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January 16, 2026, 12:50 PM
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| Alex Heath / Sources: |
Sources: Thinking Machines lacks a clear product or business strategy and has been struggling over the past couple of months to raise a new round of financing — More Thinking Machines employees are in talks to join OpenAI. Also: Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on ACCESS and the Sources Live @ Davos lineup.
More: Newcomer, Implicator.ai, The Information, and Analytics India Magazine
Bluesky: @prietschka, @michaeli, and @edzitron.com
| Wired: |
Source: at least two more Thinking Machines employees are set to join OpenAI soon; some AI researchers say they are exhausted by the industry's constant drama — OpenAI is planning to bring over more researchers from Thinking Machines Lab after nabbing two cofounders, a source familiar with the situation says.
More: Fortune, The Information, WebProNews, David Shapiro's Substack, eWeek, The Rundown AI, Benzinga, TechCrunch, Neowin, Spyglass, The Decoder, Sherwood News, Wired, and Digit
X: @jonchu, @alexrkonrad, @signulll, @kimmonismus, @ns123abc, @scobleizer, and @fidjissimo
| Darren Loucaides / Financial Times: |
A profile of Wikipedia as it faces myriad challenges, including attacks from Elon Musk and the far right, reduced traffic due to AI, and a legal battle in India — As the website turns 25, it faces myriad challenges from regulators, AI, the far right and Elon Musk
More: Block Club Chicago, ZDNET, PCMag, Chicago Tribune, Futurism, Cord Cutters News, San Francisco Chronicle, and ABC. Bluesky: @sjvn
| Emma Roth / The Verge: |
More: The Register, Anil Dash, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, Shelly Palmer, Wikipedia, Forbes, Diff, The Independent, Observer, Wired, 9to5Mac, Freedom of the Press …, and Wikipedia
X: @lsanger, @lsanger, @amritat, @25yearsagolive, and @trevortimm
LinkedIn: Tim Frank, Jason W. Eckert, and Anil Dash
Bluesky: @chrisoregan, @celebrityhottub, @depthsofwikipedia, @newsguy, @wikimediafoundation.org, and @wikimediafoundation.org
Mastodon: @kottke@mastodon.social and @joebeone@techpolicy.social
| Emma Roth / The Verge: |
More: Ars Technica, Decrypt, Associated Press, Wikimedia Enterprise, TechCrunch, MediaPost, WebProNews, Implicator.ai, MediaNama, CNBC, Social Media Today, Reuters, The A.V. Club, Sherwood News, The Decoder, Engadget, Constellation Research, and Blockonomi
LinkedIn: Arul George Scaria and Lane Becker
Bluesky: @nickgarcia, @tjheffernan, @emilymbender, @adzebill, @craiggrannell, and @levikornelsen. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
Forums: r/BetterOffline, r/news, r/technology, and r/wikipedia
| Reuters: |
Italy's competition watchdog opens two investigations into Microsoft's Activision Blizzard over sales practices the regulator calls “misleading and aggressive” — Italy's competition watchdog on Friday announced investigations into Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Activision Blizzard unit over allegedly … | Supantha Mukherjee / Reuters: |
TikTok says it will roll out new age detection tech, which analyzes profile information to predict whether a user is under 13, across Europe in the coming weeks — TikTok will start rolling out new age-detection technology across Europe in the coming weeks, it told Reuters on Friday …
More: Engadget, Ukrainian National News, UPI, Irish Examiner, and Telecompaper. Bluesky: @westernbirding.com
| Davis Giangiulio / CNBC: |
Cloudflare acquires AI data marketplace Human Native for an undisclosed sum, to help it develop a system where AI developers pay creators for training content — Cloudflare is acquiring artificial intelligence data marketplace Human Native, the company said Thursday, as it expands its push … | Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: |
DoorDash Chief Revenue Officer Lee Brown is departing the delivery app company after less than six months; long-term VP Shanna Prevé will succeed Brown as CRO — DoorDash Inc. Chief Revenue Officer Lee Brown is departing the delivery app company after less than six months to pursue a new opportunity.
More: The Information
| Sean Hollister / The Verge: |
Meta says it will discontinue Workrooms, its VR space for workers, on February 16, and stop selling Quests and Horizon services to businesses from February 20 — Meta continues to trickle out the bad news for VR. … Today, the company announced it's shutting that space down …
More: The Register, Meta, Thurrott, Engadget, Mashable, Road to VR, Constellation Research, Tech in Asia, PCMag, Android Headlines, and GeekWire
X: @yoda, @kojirovr, and @playtest_vr. Bluesky: @flglchicago. Mastodon: @rysiek@mstdn.social. Forums: r/OculusQuest
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Trump and Northeastern state governors agree to push grid operator PJM to hold an auction for tech companies to fund new power plants, amid the AI boom — President Donald Trump and the governors of several US Northeastern states agreed to push for an emergency wholesale electricity auction …
More: Bloomberg Law, Quartz, HotAir, Barron's Online, NOTUS, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Axios, Forbes, New York Times, CNN, DatacenterDynamics, Heatmap News, Benzinga, BeInCrypto, ABC17NEWS, ZeroHedge News, Financial Times, PYMNTS.com, Reuters, and The Boston Globe
LinkedIn: Naureen S. Malik and Almas Kaptagayev. Bluesky: @manuelsalgado. Mastodon: @waltbaldwin@mastodon.energy. Forums: r/Economics
| Alex Heath / Sources: |
Unsealed docs from Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit, set for a jury trial on April 27: Sutskever's concerns about treating open-source AI as a “side show”, and more — This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
More: TESLARATI and Courthouse News Service
X: @chamath, @empathic_lead3r, @wholemars, @worksleeve, @beylin, @trenttullis, @bookdepth, @mikekhristo, and @wholemars. Bluesky: @alexeheath.com
| Phuong Nguyen / Reuters: |
Vietnam's military-run telecom company Viettel begins construction of the country's first chip plant, with trial production expected to start by late 2027 — Vietnam's military-run telecom company Viettel on Friday began construction of the country's first semiconductor fabrication plant …
More: The Business Times, Tech in Asia, Nikkei Asia, and Vietnam+
| Marco Chiappetta / Forbes: |
SiFive says it will integrate Nvidia's NVLink Fusion with its RISC-V processor IP platforms, letting SiFive silicon communicate with Nvidia's and partner chips — SiFive To Integrate Nvidia NVLink Fusion — In a move that could have major implications for future AI datacenters, SiFive …
More: SiFive, The Register, More Than Moore, Futurum, ServeTheHome, and Reuters
| Tamara Djurickovic / Tech.eu: |
Istanbul-based TaleMonster Games, the studio behind the puzzle game Match Valley, raised a $30M Series A led by Arcadia Gaming Partners and a16z — The mobile game studio behind the innovative puzzle title Match Valley will use the new investment to scale its category-creating casual game.
More: GamesBeat
| Sam Gutelle / Tubefilter: |
YouTube revises its policy to allow full monetization of nongraphic videos on sensitive issues, like abortion, self-harm, suicide, and domestic and sexual abuse — YouTube's guidelines for ad-friendly content are changing, and creators who cover controversial topics are in line for increased revenue.| SemiAnalysis: |
Analysis: Colossus 2, one of the world's largest AI datacenters, will use as much water/year as 2.5 average In-N-Outs, assuming only drinkable water and burgers — A different perspective on the datacenter water debate, forget tokens/watt or tokens/dollar, it's about tokens/burger …
X: @thezvi, @firstadopter, and @sriramk
| Dina Bass / Bloomberg: |
ClickHouse, a Snowflake challenger that offers an OLAP database management system, raised $400M led by Dragoneer at a $15B valuation, up from $6.35B in May 2025 — Dragoneer is leading a $400 million funding round for the startup. — Database technology startup ClickHouse Inc …
More: Reuters, Financial Post, Towards Data Science, WPXI-TV, and Canadian Press. LinkedIn: Mukund Mohan
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Replit is in advanced discussions to raise a new round of funding that would roughly triple its valuation to $9B; source: the round is for ~$400M — Replit Inc., an artificial intelligence coding startup, is nearing a deal for a new round of funding that would roughly triple …
More: The American Bazaar, Ainvest, Replit Blog, Tech in Asia, and Tech Funding News. Bluesky: @garvanwalshe.org
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