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February 12, 2026, 1:11 PM
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| 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, Anthropic, CNBC, Implicator.ai, Reuters, Axios, Wall Street Journal, and Inc.com
X: @miles_brundage, @teddyschleifer, @teddyschleifer, @burgessev, @shakeelhashim, @lisaabramowicz1, @shakeelhashim, @aricohn, @anthropicai, @santosh_arron, @adamkovac, @teddyschleifer, @corbtt, @deanwball, @neil_chilson, @cesarfernand3z, @ryangrim, @emrwilkins, @tombibbys, @teddyschleifer, and @charalambos_the
| 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, New York Sun, Mobile World Live, Federal Trade Commission, Deadline, MacRumors, ZeroHedge News, Android Headlines, iClarified, 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
| 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.| 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, Sources, The Information, Bloomberg, 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: |
| 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. … | 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: Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post, Decrypt, Al Jazeera, NBC News, Associated Press, 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
| 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 … | 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, Android Headlines, TechNode, and MIT Technology Review
| 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, @lukaspet, @zai_org, @chrmanning, @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
| 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
| Axios: |
US DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater says she is leaving, in a departure viewed as a victory for tech giants over some of MAGA's more populist voices — Gail Slater on Thursday said she is leaving the Justice Department, where she led the antitrust division.| Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg: |
Letter: the EU launched a new probe into Google for potentially “artificially increasing the clearing price” of ad auctions “to the detriment of advertisers” — Google, the target for billions of euros in European Union antitrust fines, has been hit by a fresh EU probe …
More: Reuters
| 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, Thurrott, PCWorld, 9to5Google, VideoCardz.com, Digital Trends, Neowin, Cord Cutters News, and Pocket-lint
| 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, The Moscow Times, CBS News, Washington Examiner, Straight Arrow News, The Kyiv Independent, PCMag, The Record, BBC, CNBC, The Guardian, CyberInsider, UPI, TRT World, Euronews, Ukrainian National News, Gizmodo, 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, The Decoder, and OfficeChai
X: @googledeepmind, @googledeepmind, @sundarpichai, @joshwoodward, @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, and @googledeepmind
| 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| 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 … | Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: |
YouTube launches an app for the Apple Vision Pro, with standard videos, 180° and 360° videos, and YouTube Shorts; devices with the M5 chip can play 8K videos — Starting today, an official YouTube app is available on the Apple Vision Pro, allowing you to watch videos on a theater-sized screen …
More: The Verge, CNET, AppleInsider, ZDNET, 9to5Mac, Engadget, TechRadar, iPhone in Canada, The Mac Observer, Cord Cutters News, and Justin Ryan ᯅ on YouTube
X: @reneritchie, @mgsiegler, @zollotech, @parkerortolani, @andruedwards, @samsheffer, and @justinryanio
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| 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| 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 … Sponsor Posts
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Zoho:
How EWS deprecation affects Zoho Calendar Interoperability — Understanding the impactMicrosoft began blocking Exchange Web Services (EWS) requests in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365) as of October 1, 2026.
How EWS deprecation affects Zoho Calendar Interoperability — Understanding the impactMicrosoft began blocking Exchange Web Services (EWS) requests in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365) as of October 1, 2026.
IDrive:
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WebBrain:
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X: @anthropicai, @_arohan_, @timmlatimer, @edzitron, @natolambert, @jigarshahdc, @aakashgupta, @aaronbergman18, @joefioti, @matthewberman, @morqon, @wholemars, @joshdcaplan, @generic_void, @corbtt, @daniellefong, @arcorren, @mattscottcap, @techau, @0xdevshah, @ramez, and @kyliebytes. Bluesky: @awpiitr
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