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February 16, 2026, 3:55 PM
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memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Axios: |
A senior official says Pentagon is “close” to designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, requiring all US military contractors to sever ties with the company — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is “close” to cutting business ties with Anthropic and designating the AI company a …
More: PYMNTS.com, Capital Brief, Bloomberg, Fox News, SFist, The Hill, New York Post, Newser, Straight Arrow News, International Business Times, ZeroHedge News, The American Bazaar, Semafor, Mock Paper Scissors, NewsMax.com, and Dow Jones Newswires
X: @kevinbankston, @dannycrichton, @miles_brundage, @hamandcheese, @f4micom, @kimmonismus, @mikeisaac, @davidlawler10, @hamandcheese, @0xkrma, @michaeljburry, @j_g_allen, @alex, and @hamzamsyed
Bluesky: @volberg, @carnage4life, @somewhattolerable.com, @penllawen.favrd.social, @floatallboats, and @dburbach
| Katrina Manson / Bloomberg: |
Sources: SpaceX and xAI are competing in a $100M DoD contest to make voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarms; OpenAI is helping Applied Intuition's submission — Elon Musk's SpaceX and wholly owned subsidiary xAI are competing in a secretive new Pentagon contest to produce voice-controlled … | Eduardo Baptista / Reuters: |
Alibaba debuts Qwen3.5, a 397B-parameter open-weight multimodal AI model that it says is 60% cheaper to use and 8x better at large workloads than Qwen3 — Alibaba on Monday unveiled a new artificial intelligence model Qwen 3.5 designed to execute complex tasks independently … | Tripti Lahiri / Wall Street Journal: |
As India prepares to host its AI Impact Summit in New Delhi this week, the country is set to promote a frugal AI strategy focused on solving local issues — The world's most populous country is looking at how it can become an artificial-intelligence power without breaking the bank
More: Tech Policy Press, Nikkei Asia, The Economic Times, TechCrunch, AMD, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Indian Express, Daily Sabah, Bloomberg, and Bloomberg
X: @ashwinivaishnaw, @imdhananjay, @artijourno, @akm1410, @narendramodi, @ukinindia, @maitreya_wagh, @kmr_dilip, @mohfw_india, @aiatmeta, @kritikaaaa_10, @zoho, @mopr_goi, and @goi_meity. Bluesky: @justinhendrix
| Anthropic: |
Anthropic opens a Bengaluru office, its second in Asia, says its India run-rate revenue doubled since October, and curates training data for 10 Indic languages — India is the second-largest market for Claude.ai, home to a developer community doing some of the most technically intense AI work we see anywhere.
More: PYMNTS.com, Blockonomi, Digit, Bloomberg, Claude, The Decoder, Inc42, Capacity, The Hans India, Reuters, BMI, and TechCrunch
| Todd Spangler / Variety: |
Apple says it will bring “advanced video capabilities” to Apple Podcasts this spring, including allowing users to switch between watching and listening to shows — Apple Podcasts is finally giving video a full embrace. — The tech giant, which pioneered the podcast audio format …
More: Apple, Thurrott, AppleInsider, The Verge, The Wrap, MacRumors, Engadget, Engadget, 9to5Mac, The Hollywood Reporter, iClarified, The Hollywood Reporter, The Mac Observer, Deadline, CNBC, Barrett Media, MacStories, iPhone in Canada, Bloomberg, and Six Colors
Forums: r/overcast and r/apple
| Mari Novik / Financial Times: |
Keir Starmer says “no platform gets a free pass”, as the UK moves to amend safety laws to include AI chatbots like Grok, which made sexualized deepfakes of kids — Keir Starmer to warn tech companies that ‘no platform gets a free pass’ after deepfake scandal involving Grok
More: GOV.UK, Politico, The Guardian, UPI, The Guardian, iPhone in Canada, Sky News, Tom's Guide, CNBC, PiunikaWeb, CNN, The Economic Times, City A.M., crypto.news, and BBC
X: @keir_starmer, @yougov, @anglopjdst, @guidofawkes, @kathrynporter26, @douglascarswell, @alecmuffett, @beccajiggens, @drhingram, @deandobbs, @togetherdec, @anglofuturist, @tomdavenport, @archrose90, @awakenedoutlaw, @james7holland, @scitechgovuk, @karlemilnikka, @joshhousden, @drbenspencer, @scitechgovuk, @lukejcr, @alistrathern, @clashreport, @leicesterliz, @silkiecarlo, @prestonjbyrne, and @prestonjbyrne. Bluesky: @peter4bracknell. Forums: r/ukpolitics
| Osmond Chia / BBC: |
ByteDance says it “respects IP rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance” and it plans to “strengthen” safeguards, after Disney's legal threats — Chinese technology giant ByteDance has pledged to curb a controversial artificial intelligence (AI) …
More: Associated Press, New York Times, The Guardian, Reuters, PCMag, Neowin, WinBuzzer, Spyglass, UPI, Dexerto, Notebookcheck, The Wrap, Business Insider, Variety, The Decoder, and GamesRadar. Forums: r/BetterOffline
| Todd Spangler / Variety: |
More: Ars Technica, CNBC, The American Bazaar, The Information, Deadline, and The Wrap
| Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: |
Apple sends invites for a “special Apple Experience” event on March 4 in New York City; rumors suggest an M5 MacBook Pro, entry-level iPad Air, and iPhone 17e — Apple today announced a “special Apple Experience” in New York, London, and Shanghai, taking place on March 4, 2026 at 9:00am ET.
More: Ars Technica, PYMNTS.com, The Information, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, T3, Times of India, Inc.com, iDownloadBlog.com, Redmond Pie, Forbes, XDA Developers, Moneycontrol, iDrop News, Android Authority, CNET, AppleInsider, PCMag, The Mac Observer, Digital Trends, PhoneArena, Cord Cutters News, iClarified, iThinkDifferent, Phandroid, Engadget, Android Headlines, MacTech.com, Mashable, and The Verge
X: @markgurman, @markgurman, @vadimyuryev, @mweinbach, @vadimyuryev, @joannastern, @markgurman, @markgurman, and @markgurman
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Sony is considering pushing back the debut of its next PlayStation console to 2028 or even 2029, as the AI boom fuels huge memory chip demand — A growing procession of tech industry leaders including Elon Musk and Tim Cook are warning about a global crisis in the making …
More: GamesIndustry.biz, Motley Fool, Mashable, Digital Trends, GoNintendo, Neowin, Forbes, TheGamer, GamesRadar, Pure Xbox, Livemint, Push Square, KitGuru, GamingBolt, Nintendo Life, Polygon.com, Blockonomi, iPhone in Canada, Video Games Chronicle, Game Developer, Tech4Gamers, Screen Rant, Notebookcheck, DigiTimes, and The Verge
X: @sonusvarghese, @kylebrussell, @citrini7, and @tomwarren
| Latent.Space: |
Q&A with Google Chief AI Scientist Jeff Dean about the evolution of Google Search, TPUs, coding agents, balancing model efficiency and performance, and more — From rewriting Google's search stack in the early 2000s to reviving sparse trillion-parameter models and co-designing TPUs …
More: Latent Space on YouTube. X: @jeffdean, @swyx, @swyx, @latentspacepod, @latentspacepod, @dhtikna, and @dhtikna. LinkedIn: Vincent Vanhoucke
| Marcus Schuler / Implicator.ai: |
In a podcast, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger describes his phone calls with Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, and says he had been contacted by “every big VC” — Mark Zuckerberg needed ten minutes. He was finishing code. — Peter Steinberger had called him on WhatsApp without scheduling anything.
More: Business Insider, PCMag, Blockonomi, Fincrypt, Cyber Security News, Barron's Online, DigiTimes, Livemint, and Lex Fridman
| Sam Altman / @sama: |
More: Peter Steinberger, Gizmodo, The Register, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Financial Times, The Verge, Bloomberg, Forbes, Business Insider, Unite.AI, HealthcareInfoSecurity.com, Times of India, Help Net Security, On my Om, Cautious Optimism, Computerworld, WinBuzzer, Tom's Guide, ServeTheHome, Neowin, Silicon Republic, Benzinga, TechRadar, Engadget, The Hans India, Tech.eu, The Deep View, CNBC, SiliconANGLE, The Information, and The Information
X: @steipete, @ibab, @levie, @om, @gdb, @yuchenj_uw, @altryne, @davemorin, @dabit3, @emollick, @om, @austen, @christyhwchoi, @dvassallo, @zackkorman, @bucknsf, @mirkogarozzo, @jquinonero, @sytaylor, @alxfazio, @romainhuet, @dahongfei, @themotelman, @krausefx, @iannuttall, @hsvsphere, @steipete, @thsottiaux, @rayfernando1337, @steipete, @anothercohen, @filipe_almeida, @scottjduffy, @toddsaunders, @cofoundersnik, @theprimeagen, @edzitron, @aakashgupta, @fidjissimo, @joannastern, @raphaelschaad, @gregisenberg, @bullyesq, @bilawalsidhu, @dylanabruscato, @badlogicgames, @alexfinn, @benjamindekr, @chrismaconi, @timhaldorsson, @jessicalessin, @kareldoostrlnck, @apoorva_mehta, @romainhuet, @swyx, @steipete, and @meta_alchemist
LinkedIn: Choon Leng Chia, Romain Huet, Wei Manfredi, and Iago Maciel
Mastodon: @drahardja@sfba.social and @carnage4life@mas.to
Forums: Hacker News, r/BetterOffline, r/OpenAI, r/clawdbot, and r/openclaw
| Dominic Preston / The Verge: |
Samsung releases an ad for the Galaxy S26 series that briefly shows a “Zero-peeking privacy” toggle to black out on-screen content for onlookers at an angle — Leaker Ice Universe has shared a video of the tech in action. … Samsung has released a new advertisement … | Erik Brynjolfsson / Financial Times: |
Analysis: US productivity rose by ~2.7% in 2025, nearly doubling the 1.4% annual average over a decade, as AI-exposed sectors cooled their entry-level hiring — New economic data suggests the US is transitioning to a phase of measurable gains from the technology
More: The Decoder. X: @danobrien20, @fabioghironi, @producercities, @matthewstoller, @ft, @happyhappyhenri, @alexolegimas, @wholemars, @ai, @darioperkins, @firstadopter, @erikbryn, @briancalbrecht, @micro2macr0, and @greenplusane
LinkedIn: Anthony Battle Mrics Msc and Eric Hazan
| Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: |
OpenAI retired GPT-4o on February 13, angering loyal users, 20K+ of whom signed a petition; 4o showed the unique attachment that people can form with chatbots — GPT-4o showed the unique attachment that people can form with chatbots — OpenAI is forcing thousands of people to break up with its most controversial AI model.
More: Tom's Guide, Trusted Reviews, and PiunikaWeb
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