The US imposed a 25% tariff on imports of certain semiconductors, a key step in an agreement blessed …
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
YouTube now lets parents set time limits on their kids' YouTube Shorts feed, ranging from 15 minutes to two hours, with an option for zero minutes coming soon  —  Parents will also be able to manually create and adjust child and teen accounts on YouTube.
Jacob Krol / TechRadar:
Verizon resolves “an issue impacting wireless voice and data services” that caused 100,000+ customers to lose reception for 10+ hours on Wednesday  —  The carrier says the outage is now resolved  —  While Verizon had a good few months, with the last major outage occurring in October 2024 …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Digg, rebooted under original founder Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, launches its open beta; the site had been open to 67,000 users on an invite-only basis  —  The reboot of the early-internet online community Digg, a one-time rival to Reddit, is moving forward.
Nitin Dahad / EE Times:
GlobalFoundries agrees to acquire Synopsys' ARC processor IP business, which includes ARC-V (RISC-V) and ARC CPU IP, and integrate it into its MIPS business  —  Today sees a bold move to bring two key processor architectures, MIPS and ARC, under one umbrella, as GlobalFoundries announced …
Denise Wee / Bloomberg:
Hong Kong-based WeLab, which operates two digital banks in Hong Kong and Indonesia, raised $220M in equity and debt from HSBC, Prudential Hong Kong, and others  —  Hong Kong-based fintech firm WeLab Ltd. has secured $220 million from investors including HSBC Holdings Plc and Prudential Hong Kong Ltd. in its largest round of funding.
Bloomberg:
Chinese chipmaker SpacemiT, whose RISC-V-based K1 chip is used in industrial systems, robotics, edge computing, and AI devices, raised an ~$86M Series B  —  Chinese chip company SpacemiT raised more than 600 million yuan ($86 million) in a fresh funding round to speed up commercialization of its products and expand its business.
Chris Metinko / Axios:
Novee, which utilizes proprietary AI models to perform automated penetration testing, emerges from stealth with a $43M Series A and an $8.5M seed  —  Novee, a penetration-testing cybersecurity startup, launched out of stealth with $51.5 million in funding, co-founder and CEO Ido Geffen tells Axios Pro.
More: CTech
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
CoinDesk data: Binance's spot crypto trading market share fell to 25% in December 2025, its lowest since 2021, and it is losing ground in derivatives trading  —  Binance's grip on global crypto trading is weakening as rivals pick up market share and traders shift to new ways of buying and selling digital assets.
More: Benzinga and BeInCrypto

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:30 AM ET, January 15, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

Angela Fu / Poynter:
A look at what a Democratic-controlled Congress could focus on to protect press freedom, including investigating the FCC and reforming transparency laws

Linda Hourani / The Kyiv Independent:
How Russia is bringing young foreign influencers to occupied Ukraine, curating their experiences, and encouraging them to share them to whitewash Russia's image

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:
Newsmax reported Q3 net income of $15.2M and revenue up 52.5% YoY to $69M, including a one-time $14M termination payment for a canceled ad deal; NMAX rose 31.4%

More News

Luz Ding / Bloomberg:
Alibaba links Qwen to its online shopping and travel services, including Taobao, Alipay, Fliggy, and Amap, aiming to build a one-stop AI app for its 100M users

Earlier Picks

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Airbnb hires Meta executive Ahmad Al-Dahle, who led the generative AI and Llama team after working at Apple, as its CTO, as it aims to add more AI to its app
Reuters:
Sources: Chinese authorities told domestic companies to stop using cybersecurity software made by ~12 US and Israeli companies due to national security concerns
Maya Perez / WebProNews:
Bandcamp bans music and audio “generated wholly or in substantial part by AI”, hoping to build trust with fans that the music they find “was created by humans”
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