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January 16, 2026, 11:00 AM
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Top News

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.
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.
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 …
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
Emma Roth / The Verge:
The Wikimedia Foundation says Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral joined Wikimedia Enterprise to get “tuned” API access; Google is already a member
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.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Trump and several state governors agree to direct grid operator PJM to hold an auction for tech companies to fund new power plants due to AI demand  —  President Donald Trump and the governors of several US Northeastern states agreed to push for an emergency wholesale electricity auction …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
The US says that Taiwanese companies will invest $250B+ in chip production capacity in the US as part of a trade deal, and Taiwan will guarantee $250B in credit  —  The U.S. and Taiwan have reached a trade agreement to build chips and chip factories on American soil, the Department of Commerce announced on Thursday.
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 …
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.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Chinese AI companies seek to rent compute in Southeast Asia and the Middle East for Nvidia Rubin access, as Zhipu and Alibaba warn of a widening US gap  —  Companies in China scrap for access to Nvidia's latest Rubin lineup while better-funded U.S. competitors are first in line
More: Asia Times
Peter Senzamici / New York Post:
Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk's children, sues xAI, alleging Grok refused to stop making sexualized deepfakes of her, amid custody disputes  —  Elon Musk baby mama Ashley St. Clair is suing his AI platform, Grok, for refusing to stop making sexually explicit deepfake images of her …
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”
CNBC:
Replit launches Mobile Apps on Replit, which enables vibe-coding of iOS apps with integrated Stripe monetization  —  AI coding startup Replit is now letting users create and publish mobile apps for Apple devices using only natural language prompts, the latest evolution in so-called vibe-coding.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:00 AM ET, January 16, 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

Jake Kanter / Deadline:
Sources: new Doctor Who episodes are likely to remain off TV until at least 2028; the BBC says it will use a competitive process to find producers for Season 16

Sarah Rumpf / Mediaite:
The Washington Post faces a proposed class action lawsuit that claims the company covertly used surveillance pricing to charge loyal subscribers higher rates

Corbin Bolies / Variety:
Lionsgate and gen-AI company Runway expand their partnership, giving Lionsgate an equity stake in Runway and launching a program to develop and produce new IP

More News

Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
Q&A with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos about the WBD bid, Trump's involvement in the deal, maintaining a 45-day theatrical window for WBD releases, and more
New York Times:
Australia's eSafety Commissioner reports social media platforms “removed access” to ~4.7M accounts under its ban for under-16s, which took effect in December
Boone Ashworth / Wired:
As Meta shifts resources away from its Supernatural VR fitness service, users mourn the loss of a community built around the platform and its coaches

Earlier Picks

Ciara O'Brien / The Irish Times:
Equal1, which was spun out from University College Dublin, raised $60M to deploy its new quantum server for data centers, bringing its total funding to $85M
André Beganski / Decrypt:
X revises its developer API policies to “no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X (aka 'infofi')”, amid a backlash about increasing AI slop on X
Ike Swetlitz / Bloomberg:
Brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, which Sam Altman co-founded, raised a $252M seed from OpenAI, Bain Capital, Gabe Newell, and others
Financial Times:
Anthropic researchers say rich countries' higher AI adoption risks deepening economic disparities and widening living standard gaps, assuming productivity gains
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
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