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January 29, 2026, 5:06 AM
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Microsoft:
Microsoft reports Q2 revenue up 17% YoY to $81.27B, above $80.27B est., net income up 60% YoY to $38.5B, and Microsoft Cloud revenue up 26% YoY to $51.5B  —  Microsoft Cloud and AI Strength Drives Second Quarter Results  —  REDMOND, Wash. — January 28, 2026 — Microsoft Corp. today announced …
Reuters:
Microsoft reports Azure Q2 revenue up 39% YoY, above 38.8% est.; Microsoft cloud's contracted backlog grew 110% to $625B, ~45% of which came from OpenAI alone
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft Q2 gaming revenue fell 9% YoY, including a 32% drop in Xbox hardware revenue and a 5% decline in Xbox content and services, which includes Game Pass
Meta:
Meta reports Q4 revenue up 24% YoY to $59.9B, vs. $58.35B est., net income up 9% to $22.8B, and family DAP up 7% to 3.58B for December; META up 6%+ pre-market  —  Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025.
Bloomberg:
Meta expects 2026 capex at between $115B to $135B, compared with a $110.6B analyst estimate and $72.2B in 2025, driven by investments in Superintelligence Labs  —  Meta Platforms Inc.'s better-than-expected sales outlook helped ease Wall Street concerns about plans for unprecedented spending on artificial intelligence this year.
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Meta reports Reality Labs Q4 revenue of $955M, vs. $940.8M est., and a $6.02B operating loss, vs. $5.67B est.; Reality Labs now has $75B+ in losses since 2020
Russell Brandom / TechCrunch:
In Meta's Q4 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg says it plans to start shipping new models and products throughout 2026 and hints at “agentic shopping tools”
Connor Jones / The Register:
Security researchers warn Moltbot, previously Clawdbot, requires a specialist skillset to use safely, as data exposure risks persist even when set up correctly  —  The massively hyped agentic personal assistant has security experts wondering why anyone would install it
Kyle Kucharski / ZDNET:
Google updates Gemini in Chrome with a new side panel, an auto browse feature that can navigate pages and take actions for AI Pro and AI Ultra users, and more  —  ZDNET's key takeaways  — Google Chrome is being upgraded with Gemini 3 and a revamped sidepanel UX.
Kara Carlson / Bloomberg:
Tesla agrees to invest $2B in xAI for preferred shares as part of xAI's Series E, despite a shareholder vote in November 2025 that failed to win approval  —  Tesla Inc. reported fourth-quarter profit that surpassed expectations, showing the automaker is making progress toward overcoming rising costs …
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Google says it took legal action to take down dozens of domains and disrupt the residential proxy network of Chinese company Ipidea, widely used by bad actors  —  Company targets global network employed by hackers that often use devices running in homes of everyday Americans
Hannah Lang / Reuters:
Sources: the White House will meet with banks and crypto firms on Monday to discuss a path forward for crypto legislation stalled by a clash between the sectors  —  The White House on Monday will meet with executives from the banking and cryptocurrency industries to discuss a path forward …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Sebastiaan de With, co-founder of iPhone camera app Halide and who previously freelanced for Apple, says he has joined Apple's Human Interface Design team  —  Halide and Lux co-founder and designer Sebastiaan de With announced today that he is joining Apple's human interface design team.
More: MacRumors, AppleInsider, The Mac Observer, The Verge, and Engadget
X: @sdw, @cultofmac, and @mweinbach.  Bluesky: @sdw.  Threads: @sdw.  Mastodon: @gernot@mas.to
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
US-based AI startup Arcee releases Trinity Large, a 400B-parameter open-weight model that it says compares to Meta's Llama 4 Maverick 400B on some benchmarks  —  Many in the industry think the winners of the AI model market have already been decided: Big Tech will own it (Google, Meta …
Tom Knowles / The Guardian:
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority bans some Coinbase ads, finding them “irresponsible” for suggesting crypto as a solution to the cost of living crisis  —  Advertising Standards Authority says firm advised by George Osborne ‘trivialised risks of cryptocurrency’
Dylan Butts / CNBC:
SK Hynix announces a new US-based “AI Company” from a restructuring of its California-based subsidiary Solidigm, and commits at least $10B to the new entity  —  South Korean memory giant SK Hynix announced Wednesday that it will set up a new U.S.-based company focused …
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
IBM reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to $19.7B, above $19.2B est., and projects 2026 revenue growth and free cash flow above estimates; IBM jumps 8%+  —  International Business Machines Corp. reported quarterly sales that topped analysts' estimates on strong growth for its closely watched software unit.
Anna Tong / Forbes:
Sources: OpenAI is considering using biometric verification like World's eyeball scanning Orb for its planned social network to ensure its users are real people  —  OpenAI is quietly building a social network and considering using biometric verification like World's eyeball scanning orb …
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Fidelity Investments announces its own stablecoin, the Fidelity Digital Dollar, or FIDD, available to institutional and retail clients in the coming weeks  —  Fidelity Investments, one of the largest asset managers on the planet, announced on Wednesday it will launch its own stablecoin.
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
A federal judge in Virginia ruled that Norfolk's use of ~200 Flock automated license plate scanners is constitutional and doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment  —  A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that the City of Norfolk's use of nearly 200 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) …
Forums: Ars OpenForum
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal:
The US construction industry is adopting AI tools to improve project management and support site managers and foremen; IDC says 60% of firms use some form of AI  —  New AI tools are helping managers stay on top of the complex processes underpinning an exploding sector
Wired:
The US DHS confirms NEC is the vendor that sold Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app used by federal immigration agents to identify people, to CBP and ICE  —  Immigration agents have used Mobile Fortify to scan the faces of countless people in the US—including many citizens.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:06 AM ET, January 29, 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

Barbara Moens / Financial Times:
Sources: the EU is set to approve Paramount's $111B WBD takeover provided the company accepts certain remedies, the details of which are still being worked out

Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
Sony Pictures Entertainment invests $100M in Cosm, a startup specializing in immersive, large-screen theaters, which has partnerships with NBCUniversal and WBD

Ethan Millman / The Hollywood Reporter:
Court docs: Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino spoke with President Trump in the weeks before the company settled with the DOJ in its monopoly lawsuit

More News

Sri Muppidi / The Information:
Sources: OpenAI is in talks to raise up to $30B from Nvidia, less than $10B from Microsoft, and $10B-$20B from Amazon as part of a $100B funding round

Earlier Picks

Robert Booth / The Guardian:
The UK CMA proposes measures to let publishers opt out of content scraping for Google's AI Overviews and AI training without losing visibility in search results
Marie Woolf / Globe and Mail:
Canada says it is talking to Meta to restore news to Facebook and Instagram as the Online News Act is put on the table as part of trade negotiations with the US
Carl Zimmer / New York Times:
Google DeepMind researchers unveil AlphaGenome, an AI model trained on molecular data to predict 11 different genomic processes, such as gene splicing
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Snap launches a wholly-owned subsidiary called Specs Inc. for its upcoming AR glasses, in a bid to facilitate minority investment and offer distinct branding
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