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February 12, 2026, 12:35 PM
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memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Lora Kolodny / CNBC: |
Elon Musk announces xAI implemented a reorganization that “required parting ways with some people”, after two xAI co-founders said they were leaving this week — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday announced the the company's xAI artificial intelligence venture implemented a reorganization that …
More: Wall Street Journal, The Register, Futurism, Financial Times, NBC News, Moneycontrol, Sources, Bloomberg, The Information, and New York Times
X: @xai, @elonmusk, @chace_agi, @textangel, @_tomhoward, @globalaffairs, @techau, @xdnibor, @ptrubey, @liuyunlong63318, @tetsuoai, @drphiltill, @scaling01, @edwinboyan, @parsatajik, @owensparks, @marionawfal, @davidpattersonx, @autismcapital, @hadas_gold, @giffmana, @tetsuoai, @sawyermerritt, @katiemiller, @tetsuoai, @xfreeze, @iterintellectus, @ramez, @autismcapital, and @ramez. LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski. Threads: @carnage4life
| Theo Wayt / The Information: |
| Michael Acton / Financial Times: |
US FTC chair asks Tim Cook to review Apple News' ToS and curation, citing allegations that it promotes “left-wing” outlets and suppresses conservative sources — US regulator issues warning to iPhone maker about its News platform following controversy over Super Bowl half-time show
More: CNBC, Telegraph, TechCrunch, Federal Trade Commission, New York Sun, Android Headlines, MacRumors, Deadline, ZeroHedge News, iClarified, The Mac Observer, 9to5Mac, Just The News, The Wrap, and New York Post
X: @afergusonftc, @brendancarrfcc, @adamthierer, @bendreyfuss, @tomcottonar, @matthewstoller, @mrddmia, @davidbozell, @adamscochran, @schneider_dc, @robertfreundlaw, @schneider_dc, @mirandadevine, @cernovich, @andyjungtech, @greta, @franklinh3000, and @cernovich
Bluesky: @tyleraking.com, @mims, @robin.berjon.com, and @marypcbuk. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. Forums: MacRumors Forums
| Theodore Schleifer / New York Times: |
Anthropic donates $20M to Public First, a super PAC pushing for AI guardrails and transparency in opposition to OpenAI-backed PACs, ahead of the US midterms — Anthropic and OpenAI now have their own well-funded political groups that will square off in the midterm elections over artificial intelligence safety and regulation.
More: Axios, The Information, Bloomberg, Entrepreneur, New York Times, CNBC, Anthropic, Implicator.ai, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Axios, and Inc.com
X: @miles_brundage, @teddyschleifer, @teddyschleifer, @tombibbys, @burgessev, @shakeelhashim, @lisaabramowicz1, @shakeelhashim, @aricohn, @anthropicai, @santosh_arron, @adamkovac, @teddyschleifer, @corbtt, @deanwball, @neil_chilson, @cesarfernand3z, @ryangrim, @emrwilkins, @teddyschleifer, and @charalambos_the
| Kevin Collier / NBC News: |
Google's TIG says Gemini has been inundated by “commercially motivated” actors who are trying to clone it, including one campaign that prompted it 100K+ times — Google says private companies and researchers are trying to copy Gemini's capabilities by repeatedly prompting it at scale.| Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: |
Samsung says it sent the first commercial HBM4 shipments to customers; Samsung seeks to supply Nvidia and compete with memory rivals like SK Hynix and Micron — Samsung Electronics Co. claimed an early lead in the race to supply advanced memory for AI accelerators like those made by Nvidia Corp. … | CNBC: |
Waymo begins deploying its next-gen Ojai robotaxis, which it says can better navigate in harsh weather, starting with employees and their guests in SF and LA — Waymo on Thursday said it has begun using its sixth-generation driverless system to provide robotaxi rides to employees on Ojai vehicles … | Reuters: |
Z.ai says it will raise prices by at least 30% for new GLM coding plan subscribers to accommodate surging demand for its AI coding tools — Chinese artificial intelligence startup Zhipu on Thursday said it was raising prices for subscriptions to its GLM coding plan to accommodate a rapid increase …
| Z.ai: |
More: South China Morning Post, WinBuzzer, Latent.Space, The Rundown AI, blog.e01.ai, Reuters, and Bloomberg
X: @zai_org, @artificialanlys, @scaling01, @zai_org, @chrmanning, @lukaspet, @mervenoyann, @andonlabs, @artificialanlys, @artificialanlys, @minyangtian1, @ollama, @ml_angelopoulos, @jietang, @koylanai, @theo, @zai_org, @arena, @theo, @artificialanlys, @theahmadosman, @teortaxestex, @teksedge, @unslothai, @zephyr_z9, @theo, @zixuanli_, @carolglms, @rasbt, @ankrgyl, @vince_chow1, @vercel_dev, @zhuokaiz, @iamnitinr, @dorialexander, @lmsysorg, @kimmonismus, @_simonsmith, @weswinder, @scaling01, @eliebakouch, @louszbd, @arena, @lintool, @zai_org, @zai_org, @zai_org, @mweinbach, @altryne, @bridgemindai, @zephyr_z9, @scaling01, @thestalwart, and @zai_org
Forums: Hacker News, r/LocalLLaMA, r/singularity, and Lobsters
| Eugene Kim / Business Insider: |
Internal messages: Amazon steers teams to use its in-house AI coding assistant Kiro for production, prompting criticism as ~1,500 employees push for Claude Code — - Amazon internally promotes Kiro over third-party AI coding tools including Claude Code. — Some employees …
More: tildeweb.nl. X: @gergelyorosz, @bryanrbeal, @vikhyatk, @chrismunns, @ns123abc, @eugenekim222, @kylebrussell, and @astuyve
| Chainalysis: |
Crypto transaction volume linked to suspected human trafficking, largely based in Southeast Asia, hit hundreds of millions of dollars in 2025, up 85% YoY — The intersection of cryptocurrency and suspected human trafficking intensified in 2025, with total transaction volume reaching hundreds … | Eduardo Baptista / Reuters: |
ByteDance's new AI video generation model Seedance 2.0 goes viral in China, with one state-backed newspaper saying it is bigger than DeepSeek's “Sputnik moment” — ByteDance's new video-generating artificial intelligence model has already impressed the likes of Elon Musk and gone viral in China …
More: Fast Company, The Verge, TechNode, MIT Technology Review, and Reuters
| Financial Times: |
Israeli authorities charge a reservist and a civilian for allegedly using classified information to bet on “the occurrence of military operations” on Polymarket — Civilian and reservist charged with security offences, bribery and obstructing justice after ‘red line’ crossed with online gambling
More: Jerusalem Post, Decrypt, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, NBC News, crypto.news, and The Block. Bluesky: @campuscodi.risky.biz
| MiniMax: |
MiniMax releases M2.5, claiming the model delivers on the “intelligence too cheap to meter” promise, priced at $0.30/1M input tokens and $1.20/1M output tokens — Today we're introducing our latest model, MiniMax-M2.5. — Extensively trained with reinforcement learning …
X: @skylermiao7, @bytebot, @minimax_ai, @gneubig, @gneubig, @fanjiewang, @openhandsdev, @openhandsdev, @openhandsdev, @openhandsdev, @altryne, @openrouterai, @thdxr, @skylermiao7, @minimax_ai, @eliebakouch, @thdxr, @adonis_singh, @zephyr_z9, @itetnaa, @askokara, @initjean, @synthwavedd, @chatgpt21, @askokara, @scaling01, and @minimaxagent
Forums: Hacker News and r/LocalLLaMA
| Jonathan Weil / Wall Street Journal: |
Meta's auditor Ernst & Young raised a red flag over the financial engineering Meta used to keep its $27B Hyperion data center project off its balance sheet — Meta Platforms' latest annual report contained an unusual, cautionary note for investors. — The tech giant's auditor … | Steve Yegge: |
AI tools like Claude Opus 4.6 make engineers 10x more productive and are addictive, but also drain developers' energy, causing increasingly widespread burnout — This was an unusually hard post to write, because it flies in the face of everything else going on.
X: @solarise_webdev, @badlogicgames, @sockdrawermoney, and @championswimmer
LinkedIn: Steve Yegge and Lars Tackmann
Bluesky: @swallez.com and @hunterwalk.com
Forums: Hacker News and Lobsters
| Financial Times: |
Russia removes WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram from a Roskomnadzor-run online directory, essentially blocking them in the country, unless users rely on a VPN — Move follows months of pushing users to state-controlled app — Millions of Russians were abruptly cut off …
More: Reuters, 9to5Mac, Engadget, PCMag, CBS News, The Record, The Moscow Times, Washington Examiner, The Kyiv Independent, BBC, CNBC, The Guardian, CyberInsider, UPI, TRT World, Euronews, Ukrainian National News, Gizmodo, Coinpaper, Moneycontrol, and The Verge
X: @whatsapp, @jsrailton, @russiaspivot, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @aaronbastani, @lwazimbk, @annafromua_yt, and @gloooud. Bluesky: @justinhendrix
| Chris Welch / Bloomberg: |
Sony launches the $330 WF-1000XM6 earbuds, with AI-powered beamforming mics for enhanced voice call clarity, improved ANC, and hands-free Gemini on Android — Sony Group Corp. introduced its latest pair of premium wireless earbuds, offering a retooled design and active noise cancellation … | The Keyword: |
Google updates Gemini 3 Deep Think to better solve modern science, research, and engineering challenges and expands it via the Gemini API to some researchers — Our most specialized reasoning mode is now updated to solve modern science, research and engineering challenges.
More: PCMag, 9to5Google, and OfficeChai
X: @googledeepmind, @tulseedoshi, @officiallogank, @kevinroose, @officiallogank, @bridgemindai, @jeffdean, @noamshazeer, @rihardjarc, @geminiapp, @arcprize, @triswarkentin, @iterintellectus, @ai_for_success, @lmthang, @scaling01, @fchollet, @kimmonismus, @testingcatalog, @oriolvinyalsml, @oriolvinyalsml, @synthwavedd, @google, @scaling01, @googleai, @googledeepmind, and @googledeepmind
LinkedIn: Hanzhao, Heng-Tze Cheng, and Google DeepMind
Forums: Hacker News and r/singularity
| Kris Holt / Engadget: |
Nvidia launches a native GeForce Now app on select Amazon Fire TV sticks, offering up to 1080p and 60fps gaming; Fire TV users previously had to sideload it — Streaming quality tops out at 1080p and 60 fps, however. — NVIDIA's cloud gaming service, GeForce Now, has expanded to another platform.
More: NVIDIA, PCWorld, 9to5Google, VideoCardz.com, Digital Trends, Neowin, Cord Cutters News, Pocket-lint, and PC Guide
| Financial Times: |
Private equity and private credit groups' big bets on SaaS companies, the biggest area of PE activity in the past decade, risk being derailed by the rise of AI — Dealmakers and lenders are facing a ‘Darwinian moment’ as digital services risk being made obsolete by new technologies
More: Bloomberg, Insurance Business, and Bloomberg
| Bloomberg: |
Some of the biggest VC firms are backing both OpenAI and Anthropic; the growing trend of backing rival startups, once taboo, shows how AI has scrambled funding — Silicon Valley investors are breaking a longstanding taboo by investing in competing startups.
More: The Information. X: @ethanchoi7, @rebeccatorrenc5, and @anshublog. LinkedIn: Rebecca Torrence. Bluesky: @dannygroner
| Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: |
The US DOJ says Peter Williams, the former boss of L3Harris' Trenchant, stole and sold tools that can hack millions of computers worldwide to a Russian broker — The former boss of a U.S. maker of hacking and surveillance tools stole and sold technology that can hack millions of computers …
Bluesky: @campuscodi.risky.biz and @zackwhittaker.com. Mastodon: @lorenzofb@infosec.exchange. Forums: Slashdot
| John Collison / Cheeky Pint: |
Q&A with Stratechery's Ben Thompson on aggregation theory, AI, TikTok, ByteDance, AI agentic commerce, SaaS stocks, running Stratechery, TSMC, Stripe, and more — Ben Thompson, the internet's premier tech analyst, joins John for a wide-ranging conversation on the mechanics of the internet economy.| Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg: |
Simile, which uses AI to help companies predict human behavior, including guessing items customers might buy, raised $100M led by Index and emerges from stealth — - Simile is building a lab to help predict peoples' actions — The company is backed by Index, A* and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li| New York Times: |
Social media addiction trial in LA: Adam Mosseri says social media is not “clinically addictive” and that Meta is careful to test features used by young people — Instagram's chief executive said on Wednesday that social media was not “clinically addictive,” …
More: BBC, Moneycontrol, GameRevolution, Raleigh News & Observer, Bloomberg, TechRadar, CNBC, Dexerto, iPhone in Canada, BMI, Fortune, The Guardian, CNN, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, New York Post, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, NBC News, SBS News, The National, Bloomberg, Overturned, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters
| Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: |
Opaque, which offers enterprise tools for data privacy in AI workflows, raised a $24M Series B at a $300M valuation, bringing its total raised to $55.5M — Confidential artificial intelligence platform provider Opaque Systems Inc. today announced that it has raised $24 million in new funding … | Reuters: |
Sources: the Pentagon is pushing OpenAI, Anthropic, and others to make their AI tools available on classified networks without the standard user restrictions — The Pentagon is pushing the top AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic to make their artificial-intelligence tools available … | Dell Cameron / Wired: |
The US CBP signs a one-year Clearview AI deal to use facial recognition on 60B+ public images for “tactical targeting” and “strategic counter-network analysis” — US Border Patrol intelligence units will gain access to a face recognition tool built on billions of images scraped from the internet.
More: Defense One and FedScoop
Bluesky: @newshoundellen, @markriedl, @dell, @rmac, @couts, and @dell. Mastodon: @MikeDunnAuthor@kolektiva …
Forums: r/politics and r/fednews
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