Techmeme
January 26, 2026, 5:45 AM

Top News

Reece Rogers / Wired:
TikTok presents users in the US with a new privacy policy; the changes were part of the app's US ownership transition and now allow precise location tracking  —  According to its new privacy policy, TikTok now collects more data on its users, including their precise location …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A deep dive into Apple's AI strategy reset, as it prepares to announce a Gemini-powered personalized Siri next month and a reimagined chatbot-like Siri at WWDC  —  Apple shakes up its AI efforts with a Google partnership, management changes and two new versions of Siri.
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Quantum computing company IonQ acquires US chipmaker SkyWater for ~$1.8B, paying $35/share, in IonQ's biggest deal yet; SkyWater will operate as a subsidiary  —  IonQ works with the U.S. government and has been on a deal spree  —  Quantum-computing company IonQ struck a deal …
Jason Lemkin / SaaStr:
Many AI founders now find it necessary to raise at valuations requiring absolute domination of the field; Brex, once valued at $12B, shows the downsides of this  —  Capital One just announced it's acquiring Brex for $5.15 billion.  An incredible, top .1% “exit” in less than 10 years …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank halts talks about a ~$50B acquisition of US data center operator Switch, a setback to Masayoshi Son's goal to roll out Stargate infrastructure  —  SoftBank Group Corp. has halted talks about an acquisition of US data center operator Switch Inc., a setback …
Nat Rubio-Licht / The Deep View:
London-based enterprise AI video startup Synthesia raised a $200M Series E led by GV at a $4B valuation, up from $2.1B after raising $180M in January 2025  —  W  —  hile AI video generators like OpenAI's Sora, Google's Veo, and Kling are best known for creating “AI slop” …
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Microsoft confirms it does provide BitLocker recovery keys for encrypted data if it receives a valid legal order and the user has stored the keys on its servers  —  The tech giant said it receives around 20 requests for BitLocker keys a year and will provide them to governments in response to valid court orders.
Bethan Staton / Financial Times:
A profile of Mercor, which pays ~$2M per day to ~30K experts training AI models at $95 per hour on average, with roles like radiologists earning up to $375/hour  —  Tens of thousands of professionals are joining tech start-up Mercor to hone technology in their skills  —  At first Lola thought the job ads were fake.
More: Quartz

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