Technology

Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, with Soumith Chintala taking over the role; sources say the termination is due to "unethical conduct" (Kylie Robison/@kyliebytes)

Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, with...

Kylie Robison / @kyliebytes: Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, ...

Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz are returning to OpenAI from Thinking Machines and the move "has been in the works for several weeks" (Fidji Simo/@fidjissimo)

Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenh...

Fidji Simo / @fidjissimo: Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoen...

Alpaca, which builds software to let companies offer stocks, ETFs, and other financial instruments, raised a $150M Series D led by Drive at a $1.15B valuation (Ben Weiss/Fortune)

Alpaca, which builds software to let companies offer st...

Ben Weiss / Fortune: Alpaca, which builds software to let companies offer stocks...

Sources: Chinese chip designer Montage, a Shanghai&listed company valued at $22B, plans a Hong Kong IPO that could raise $900M+, backed by Alibaba and JPMorgan (Dave Sebastian/Bloomberg)

Sources: Chinese chip designer Montage, a Shanghai&list...

Dave Sebastian / Bloomberg: Sources: Chinese chip designer Montage, a Shanghai-l...

Sources: McKinsey pilots an overhaul in how it recruits its next generation, asking candidates to use its AI tool Lilli to analyze a case study during a test (Financial Times)

Sources: McKinsey pilots an overhaul in how it recruits...

Financial Times: Sources: McKinsey pilots an overhaul in how it recruits its nex...

Source details how Apple's Gemini deal works: new Siri features launching in spring and at WWDC, Apple can finetune Gemini, no Google branding, and more (The Information)

Source details how Apple's Gemini deal works: new Siri ...

The Information: Source details how Apple's Gemini deal works: new Siri features...

Liftoff, which helps companies place ads in mobile apps, files for a US IPO, reporting a $25.6M net loss on $491.6M in revenue in the nine months up to Sept. 30 (Natalia Kniazhevich/Bloomberg)

Liftoff, which helps companies place ads in mobile apps...

Natalia Kniazhevich / Bloomberg: Liftoff, which helps companies place ads in mob...

Under new licensing requirements, the US Commerce Department says exports of Nvidia's H200 chips and AMD's MI325X chips will be reviewed on a case&by&case basis (Bloomberg)

Under new licensing requirements, the US Commerce Depar...

Bloomberg: Under new licensing requirements, the US Commerce Department says exp...

Researchers at OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are studying LLMs like living things, not just software, to uncover some of their secrets for the first time (Will Douglas Heaven/MIT Technology Review)

Researchers at OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are studyi...

Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review: Researchers at OpenAI, Anthropic, a...

PJM, the nonprofit operator for a 13&state power grid across the US, expects 4.8% average annual power growth over the next decade driven by the AI boom (Wall Street Journal)

PJM, the nonprofit operator for a 13&state power grid a...

Wall Street Journal: PJM, the nonprofit operator for a 13-state power grid acros...

The US House passes a bipartisan bill to expand US export controls to restrict Chinese companies' remote access to US AI chips from data centers outside China (Juro Osawa/The Information)

The US House passes a bipartisan bill to expand US expo...

Juro Osawa / The Information: The US House passes a bipartisan bill to expand US...

OpenAI acquires Torch, a one&year&old AI healthcare app that aggregates and analyzes medical records; source: OpenAI is paying $100M in equity (Laura Mandaro/The Information)

OpenAI acquires Torch, a one&year&old AI healthcare app...

Laura Mandaro / The Information: OpenAI acquires Torch, a one-year-old AI health...

Elon Musk says Apple and Google's Gemini deal "seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google given that [they] also have Android and Chrome" (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)

Elon Musk says Apple and Google's Gemini deal "seems li...

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: Elon Musk says Apple and Google's Gemini deal “seems ...

Sources: Meta plans to lay off ~10% of its 15,000&person Reality Labs division, disproportionately affecting those working on VR headsets and Horizon Worlds (New York Times)

Sources: Meta plans to lay off ~10% of its 15,000&perso...

New York Times: Sources: Meta plans to lay off ~10% of its 15,000-person Reality...

'It's a scam': French AI envoy on X making Grok chatbot pay&to&perve

'It's a scam': French AI envoy on X making Grok chatbot...

France's AI and Digital Ambassador Clara Chappaz says making public image genera...

A profile of China's CXMT, whose $4.2B IPO goal would r...

Wall Street Journal: A profile of China's CXMT, whose $4.2B IPO goal would rank ...

CES 2026: how some companies are trying to make their AI products cute and relatable, from Lenovo's chatty motorized laptop to Sharp's ChatGPT&powered Poketomo (Chris Velazco/Washington Post)

CES 2026: how some companies are trying to make their A...

Chris Velazco / Washington Post: CES 2026: how some companies are trying to make...

President Trump says "we may speak to Elon" about using Starlink to restore the internet in Iran, after the state imposed an internet blackout amid protests (Rachael Levy/Reuters)

President Trump says "we may speak to Elon" about using...

Rachael Levy / Reuters: President Trump says “we may speak to Elon” about using ...

"It's a scam": French AI envoy on X making Grok chatbot pay&to&perve

"It's a scam": French AI envoy on X making Grok chatbot...

France's AI and digital ambassador Clara Chappaz says making public image genera...

Tel Aviv&based Torq, which operates an autonomous AI&powered security operations platform, raised $140M led by Merlin Ventures at a $1.2B valuation (Andrew Martin/Bloomberg)

Tel Aviv&based Torq, which operates an autonomous AI&po...

Andrew Martin / Bloomberg: Tel Aviv-based Torq, which operates an autonomous AI-...

Tucuvi, which develops AI agents that check in with patients and escalate cases to human teams when needed, raised a $20M Series A, led by Cathay and Leadwind (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)

Tucuvi, which develops AI agents that check in with pat...

John Reynolds / Tech.eu: Tucuvi, which develops AI agents that check in with pat...

Instagram says there was no breach and it fixed an issue that let an external party send password reset emails, after reports that 17.5M users' data was exposed (Terrence O'Brien/The Verge)

Instagram says there was no breach and it fixed an issu...

Terrence O'Brien / The Verge: Instagram says there was no breach and it fixed an...

Analysis: global AI&related companies drove ~40% of benchmark convertible bond index returns in 2025, pushing the amount raised to $166.5B, the most since 2001 (Bloomberg)

Analysis: global AI&related companies drove ~40% of ben...

Bloomberg: Analysis: global AI-related companies drove ~40% of benchmark convert...

Investigation: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used two UK&registered companies to move ~$1B in stablecoins since 2023, evading international sanctions (TRM Insights)

Investigation: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps...

TRM Insights: Investigation: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used two U...

Newly listed Chinese AI chipmakers Moore Threads, Biren, and MetaX had stellar stock market debuts, but none has sales above 10% of rival Cambricon (Financial Times)

Newly listed Chinese AI chipmakers Moore Threads, Biren...

Financial Times: Newly listed Chinese AI chipmakers Moore Threads, Biren, and Me...

Morgan Stanley survey of audio habits in the US: 50% to 60% of listeners aged 18&44 reported listening to AI&generated music for 2.5 to 3 hours per week (Luke Kawa/Sherwood News)

Morgan Stanley survey of audio habits in the US: 50% to...

Luke Kawa / Sherwood News: Morgan Stanley survey of audio habits in the US: 50% ...

Indonesia temporarily blocks Grok, citing the risk of non&consensual sexual deepfakes, becoming the first country to block the AI tool (Fransiska Nangoy/Reuters)

Indonesia temporarily blocks Grok, citing the risk of n...

Fransiska Nangoy / Reuters: Indonesia temporarily blocks Grok, citing the risk o...

Stack Overflow recorded just 6,866 questions in Dec. 20...

Claire Yubin Oh / Sherwood News: Stack Overflow recorded just 6,866 questions in...

Chinese short&video app Kuaishou's stock has surged 88% over the past year, driven by the success of its Kling AI video generator, which has amassed 60M users (Bloomberg)

Chinese short&video app Kuaishou's stock has surged 88%...

Bloomberg: Chinese short-video app Kuaishou's stock has surged 88% over the past...

Documents: OpenAI is asking contractors to upload their work from current or previous jobs to evaluate its models, leaving it to them to scrub confidential info (Wired)

Documents: OpenAI is asking contractors to upload their...

Wired: Documents: OpenAI is asking contractors to upload their work from current...

Italy fines Cloudflare €14.2M for refusing to block pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service; CEO Matthew Prince says he will discuss it with US officials (Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica)

Italy fines Cloudflare €14.2M for refusing to block pir...

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: Italy fines Cloudflare €14.2M for refusing to block ...

A16z captured 18%+ of all US venture capital allocated in 2025 and now manages $90B in assets, vs Sequoia Capital's $56B and General Catalyst's $43B (Iain Martin/Forbes)

A16z captured 18%+ of all US venture capital allocated ...

Iain Martin / Forbes: A16z captured 18%+ of all US venture capital allocated in ...

Sources say DeepSeek will launch V4, its next&generation model, in the coming weeks and say it outperformed Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT series in coding (The Information)

Sources say DeepSeek will launch V4, its next&generatio...

The Information: Sources say DeepSeek will launch V4, its next-generation model,...

Rain, which helps businesses issue stablecoin&linked Visa cards, raised a $250M Series C led by ICONIQ at a $1.95B valuation, taking its total funding to $338M+ (Pragyan Kalita/Reuters)

Rain, which helps businesses issue stablecoin&linked Vi...

Pragyan Kalita / Reuters: Rain, which helps businesses issue stablecoin-linked V...

EU set to pass Mercosur deal after last&ditch concessions seem to convince Italy

EU set to pass Mercosur deal after last&ditch concessio...

The EU is set to pass a trade deal with South American trade bloc Mercosur after...

Seattle&based Spangle AI, which makes AI tools for online retailers to build custom storefronts, raised a $15M Series A led by NewRoad at a $100M valuation (Taylor Soper/GeekWire)

Seattle&based Spangle AI, which makes AI tools for onli...

Taylor Soper / GeekWire: Seattle-based Spangle AI, which makes AI tools for onli...

Docs: xAI had a net loss of $1.46B in Q3, up from $1B in Q1; sources: xAI told investors it plans to build AI that will eventually power Optimus humanoid robots (Carmen Arroyo/Bloomberg)

Docs: xAI had a net loss of $1.46B in Q3, up from $1B i...

Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg: Docs: xAI had a net loss of $1.46B in Q3, up from $1B...

Nvidia has hired Google Cloud VP of Marketing Alison Wagonfeld to be Nvidia's first CMO; source: Wagonfeld will report to CEO Jensen Huang (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal)

Nvidia has hired Google Cloud VP of Marketing Alison Wa...

Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal: Nvidia has hired Google Cloud VP of Market...

The EU says it ordered X to retain all internal docs and data relating to Grok until the end of 2026, after criticizing Grok's nonconsensual image generation (Louise Breusch Rasmussen/Reuters)

The EU says it ordered X to retain all internal docs an...

Louise Breusch Rasmussen / Reuters: The EU says it ordered X to retain all inter...

Google makes Help Me Write, AI email summaries, and Sug...

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google makes Help Me Write, AI email summaries, and Sugge...

Protege, which offers an AI data platform to access high&quality, proprietary training data at scale, raised $30M from a16z, extending its $25M Series A (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE)

Protege, which offers an AI data platform to access hig...

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Protege, which offers an AI data platform to access...

Arm creates a "Physical AI" unit to focus on robotics and automotive sectors, as part of a reorganization that includes "Cloud and AI" and "Edge" business units (Reuters)

Arm creates a "Physical AI" unit to focus on robotics a...

Reuters: Arm creates a “Physical AI” unit to focus on robotics and automotive se...

Samsung expects Q4 operating profit up 208% YoY to ~$13.8B, vs. ~$12.3B est., and revenue up 23% to ~$64.2B, as demand for AI servers lifted memory chip prices (Yoolim Lee/Bloomberg)

Samsung expects Q4 operating profit up 208% YoY to ~$13...

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: Samsung expects Q4 operating profit up 208% YoY to ~$13....

Ford plans to launch an AI voice assistant on its apps this year before expanding to its vehicles in 2027, and aims to debut Level 3 autonomous driving in 2028 (Andrew J. Hawkins/The Verge)

Ford plans to launch an AI voice assistant on its apps ...

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: Ford plans to launch an AI voice assistant on its...

Filing: Samsung plans to acquire $1.73B of its stock for employee and executive compensation, as part of a performance&linked scheme introduced in October 2025 (Kyu&seok Shim/Reuters)

Filing: Samsung plans to acquire $1.73B of its stock fo...

Kyu-seok Shim / Reuters: Filing: Samsung plans to acquire $1.73B of its stock fo...

Samsung says it expects memory chip supply shortages to raise prices across the electronics industry, including potentially among its own consumer products (Bloomberg)

Samsung says it expects memory chip supply shortages to...

Bloomberg: Samsung says it expects memory chip supply shortages to raise prices ...

Jensen Huang says Nvidia has "fired up" H200 production in the expectation of resumed China sales and it is working on the "last details" with the US government (Michael Acton/Financial Times)

Jensen Huang says Nvidia has "fired up" H200 production...

Michael Acton / Financial Times: Jensen Huang says Nvidia has “fired up” H200 pr...

Internal memo: Hark, the new AI lab from Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock, backed by $100M of his own capital, has hired 30+ engineers from Apple, Meta, and others (Rocket Drew/The Information)

Internal memo: Hark, the new AI lab from Figure AI CEO ...

Rocket Drew / The Information: Internal memo: Hark, the new AI lab from Figure A...

In the first successful US prosecution of a spyware operator in 10+ years, pcTattletale founder pleads guilty to promoting surveillance apps for unlawful uses (Zack Whittaker/TechCrunch)

In the first successful US prosecution of a spyware ope...

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: In the first successful US prosecution of a spyware...

Mobileye is acquiring Israeli humanoid robot startup Mentee Robotics in a cash&and&stock deal valued at $900M; Mentee was founded in 2022 and has raised $50M (Marissa Newman/Bloomberg)

Mobileye is acquiring Israeli humanoid robot startup Me...

Marissa Newman / Bloomberg: Mobileye is acquiring Israeli humanoid robot startup...

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