Techmeme
January 29, 2026, 5:15 AM

Top News

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:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
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:
Russell Brandom / TechCrunch:
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
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’
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 @mweinbachBluesky: @sdwThreads: @sdwMastodon: @gernot@mas.to
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 …
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 …
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.
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
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.
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  —  OpenAI is lining up huge checks from some of its biggest tech partners, as it seeks to raise up to $100 billion to fund growing demand for its AI.

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Earlier Picks

Robert Booth / The Guardian:
Marie Woolf / Globe and Mail:
Carl Zimmer / New York Times:
Mia Sato / The Verge: