| 12:50 PM • | Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters: Mexico-based fintech Plata raised up to $500M in a financing deal arranged by Nomura Securities International, as it moves toward becoming a full-fledged bank |
| 12:45 PM • | Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Google is shutting down its dark web monitoring tool, launched in 2024 to alert users when their personal info is detected on the dark web, on February 16, 2026 |
| 12:35 PM • | Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: NY-based Octane, which offers “instant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, raised a $100M Series F at a post-money valuation of $1.3B |
| 11:53 AM • | Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters: Nvidia announces it has acquired SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for HPC and AI |
| 11:40 AM • | Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW: The Trump administration launches US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 staffers from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize the government |
| 11:30 AM • | Dan Primack / Axios: Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and now has over $30B in AUM; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022 |
| 11:15 AM • | Ashley Capoot / CNBC: Thrive Holdings announces it has hired Palantir CIO Jim Siders to serve as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services |
| 10:30 AM • | Luke James / Tom's Hardware: LG smart TV owners say a webOS update pinned Microsoft Copilot to the home screen, with no apparent way to remove the app; LG unveiled an AI TV strategy at CES |
| 9:35 AM • | Reuters: Internal docs: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads, like for scams |
| 9:15 AM • | Erin Griffith / New York Times: Lightspeed raised $9B+ across six AI funds, including $3.3B to back breakout hits like Anthropic, xAI, and Mistral; Lightspeed has backed 165 AI startups |
| 9:06 AM • | Emilia David / VentureBeat: Nvidia launches Nemotron 3, a family of AI models using a hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture and the Mamba-Transformer design, in 30B, 100B, and ~500B sizes |
| 8:00 AM • | Rose Henderson / Bloomberg: Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD offer, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid |
| 7:45 AM • | Anna Heim / TechCrunch: Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret videos to add synced sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index Ventures and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed |
| 7:20 AM • | Naomi Nix / Washington Post: Tech whistleblowers like Yaël Eisenstat say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives and careers; Meta is in litigation with Sarah Wynn-Williams |
| 7:05 AM • | Caroline Hyde / Bloomberg: AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $130M Series B led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst at a $1.3B valuation, taking its total funding to $225M |
| 6:55 AM • | Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal: Teneo survey of 350+ public-company CEOs: 68% plan to spend more on AI in 2026 than in 2025, <50% of AI projects generated more returns than they cost, and more |
| 6:40 AM • | Bloomberg: Analysis: Tata, Infosys, and Cognizant are set to bear the brunt of Trump's $100K H-1B fee; from 2020 to 2024, 93% of Infosys' H-1B hires would have had to pay |
| 6:25 AM • | Financial Times: Sources: the UK government wants Apple, Google, and others to block explicit images at the OS level by default to protect kids and have adults verify their ages |
| 6:10 AM • | Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon's rivalry is moving beyond ads, with explicit customer poaching efforts and lawsuits; AT&T blocked T-Mobile's Easy Switch tool twice |
| 5:55 AM • | Financial Times: DTCC: credit default swaps tied to a handful of US tech groups have climbed 90% since early September, as investors seek ways to protect against an AI debt bust |
| 5:40 AM • | John Reynolds / Tech.eu: London-based PolyAI, which makes call center AI voice assistants, raised an $86M Series D led by Georgian, Hedosophia, and Khosla, after raising $50M in 2024 |
| 5:15 AM • | Lauren Edmonds / Business Insider: Filing: Reddit says in its lawsuit against Australia's social media ban that it is “a collection of public fora” and social interaction isn't its “sole purpose” |
| 4:55 AM • | Mike Baker / New York Times: US volunteer fire departments are scrambling to find software amid shrinking options and higher costs, as companies backed by private equity dominate the market |
| 4:35 AM • | Washington Post: How David Sacks and AI adviser Sriram Krishnan overcame MAGA's opposition to Trump's AI executive order, talking to lawmakers and finally modifying its language |
| 4:20 AM • | Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine: Interviews with copywriters on generative AI's impact: their work used for training, layoffs, wages and rates in free fall, freelancers losing clients, and more |
| 3:50 AM • | Allison Johnson / The Verge: AI image generators like Nano Banana have increased realism by mimicking phone camera traits in contrast, exposure, and sharpening to avoid the uncanny valley |
| 2:00 AM • | Financial Times: How Nvidia's lobbying efforts grew after Howard Lutnick brokered Jensen Huang's early access to President Trump, who ultimately approved H200 sales to China |
| 1:10 AM • | Martin Peers / The Information: Filing: Oracle signed ~$150B of data center leases in the three months ending November 30, raising its total data center and cloud capacity commitments to $248B |
| 9:55 PM • | Gene Maddaus / Variety: Google has removed dozens of AI videos from YouTube that depicted Disney characters, after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter flagging the links |
| 9:35 PM • | Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Microsoft expands its bug bounty program so that any critical vulnerability, including in third-party code, impacting its online services is eligible for awards |
| 8:40 PM • | Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: OpenAI quietly adopted Anthropic's “skills” mechanism in ChatGPT and Codex; ChatGPT's skills include creating and modifying spreadsheets, docx files, and PDFs |
| 8:01 PM • | Loren Grush / Bloomberg: Internal message: SpaceX has authorized an insider share sale at $421/share, valuing the company at ~$800B, and said it's preparing for a possible IPO in 2026 |
| 7:05 PM • | Rachyl Jones / Semafor: Singapore-based ChemLex raised a $45M funding round led by Granite Asia to build an AI-powered, automated chemistry lab to accelerate drug discovery |
| 6:40 PM • | Bloomberg: Sources: Intel is in advanced talks to acquire AI chip startup SambaNova for about $1.6B including debt; the deal could come together as soon as next month |
| 6:35 PM • | Andrew Welsch / Barron's Online: Automated digital wealth management company Wealthfront's stock closed up 1.36% in its Nasdaq debut, valuing it at ~$2.7B, after raising $486M in its IPO |
| 6:20 PM • | Financial Times: Shares of data center real estate company Fermi closed down 34% after a tenant terminated a $150M agreement to help fund an AI campus in West Texas |
| 5:35 PM • | Reuters: Exor rejects Tether's all-cash offer for its 65.4% majority stake in Juventus, which valued the Italian soccer club at $1.17B |
| 5:15 PM • | Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: Source: OpenEvidence, which offers an AI chatbot for doctors, is raising $250M at a $12B valuation, up from $6B in Oct., and has $150M in annualized ad revenue |
| 5:00 PM • | Xuedong Huang / Zoom: Zoom says its “federated AI” model, combining its SLM with open- and closed-source models, got 48.1% on Humanity's Last Exam vs. 45.8% for Gemini 3 Pro w/ tools |
| 4:00 PM • | Maggie Eastland / Bloomberg: David Sacks says China is rejecting Nvidia's H200 AI chips, because the country wants “semiconductor independence” and to “prop up and subsidize Huawei” |
| 2:55 PM • | Emma Roth / The Verge: Amazon Prime Video pulls its AI recaps, which it began testing in November, for Fallout, Bosch, and other shows after users noticed errors in the Fallout recaps |
| 2:20 PM • | Thinking Machines Lab: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab makes Tinker, its API for fine-tuning language models, generally available, adds support for Kimi K2 Thinking, and more |
| 2:15 PM • | Bloomberg: David Sacks says Trump's AI EO aims to ease companies' compliance burden and that the administration is working with Congress on a common AI oversight standard |
| 1:55 PM • | Stevie Bonifield / The Verge: Google expands Google Translate's live speech translation from Pixel Buds to any headphones, supporting 70+ languages, in beta on compatible Android phones |
| 1:30 PM • | Axios: Policymakers behind key state AI bills scoff at Trump's EO; some GOP governors are pushing ahead with their own AI bills; Steve Bannon says Sacks misled Trump |
| 12:40 PM • | Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg: Sources: X reported $752M in Q3 revenue, up 17% YoY, a net loss of $577.4M, and EBITDA of ~$454M, up 16%; revenue for the first nine months of 2025 was $2B+ |
| 12:30 PM • | Ann Gehan / The Information: Source: livestream shopping app Whatnot nears ~$1B in revenue for 2025; Whatnot says it has passed $6B in gross sales this year, more than doubling 2024's sales |
| 12:05 PM • | Rocket Drew / The Information: Companies are updating insider trading policies to cover prediction markets; Kalshi and others are pushing for federal oversight, including of insider trading |
| 11:17 AM • | Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Sources: Oracle has delayed completion of some OpenAI data centers from 2027 to 2028, largely due to labor and material shortages; Oracle denies delays |
| 11:10 AM • | Nina Bambysheva / Forbes: Kalshi integrates its event trading platform into the popular crypto wallet Phantom; Dune: in November, Kalshi's trading volume hit $5.8B vs. Polymarket's $3.7B |
| 11:00 AM • | Ben Weiss / Fortune: YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD |
| 10:25 AM • | Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch: Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity updates World to make it a “super app” with encrypted chat integration and a Venmo-like tool for sending and requesting crypto |
| 9:50 AM • | Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: Trump's AI executive order directs federal agencies to look into withholding federal funding from states passing “the most onerous and excessive laws” around AI |
| 9:40 AM • | Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz: [Thread] Substack quietly added a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters, but says it reverted the change after complaints |
| 9:15 AM • | Reuters: Serval, which offers an AI assistant for IT, HR, legal, and finance, raised a $75M Series B led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation, taking its total funding to $127M |
| 8:55 AM • | Tim Hardwick / MacRumors: Switzerland launches a preliminary investigation into whether Apple's terms for granting third-party access to NFC tech on iPhones violate its antitrust laws |
| 8:45 AM • | Reuters: Sources: Nvidia told its Chinese clients that it is evaluating adding production capacity for its H200 chips after orders exceeded its current output level |
| 8:35 AM • | Ian King / Bloomberg: TechInsights: Huawei's Kirin 9030 chip, used in its Mate 80 Pro Max phone, is China's most advanced chip to date and was produced with SMIC's updated 7nm tech |
| 7:55 AM • | John Liu / Bloomberg: Sources: China is considering a ~$28B-to-$70B incentives package, which would be separate from the $50B Big Fund III plan, to support its chipmaking industry |
| 7:50 AM • | Reuters: EU finance ministers agree on a €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 2026, aiming to crack down on Chinese imports from retailers like Shein and Temu |
| 6:50 AM • | Kirsty Needham / Reuters: Papua New Guinea says Google will build three subsea cables for the country, a $120M effort funded by Australia, amid China boosting its influence in the region |
| 4:55 AM • | Nikkei Asia: Taiwan opens its largest AI supercomputing data center, with Nvidia's Blackwell chips, a major effort in its push for sovereign AI and chip industry innovation |
| 2:30 AM • | Reuters: Sources: Intel has tested chipmaking tools in 2025 from California-based ACM Research, which has deep China ties; US sanctions targeted two ACM overseas units |
| 2:00 AM • | Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Newsletter: GPT-5.2 models have a 400K context window and 128K max output tokens, like GPT-5 and 5.1, but have an August 31, 2025, knowledge cutoff, vs. September 30, 2024 |
| 12:55 AM • | Alex Heath / Sources: An interview with Nikita Bier, who wants to lure journalists back to X with a rebuilt recommendation algorithm with no keyword suppression or manual downranking |
| 11:15 PM • | Jay Peters / The Verge: Tim Sweeney: the Ninth Circuit's decision on the Epic v. Apple contempt ruling appeal “completely shuts down” App Store rules letting Apple collect “junk fees” |
| 10:55 PM • | Reuters: Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia to overturn its social media ban for under-16s, saying it “infringes the implied freedom of political communication” |
| 10:35 PM • | Igor Bonifacic / Engadget: In his EO, Trump orders US AG Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” that meets regularly with David Sacks to challenge “inconsistent” state AI laws |
| 9:55 PM • | Zachary Small / New York Times: A look at France-based indie game studio Sandfall Interactive, whose critically acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had a sub-$10M budget and sold 5M+ copies |
| 8:50 PM • | Dara Kerr / The Guardian: xAI partners with El Salvador to deploy Grok across 5,000+ public schools, reaching 1M+ students in an “AI-powered education program” over the next two years |
| 7:55 PM • | OpenAI: On OpenAI's 10-year anniversary, Sam Altman reflects on “a decade of breakthroughs, learnings, and the path toward AGI that benefits all of humanity” |
| 7:35 PM • | CNBC: Broadcom CEO Hock Tan reveals that Anthropic placed a $10B order for Google's Ironwood TPU racks in Q3 and says Anthropic placed an additional $11B order in Q4 |
| 6:55 PM • | Reuters: President Trump signs an executive order aimed at preempting a growing number of state AI laws, saying “we want to have one central source of approval” |
| 6:05 PM • | Maria Curi / Axios: New US OMB guidance states that LLMs procured by federal agencies must comply with two “unbiased AI principles”: “truth-seeking” and “ideological neutrality” |
| 5:15 PM • | Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk: A US judge sentences Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon to 15 years in prison; Kwon pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud charges in August |
| 4:25 PM • | Kif Leswing / CNBC: Broadcom Q4: revenue up 28% YoY to $18.02B, vs. $17.49B est., forecasts Q1 revenue above est., and expects AI chip sales to double YoY to $8.2B; AVGO falls 10%+ |
| 4:20 PM • | Issie Lapowsky / Transformer: Sources: New York's governor proposes rewriting the RAISE Act, the AI bill that passed NY legislature in June, with text copied verbatim from California's SB 53 |
| 3:45 PM • | Bloomberg: A US appeals court upholds a contempt ruling in Epic v. Apple, but says Apple can argue in a lower court to charge <27% for transactions outside the App Store |
| 2:40 PM • | Kritika Lamba / Reuters: Fortnite returns to Google Play in the US following a US District Court injunction; Google and Epic settled last week, after a years-long antitrust dispute |
| 2:20 PM • | Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter: Bob Iger says Disney's OpenAI deal “does not in any way represent a threat to the creators at all”, as it doesn't include name, likeness, or character voices |
| 2:15 PM • | @openaidevs: [Thread] GPT-5.2 is now available in the API, priced at $1.75/1M input and $14/1M output tokens; GPT-5.2 Pro is priced at $21/1M input and $168/1M output tokens |
| 2:10 PM • | Dade Hayes / Deadline: New York's governor signs bills requiring ads to disclose AI-generated performers and mandating heirs' consent to use a deceased person's likeness commercially |
| 1:45 PM • | OpenAI: OpenAI says GPT‑5.2 Thinking beats or ties industry professionals on 70.9% of GDPval knowledge work tasks, delivering outputs at >11x the speed and <1% the cost |
| 1:40 PM • | Time: Time names “the Architects of AI” as its 2025 Person of the Year and examines AI's effect on the economy, geopolitics, and how people interact with the world |
| 1:30 PM • | The Verge: OpenAI's Fidji Simo says she expects ChatGPT's “adult mode” to launch in Q1 2026 and that OpenAI wants to get better at age prediction before adding the feature |
| 1:25 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Google launches Disco, a Gemini 3-powered experiment that suggests and creates GenTabs, web apps based on the user's open browser tabs and Gemini chat history |
| 1:17 PM • | Hayden Field / The Verge: OpenAI says GPT-5.2 Thinking hallucinates less than GPT-5.1 and is more reliable for agentic AI needs; prerelease testers include Notion, Box, Shopify, and Zoom |
| 1:06 PM • | Maxwell Zeff / Wired: OpenAI debuts GPT-5.2, its “best model yet”, in Instant, Thinking, and Pro variants, with significant improvements in writing, coding, and reasoning benchmarks |
| 12:40 PM • | The Keyword: Google DeepMind debuts an enhanced Gemini Deep Research agent, available to developers via its new Interactions API, along with agent benchmark DeepSearchQA |
| 12:30 PM • | Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: Rivian says it is building its own 5nm AI chip, the Rivian Autonomy Processor, and will launch a foundation “Large Driving Model”, for fully autonomous driving |
| 12:20 PM • | TechCrunch: Runway debuts GWM-1, its first world model, which uses frame-by-frame prediction to simulate physics, and adds native audio and multi-shot generation to Gen 4.5 |
| 12:00 PM • | Axios: The OpenAI deal gives Disney a fair amount of oversight and control over how its IP is used, including a joint steering committee to monitor user creations |
| 11:45 AM • | Victoria Albert / Wall Street Journal: Palantir expands its Percepta lawsuit, accusing Percepta's co-founders of poaching its workers and customers, and another employee of stealing confidential docs |
| 11:25 AM • | Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media: Worktrace AI, founded by ex-OpenAI product lead Angela Jiang and researcher Deepak Vasisht, launches with a $9.3M seed, and releases a workflow automation agent |
| 11:15 AM • | Maxwell Zeff / Wired: Cursor launches Visual Editor, a vibe-coding product for designers that integrates professional design controls with natural language editing via Cursor's agent |
| 10:50 AM • | Carlos Garcia / Fortune: Berlin-based LI.FI, which provides businesses with price comparisons of crypto exchange rates and bridging fees, raised $29M, taking its total funding to ~$52M |
| 10:30 AM • | Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: AT&T launches Connected Life, a smart home security system with hardware from Google and Abode, designed to keep working during power or internet outages |
| 9:58 AM • | Todd Spangler / Variety: Disney sends Google a cease-and-desist letter, accusing Google of “massive scale” copyright infringement and using AI to “exploit and distribute” its content |
| 9:20 AM • | Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal: Stanford researchers develop AI hacking bot Artemis and say it surpassed nine out of 10 penetration testers by rapidly finding bugs in the university's network |
| 9:05 AM • | OpenAI: Disney and OpenAI sign a three-year deal to bring 200+ Disney characters to Sora; Disney will make a $1B investment in OpenAI and become a major OpenAI customer |
| 8:50 AM • | Clare Duffy / CNN: Study: 15 TikTok accounts posting AI videos of sexualized underage girls have nearly 300K followers; TikTok says that 14 of the accounts don't violate its rules |
| 8:25 AM • | Steve Dent / Engadget: Google brings Gemini to Chrome for iOS and iPadOS, after debuting on desktop and Android earlier in 2025, starting in the US in English for signed-in users |
| 8:15 AM • | Financial Times: Dutch payments group Mollie agrees to acquire London-based fintech GoCardless for €1.5B, set to close in 2026; GoCardless was last valued at $2.1B in early 2022 |
| 8:10 AM • | The Information: Sources: in recent months, Tencent aggressively hired AI researchers from ByteDance, including by offering to double their salaries, and reorganized its AI team |
| 7:50 AM • | Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Fertility startup Inito, which offers an at-home health diagnostics platform, raised a $29M Series B and plans to use AI-designed antibodies to make new tests |
| 7:30 AM • | Agnee Ghosh / Bloomberg: Medra, which programs robots with AI to conduct and improve biological experiments, raised $52M led by Human Capital, taking its total funding to $63M |
| 7:15 AM • | Francesca Micheletti / Politico: The EU opens investigations into Temu and airport scanner maker Nuctech to assess whether they unfairly penetrated the EU market thanks to Beijing subsidies |
| 6:40 AM • | Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch: Runware, which operates a developer tool platform that generates images, video, and audio in real-time, raised a $50M Series A, taking its total funding to $66M |
| 6:25 AM • | Julie Bort / TechCrunch: Israeli startup Port, which offers a proprietary developer portal competitor to Spotify's open-source Backstage, raised a $100M Series C at an $800M valuation |
| 6:05 AM • | Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Harness, which uses AI to automate code testing, verification, security, and governance, raised a $240M Series E led by Goldman Sachs at a $5.5B valuation |
| 5:55 AM • | Julie Jargon / Wall Street Journal: OpenAI faces a wrongful death lawsuit from the estate of an 83-year-old woman killed by her son, who had engaged in delusion-filled conversations with ChatGPT |
| 5:00 AM • | Tim Dettmers: An Ai2 research scientist says AGI may never emerge because such a concept ignores the physical realities and limits of computation, such as energy constraints |
| 2:50 AM • | Patrick O'Shaughnessy / Invest Like The Best on YouTube: Q&A with investor Gavin Baker of Atreides Management on the economics of AI, data centers in space, mistakes SaaS companies are making in adopting AI, and more |
| 2:45 AM • | Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal says the Indian edtech startup's valuation has fallen from its $3.5B peak three years ago to less than $500M, and confirms M&A talks |
| 2:35 AM • | Hayden Field / The Verge: A look at the Model Context Protocol and how it went from a passion project from two Anthropic employees to an industry standard managed by the Linux Foundation |
| 2:30 AM • | Wall Street Journal: China's power grid, the world's largest, gives it an edge in the global AI contest, helping Chinese companies develop AI models more cheaply than US competitors |
| 2:25 AM • | Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk: a16z crypto expands to Asia, opens a Seoul office, hires Monad's Sungmo Park as its Asia head, and calls South Korea the world's second-largest crypto market |
| 2:20 AM • | The Economic Times: Uber launches its B2B logistics service Uber Direct in India with ONDC integration, starting in Bengaluru with grocery deliveries for Zepto and KPN Farm Fresh |
| 1:25 AM • | Wall Street Journal: US investors are boosting Chinese AI-related tech stocks and adding cash to ETFs tracking China's tech sector, as US lawmakers push for tighter capital curbs |
| 1:15 AM • | Ben Elgin / Bloomberg: Uber discontinues its monthly EV bonuses as it scales back key climate efforts after embracing Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which slashed clean-energy incentives |
| 12:10 AM • | Reuters: JD.com's JingDong Industrials, a supply chain tech and services provider, opened down 7.8% after the company raised ~$383M in its Hong Kong IPO |
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