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February 21, 2026, 6:25 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Phil Spencer will retire after 38 years at Microsoft; Asha Sharma, the president of product in Microsoft's Core AI business, will become the CEO of gaming — Microsoft's head of gaming, Phil Spencer, is leaving the software maker following a 38-year tenure, as the company's Xbox business faces increased challenges.
More: Microsoft, Variety, Ars Technica, Reuters, Game Informer, The Verge, PCMag, Comic Book, Pure Xbox, Times of India, Windows Central, The American Bazaar, Push Square, Tech4Gamers, HotHardware, Business Today, Phandroid, Game File, Moneycontrol, Benzinga, Economic news, TechRadar, GeekWire, UPI, Deadline, The Wrap, PocketGamer.biz, Wall Street Journal, Polygon.com, Mobilegamer.biz, Forbes, Destructoid, Engadget, TheGamer, Kotaku, Thurrott, The Game Business, GeekWire, Screen Rant, Business Insider, GamesRadar, The Information, Windows Central, Game Developer, The Verge, and Kotaku
X: @xboxp3, @signulll, @legacykillahd, @davidscottjaffe, @petermooreusa, @paultassi, @jronald, @raywongy, @mr_rebs_, @klobrille, @mightykeef, @dansgaming, @fwiz, @thetruebowser, @ordinarygamers, @welfare_jbp, @aakashgupta, @nick_marseil, @mightykeef, @chrisavellone, @thecarteldel, @youtheremehere, @timsweeneyepic, @asha_shar, @paultassi, @reggie, @theo, @aarongreenberg, @firstadopter, @bellulargaming, @geoffkeighley, @markrein, @xbox, @xboxp3, @xboxp3, @xboxp3, @xboxp3, @okami13_, @detectiveseeds, @mischiefsyt, @mr_rebs_, @lukestephens, @hoeglaw, @arron_tk, @videotechuk_, @destiny_thememe, @vara_dark, @zephyr_z9, @rgt_85, @firstadopter, and @stephentotilo
LinkedIn: Chris Heatherly and LinkedIn
Bluesky: @mgsiegler.com, @benalterman.com, and @stevekovach
Forums: r/consoles, r/technology, r/XboxSeriesS, r/pcmasterrace, r/xbox, and r/videogames
| Ryan McCaffrey / IGN: |
Xbox President Sarah Bond, long thought to be Phil Spencer's heir, is leaving; Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is promoted to Chief Content Officer — Spencer's run with Xbox ends just months shy of the brand's 25th anniversary. — Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer …
More: Neowin, Video Games Chronicle, Destructoid, Polygon.com, TheGamer, Pure Xbox, Kotaku, Notebookcheck, GamesRadar, Comic Book, Tom's Guide, Aftermath, 80 Level, XDA Developers, Mashable, Tech4Gamers, Game Informer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Push Square, Dexerto, DayOne, GamingBolt, Stevivor, GamesIndustry.biz, GameRant, Insider Gaming, The Verge, and PC Gamer
X: @nib95_, @detectiveseeds, and @firstadopter
LinkedIn: Sarah Thomson, Sarah Bond, and Ryan Wyatt
Bluesky: @cypheroftyr and @stealth40k
| Sean Hollister / The Verge: |
Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma says she is committed to “the return of Xbox” and that the company won't “flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop” — She's promising “The return of Xbox.” … Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer has just announced he's leaving …
More: Forbes, Variety, Destructoid, iPhone in Canada, The Week, Digital Trends, Comic Book, TechCrunch, Moneycontrol, Tech4Gamers, Pure Xbox, Kotaku, Polygon.com, Video Games Chronicle, The Indian Express, Notebookcheck, Windows Central, GamesRadar, The A.V. Club, DayOne, and Bloomberg
X: @paultassi, @anandmahindra, @legacykillahd, @lulumeservey, and @ethangach. Forums: r/LastStandMedia
| Russell Brandom / TechCrunch: |
Open source projects like VLC and Blender are seeing a decline in the average quality of contributions, likely as AI coding tools lower barriers to entry — A world that runs on increasingly powerful AI coding tools is one where software creation is cheap — or so the thinking goes … | David Nield / Wired: |
Google is ending Gmailify and POP access in Gmail; new users will lose access in Q1 2026, and existing users will keep both features until later in 2026 — If you have multiple email accounts, your Gmail setup may soon need some reorganizing. — Google giveth, and Google taketh away.
Mastodon: @Kierkegaanks@beige.party
| Sam Kriss / Harper's: |
Interviews with Cluely's Roy Lee, Donald Boat, and other highly “agentic” young men, as agency becomes more valuable than technical skills in Silicon Valley — Tech's new generation and the end of thinking … Cluely and its co-founder Chungin “Roy” Lee were intensely, and intentionally, controversial.
X: @tszzl, @felpix_, @natewitkin, @harpers, @narrenhut, @growing_daniel, @b_judah, @daisandconfused, @alexbronzini, @mcmansionhell, @mlstrat, @confusionm8trix, @laserboat999, @other_st_nick, @nicolas_ouporov, @margbaramerica, and @shguke. LinkedIn: Mark Little
Bluesky: @konstantkarma, @frankpasquale, @dansheehan, @caulimovirus, @emilynussbaum, @c0up, @kthorjensen, @shivambhatt, @robertscotthorton, @salvagni.org, @espiers, @avocadoplex.bike, and @north0fnorth.tgirl.gay
Mastodon: @glyph@mastodon.social, @kims@mas.to, and @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
Forums: Hacker News, r/SneerClub, and r/slatestarcodex
| Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: OpenAI staff raised concerns about a Canadian mass shooting suspect months ago; OpenAI says her activity didn't meet the bar for reporting to police — ChatGPT maker opted against informing authorities about Jesse Van Rootselaar's descriptions of violence last June
More: TechCrunch, Associated Press, BBC, The Post Millennial, Breitbart, HotAir, The Verge, ZeroHedge News, Fox News, The Decoder, The Asia Business Daily, Pixel Envy, New York Post, Globe and Mail, twitchy.com, Futurism, Business Standard, and 77 WABC
X: @jakemiller192, @klonnypin_gosch, @agoldmund, @benwoodfinden, @mrgunn, @prestonjbyrne, @luke_metro, @seltzergenius, @arictoler, @miles_brundage, @miles_brundage, @autismcapital, @elonmusk, and @jeffbercovici. LinkedIn: Marc-André Argentino, PhD
Bluesky: @jacobware, @drewharwell.com, @eslfairy, @grahammacklin, @jenstden, and @kevincollier
Forums: r/singularity, r/TrueAnon, r/news, r/BetterOffline, r/britishcolumbia, and r/canada
| Matthew Gault / 404 Media: |
Pinterest users, especially artists, say the platform has gotten worse in the past year due to AI moderation, AI-generated art, and AI features — Users are exhausted fighting AI moderation, AI-generated art, and AI-first features. — Pinterest has gone all in on artificial intelligence and users say it's destroying the site.
More: Mashable and The Overspill
LinkedIn: Tiana Oreglia. Bluesky: @josephcox and @mjgault. Mastodon: @MikeElgan@mastodon.social. Forums: Slashdot
| Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg: |
Anthropic launches Claude Code Security, which “scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted software patches”; cybersecurity stocks fall — Shares of cybersecurity software companies tumbled Friday after Anthropic PBC introduced a new security feature into its Claude AI model.
More: Anthropic, Gizmodo, The Hacker News, Matt Mullenweg, CyberScoop, SiliconANGLE, TestingCatalog, CTech, Cyber Security News, PCMag, Runtime, The Decoder, Benzinga, The Economic Times, Investor's Business Daily, The Deep View, Implicator.ai, Motley Fool, Claude, Blockchain.News, Yahoo Finance, The Information, and CRN
X: @manztrades, @mattjay, @omercheeema, @bcherny, @jay_azhang, @jaykreps, @litcapital, @abrilzucchi, @firstadopter, @trq212, @trq212, @trq212, @heidykhlaaf, @thegeorgepu, @matrosov, @contrariancurse, and @claudeai
LinkedIn: Ibad Rehman, Philippe Bogaerts, Guy Flechter, and Pradeep Sanyal
Bluesky: @heidykhlaaf, @hmans.dev, and @tyleraking.com
Forums: r/InformatikKarriere, r/technology, r/StockMarket, r/ClaudeCode, r/ClaudeAI, and Slashdot
| Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: |
English-language Wikipedia bans Archive.today after editors discover it was used to direct a DDoS attack and tampered with snapshots; 695K+ links to be removed — The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct …
More: TechCrunch, PCMag, Tom's Hardware, and Pixel Envy
Bluesky: @vortexegg.com, @md.ekstrandom.net, @hpsvanessa, @kissane.myatproto.social, @conspirator0, @adambecker, and @webbreacher.com. Mastodon: @jalefkowit@vmst.io
| Benedict Evans: |
A look at the fundamental questions facing OpenAI: its models have a very large user base but very narrow engagement, incumbents are matching its tech, and more — “Jakub and Mark set the research direction for the long run. Then after months of work, something incredible emerges …
More: Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At and The Register
| Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy: |
NanoClaw and other “claws”, smaller OpenClaw-like systems that can run on personal hardware, form a new layer running on top of agents that run on LLMs — Bought a new Mac mini to properly tinker with claws over the weekend. The apple store person told me they are selling like hotcakes and everyone is confused :) I'm definitely a bit sus'd to run OpenClaw specifically - giving my private data/keys to 400K lines of vibe coded
More: Simon Willison's Weblog. X: @nickco, @aakashgupta, @alexfinn, @garysheng, @punk3700, @simonw, @karpathy, @garrytan, and @maziyarpanahi. Forums: Hacker News
| Sources: |
An interview with Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on Custom Notion AI agents launching in the coming week, over 50% of Notion databases now being built by agents, and more — CEO Ivan Zhao on the company's big custom agents launch, changing its business model for AI, hiring a 16-year-old engineer, and more.| CNBC: |
Sources: OpenAI is telling investors it's targeting ~$600B in total compute spend by 2030, months after Sam Altman touted $1.4T in infrastructure commitments — OpenAI is telling investors that it's now targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030, months …
More: The Information, The Coin Republic, Economic news, Fortune, FundaAI, Gizchina, Tech in Asia, and Reuters
X: @ethanchoi7, @teortaxestex, @stalkermustang, and @quinnypig
Forums: r/tech, r/StockMarket, and r/technology
| Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: |
How Claude Code, released publicly a year ago, cemented Anthropic as a leader in the lucrative, emerging market for AI coding tools — Anthropic released Claude Code a year ago, forcing other rivals to play catch-up. — Even Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei was surprised … Sponsor Posts
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