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February 20, 2026, 9:45 AM
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| Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times: |
Sources: Amazon's AI tools have caused at least two AWS outages, including a 13-hour disruption in December after Kiro AI deleted and recreated an environment — Tech giant blames ‘user error, not AI error’ for incident in December involving its Kiro tool — Amazon's cloud unit has suffered …
More: Reuters, MarketWatch, Tom's Guide, The Decoder, Sherwood News, TechRadar, The Information, Proactive, Economic news, Capacity, and Tech in Asia
X: @edzitron. LinkedIn: Chris Redmond. Bluesky: @somewhattolerable.com, @joshuafoust.com, @robbowley.net, @joeydantoni.com, @theecatservant, @davidgerard.co.uk, @techviews, @impemboganecue, @jennifercobbe, @crusaderproject, @edzitron.com, @doubleohkevin, @derek.space, @runakog, @gregpak.net, @measuredandslow, @parismarx.com, @segatape, @brunodias, @maxvonthun, @taryndevere, @malwarejake, and @fack. Mastodon: @acdha@code4lib.social
Forums: r/programming and r/webdev
| Robert Burnson / Bloomberg: |
A US grand jury indicted two former Google engineers and one of their husbands for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to the Tensor chip for Pixel phones — Two former Google engineers and one of their husbands were indicted for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to the company's Tensor processor for Pixel phones.| Alex Heath / Sources: |
Scott Myers, the SVP of Snap's AR glasses unit Specs, leaves after six years; sources say Myers left after a “blow-up” with Evan Spiegel over Snap's strategy — My chat with CEO Dylan Field ahead of today's earnings call. Also: Snap loses its head of Specs right before the big launch … | Financial Times: |
Sources: Nvidia is close to finalizing an up to $30B investment into OpenAI, replacing 2025's long-term $100B commitment; the deal could be closed this weekend — Chipmaker swaps last year's complex framework with AI start-up in favour of equity cheque — Nvidia is close to finalising …
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| Maxwell Zeff / Wired: |
Perplexity's retreat from ads signals a strategic shift as it recognizes its product is not for a mass audience and expects growth to come from enterprise sales — The AI search startup once predicted advertising would be a massive business. Now it's betting on a smaller, more valuable audience.| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Meta says it is “explicitly separating” Quest VR from its Worlds platform, making Worlds “almost exclusively mobile” to better compete with Roblox and Fortnite — Horizon Worlds is now going to be a platform that's ‘almost exclusively mobile.’
More: Meta, PocketGamer.biz, UploadVR, GamesBeat, Business Insider, Engadget, Digital Trends, and Kotaku
| James O'Donnell / MIT Technology Review: |
Microsoft's AI safety team proposed technical standards for detecting AI-generated content, but its CSO declined to commit to using them across its platforms — AI-enabled deception now permeates our online lives. There are the high-profile cases you may easily spot …
More: The Decoder, NextBigWhat, Microsoft Research, Microsoft, and Microsoft Research
| Nikkei Asia: |
Sources: SoftBank plans to form a consortium to build a $33B power plant in Ohio, set to produce 9.2 GW for AI data centers, as part of the US-Japan trade deal — TOKYO — SoftBank Group will form a consortium to carry out a $33 billion gas-fired power plant project in the U.S. …
More: Bloomberg and TechCrunch
| Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: |
Sony shuts down Bluepoint Games, the PlayStation subsidiary behind remakes of older games like Demon's Souls and Uncharted; ~70 employees will lose their jobs — The PlayStation subsidiary previously made remakes of games like 'Demon's Souls' — Sony Group Corp. is shutting down Bluepoint Games …
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LinkedIn: Rich Vogel and Jason Schreier
Bluesky: @stealth40k and @peteskerritt.com
Forums: r/digitalfoundry, r/bloodborne, r/pcgaming, and r/TeamIco
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Google rejected 1.75M policy-violating Android apps and blocked 80K+ developer accounts from Google Play in 2025, down from 2.36M apps and 158K accounts in 2024 — Fewer bad actors are targeting Google Play with malicious apps, the company says, a shift that the tech giant credits … | Chris Metinko / Axios: |
Pepper, which provides a digital storefront for independent food distributors, raised a $50M Series C led by Lead Edge, bringing its total funding to $100M — Pepper, a business platform developer for independent food distributors, raised a $50 million Series C led by Lead Edge Capital, CEO Bowie Cheung tells Axios Pro exclusively.| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
General Catalyst plans to invest $5B in India over five years, an increase from the $500M to $1B previously announced, after merging with a local VC in 2024 — General Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based venture firm with more than $43 billion in assets under management, has announced it plans …
More: The Economic Times, Entrackr, Tech in Asia, Moneycontrol, Inc42, and VCCircle
| Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: |
Sources: Meta cuts its annual distribution of stock options by ~5% for most of its staff, equating to tens of thousands of employees, after a ~10% cut in 2025 — Most employees will receive 5% less in equity rewards as Mark Zuckerberg slashes costs to fund huge AI spending
More: Reuters, The Information, Economic news, Ukrainian National News, Tech in Asia, and Benzinga. Forums: r/technology
| Evan Halper / Washington Post: |
Tech companies are increasingly building private power plants to fuel off-grid data centers, a move some warn faces reliability challenges and climate risks — Tech companies are building data centers with their own private power plants, a risky bet that will increase carbon emissions and other pollution.
More: Fortune, This is Not Cool, Barron's Online, The Independent, Heatmap News, and Solar Power World
X: @oilfield_rando and @washingtonpost
Bluesky: @marypcbuk, @shiraovide, @kostyack, and @justinhendrix
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