Techmeme
January 13, 2026, 2:55 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:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
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
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 …
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 …
Mike Solana / Pirate Wires:
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.
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
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 …
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
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.
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.
More: Unite.AI
Dan Primack / Axios:
Austin-based webAI, which is building AI models that run locally on devices, raised “high double-digit” millions in a Series A at a $2.5B pre-money valuation  —  WebAI, an Austin, Texas-based sovereign AI platform, raised “high double-digit” millions of dollars at a $2.5 billion pre-money valuation, it tells Axios.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
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Featured Podcasts

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The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
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Sources:
Robinhood's CEO on letting AI trade your money
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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