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January 13, 2026, 9:15 PM
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Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta confirms it is laying off Reality Labs staff and will “reinvest the savings” in wearables; CTO Andrew Bosworth says 1,000+ staff will be notified Tuesday  —  Meta Platforms Inc. is beginning to cut more than 1,000 jobs from the company's Reality Labs division …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
As part of its Reality Labs cuts, Meta is closing three VR gaming studios and will stop developing new content and features for its VR fitness app Supernatural  —  Developers from Twisted Pixel Games and Sanzaru Games have posted about their studios being closed down.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta and EssilorLuxottica are discussing potentially doubling Ray-Ban Meta production capacity to 20M+ units by the end of 2026 or even as high as 30M+
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft changes its data center approach, pledging to pay its own power costs, reject tax breaks, and replenish more water than it uses, amid local opposition  —  President Trump was right about Microsoft — but he only leaked part of the story.  —  Microsoft is changing its approach …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple unveils Apple Creator Studio, a “groundbreaking collection” of creative apps like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro for $13/month or $129/year  —  Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, which it describes as a “groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed …
Bloomberg:
The US Senate passes the Defiance Act that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images, amid furor over Grok images  —  The US Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images …
Hayden Field / The Verge:
Anthropic shakes up its C-suite: CPO Mike Krieger will become the co-lead of its Labs incubator, and head of product Ami Vora will take over Krieger's duties  —  Chief product officer Mike Krieger will change roles and join the “Labs” team. … Mike Krieger, the Instagram co-founder …
More: Anthropic.  X: @omarshaikdev, @shensi_, @yenkel, @mikeyk, and @anthropicai.  LinkedIn: Hayden Field.  Forums: r/ClaudeAI
Bloomberg:
Under new licensing requirements, the US Commerce Department says exports of Nvidia's H200 chips and AMD's MI325X chips will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis  —  The Trump administration moved closer to allowing Nvidia Corp. to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China …
The Information:
A source details how Apple's Gemini deal works: new Siri features will launch in spring and at WWDC, Apple can finetune Gemini, no Google branding, and more  —  In another AI win for Google lately, Apple announced on Monday that it will use Google's Gemini models to power …
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple and Google say Apple Foundation Models based on Gemini will help power not only a more personalized Siri, but also “future Apple Intelligence features”
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google makes improvements to Veo 3.1's Ingredients to Video feature to make videos “more expressive”, and adds native vertical video generation and 4K upscaling  —  Videos should now be more consistent with the images they're based on, including those in portrait orientations.
Google Research:
Google announces MedGemma 1.5 with improved medical imaging support, and MedASR for medical dictation, both available on Hugging Face and Vertex AI  —  Daniel Golden, Engineering Manager, and Fereshteh Mahvar, Software Engineer, Google Research  —  We are updating our open MedGemma model with improved medical imaging support.
Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET:
Salesforce makes Slack's new AI-powered Slackbot generally available, helping users answer workflow questions, draft documents, schedule meetings, and more  —  ZDNET's key takeaways Salesforce made Slackbot generally available.Slackbot is an AI agent for work built in Slack.Business …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
The US FCC waives a rule that forced Verizon to unlock phones 60 days after they are activated, which could make it harder for people to switch from Verizon  —  The Federal Communications Commission is letting Verizon lock phones to its network for longer periods, eliminating a requirement …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
IDC: global PC shipments rose 9.6% YoY to 76.4M units in Q4 2025, helped by Microsoft ending Windows 10 support and OEMs pulling forward inventory amid tariffs  —  IDC expects the PC market to be volatile this year ahead of anticipated price increases.
David Gilbert / Wired:
Roblox's AI-powered age verification system, which expanded globally last week using tech from a company called Persona, faces criticism for misidentifying ages  —  Kids are being identified as adults—and vice versa—on Roblox, while age-verified accounts are already being sold online.
More: Engadget
Li Liu / Bloomberg:
Taiwan issues an arrest warrant for OnePlus CEO Pete Lau for allegedly illegally hiring 70+ Taiwanese engineers, as it tries to stop China from raiding workers  —  Prosecutors in Taiwan issued an arrest warrant for the chief executive officer of the Chinese smartphone company OnePlus …
More: Engadget.  Forums: Slashdot
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
A look at Confer, an open-source AI assistant project from Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike that is designed to provide end-to-end encryption for AI chats  —  Moxie Marlinspike—the pseudonym of an engineer who set a new standard for private messaging with the creation of the Signal Messenger …
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Polygon buys crypto startups Coinme and Sequence for a total of $250M+, as it seeks to bolster its stablecoin and fintech infrastructure and compete with Stripe  —  The blockchain developer Polygon Labs has closed deals to buy the crypto startups Coinme and Sequence.
The Information:
Sources: AI chipmaker Cerebras is in talks to raise ~$1B, valuing the startup at $22B before the new investment, up from an $8.1B valuation in September 2025  —  AI chip startup Cerebras Systems is in talks to raise about $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion before the new investment …
More: Bloomberg
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Mercedes pauses the rollout of Drive Pilot, a Level 3 “eyes off” driving feature available in Europe and the US, citing low demand and high production costs  —  The automaker is instead forging ahead with its new point-to-point Level 2 system that rivals Tesla's Full Self-Driving.
Forums: Slashdot
Philip Stafford / Financial Times:
Warhammer maker Games Workshop says it banned its staff from using AI in its content or designs and “will be maintaining a strong commitment to protect” its IP  —  Group behind Warhammer taking ‘very cautious’ approach and says it will ‘respect our human creators’
Natalia Kniazhevich / Bloomberg:
Liftoff, which helps companies place ads in mobile apps, files for a US IPO, reporting a $25.6M net loss on $491.6M in revenue in the nine months up to Sept. 30  —  Liftoff Mobile Inc., a company that helps place ads within mobile applications and lets publishers manage their inventory, filed for a US initial public offering.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:15 PM ET, January 13, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

Bloomberg:
Sources: Netflix is working on revised terms for its WBD acquisition and has discussed making its offer all cash for the studios and streaming businesses

Scott Nover / Washington Post:
A bipartisan bill agrees to provide $653M to USAGM, down from $867M in 2025, but over Trump's $153M request, as part of a package needing Congressional approval

New York Times:
Sources: Bari Weiss has privately been deeply frustrated by the negative reaction to her CBS tenure and has blamed subordinates for not stanching the criticism

More News

Loni Prinsloo / Bloomberg:
Holistic Resilience, a US group that helps Iranians secure internet access, says SpaceX has waived Starlink subscription fees amid a days-long internet blackout

Earlier Picks

Decrypt:
The NYC token, launched by former New York City Mayor Eric Adams on January 12, saw its market cap drop from ~$600M to ~$110M, after USDC liquidity manipulation
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