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February 1, 2026, 1:40 PM
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| Wall Street Journal: |
Documents and sources: Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan backed a $500M investment for a 49% stake in WLF, four days before Trump's inauguration — $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips
More: CoinDesk, The Block, Bitcoin Insider, Bloomberg, Telegraph, Raw Story, Cointelegraph, The Parnas Perspective, and To the Contrary
X: @tomcolicchio, @senwarren, @superwuster, @jefftimmer, @repyassansari, @senatorandykim, @rubengallego, @houseforeign, @sarahlongwell25, @kenvogel, @radiofreetom, @danpfeiffer, @rebeccaballhaus, @kengardner11, @tvietor08, @malinowski, @ninaburleigh, @sruhle, @jim_benemann, @michaelpfreeman, @mattyglesias, @darrigomelanie, @bakari_sellers, @benjysarlin, @rebeccaballhaus, @scarylawyerguy, @brendannyhan, @akoz33, @janemayernyer, @jaynordlinger, @buncahn, @stephenwertheim, @phillipspobrien, @ronfilipkowski, @mpolymer, @mcfaul, @davidaxelrod, @luismorenolg, and @skesslr
Bluesky: @schiff.senate.gov, @naomioreskes, @carlquintanilla, @wendysiegelman, @nicholasgrossman, @socialmedialab.ca, @anno1540, and @thetnholler. Threads: @ronaldfilipkowski
Mastodon: @wendysiegelman@mastodon … and @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org
Forums: r/IRstudies, r/ABoringDystopia, r/TrueReddit, r/allinpodofficial, and r/politics
| Zijing Wu / Financial Times: |
A look at China's “genius class” system, which picks ~100K gifted teens annually for elite science-focused schooling; its alumni span ByteDance, PDD, and more — About three years ago, Stacey Tang, a manager in a pharmaceuticals company in Beijing, received a peculiar phone call.| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Apple execs question if it has the ingredients to win in AI-first era, new MacBook Pros are about to launch, Apple considers clamshell foldable iPhone — Apple's blockbuster holiday quarter was impressive — but it shouldn't give cover to avoid an AI reckoning.
More: 9to5Mac, MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Forbes, AppleInsider, The Mac Observer, Digital Trends, and MacRumors
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: |
Inside Physical Intelligence, a startup co-founded by Stripe veteran Lachy Groom that is building general-purpose robotics foundation models and has raised $1B+ — From the street, the only indication I've found Physical Intelligence's headquarters in San Francisco is a pi symbol that's … | Andrew Zucker / Wall Street Journal: |
A look at iOS 26's call-screening feature, which some compare to an executive assistant filter unwanted calls, as others complain it makes people hard to reach — Thanks to a new iPhone feature, everyone now has an executive assistant in their pocket to filter unwanted calls
More: Business Insider and Pixel Envy
| Matthew Gault / 404 Media: |
A researcher says an exposed Moltbook database could have let anyone take control of the site's AI agents and post anything; the database has since been secured — Moltbook is a “social media” site for AI agents that's captured the public's imagination over the last few days.
More: Financial Times, moltbook, Ars Technica, The Decoder, Implicator.ai, Cyber Security News, New York Post, Livemint, Simon Willison's Newsletter, and WinBuzzer
X: @theonejvo, @theonejvo, @lea_kelbsch, @mattprd, @theonejvo, @theonejvo, @theonejvo, @theonejvo, and @karpathy
LinkedIn: Paul McCarty, Rico Komenda, Andrea Tessera, Jim Amos, and Chris H.
Bluesky: @andytseng, @jbakcoleman, @markriedl, @404media.co, @mjgault, and @jasonkoebler
Mastodon: @jerry@infosec.exchange, @gedankenstuecke@scholar …, @timnitGebru@dair …, and @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org
Forums: r/OpenAI, r/singularity, and r/LocalLLaMA
| Reuters: |
India to exempt foreign companies from being taxed when providing equipment to their contract manufacturers in the country, a rule change Apple lobbied for — India's government on Sunday handed a major win to Apple (AAPL.O) by allowing foreign companies to provide machines …
More: Business Today and Reuters
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
India proposes zero taxes for foreign cloud providers through 2047 on services sold outside the country as long as they run workloads from Indian data centers — As the global race to build AI infrastructure accelerates, India has offered foreign cloud providers zero taxes through 2047 …
More: Moneycontrol, Inc42, The Indian Express, Fortune India, The Economic Times, NDTV, Bloomberg, and Livemint
| Matteo Wong / The Atlantic: |
Anthropic positions itself as the AI sector's superego, but it's caught between the pressures to be safe, fast, and rigorous while being commercially successful — These are not the words you want to hear when it comes to human extinction, but I was hearing them: “Things are moving uncomfortably fast.”| Jin Yu Young / New York Times: |
Indonesia lifts its ban on Grok after receiving a letter from X “outlining concrete steps” to prevent misuse; Indonesia was the first country to ban Grok — Indonesia joined Malaysia and the Philippines in reversing its restrictions, weeks after it blocked the chatbot …
More: Engadget, TechCrunch, Livemint, Reuters, Nairametrics, and Bloomberg
| Trishla Ostwal / Adweek: |
OpenAI says it is asking select advertisers to commit $200K+ as it rolls out beta ads on ChatGPT; two sources say their companies were pitched lower amounts — OpenAI is asking select advertisers to commit at least $200,000 as it rolls out beta ads on ChatGPT, the company confirmed to ADWEEK.
More: BleepingComputer and TestingCatalog
| Nicole Fan / Rest of World: |
Chinese government funding is backing traditional Chinese medicine providers to adopt AI for drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, acupuncture robots, and more — With backing from the Chinese government, TCM practitioners are integrating AI tools to reach new consumers at home and abroad.| Reuters: |
Filing: SpaceX is seeking US FCC approval to launch 1M satellites; SpaceX claims that they will orbit the Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers — Elon Musk's SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of 1 million satellites that will orbit Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers …
More: The Verge, Tom's Hardware, GeekWire, BBC, TechCrunch, SpaceNews, CleanTechnica, Nairametrics, The Information, Bloomberg, Engadget, DatacenterDynamics, Cosmic Log, Cord Cutters News, PCMag, BGR, and Reuters
Forums: r/technology, r/wallstreetbets, and r/SpaceXLounge
| Alan Boyle / GeekWire: |
Amazon asks the FCC for a 2-year extension until July 30, 2028, to deploy half of the 3,232 satellites for its Leo internet system, citing a rocket shortage — Amazon says it's been harder than expected to secure rides for its Amazon Leo broadband internet satellites, and now it's asking … Sponsor Posts
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Hard Fork:
'A.I.-Washing' Layoffs? + Why L.L.M.s Can't Write Well + Tokenmaxxing
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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.
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