Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors
Techmeme
January 21, 2026, 10:15 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Alex Heath / Sources:
Demis Hassabis says Google doesn't have “any plans” for ads in Gemini and, regarding OpenAI testing ads, says “maybe they feel they need to make more revenue”  —  During our convo in Davos, Demis Hassabis and I chatted about ads in AI, Google's new deal with Apple, humanoids, and Gemini 4.
The Information:
Sources: OpenAI has begun offering its chatbot ads to dozens of advertisers, initially charging based on ad view, not ad click, asking for <$1M in commitments  —  OpenAI has started offering its new chatbot ads to dozens of advertisers, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Juby Babu / Reuters:
OpenAI rolls out age prediction on ChatGPT consumer plans globally to identify under-18 users and apply content protections, as it prepares to add adult content  —  OpenAI on Tuesday said it is rolling out age prediction on ChatGPT globally, to determine whether an account is likely owned by a minor …
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to $12.05B, vs. $11.97B est., 325M subscribers, 2025 revenue up 16% to $45.2B, and will spend 10% more on content in 2026  —  Netflix Inc. delivered fourth-quarter results that largely beat Wall Street estimates but issued a cautious forecast for the months ahead …
Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Greg Peters says Netflix plans to bring new types of content like video podcasts to its vertical video feed, and will roll out a new mobile UI later in 2026
Bloomberg:
OpenAI says it will cover the costs of developing energy-related infrastructure at its Stargate data centers to ensure they don't raise consumers' utility bills  —  OpenAI said it will pay for the costs of developing energy-related infrastructure required by its Stargate data centers …
Theo Wayt / The Information:
Elon Musk and Sam Altman clashed on X after Musk shared a post about a man who committed a murder-suicide following delusional conversations with ChatGPT  —  Elon Musk and Sam Altman traded barbs on X this week over media reports of deaths linked to OpenAI's ChatGPT and other AI-related safety issues.
Mauro Orru / Wall Street Journal:
At Davos, Jensen Huang says AI is already bringing economic benefits and needs more investment, and an “AI bubble comes about because the investments are large”  —  Jensen Huang called for higher investments to further spread the technology across developed and emerging economies
Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch:
X says it has open sourced its “core recommendation system” on GitHub and that the system “ranks everything using a Grok-based transformer model”  —  In 2023, the website then known as Twitter partially open sourced its algorithm for the first time.
Nikou Asgari / Financial Times:
Galaxy Digital plans to launch a hedge fund in Q1 2026 investing up to 30% in crypto tokens and the rest in financial stocks; sources say it has raised $100M  —  Billionaire's firm plans portfolio to profit from rising and falling prices, following sharp sell-off in digital assets sector
Simon P. Couch:
A programmer estimates his typical day of coding with Claude Code is equivalent to running the dishwasher an extra time, much more energy than a “median query”  —  Most of the discourse about the environmental impact of LLM use focuses on a ‘median query.’ What about a Claude Code session?
Yi-Ling Liu / Wired:
China's Cyberspace Administration requires firms to file their AI tools in a public algorithm registry, creating a detailed map of the country's AI ecosystem  —  How the Cyberspace Administration of China inadvertently made a guide to the country's homegrown AI revolution.
More: WebProNews
April Rubin / Axios:
The US DOJ says at least two DOGE employees accessed Social Security data that was off-limits under a court ruling and shared agency data on third-party servers  —  - At least two DOGE employees, the filing reveals, were in touch with a political advocacy group that asked them to analyze data …
Bloomberg:
Chinese AI startup Zhipu says it is limiting GLM Coding Plan access after strong demand, taking only 20% of its current daily new subscriptions from January 23  —  China's Zhipu is limiting access to its coding assistant after strong demand for a new AI model siphoned off computing resources.
Wen-Yee Lee / Reuters:
GlobalWafers Chair Doris Hsu says the Taiwanese silicon wafer maker is preparing for phase two of its Texas plant, after unveiling plans to invest an extra $4B  —  Taiwanese silicon wafer manufacturer GlobalWafers (6488.TWO) is preparing for the phase two expansion of its plant in the U.S. state of Texas …
More: Focus Taiwan

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Pro tips: 5 ways to close WhatsApp leads in Zoho CRM  —  This is a guest post by Orkhan Jafarli, Growth PM at TimelinesAI.More buyers now reach out on WhatsApp before they ever fill out a form.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
 What Happens If AI Fails?, Subprime Data Center Crisis, How Bad Can SpaceX Get?
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
 OpenAI Models Go Rogue + Kimi K3 Freakout + A.I. Superforecasting
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
 'A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
The Upstarts Podcast:
 Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
 Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:15 AM ET, January 21, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Brian Stelter / CNN:
Filing: Paramount and state AGs agree to freeze the WBD merger until an antitrust trial occurs or until June 2027; a preliminary injunction hearing is canceled

Alyssa Ray / The Wrap:
At the rescheduled WHCA dinner, Trump praised the press corps' response to the April shooting before insulting journalists and celebrities who criticized him

Michael Birnbaum / Washington Post:
Trump says he supports subpoenaing reporters in leak probes and that reporters should be forced to reveal the source of the leaked SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe

More News

Earlier Picks

Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple outages affecting multiple services, including Apple TV, the App Store, and iCloud, are now fixed following a nearly four-hour disruption on January 20
Jody Godoy / Reuters:
The US FTC files a notice to appeal a November 2025 ruling that found Meta did not hold an illegal monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter