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January 15, 2026, 4:30 AM
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| Kylie Robison / @kyliebytes: |
Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, with Soumith Chintala taking over the role; sources say the termination is due to “unethical conduct” — BREAKING: Thinking Machines has terminated its CTO, Barret Zoph, due to unethical conduct according to two sources familiar with the matter. CEO Mira Murati announced the news at an all-hands with employees today. Soumith Chintala will be taking over as CTO.
More: TechCrunch, The Economic Times, Digit, The Information, and Implicator.ai
X: @miramurati, @suchenzang, @kyliebytes, @_arohan_, @tszzl, @miles_brundage, @benjamindekr, @alexeheath, @daniel_mac8, and @paularambles. Bluesky: @carnage4life
| Maxwell Zeff / Wired: |
A source close to Thinking Machines alleged that ex-CTO Barret Zoph, who is returning to OpenAI, had shared confidential company information with competitors — The departures are a blow for Thinking Machines Lab. Two narratives are already emerging about why they happened.| Fidji Simo / @fidjissimo: |
Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz are returning to OpenAI from Thinking Machines and the move “has been in the works for several weeks” — Excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back to OpenAI! This has been in the works for several weeks, and we're thrilled to have them join the team. Barret will report to me; Luke and Sam will report into Barret. More to come on what they'll focus on soon!
More: Bloomberg. X: @shaneguml, @petergostev, @joannejang, @luke_metro, @yuchenj_uw, @ns123abc, @gavinpurcell, @elenarunsnyc, @barret_zoph, @polynoamial, @signulll, and @miyahedge
| Financial Times: |
UK PM Keir Starmer says X indicated to government officials it was acting to comply with UK laws by restricting the generation of nonconsensual sexual images — UK prime minister says xAI will restrict the image generator as billionaire pledges to follow laws in all markets
More: The Verge, BBC, The Irish Times, The Indian Express, ABC, Telegraph, France 24, The Independent, HuffPost, and Reuters
| Politico: |
California AG Rob Bonta opens an investigation into xAI over the proliferation of nonconsensual, sexualized images generated by Grok, and urges xAI to act — California Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI over the proliferation of nonconsensual …
More: State of California, Reuters, New York Times, CalMatters, Mashable, Social Media Today, Android Headlines, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, CNBC, Implicator.ai, CyberScoop, Washington Examiner, Adweek, The Guardian, Business Insider, The National Pulse, CNBC, Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg
| Karissa Bell / Engadget: |
X updates Grok to prevent the “editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis” and geoblocks it for all users “where it's illegal” — The company is also blocking image generation entirely from non-subscribers.
More: The Verge, 9to5Mac, BBC, Deadline, SFist, Bloomberg, Ars Technica, The Independent, and Decrypt
X: @safety, @loudmouthjulia, @jdpoc, @digiphile, and @mweinbach
| Raphael Satter / Reuters: |
More: The Atlantic, The Guardian, Associated Press, The Indian Express, Le Monde, Politico, Implicator.ai, Hindustan Times, RTÉ, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, The Hill, CBS News, San Francisco Business Times, New York Post, Reuters, Digit, The Times, Tom's Guide, The Record, Moneycontrol, Euractiv, and Reuters
X: @elonmusk, @elonmusk, @cb_doge, and @elonmusk. Bluesky: @sundersays. Mastodon: @harrymccracken@mastodon …
Forums: r/technology, r/news, r/EnoughMuskSpam, r/technology, r/europe, and r/ukpolitics
| Wall Street Journal: |
OpenAI strikes a multibillion-dollar agreement to buy 750 MW of computing capacity from Cerebras over three years; sources say the deal is worth more than $10B — The ChatGPT-maker is racing to secure more computing power, especially for responding to user queries
More: OpenAI, CNBC, Silicon Republic, TechCrunch, Reuters, Cerebras, New York Times, The Information, WebProNews, PYMNTS.com, SiliconANGLE, InsideHPC, Financial Times, Pulse 2.0, Bloomberg, and DatacenterDynamics
X: @cerebras, @draecomino, @scaling01, @ericvishria, @mweinbach, @theo, @benbajarin, @yuchenj_uw, @kakashiii111, @matthewberman, and @ericvishria. LinkedIn: Dhiraj Mallick
Forums: r/hardware, r/CerebrasSystems, and Slashdot
| Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET: |
Google launches Personal Intelligence, a Gemini feature that links to Gmail, Google Photos, Search, and YouTube history to tailor answers, for paid subscribers — ZDNET's key takeaways — Personal Intelligence scans your apps to improve Gemini answers. — The feature is off by default and won't train on sensitive data.
More: The Keyword, The Verge, Times of India, AppleInsider, Livemint, CNET, Engadget, TechCrunch, Digit, The Economic Times, Financial Times, GSMArena.com, eWeek, MobileSyrup, Pocket-lint, SiliconANGLE, Analytics India Magazine, BleepingComputer, Implicator.ai, PPC Land, PYMNTS.com, WebProNews, Phandroid, Daring Fireball, SammyGuru, PCWorld, YouTube, 9to5Google on YouTube, Neowin, Android Central, Gizmodo, Crypto Briefing, The Decoder, Thurrott, The Information, Moneycontrol, Forbes, Lifehacker, Search Engine Land, Yahoo Tech, Tom's Guide, TechRadar, Fortune, Digital Trends, 9to5Google, Business Insider, and Android Police
X: @google, @sundarpichai, @dudewhoinvests, @dflieb, @geminiapp, @google, @glenngabe, @ai_for_success, @joshwoodward, @varunkinsights, @omooretweets, @royalhansen, @matthewberman, @thisiskp_, @ai_for_success, @rihardjarc, @demishassabis, and @teksedge
LinkedIn: Chris Struhar, Srinivasan Venkatachary, Oliver Bethell, Alex Joseph, and Aybuke. Bluesky: @scottstein
Forums: r/accelerate, r/singularity, and r/Bard
| Adamya Sharma / Android Authority: |
OpenAI quietly rolls out ChatGPT Translate, a standalone website that currently supports plain text translations across 50+ languages — OpenAI's new standalone translation tool supports over 50 languages and features AI-powered prompt customization. — • — TL;DR
More: ChatGPT Translate, Moneycontrol, BleepingComputer, Digit, and BleepingComputer
| Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: |
Coinbase pulls support from the US Senate's crypto market structure bill ahead of a key vote; CEO Brian Armstrong says there are “too many issues” with the bill — CEO Brian Armstrong said there were “too many issues” with the bill. — Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange …
More: CoinDesk, The Block, Crypto in America, Cryptonews, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Crypto Briefing, Yahoo Finance, Watcher Guru, Forbes, Reuters, BeInCrypto, The Daily Hodl, Blockchain.News, Decrypt, Bitcoin Magazine, DL News, The Defiant, Cointelegraph, Bloomberg, CryptoPotato, and Coinpedia Fintech News
| Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg: |
President Trump signs an order to impose a 25% tariff on chips “transshipped through the US to other foreign countries”, as part of the Nvidia H200 export deal — The US imposed a 25% tariff on imports of certain semiconductors, a key step in an agreement blessed …
More: The Korea Times, CNN, Reuters, Anadolu Ajansı …, The Korea Herald, Business Insider, Responsible Statecraft, Macau Business, Watcher Guru, Computerworld, Dow Jones Newswires, The National, Sharecafe, Agence France-Presse, Nextgov/FCW, Benzinga, New York Times, Axios, Financial Times, CNBC, PCWorld, South China Morning Post, Capital Brief, Washington Examiner, NewsMax.com, Associated Press, Newser, and BBC
| Stevie Bonifield / The Verge: |
YouTube now lets parents set time limits on their kids' YouTube Shorts feed, ranging from 15 minutes to two hours, with an option for zero minutes coming soon — Parents will also be able to manually create and adjust child and teen accounts on YouTube.
More: YouTube Official Blog, TechCrunch, BMI, Mashable, CNN, Thurrott, PCMag, Android Authority, Moneycontrol, MediaPost, and Livemint
| Financial Times: |
Source: Apple's Gemini deal is a cloud contract where it pays Google several billion dollars; a source says OpenAI declined to be Apple's custom model provider — Multibillion-dollar deal to secure Gemini models reflects cautious approach to infrastructure spending
More: The Verge, Marketing Week, Fierce Network, and Techstrong.ai
| Jacob Krol / TechRadar: |
Verizon resolves “an issue impacting wireless voice and data services” that caused 100,000+ customers to lose reception for 10+ hours on Wednesday — The carrier says the outage is now resolved — While Verizon had a good few months, with the last major outage occurring in October 2024 …
More: NBC News, Washington Times, AppleInsider, Engadget, WJXX-TV, Reuters, New York Times, Mashable, 9to5Google, USA Today, New York Post, MacRumors, FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth, Engadget, Associated Press, CNET, NBC Bay Area, FOX 13 Tampa Bay, PCMag, Forbes, MacRumors, Technical.ly, XDA Developers, UPI, Screen Rant, Barron's Online, The Mac Observer, Benzinga, The Gateway Pundit, WebProNews, GV Wire, The Mendocino Voice, Hollywood Life, Pocket-lint, CNN, Android Authority, SammyGuru, Business Insider, Mediaite, Droid Life, Wall Street Journal, Android Central, PCMag, The Verge, PhoneArena, BleepingComputer, TechRadar, KARE-TV, Bloomberg, 9to5Mac, and Fierce Network
X: @verizonnews, @verizonnews, @verizonnews, @att, @0xgaut, @alexrkonrad, @morningbrew, @pcmag, and @joannastern
Forums: r/conspiracy, r/PrepperIntel, r/hudsonvalley, r/technology, and r/news
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Digg, rebooted under original founder Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, launches its open beta; the site had been open to 67,000 users on an invite-only basis — The reboot of the early-internet online community Digg, a one-time rival to Reddit, is moving forward.
More: Mashable, CNET, The Verge, 9to5Mac, Digg on YouTube, and WebProNews
X: @alexisohanian, @kevinrose, @digg, and @kevinrose. Bluesky: @carnage4life. Mastodon: @parkerortolani@mastodon …
Forums: r/redditstock, r/digg, r/technology, and Slashdot
| Nitin Dahad / EE Times: |
GlobalFoundries agrees to acquire Synopsys' ARC processor IP business, which includes ARC-V (RISC-V) and ARC CPU IP, and integrate it into its MIPS business — Today sees a bold move to bring two key processor architectures, MIPS and ARC, under one umbrella, as GlobalFoundries announced …
| Denise Wee / Bloomberg: |
Hong Kong-based WeLab, which operates two digital banks in Hong Kong and Indonesia, raised $220M in equity and debt from HSBC, Prudential Hong Kong, and others — Hong Kong-based fintech firm WeLab Ltd. has secured $220 million from investors including HSBC Holdings Plc and Prudential Hong Kong Ltd. in its largest round of funding.| Kyle Baird / The Block: |
Blockchain-based lender Figure unveils the On-Chain Public Equity Network to issue, trade, and lend stocks natively on a blockchain, not as tokenized replicas — Partner offers — Quick Take — Figure's OPEN platform is designed to handle issuance, settlement, and stock lending onchain … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Appfigures: global consumer mobile app spending on Apple's App Store and Google Play rose 21.6% YoY to $155.8B in 2025, but app downloads dropped 2.7% to 106.9B — The subscription economy helped boost mobile app revenues in 2025, even as app downloads declined for the fifth consecutive year … | Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
Bengaluru-based edtech startup Emversity raised a $30M Series A led by Premji Invest, sources say at a $120M post-money valuation, up from $60M in April 2025 — As AI automates parts of the workforce, Emversity, an Indian workforce-training startup, is building talent pipelines for roles …
More: Entrackr, Tech in Asia, Inc42 Media, The Economic Times, and Moneycontrol
| Bloomberg: |
Chinese chipmaker SpacemiT, whose RISC-V-based K1 chip is used in industrial systems, robotics, edge computing, and AI devices, raised an ~$86M Series B — Chinese chip company SpacemiT raised more than 600 million yuan ($86 million) in a fresh funding round to speed up commercialization of its products and expand its business.
More: South China Morning Post
| Chris Metinko / Axios: |
Novee, which utilizes proprietary AI models to perform automated penetration testing, emerges from stealth with a $43M Series A and an $8.5M seed — Novee, a penetration-testing cybersecurity startup, launched out of stealth with $51.5 million in funding, co-founder and CEO Ido Geffen tells Axios Pro.
More: CTech
| Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg: |
CoinDesk data: Binance's spot crypto trading market share fell to 25% in December 2025, its lowest since 2021, and it is losing ground in derivatives trading — Binance's grip on global crypto trading is weakening as rivals pick up market share and traders shift to new ways of buying and selling digital assets.
More: Benzinga and BeInCrypto
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