Techmeme
January 22, 2026, 9:15 PM

Top News

New York Times:
ByteDance strikes a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new TikTok US entity and avoid a federal ban, concluding a six-year legal saga  —  TikTok said on Thursday that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new U.S. TikTok …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Intel reports Q4 revenue down 4% YoY to $13.7B, vs. $13.4B est., Data Center and AI revenue up 9% to $4.7B, Q1 guidance below est.; INTC drops 12%+ after hours  —  Intel reported fourth-quarter earnings Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations but offered soft guidance for the current quarter.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple expanded the job of hardware chief John Ternus to manage design teams at the end of 2025, solidifying his status as a leading CEO candidate  —  Apple Inc. has expanded the job of hardware chief John Ternus to include design work, solidifying his status as a leading contender …
The Information:
A look at Craig Federighi's approach to AI at Apple; sources say he led a push to use other companies' models to help launch a revamped Siri later in 2026  —  Last fall, Apple's software chief, Craig Federighi, delivered a warm message to a meeting of the company's combined software and AI groups.
Wall Street Journal:
Capital One agrees to acquire Brex, which specializes in tech to administer corporate credit cards, expenses, and rewards, for $5.15B in cash and stock  —  Deal would give credit-card issuer access to technology used by thousands of companies for corporate credit cards
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Waymo launches its robotaxi service in Miami, its sixth market, initially covering a 60-square-mile area, and partners with Moove for fleet management  —  Alphabet's Waymo said Thursday that its robotaxi service is now open to paying riders in Miami, kicking off a 2026 market expansion.
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Elon Musk says Tesla launched robotaxi rides in Austin with no human safety driver; Tesla's AI lead says Tesla is “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles”  —  Tesla is offering passengers robotaxi rides in Austin without a human safety driver in the front seat.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
The curl project plans to end its HackerOne bug bounty program at the end of January, citing a surge in low-quality AI-generated vulnerability reports  —  The developer of the popular curl command-line utility and library announced that the project will end its HackerOne security bug bounty program …
Greg Bensinger / Reuters:
Sources: Amazon is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its goal of trimming 30,000 corporate workers, after cutting 14,000 jobs in October  —  Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its broader goal of trimming some 30,000 corporate workers …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out Personal Intelligence in AI Mode, an opt-in feature that uses Gmail and Photos data for more tailored responses, for US AI Pro and Ultra users  —  AI Mode, Google's conversational Search feature for complex questions, is getting more personalized.
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Google launches free SAT practice exams in the Gemini app, providing students with performance analysis and detailed explanations for incorrect answers  —  Prepping for the SAT is nobody's idea of fun, but Google aims to make it less stressful with AI.  The company announced that it's …
On Substack:
Substack launches its Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV in beta for free and paid subscribers, with access matched to their current subscription levels  —  Today we're launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV.  Substack is the home for the best longform …
Laura Mandaro / The Information:
Yelp acquires Hatch, which charges a monthly fee for AI-powered agents that can respond to customer inquiries and make appointments, for $300M  —  Recommendation app Yelp on Wednesday said it agreed to acquire AI agent startup Hatch for $300 million, or roughly 12 times the startup's annual recurring revenue.
New York Times:
NYT and CCDH analysis: Grok created and shared 1.8M+ sexualized images of women between December 31 and January 8, after Elon Musk promoted the feature on X  —  Over nine days, Elon Musk's Grok chatbot generated and posted 4.4 million images, of which at least 41 percent were sexualized images of women.
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Cate Blanchett, Cyndi Lauper, and 800+ creatives launch “Stealing Isn't Innovation” to protest unauthorized AI training, backed by RIAA, SAG-AFTRA, and others  —  Cate Blanchett, Cyndi Lauper, George Saunders, and other creatives say that AI companies are …
Agnee Ghosh / Bloomberg:
Inferact, founded by the creators of vLLM to support and commercialize the open-source inference engine, raised a $150M seed led by a16z at an $800M valuation  —  Inferact, an AI startup formed by the creators of open-source software vLLM, has raised $150 million in a seed funding round that values the company at $800 million.
Caiwei Chen / MIT Technology Review:
Q&A with Yann LeCun on his new Paris-based startup Advanced Machine Intelligence, leaving Meta, real-world applications for world models, robotics, and more  —  Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in the tech world.
More: WebProNews and Sifted
LinkedIn: Caiwei Chen and Yann LeCun
Robb M. Stewart / Wall Street Journal:
Autodesk plans to cut about 1,000 jobs, or ~7% of its workforce, as part of a global restructuring plan seeking to strengthen sales and marketing  —  The move is the final phase of efforts by the maker of AutoCAD to streamline customer engagement and bolster its sales channels.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify expands its AI-powered Prompted Playlists beta to Premium subscribers in the US and Canada, following initial testing in New Zealand  —  Spotify is rolling out Prompted Playlists, a new AI playlist creation tool, to Premium subscribers in the U.S. and Canada.

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Will Knight / Wired:
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