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February 18, 2026, 2:05 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| The Keyword: |
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana-made cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages — The Gemini app now features our most advanced music generation model Lyria 3, empowering anyone to make 30-second tracks using text or images in beta.
More: Gizmodo, Thurrott, PCMag, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, The Verge, Ars Technica, Mercury News, SQ Magazine, Android Central, Mix 1049, Digital Trends, iPhone in Canada, MobileSyrup, Android Authority, Tom's Guide, Music Ally, Neowin, Campaign Middle East, Android Headlines, EFTM, and Sherwood News
X: @kimmonismus, @pyvrma, @marcelocaporale, @710_eth, @allan_d_clive, @ammaar, @jasonbaldridge, @_philschmid, @google, @googleai, @officiallogank, @synthwavedd, and @joshwoodward. LinkedIn: Debbie W.. Forums: r/singularity
| Abu Sultan / Reuters: |
Microsoft says it is on pace to invest $50B by 2030 to help expand AI across the Global South, after unveiling $17.5B worth of AI investments in India in 2025 — Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Wednesday said it is on pace to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to help expand AI to countries across the ‘Global South’.
More: Benzinga, DatacenterDynamics, Fortune India, CNN, Digit, Tech in Asia, Blockonomi, Hindustan Times, Economic news, and Business Today. Forums: r/technology
| Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: |
| Shruti Rajagopalan / Get Down and Shruti: |
More: Project Syndicate and Marginal Revolution
X: @mafernando, @apurvasanghi, @pramodbiligiri, @mattooshashank, @pranaykotas, @srajagopalan, and @seemasirohi
LinkedIn: Viren Mahurkar, Vasu Eda, and Shruti Rajagopalan
| Dylan Butts / CNBC: |
| Himanshi Lohchab / The Economic Times: |
| Todd Haselton / The Verge: |
Google unveils the $499 Pixel 10a, with a Tensor G4 and 8GB of RAM like the Pixel 9a, Satellite SOS, an 11% brighter screen, but no Pixelsnap, shipping March 4 — Google's midrange Pixels have been our top pick for budget Android phones for a while. They offer good cameras and most of what you need at a budget-friendly price.
More: The Keyword, Engadget, TechCrunch, Android Police, Livemint, Business Standard, Thurrott, Ars Technica, XDA Developers, Gizmodo, Engadget, Android Authority, MobileSyrup, Android Central, PhoneArena, Wired, Tom's Guide, Digit, The Shortcut, Trusted Reviews, iPhone in Canada, GSMArena.com, Notebookcheck, and The Hans India. X: @google
| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
Google expands Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold, after introducing it on the Pixel 10 in November 2025 — After introducing on the Pixel 10 last year, Google is expanding Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold.| Joe Miller / Financial Times: |
How US citizens, clergy, and elected officials in conservative communities like Missouri are leading a grassroots rebellion against the Trump-backed AI boom — Republicans fear backlash against White House agenda could undermine support in this year's midterm elections
X: @joemillerjr. Bluesky: @henrymance.ft.com, @justinhendrix, and @henrymance.ft.com. Forums: r/politics
| Alicia Tang / Bloomberg: |
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $1B from Autodesk, a16z, Nvidia, AMD, Sea, and others to build its world models for robotics, scientific discovery, and more — World Labs, a startup from artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a new round of funding to pursue a novel approach to AI development.| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Audible launches an “immersion reading” feature that lets readers switch between ebook and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries — Only days after Spotify announced its foray into physical book sales, which included an audiobook feature that lets …
More: Audible.com, Thurrott, ZDNET, 9to5Mac, The Verge, Publishers Weekly, TechRadar, Mashable, Jane Friedman, and Good e-Reader
| Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: |
Microsoft confirms a bug that let Microsoft 365 Copilot summarize confidential emails from Sent Items and Drafts folders, and deployed a fix in early February — Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January …
More: TechCrunch, PCWorld, Windows Latest, Inc.com, and Cyber Security News
| New York Times: |
Meta plans to spend $65M in 2025 to boost state politicians friendly to AI; filings: Meta started two super PACs, one backing the GOP and another for Democrats — Meta's biggest election investment aims to prevent state legislation that it fears could inhibit artificial intelligence development.| Leo Schwartz / Fortune: |
Sports-focused prediction market Novig raised a $75M Series B led by Pantera Capital at a $500M valuation; Novig is commission-free for retail traders — As the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket dominate the attention of investors and regulators, a sports-focused challenger called Novig …
More: Wall Street Journal, Forerunner, FinSMEs, Axios, Blockonomi, Ventureburn, Sports Business Journal, Forbes, Sportico, The Crypto Times, and Economic news
X: @franklinbi, @novig, and @masonnystrom
| Cristina Criddle / Financial Times: |
Perplexity says it has no plans to further pursue ads, which it introduced in 2024, after phasing them out in late 2025 over fears they would erode user trust — Leading start-ups have recently embraced sponsors as they search for revenue — AI start-up Perplexity has abandoned advertising … | Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz: |
Matthew Ball's State of Video Gaming 2026 report: global video game content sales grew 5.3% YoY to $195.6B in 2025 while job losses fell 40% YoY to 9,200 people — Private funding fell a further 55% last year, according to Epyllion's latest State of Video Gaming report
More: MatthewBall.co, PocketGamer.biz, and GamesBeat
X: @loudmouthjulia, @jamesekaplan, @jmoledina, @ballmatthew, @jonahblake, @ballmatthew, @ballmatthew, @ballmatthew, and @jonathanhawkins. LinkedIn: Jamil Moledina
Bluesky: @pedrothedagger, @mayteramarble, @felipepepe, and @hantani
| George Hammond / Financial Times: |
Sources: Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former Google DeepMind Principal Scientist David Silver, is raising a $1B seed led by Sequoia at a ~$4B valuation — Funding deal would value David Silver's start-up Ineffable Intelligence at $4bn — David Silver, one of Britain's top AI researchers …
More: The Economic Times, Telegraph, Sifted, David SIlver, Tech Funding News, Implicator.ai, Capacity, and Semafor. X: @etnshow
| Bloomberg: |
Saudi-backed AI startup Humain invested $3B in xAI, becoming a “significant minority shareholder” in a deal that completed just before SpaceX's xAI acquisition — Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence company Humain has invested $3 billion into Elon Musk's xAI … | Alex Heath / Sources: |
Sources: while Meta offered OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger more money than OpenAI, he ultimately aligned more closely with OpenAI's overall vibe and vision — Less than a week before he ultimately joined OpenAI, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger talked about the two job offers …
More: Inc, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, CNET, The Mac Observer, and MakeUseOf. Bluesky: @alexeheath.com
| Krystal Hur / Wall Street Journal: |
A Las Vegas federal appeals court rejects Kalshi's emergency bid for an administrative stay on Nevada's push to block the platform, a major setback for Kalshi — A federal appeals court rejected Kalshi's bid, setting the stage for Nevada's civil-enforcement proceedings| The Record: |
Texas AG Ken Paxton sues TP-Link, alleging it deceptively markets its products as secure while allowing the CCP to hack into consumers' devices — Texas is suing networking equipment company TP-Link Systems for allegedly allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to hack into consumers' devices …
More: Texas Attorney General, Engadget, StateScoop, PCMag, and Courthouse News Service
| Alexandre Rajbhandari / Bloomberg: |
Filings: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cut its Amazon stake by 75%+ to ~2.3M shares in Q4 2025; Berkshire bought 5.1M NYT shares, worth ~$352M in December — Berkshire Hathaway Inc. slashed its holding in Amazon.com Inc. by more than 75% in the fourth quarter, while also building …
More: International Business Times, 9to5Mac, Barron's Online, Watcher Guru, Reuters, 24/7 Wall St., Proactive, Telegraph, The Hollywood Reporter, CNBC, PropertyCasualty360, Sherwood News, MacDailyNews, MarketWatch, The Motley Fool, ZeroHedge News, Business Insider, Investopedia, and Wall Street Journal
| Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune: |
Cogent Security, which aims to use AI agents to decide which software bugs to remediate, raised a $42M Series A led by Bain, taking its total funding to $53M — Cogent Security has raised a $42 million Series A just six months after launch. Their bet? That AI agents can finally fix …
More: FinSMEs, Bain Capital Ventures, and SecurityWeek
X: @allisonbraley, @baincapvc, and @enriquesalem
| Eugene Kim / Business Insider: |
Sources: Amazon shut down Blue Jay, a multi-armed robotic system launched in October 2025 for same-day delivery warehouses, to focus on small modular warehouses — - Amazon halts Blue Jay robot project amid strategic shift in warehouse technology. — Blue Jay faced high costs and complexities … | Ram Iyer / TechCrunch: |
Kana, which builds AI marketing agents to perform data analysis, audience targeting, campaign management, and more, emerges from stealth and raised a $15M seed — Marketing is one of the few operations no industry can afford to ignore, which is why we have a veritable host of AI-powered marketing tools …
More: Business Wire
| Julia Black / Vanity Fair: |
OpenAI hires Instagram's VP of global partnerships, Charles Porch, as its first VP of global creative partnerships, seeking to win over a skeptical Hollywood — Charles Porch's newly created role as OpenAI's VP of global creative partnerships signals the AI giant's new focus on the entertainment industry| David Singleton / flurries of latent creativity: |
Dreamer, founded by former Stripe CTO David Singleton, Hugo Barra, and others, launches in beta to let technical and non-technical users build agentic AI apps — Dreamer is the name of the platform and company I started with Hugo, Nicholas and others a little over a year ago.
More: /dev/agents and Dreamer
X: @joannastern, @dps, @bentossell, @hbarra, @mikeyk, @dps, @paraga, @dps, @dreamer, and @dreamer
Bluesky: @martinsfp and @edzitron.com
| Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times: |
A look at China's push to become a world leader in brain-computer interfaces, as Shanghai-based startup NeuroXess moves to human trials with Beijing's backing — Looser regulation and new investment are helping groups such as NeuroXess accelerate trials of ‘brain-computer interfaces’Sponsor Posts
Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions — Introducing Superagent. A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
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Clay:
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Zoho:
Streamline payment collections in Singapore with PayNow and GrabPay — Under the “Smart Nation” initiative, Singapore is making a transformation towards cashless and quick payment options.
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IDrive:
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Big Technology Podcast:
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The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Invest Like the Best:
Josh Kushner - Concentration and Conviction
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Janice Min on Hollywood's Crisis; Reed Duchscher on the Creator Boom
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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The Social Radars:
Tom Blomfield, Partner, Y Combinator; Co-Founder, Monzo
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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Cheeky Pint:
Ramp founder Eric Glyman on the many ways AI is changing corporate spending
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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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