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February 1, 2026, 1:10 PM
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| Wall Street Journal: |
Documents and sources: Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan backed a $500M investment for a 49% stake in WLF, four days before Trump's inauguration — $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips
More: The Block, Bitcoin Insider, Bloomberg, Telegraph, Raw Story, Cointelegraph, and To the Contrary
X: @tomcolicchio, @senwarren, @superwuster, @jefftimmer, @repyassansari, @houseforeign, @kenvogel, @janemayernyer, @rebeccaballhaus, @kengardner11, @tvietor08, @sruhle, @mattyglesias, @darrigomelanie, @benjysarlin, @rebeccaballhaus, @jaynordlinger, @mpolymer, @mcfaul, @luismorenolg, and @skesslr
Bluesky: @naomioreskes, @nicholasgrossman, @wendysiegelman, @thetnholler, @carlquintanilla, @socialmedialab.ca, and @anno1540. Threads: @ronaldfilipkowski
Mastodon: @wendysiegelman@mastodon … and @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org
Forums: r/IRstudies, r/ABoringDystopia, r/TrueReddit, r/allinpodofficial, and r/politics
| Zijing Wu / Financial Times: |
A look at China's “genius class” system, which picks ~100K gifted teens annually for elite science-focused schooling; its alumni span ByteDance, PDD, and more — About three years ago, Stacey Tang, a manager in a pharmaceuticals company in Beijing, received a peculiar phone call.| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Apple execs question if it has the ingredients to win in AI-first era, new MacBook Pros are about to launch, Apple considers clamshell foldable iPhone — Apple's blockbuster holiday quarter was impressive — but it shouldn't give cover to avoid an AI reckoning.
More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Forbes, AppleInsider, MacRumors, and Digital Trends
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: |
Inside Physical Intelligence, a startup co-founded by Stripe veteran Lachy Groom that is building general-purpose robotics foundation models and has raised $1B+ — From the street, the only indication I've found Physical Intelligence's headquarters in San Francisco is a pi symbol that's … | Matthew Gault / 404 Media: |
A researcher says an exposed Moltbook database could have let anyone take control of the site's AI agents and post anything; the database has since been secured — Moltbook is a “social media” site for AI agents that's captured the public's imagination over the last few days.
More: Financial Times, moltbook, Ars Technica, The Decoder, Implicator.ai, Cyber Security News, New York Post, Livemint, Simon Willison's Newsletter, and WinBuzzer
X: @theonejvo, @theonejvo, @theonejvo, @lea_kelbsch, @mattprd, @theonejvo, @theonejvo, @theonejvo, and @karpathy
LinkedIn: Jim Amos, Paul McCarty, Rico Komenda, Andrea Tessera, and Chris H.
Bluesky: @andytseng, @jbakcoleman, @markriedl, @404media.co, @mjgault, and @jasonkoebler
Mastodon: @jerry@infosec.exchange, @gedankenstuecke@scholar …, @timnitGebru@dair …, and @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org
Forums: r/OpenAI, r/singularity, and r/LocalLLaMA
| Andrew Zucker / Wall Street Journal: |
A look at iOS 26's call-screening feature, which some compare to an executive assistant filter unwanted calls, as others complain it makes people hard to reach — Thanks to a new iPhone feature, everyone now has an executive assistant in their pocket to filter unwanted calls
More: Business Insider. X: @laurenshirsch, @evankirstel, @bensign, and @jshmuel. Bluesky: @katienotopoulos
| Reuters: |
India to exempt foreign companies from being taxed when providing equipment to their contract manufacturers in the country, a rule change Apple lobbied for — India's government on Sunday handed a major win to Apple (AAPL.O) by allowing foreign companies to provide machines …
More: Business Today and Reuters
| Matteo Wong / The Atlantic: |
Anthropic positions itself as the AI sector's superego, but it's caught between the pressures to be safe, fast, and rigorous while being commercially successful — These are not the words you want to hear when it comes to human extinction, but I was hearing them: “Things are moving uncomfortably fast.”| Jin Yu Young / New York Times: |
Indonesia lifts its ban on Grok after receiving a letter from X “outlining concrete steps” to prevent misuse; Indonesia was the first country to ban Grok — Indonesia joined Malaysia and the Philippines in reversing its restrictions, weeks after it blocked the chatbot …
More: Engadget, TechCrunch, Livemint, Reuters, Nairametrics, and Bloomberg
| Reuters: |
Filing: SpaceX is seeking US FCC approval to launch 1M satellites; SpaceX claims that they will orbit the Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers — Elon Musk's SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of 1 million satellites that will orbit Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers …
More: The Verge, Tom's Hardware, GeekWire, BBC, TechCrunch, SpaceNews, CleanTechnica, Nairametrics, The Information, Bloomberg, Engadget, DatacenterDynamics, Cosmic Log, Cord Cutters News, PCMag, BGR, and Reuters
Forums: r/technology, r/wallstreetbets, and r/SpaceXLounge
| Trishla Ostwal / Adweek: |
OpenAI says it is asking select advertisers to commit $200K+ as it rolls out beta ads on ChatGPT; two sources say their companies were pitched lower amounts — OpenAI is asking select advertisers to commit at least $200,000 as it rolls out beta ads on ChatGPT, the company confirmed to ADWEEK.
More: BleepingComputer and TestingCatalog
| Nicole Fan / Rest of World: |
Chinese government funding is backing traditional Chinese medicine providers to adopt AI for drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, acupuncture robots, and more — With backing from the Chinese government, TCM practitioners are integrating AI tools to reach new consumers at home and abroad.| Alan Boyle / GeekWire: |
Amazon asks the FCC for a 2-year extension until July 30, 2028, to deploy half of the 3,232 satellites for its Leo internet system, citing a rocket shortage — Amazon says it's been harder than expected to secure rides for its Amazon Leo broadband internet satellites, and now it's asking … | Ann Cao / South China Morning Post: |
Sources: Alibaba has delivered more than 100K units of the Zhenwu 810E, an ASIC for AI training and inference, surpassing those of its domestic rival Cambricon — The milestone underscores Alibaba's growing footprint in AI hardware, as Chinese firms accelerate efforts to build home-grown processorsSponsor Posts
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Zoho:
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IDrive:
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Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
Hard Fork:
'A.I.-Washing' Layoffs? + Why L.L.M.s Can't Write Well + Tokenmaxxing
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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The Social Radars:
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Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
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The Upstarts Podcast:
Star Catcher's Andrew Rush: Harnessing The Sun To Build The First Energy Grid In Space
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Why Countries Go to War
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
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Great Chat:
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A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Everybody Goes Home: How technology is helping prevent wildfires from spreading
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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