Techmeme
January 13, 2026, 4:20 PM

Top News

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta confirms it is laying off Reality Labs staff and will “reinvest the savings” in wearables; CTO Andrew Bosworth says 1,000+ staff will be notified Tuesday  —  Meta Platforms Inc. is beginning to cut more than 1,000 jobs from the company's Reality Labs division …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple unveils Apple Creator Studio, a “groundbreaking collection” of creative apps like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro for $13/month or $129/year  —  Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, which it describes as a “groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft changes its data center approach, pledging to pay its own power costs, reject tax breaks, and replenish more water than it uses, amid local opposition  —  President Trump was right about Microsoft — but he only leaked part of the story.  —  Microsoft is changing its approach …
Business Insider:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
The US FCC waives a rule that forced Verizon to unlock phones 60 days after they are activated, which could make it harder for people to switch from Verizon  —  The Federal Communications Commission is letting Verizon lock phones to its network for longer periods, eliminating a requirement …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
A look at Confer, an open-source AI assistant project from Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike that is designed to provide end-to-end encryption for AI chats  —  Moxie Marlinspike—the pseudonym of an engineer who set a new standard for private messaging with the creation of the Signal Messenger …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google makes improvements to Veo 3.1's Ingredients to Video feature to make videos “more expressive”, and adds native vertical video generation and 4K upscaling  —  Videos should now be more consistent with the images they're based on, including those in portrait orientations.
Mike Solana / Pirate Wires:
Philip Stafford / Financial Times:
Warhammer maker Games Workshop says it banned its staff from using AI in its content or designs and “will be maintaining a strong commitment to protect” its IP  —  Group behind Warhammer taking ‘very cautious’ approach and says it will ‘respect our human creators’
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Mercedes pauses the rollout of Drive Pilot, a Level 3 “eyes off” driving feature available in Europe and the US, citing low demand and high production costs  —  The automaker is instead forging ahead with its new point-to-point Level 2 system that rivals Tesla's Full Self-Driving.
Forums: Slashdot
Li Liu / Bloomberg:
Taiwan issues an arrest warrant for OnePlus CEO Pete Lau for allegedly illegally hiring 70+ Taiwanese engineers, as it tries to stop China from raiding workers  —  Prosecutors in Taiwan issued an arrest warrant for the chief executive officer of the Chinese smartphone company OnePlus …
More: Engadget
David Gilbert / Wired:
Roblox's AI-powered age verification system, which expanded globally last week using tech from a company called Persona, faces criticism for misidentifying ages  —  Kids are being identified as adults—and vice versa—on Roblox, while age-verified accounts are already being sold online.
Decrypt:
The NYC token, launched by former New York City Mayor Eric Adams on January 12, saw its market cap drop from ~$600M to ~$110M, after USDC liquidity manipulation  —  On-chain data shows unexplained liquidity withdrawals as Eric Adam's NYC token's market cap continues to bleed.  —  In brief
Colin Demarest / Axios:
Onebrief, which makes AI-powered military workflow software, raised a $200M Series D, nearly doubling its valuation from $1.1B to $2.1B in about half of a year  —  Defense software company Onebrief raised $200 million and snapped up Battle Road Digital, giving its military-planning suite a simulation and wargaming boost.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple and Google say Apple Foundation Models based on Gemini will help power not only a more personalized Siri, but also “future Apple Intelligence features”  —  Google today announced that its AI platform Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but a range of future Apple Intelligence features.
Bloomberg:
The US Senate passes the Defiance Act that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images, amid furor over Grok images  —  The US Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images …
Hayden Field / The Verge:
Anthropic shakes up its C-suite; chief product officer Mike Krieger will become the co-lead of its Labs incubator; head of product Ami Vora will become CPO  —  Chief product officer Mike Krieger will change roles and join the “Labs” team. … Mike Krieger, the Instagram co-founder …
Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET:
Salesforce makes Slack's new AI-powered Slackbot generally available, helping users answer workflow questions, draft documents, schedule meetings, and more  —  ZDNET's key takeaways Salesforce made Slackbot generally available.Slackbot is an AI agent for work built in Slack.Business …
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Flip, which offers an Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, raised a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $31M  —  Flip, a startup that claims to offer an Amazon Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively.

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Bloomberg:

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