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January 15, 2026, 11:40 AM
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Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
A source close to Thinking Machines Lab alleges ex-CTO Barret Zoph, who is returning to OpenAI, had shared confidential company information with competitors  —  The departures are a blow for Thinking Machines Lab.  Two narratives are already emerging about why they happened.
Kylie Robison / @kyliebytes:
Thinking Machines Lab 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 have returned to OpenAI from Thinking Machines Lab and “this 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!
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.
Financial Times:
UK PM Keir Starmer says X indicated to government officials it was acting to comply with UK laws by restricting the generation of nonconsensual sexual images
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
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Wikimedia celebrates Wikipedia's 25th anniversary, marking its growth from 100 pages to 65M+ articles with nearly 15B monthly views, and releases a docuseries  —  The online encyclopedia is releasing a mini docuseries that puts faces to the editors behind an array of Wikipedia articles.
Reuters:
TSMC reports Q4 net profit up 35% YoY to a record ~$16B, above $15.17B est., as it benefited from surging demand for AI chips and hit $100B in 2025 revenue  —  TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, posted a 35% jump in fourth-quarter net profit on Thursday, beating market forecasts …
Adamya Sharma / Android Authority:
OpenAI quietly rolls out ChatGPT Translate, a standalone website that supports plain text translations across 50+ languages and features prompt customization  —  OpenAI's new standalone translation tool supports over 50 languages and features AI-powered prompt customization.  —  •  —  TL;DR
Financial Times:
Source: Apple's Gemini deal is a cloud contract where it pays Google several billion dollars; a source says OpenAI declined to be Apple's custom model provider  —  Multibillion-dollar deal to secure Gemini models reflects cautious approach to infrastructure spending
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: China is drafting Nvidia H200 purchase rules, limiting how many chips local companies can buy and requiring them to justify the need, instead of a ban  —  TAIPEI/HONG KONG/PALO ALTO — China is working to set rules on how many advanced AI chips companies can buy from foreign makers like Nvidia …
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
Wall Street Journal:
OpenAI strikes a multibillion-dollar, three-year deal to buy 750 MW of computing capacity from Cerebras, which Sam Altman has backed; sources: it's a $10B+ deal  —  The ChatGPT-maker is racing to secure more computing power, especially for responding to user queries
Molly Schuetz / Bloomberg:
Spotify plans to raise its Premium subscription by $1 to $12.99/month in the US, its first US price hike since July 2024, and increase it in Estonia and Latvia  —  Spotify Technology SA is raising the price of its premium subscription service by 8% in an effort to achieve sustained profitability.
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Scientists say that AI has become a powerful and rapidly improving research tool, and that whether it is generating ideas on its own is, for now, a moot point  —  For decades, elite mathematicians have struggled to solve a collection of thorny problems posed by a 20th-century academic named Paul Erdos.
Wired:
Researchers discover WhisperPair, a set of vulnerabilities in Google's Fast Pair protocol affecting 17 audio device models from 10 brands; Google has patched  —  Flaws in how 17 models of headphones and speakers use Google's one-tap Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol have left devices open to eavesdroppers and stalkers.
More: BleepingComputer and 9to5Google
Bluesky: @timmarchman, @couts, @agreenberg, and @lhn.  Forums: r/Android
Francisco Rodrigues / CoinDesk:
Bitmine, the largest corporate holder of ether, invests $200M in MrBeast's Beast Industries, set to close on January 19; Bitmine holds ~4M ETH valued at ~$13.6B  —  The investment gives Bitmine a stake in a brand with strong Gen Z and millennial appeal, reaching over 450 million subscribers across its YouTube channels.
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 …
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 …
Bloomberg:
OpenAI says it issued a request for proposals to US-based hardware manufacturers as it seeks to push into consumer devices, robotics, and cloud data centers  —  The AI startup is requesting proposals from hardware makers as part of a product expansion  —  OpenAI is looking to bolster …
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.
Ike Swetlitz / Bloomberg:
Brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, which Sam Altman co-founded, raised $252M from OpenAI, Bain Capital, and others  —  Merge Labs, a company co-founded by AI billionaire Sam Altman that is building devices to connect human brains to computers, raised $252 million.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:40 AM ET, January 15, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

David Folkenflik / NPR:
Former NPR President and CEO Kevin Klose, who also had been Moscow bureau chief for The Washington Post, died Wednesday at 85 from Alzheimer's complications

Todd Spangler / Variety:
At a US Senate hearing on Paramount-WBD, Mark Ruffalo said the merger threatens the free press and democracy; Sen. Chuck Schumer called the merger a “nightmare”

Maya Salam / New York Times:
Interviews with four early YouTube stars, including MatPat and Miranda Sings, about their success, monetization, changed relationship with YouTube, and more

More News

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
AWS launches European Sovereign Cloud, creating a new parent company for its sovereign cloud that will be locally controlled in the EU and run by EU citizens

Earlier Picks

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
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
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