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January 8, 2026, 6:35 PM
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Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google rolls out an AI Inbox view for Gmail that shows users to-dos and summaries of topics rather than a traditional email list, first for US “trusted testers”  —  The new AI Inbox replaces the traditional list of emails with a personalized summary of what to do and what to catch up on.
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft debuts Copilot Checkout in the US, enabling in-chat purchases via PayPal, Shopify, Stripe, and more; Shopify merchants will be automatically enrolled  —  Microsoft is beginning to roll out its first agentic experiences within Copilot, it's AI answer engine.
Ann Gehan / The Information:
Sources: OpenAI has been slow to expand in-app checkouts for ChatGPT as the startup and its partners Shopify and Stripe struggle to standardize merchant data  —  OpenAI's efforts to turn ChatGPT into a go-to personal shopper are off to a slow start.  —  Challenges with wrangling product data mean …
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:
Tailwind CSS lays off three of its four engineers after Google traffic to its documentation fell ~40% from early 2023 due to AI, causing an ~80% drop in revenue  —  Adam Wathan the creator of Tailwind CSS posted that he had to let go of 75% of his engineering team because of AI.
Cody Combs / The National:
NetBlocks says internet connectivity in Iran has fallen on multiple providers as protests hit 100+ cities; Cloudflare says IPv6 traffic has dropped sharply  —  Cloudflare Radar says country's IPv6 traffic has dropped sharply as protests spread across 100 cities
Reuters:
Sources: to hedge against Beijing approval risk, Nvidia is requiring Chinese customers to pay upfront for H200 chips, with no cancellations, refunds, or changes  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) is requiring full upfront payment from Chinese customers seeking its H200 artificial intelligence chips …
John Liu / Bloomberg:
Sources: China plans to approve some of Nvidia's H200 imports as soon as Q1 2026 but bar them from the military, some agencies, and critical infrastructure
Hadas Gold / CNN:
Source: a few weeks before Grok started “digitally undressing” people, Elon Musk expressed frustration over guardrails on Grok's image and video generator  —  Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, has been flooded with sexual images of mainly women, many of them real people.
Louise Breusch Rasmussen / Reuters:
The European Commission orders X to retain all internal docs and data relating to Grok until the end of 2026, after criticizing Grok's nonconsensual images
Wired:
Grok's website and app are being used to produce extremely graphic, sometimes violent, sexual imagery of adults that is vastly more explicit than images on X
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
OpenAI is rolling out a HIPAA-compliant version of ChatGPT for clinicians to assist with medical reasoning and administrative tasks, at Cedars-Sinai and others  —  Health care is shaping up to be a key battleground for the top AI labs this year.  But first...  Three things to know:
Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI unveils ChatGPT Health, which lets users import medical records and other data from wellness apps into ChatGPT, available to a small group via a waitlist
New York Times:
A profile of Apple SVP of Hardware Engineering John Ternus; sources: Ternus is seen as the front-runner to succeed Tim Cook, who wants to reduce his workload  —  Around 2018, Apple considered adding a tiny laser to its iPhones.  The part would allow consumers to take better photos …
Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch:
Snowflake agrees to acquire Observe, an observability platform built on Snowflake databases; the deal was previously reported to be valued at around $1B  —  Snowflake plans to acquire Observe, an observability platform that has been built on Snowflake's databases from day one.
Ed Hardy / Cult of Mac:
Statcounter: four months after its release, iOS 26 is in use by only about 15% of iPhone users; in January 2025, about 63% of users were on iOS 18  —  Only a tiny percentage of iPhone users have installed iOS 26, according to data from a web analytics service.
Demetri Sevastopulo / Financial Times:
Sources: China's Salt Typhoon accessed the emails of top US House committee staff, detected in December, and intercepted senior US officials' calls for years  —  Beijing's intelligence used Salt Typhoon to access communications used by top panels in US Congress
CNBC:
China says it will investigate Meta's $2B Manus acquisition to assess compliance with laws on export controls, tech import and export, and overseas investment  —  China said Thursday it will investigate Meta's $2 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence startup Manus to assess its compliance with export control laws.
Jessica Hopkins / The Athletic:
FIFA says that parts of 2026 World Cup matches will be broadcast live on TikTok and select creators will get access to press conferences and training sessions  —  Video clips of World Cup games will be broadcast live on TikTok this summer, FIFA said on Thursday.
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
Filings: Meta has hired Bill McGinley, a veteran Republican operative and the former top lawyer for DOGE, as a lobbyist  —  Meta Platforms Inc. has hired the former top lawyer for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency as a lobbyist, according to previously unreported government filings.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune:
Israeli data security startup Cyera raised a $400M Series F led by Blackstone Growth at a $9B valuation, up from $6B after raising $540M in June 2025  —  Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet  —  Cyera cofounders Yotam Segev and Tamar Bar-Ilan.CYERA
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
OpenAI VP of research Jerry Tworek is leaving, sources say after OpenAI sided with Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki in a dispute over its research direction  —  Tech companies are calling AI the next platform.  But some developers are reluctant to let AI agents stand between them and their users.
Yantoultra Ngui / Reuters:
Chinese AI company Z.ai closed up 13.2% in its Hong Kong trading debut, after raising ~$558M in its IPO at a ~$6.55B valuation, amid a flurry of AI startup IPOs

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:35 PM ET, January 8, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

Minho Kim / New York Times:
Sarah B. Rogers, Trump's nominee to lead USAGM, says she would reinstate some agency employees; if confirmed, she would still serve in the State Department

Wall Street Journal:
UMG shares fall 25%, the record company's worst day since its 2021 IPO, following disappointing Q2 results; UMG is down 40%+ over the past 12 months

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Swiss film producer Simon Afram sues Netflix for $105M, saying Netflix lost an unencrypted copy of a film starring Nicolas Cage that he spent $45M to produce

More News

Tom Phillips / IGN:
Lego says its Smart Brick is “here to stay” but “does not mean that we're leaving our core proposition behind”, after criticism it's abandoning non-digital play
Theodore Schleifer / New York Times:
Sources: wealthy Californians are quietly mobilizing on WhatsApp chats and calls in a long-shot bid to oust Representative Ro Khanna, who supports a wealth tax

Earlier Picks

Rest of World:
Chinese local governments have funded 40+ “robot training centers”, where humans mimic movements like folding clothes and wiping tables to teach the robots
Chris Welch / Bloomberg:
Samsung appears to have shelved Ballie, a robot it announced six years ago but never released, calling it an “active innovation platform” within the company
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