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February 4, 2026, 1:40 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Anthropic: |
Anthropic says “Claude will remain ad-free”, its users “won't see ‘sponsored’ links adjacent to” conversations, and responses won't be influenced by advertisers — There are many good places for advertising. A conversation with Claude is not one of them.
More: The Verge, CNET, Engadget, Search Engine Land, MediaPost, iPhone in Canada, Android Headlines, Sherwood News, Cautious Optimism, The Drum, Axios, CNBC, Business Today, The Hans India, Livemint, and The Decoder
X: @tszzl, @luke_metro, @miles_brundage, @netcapgirl, @protagorasto, @cryps1s, @presidentlin, @packym, @zephyr_z9, @sashadem, @andrewcurran_, @bdsams, @morqon, @adamghaida, @claudeai, @madalinabalazs, @sammcallister, @tekbog, @kimmonismus, @dwr, @dejavucoder, @can, @kylebrussell, and @jerrycap. LinkedIn: Gabriel Nicholas
Bluesky: @harri, @peark.es, and @emilprotalinski
Forums: Hacker News, r/ClaudeAI, r/singularity, and Slashdot
| Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal: |
Anthropic plans a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl that parodies the prospect of intrusive ads in AI conversations, and will also air a 60-second pregame ad — Chatbot wars are heating up, with Anthropic's Claude highlighting the potential frustration of bringing ads into ChatGPT
More: Anthropic on YouTube, PCMag, Anthropic on YouTube, Thurrott, Semafor, Neowin, Inc.com, 9to5Mac, Mashable, Business Insider, Anthropic on YouTube, Ad Age, USA Today, ABC News, Adweek, Syracuse Post-Standard, The Verge, The Mac Observer, Anthropic on YouTube, Destructoid, and Creative Salon
X: @zeffmax, @kate_rouch, @claudeai, @pitdesi, and @tomwarren
Forums: r/ClaudeAI and r/singularity
| Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: |
Uber says it plans to expand its robotaxi services to Hong Kong, Madrid, Houston, and Zurich in 2026; Hong Kong will be Uber's first autonomous market in Asia — Uber Technologies Inc. will expand its robotaxi services to include Hong Kong and Madrid as the ride-hailing giant pours hundreds …
More: Silicon Republic, The Autopian, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, Sherwood News, and Blockonomi. Forums: r/SelfDrivingCars
| Connor Hart / Wall Street Journal: |
More: Uber, US consumer Feed, CFO Dive, CNBC, Financial Times, and Reuters
X: @_balaji_km and @thetranscript_
| Ram Iyer / TechCrunch: |
| Ian King / Bloomberg: |
AI chipmaker Cerebras raised a ~$1B Series H led by Tiger Global at a $23B valuation, up from $8.1B in September 2025; Benchmark, Fidelity, and AMD invested too — AI chip provider Cerebras Systems Inc. has raised about $1 billion in a new funding round, bolstering the company's efforts to compete with Nvidia Corp.| Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge: |
Amazon rolls out Alexa+ to all Prime members in the US via any Alexa-enabled device, Alexa.com, and the Alexa app, and launches a free tier for non-Prime users — Amazon's revamped AI-powered assistant is now available to everyone in the US, with new tiers that include a free option for non-Prime users.
More: About Amazon, TechCrunch, How-To Geek, Thurrott, Engadget, AppleInsider, PCMag, PCWorld, GeekWire, 9to5Mac, Proactive, CNBC, Bloomberg, iClarified, Droid Life, Mashable, Neowin, Tom's Guide, and 9to5Toys
| Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal: |
AI voice startup ElevenLabs raised a $500M Series D led by Sequoia at an $11B valuation, taking its total funding to nearly $800M, and reports $330M in 2025 ARR — The startup is increasingly joining with creative stars and expanding its work with business customers
More: Bloomberg, PYMNTS.com, Tech.eu, Reuters, TechCrunch, Sifted, Blockchain.News, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Tech Funding News
LinkedIn: David Lu and Kate Clark
| Nick Turner / Bloomberg: |
Texas Instruments agrees to acquire US chip company Silicon Labs for ~$7.5B, paying $231/share in cash, closing in H1 2027; Silicon Labs has a ~$4.5B market cap — Texas Instruments Inc. has reached an agreement to buy the US chip firm Silicon Laboratories Inc. for about $7.5 billion …
More: Fierce Sensors, Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Business Journal, Austin Business Journal, eWeek, Axios, Texas Instruments, Techstrong IT, DatacenterDynamics, Pulse 2.0, Motley Fool, Investor's Business Daily, Dallas Morning News, Reuters, The Stack, Barron's Online, Wall Street Journal, Hackster, Yahoo Finance, and Bloomberg Law. Bluesky: @drsmith
| Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk: |
A US judge sentences Rui-Siang Lin, who pled guilty to operating the $105M+ dark web narcotics marketplace Incognito Market, to 30 years in US federal prison — U.S. prosecutors say the Taiwanese operator of the $105 Million Incognito Market used cryptocurrency and anonymity tools …
More: US Department of Justice, The Verge, Help Net Security, The Block, Decrypt, Coinspeaker, Cryptonews, and BleepingComputer. X: @sdnynews
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Microsoft says cybersecurity head Charlie Bell will move into a position focused on engineering quality; Hayete Gallot will return from Google to run security — Microsoft said Wednesday that top security leader Charlie Bell will take on a new role and that Hayete Gallot will return …
More: Microsoft, Bloomberg, GeekWire, Thurrott, The Information, The Verge, and Business Insider
LinkedIn: Charlie Bell and Vasu Jakkal
| BBC: |
Pinterest fires two employees who it says “wrote custom scripts” that accessed confidential info to track which workers lost their jobs during recent layoffs — Pinterest has sacked two engineers for tracking which workers lost their jobs in a recent round of layoffs.| The Information: |
Sources: Amazon and OpenAI are discussing a deal that could require OpenAI to dedicate its researchers and engineers to developing customized models for Amazon — As Amazon weighs an equity investment of tens of billions of dollars in OpenAI, the companies are also discussing a commercial agreement … | Rebekah Valentine / IGN: |
Q&A with Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone, aka ConcernedApe, on the game turning 10, evolving as a developer, working solo, cozy game growth, and more — We spoke to the game's creator about the journey of the last 10 years, and why he keeps returning to the valley.
More: PC Gamer and Gamereactor UK
| Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg: |
Resolve AI, which offers AI agents to monitor source code, databases, and infrastructure to address outages, raised $125M led by Lightspeed at a $1B valuation — Resolve AI, a startup building AI agents to find and fix problems in live software systems, just hit a $1 billion valuation in a new funding round.
More: FinSMEs and Resolve AI
| Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times: |
Bedrock, which aims to automate heavy construction equipment like excavators, raised $270M led by CapitalG and the Valor Atreides AI Fund at a $1.75B valuation — The year-old company, founded by veterans of the autonomous vehicle business Waymo, is seeking to automate excavators and other building equipment.
More: The Economic Times, RoboticsTomorrow.com, and Ventureburn
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
GitHub integrates Claude and Codex AI coding agents directly into GitHub, GitHub Mobile, and Visual Studio Code, for Copilot Pro Plus and Enterprise users — Microsoft-owned GitHub continues to embrace OpenAI and Anthropic AI advances. … GitHub is making Claude by Anthropic …
More: The New Stack, The GitHub Blog, The GitHub Blog, and The GitHub Blog. Bluesky: @tomwarren.co.uk
| Jill R Shah / Financial Times: |
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says Tether's target of raising $15B to $20B was a “misconception”; sources say Tether's advisers have floated raising as little as $5B — CEO Paolo Ardoino downplays the scale of $185bn stablecoin group's capital raise
More: Decrypt, Reuters, NewsBTC, Yahoo Finance, The Crypto Times, Bitcoin Insider, The Block, Cointelegraph, crypto.news, and Crypto Briefing. Bluesky: @staffordphilip
| Simon Sharwood / The Register: |
Tencent Cloud, DigitalOcean, and Alibaba Cloud add OpenClaw support, offering users the AI agent platform as a service; many OpenClaw users run it on a Mac mini — As analyst house Gartner declares AI tool ‘comes with unacceptable cybersecurity risk’ and urges admins to snuff it out
More: Rest of World and Implicator.ai
| Ian King / Bloomberg: |
AMD reports Q4 revenue up 34% YoY to $10.3B, Data Center revenue up 39% YoY to $5.4B, and forecasts Q1 revenue at $9.8B, below $10B projections; AMD drops 15%+ — Advanced Micro Devices Inc. suffered its worst stock decline in more than seven years after the chipmaker's sales forecast underwhelmed investors …
More: The Motley Fool, IGN, Advanced Micro Devices, Comic Book, TheGamer, Fortune, Morningstar, WePC, The Register, and Constellation Research
X: @danielnewmanuv, @jukan05, @tbu12345678, @mentoviax, @stocksavvyshay, @thexcapitalist, @mar364503, @thetranscript_, @thetranscript_, @contrariancurse, @stocksavvyshay, @ryanshrout, @iancutress, @iancutress, @economyapp, @theaustinlyons, @beth_kindig, @benbajarin, and @stocksavvyshay. Forums: r/hardware
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
More: GamesBeat, Video Games Chronicle, Engadget, T3, Tom's Hardware, Thurrott, PCWorld, VideoCardz.com, HotHardware, Mirror, Screen Rant, Game Developer, Dexerto, GamingBolt, iPhone in Canada, Pure Xbox, Business Standard, Digital Trends, Neowin, Digit, Gameranx, PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, 80 Level, Gamereactor UK, and TheGamer
Forums: r/gaming, r/hardware, r/xbox, and r/Games
| Leo Schwartz / Fortune: |
TRM Labs, which helps law enforcement and companies track crypto and blockchains, raised a $70M Series C led by Blockchain Capital at a $1B valuation — When TRM Labs cofounders Esteban Castaño and Rahul Raina moved to San Francisco in 2018 to create a startup, their mentors told … | Sabrina Ortiz / The Deep View: |
Mistral debuts Voxtral Transcribe 2, a family of speech-to-text models with speaker diarization and ultra-low latency, under the Apache 2.0 open-weight license — AI assistants are going voice-first, and Mistral AI just launched its models to compete. — On Wednesday, the French AI startup … | Chris Tapsell / Eurogamer.net: |
An interview with Epic Games Store VP Steven Allison, who says “we have a lot of things” to fix and “the launcher sucks”, on 2026 updates like social features — Steven Allison acknowledges some people will always say “F— Epic", as focus finally shifts to player experience.| Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: |
A profile of game studio Obsidian, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, as it seeks to shorten development times and cut costs after releasing three titles in 2025 — Microsoft's Obsidian Entertainment is searching for ways to make games more quickly and on smaller budgets.
More: The Guardian, Polygon.com, Gamereactor UK, Gameranx, 80 Level, Screen Rant, GamesBeat, Video Games Chronicle, and PlayStation LifeStyle
Bluesky: @jasonschreier, @jasonschreier, @knoebel, and @toadsanime.lostincult.co.uk
Forums: r/projecteternity, r/rpg_gamers, r/GroundedGame, r/avowed, r/theouterworlds, r/kindafunny, r/gaming, r/PS5, and r/xbox
| Wall Street Journal: |
Software and data stocks plunge over fears that new AI developments will supplant software; ADBE fell 7.31%, CRM 6.85%, and Thomson Reuters 15.83% on Tuesday — From Legalzoom.com and Expedia to Ares and Apollo, shares of companies that sell or invest in software fell sharply on Tuesday
More: Reuters, Chainstory, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Financial Times, GeekWire, Bloomberg, New York Times, Reuters, campaignlive.com, Shacknews, Yahoo Finance, Implicator.ai, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Constellation Research, Barron's Online, Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, Axios, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, The Straits Times, Australian Financial Review, The Times, The Irish Times, Sydney Morning Herald, ZeroHedge News, CNBC, and Financial Times
X: @thestalwart, @aakashgupta, @thetranscript_, @erikbryn, @garrytan, @cashflow_cowboy, @lisaabramowicz1, @daniellefong, @lisaabramowicz1, @berman66, @lizthomasstrat, @chris_ciaccia, @thegeorgepu, @firstadopter, @jerrycap, @andreassteno, @byrnehobart, @8teapi, @stevehou, @dorialexander, @buccocapital, @quantian1, @kwharrison13, @thestalwart, @ericosiu, @saxena_puru, @hedgevision, @kimmonismus, @hedgevision, @buccocapital, @arthur0x, and @thestalwart. Forums: Hacker News
| Financial Times: |
Sources: the US Commerce Department finished reviewing Nvidia's H200 China license, but the State Department wants tougher restrictions, delaying final approval — The state department has pushed for close scrutiny before approving export licences — Michael Acton in San Francisco …
More: Benzinga, The Information, Asia Financial, and AsiaOne
| Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal: |
Recon Analytics: Copilot's US market share as paid users' first choice fell from 18.8% in July 2025 to 11.5% in January 2026; Gemini's rose from 12.8% to 15.7% — Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running Into Big Problems After leaning on its partnership with OpenAI, Microsoft is playing catch-up in the chatbot race.| Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch: |
Roblox launches a 4D creation feature in open beta, allowing creators to generate interactive objects with individual moving parts rather than static 3D models — Last year, Roblox launched an open-source AI model that could generate 3D objects on the platform, helping users quickly design digital items …
More: GamesIndustry.biz, The Verge, GamesBeat, Reuters, and Roblox
| Max Knoblauch / Sherwood News: |
Take-Two reports Q3 net bookings up 28% YoY to $1.76B, vs. $1.58B est., net revenue up 25% YoY to $1.7B, and raises its annual bookings forecast; TTWO drops ~5% — “Grand Theft Auto” and “NBA 2K” maker Take-TwoTTWO $223.50 (-4.23%) reported results for its fiscal third quarter on Tuesday.| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Adobe reverses its plans to discontinue Animate after creators expressed frustration, saying it won't get new features but will remain available “indefinitely” — It won't get new features, but it will still be available. … Adobe is no longer planning to discontinue Adobe Animate on March 1st.
More: TechCrunch, PCMag, Creative Bloq, DevClass.com, Neowin, iPhone in Canada, Digit, and 80 Level
X: @culturecrave, @ivangbm, @risefallnickbck, @mesh, @jumpnjetz, @adobe, @mesh, @beatlejase, @freddieelsom, @thetomska, @jsheps, @mesh, @rjdoesvr, @thecomputerclan, @lavenderflamess, and @tristandavisart
Bluesky: @jeanedouardsix, @thetrin.blacksky.app, @blueneumann, @viridianth, and @radiodeadair.com
Forums: r/adobeanimate and Slashdot
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