Techmeme
January 17, 2026, 3:30 PM

Top News

Daniel Kuhn / The Block:
ZachXBT: a crypto user lost $282M+ in BTC and LTC in a hardware wallet social engineering scam; XMR jumped as the attacker began converting the funds to Monero  —  Partner offers  —  Quick Take  — XMR hit an all-time high of $797.73 on Jan. 14, coinciding with a series …
Glenn Coin / Syracuse Post-Standard:
Maria Sherman / Associated Press:
Luminate 2025 report: the global music industry hit 5.1T streams, up 9.6% YoY and a single-year record; AI artist Xania Monet had 125M on-demand audio streams  —  The global music industry hit 5.1 trillion streams in 2025.  It's a new single-year record, up 9.6% from 2024, which held the previous record.
Robert Burnson / Bloomberg:
Filing: Elon Musk seeks $79B-$134B damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging OpenAI defrauded him by abandoning nonprofit roots and partnering with Microsoft  —  Elon Musk wants OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft to pay him damages in the range of $79 billion to $134 billion over his claims …
Dara Kerr / The Guardian:
The US EPA rules that xAI acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in the Memphis area  —  Win for Memphis activists who say ‘Colossus’ facilities add extra pollution to already overburdened communities
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
Sources: leaders at Thinking Machines Lab confronted Barret Zoph over an alleged relationship with another employee, who is no longer at the lab, in summer 2025  —  Leaders at Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab confronted the startup's cofounder and former CTO, Barret Zoph …
Financial Times:
OpenAI plans to test ads below ChatGPT replies for users of free and Go tiers in the US; source: OpenAI expects to make “low billions” from ads in 2026  —  $500bn start-up seeks ways to fund expansion and fend off competition from rivals Google and Anthropic
More: OpenAI, CNBC, The Verge, Ars Technica, Engadget, Axios, New York Times, Enterprise AI Trends, Digit, WebProNews, Search Engine Journal, The Guardian, Appleosophy, Tech in Asia, The American Bazaar, Neowin, The Indian Express, Communicate Online, 9to5Google, Notebookcheck, TestingCatalog, Deadline, BleepingComputer, Bloomberg, Fortune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Information, CNET, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nairametrics, AdTechRadar, Birchtree, Tom's Guide, Fast Company, Variety, PC Gamer, Business Insider, PPC Land, KGW-TV, Forbes Middle East, Vogue, KTVZ-TV, Barron's Online, CBS News, PCMag, Reuters, The Decoder, MediaPost, Sherwood News, Capital Brief, Implicator.ai, Adweek, The Economic Times, Mobile Dev Memo, Search Engine Land, BBC, Türkiye Today, NewsMax.com, Axios, The Deep View, Barrett Media, and Wired
Elissa Welle / The Verge:
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Anthropic appoints Irina Ghose, a former Microsoft India managing director, to lead its business in India, which has the second-largest user base for Claude  —  Anthropic has appointed Irina Ghose, a former Microsoft India managing director, to lead its India business as the U.S. AI startup prepares to open an office in Bengaluru.

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Cloudflare:
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