Techmeme
January 26, 2026, 3:05 AM

Top News

Reece Rogers / Wired:
TikTok users in the US were presented with a new privacy policy; the changes were part of the app's ownership transition and now allow precise location tracking  —  According to its new privacy policy, TikTok now collects more data on its users, including their precise location …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A deep dive into Apple's AI strategy reset, as it prepares to announce a Gemini-powered personalized Siri next month and a reimagined chatbot-like Siri at WWDC  —  Apple shakes up its AI efforts with a Google partnership, management changes and two new versions of Siri.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Microsoft confirms it does provide BitLocker recovery keys for encrypted data if it receives a valid legal order and the user has stored the keys on its servers  —  The tech giant said it receives around 20 requests for BitLocker keys a year and will provide them to governments in response to valid court orders.
Jason Lemkin / SaaStr:
Many AI founders now find it necessary to raise at valuations requiring absolute domination of the field; Brex, once valued at $12B, shows the downsides of this  —  Capital One just announced it's acquiring Brex for $5.15 billion.  An incredible, top .1% “exit” in less than 10 years …
Bethan Staton / Financial Times:
A profile of Mercor, which pays about $2M daily to ~30K experts training AI models at $95/hour on average, with roles like radiologists earning up to $375/hour  —  Tens of thousands of professionals are joining tech start-up Mercor to hone technology in their skills  —  At first Lola thought the job ads were fake.
Rani Molla / Sherwood News:
Q&A with David Liu, CEO of PlusAI, which is slated to go public next month, on the ongoing commercial trial of its autonomous truck driving software, and more  —  With his company set to hit the public markets in February, Liu envisions a future where most vehicles, commercial or not, are driving themselves.
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
A look at Clawdbot, an open-source personal AI agent that runs locally on the user's computer and integrates with multiple LLMs and messaging services  —  For the past week or so, I've been working with a digital assistant that knows my name, my preferences for my morning routine …
Aisha Down / The Guardian:
Tests show GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT is citing Grokipedia as a source on some obscure topics, including Iranian political structures  —  Guardian found OpenAI's platform cited Grokipedia on topics including Iran and Holocaust deniers  —  The latest model of ChatGPT has begun to cite Elon Musk's Grokipedia …
Sherwood News:
Domain Name Stat: the number of .ai domains has surpassed 1M; data suggests Anguilla, the UK territory managing the domain, made ~$70M in fees in the past year  —  Data from Domain Name Stat reveals that the top-level domain originally assigned to the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla passed the milestone in early January.

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Ross Andersen / The Atlantic:

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