Techmeme
January 28, 2026, 10:30 AM

Top News

Beth Galetti / About Amazon:
Amazon plans to cut ~16,000 roles across the company as part of an ongoing effort to reduce organizational layers and bureaucracy, after cuts in October 2025  —  I want to let you know that we're making additional organizational changes across Amazon that will impact some of our teammates.
Business Insider:
Memo: Amazon appeared to mistakenly alert some AWS staff about planned layoffs in an email invite to a January 28 “Project Dawn” meeting on company efficiency  —  - Some Amazon employees got a worrying calendar invitation on Tuesday.  — The invitation discussed upcoming job cuts and …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Memo: Tim Cook told Apple staff that he is “heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis”, calls for a “deescalation”, and says he discussed it with President Trump  —  Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook became the latest executive to weigh in on the killing …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
A Google bug report apparently leaks the planned Android desktop interface, showing a taller status bar, a new mouse cursor, Chrome extensions, and more  —  A Google bug report on the Chromium Issue Tracker today has inadvertently leaked the Android desktop interface for the first time.
Jack Ryan / Bloomberg:
Paolo Ardoino says Tether now holds ~140 tons of gold, worth ~$23B, has been buying one to two tons per week, and plans to keep doing so for the next few months  —  There are roughly 370,000 nuclear bunkers in Switzerland, a legacy of the Cold War that are now rarely used.  One of them, though, is a hive of activity.
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
ASML reports Q4 net sales of €9.7B, vs. €9.6B est., and €2.84B net profit, vs. €3.01B est., and says it expects China to account for 20% of its total 2026 sales  —  ASML reported on Wednesday orders that smashed past expectations while 2026 sales guidance was also ahead …
Sarah Jacob / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Abhijeet Mishra / SamMobile:
Samsung says it will introduce a display feature for the Galaxy S26 series that improves “privacy at a pixel level” to protect users from “shoulder surfing”  —  Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy S26 series will introduce a new display feature designed to improve privacy when using your phone in public.
Reuters:
Sources: China approved its first batch of Nvidia H200 imports, covering 400K+ chips for ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, during Jensen Huang's visit to China  —  China has given the green light to three of its largest tech companies to buy Nvidia's (NVDA.O) H200 artificial intelligence chips …
Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $30B more in OpenAI; SoftBank is already one of its largest shareholders after investing $22.5B in December 2025  —  The Japanese conglomerate is exploring further investment as part of the startup's efforts to raise up to $100 billion
Financial Times:
Sources: Elon Musk proposes timing SpaceX's IPO with a rare planetary alignment and his June birthday; SpaceX seeks to raise up to $50B at a ~$1.5T valuation  —  Celestial calendar meets high finance, as billionaire's personal impulses shape plans to raise $50bn in record listing
Tyler Kingkade / NBC News:
Some US college students say they are using AI “humanizer” tools to alter text to avoid cheating accusations; AI detection tools now aim to catch “humanizers”  —  Students are taking new measures, such as dumbing down their work, spying on themselves and using AI …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
A critique of a large UK social media study that suggested measures like social media bans are unlikely to have an effect on teens' long term mental health  —  The “moral panic” framing misses how platforms actually harm kids.  PLUS: Newsom investigates TikTok over Trump, and the Clawdbot frenzy
Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal:
A look at “neolabs” such as Safe Superintelligence and Humans&, which give priority to long-term AI R&D over immediate profits; dozens have become unicorns  —  Flapping Airplanes is one of a wave of new startup research labs drawing intense interest from investors, the latest chapter in the AI race
Bluesky: @edzitron.com
Chris Welch / Bloomberg:
Apple Creator Studio review: the subscription suite offers value, but lacks a photo management tool to rival Lightroom and lacks iOS support for flagship apps  —  Apple Inc.'s new Creator Studio software bundle represents a new test for the company's fast-growing services business …
David McCabe / New York Times:
TikTok says the new US entity has not updated its algorithm since the joint venture was announced, after users accused it of suppressing posts related to ICE  —  Some users had accused the app of blocking them from posting videos about Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  The app said it was a power outage issue.
Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:
AI sales startup Clay launches its second employee tender offer in under nine months, valuing it at $5B, up from $3.1B in August and $1.5B in its May 2025 offer  —  The company is part of a newer generation of software upstarts holding multiple tender offers where workers can sell stock before going public.
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Toronto-based self-driving truck startup Waabi raised a $750M Series C led by Khosla and G2 and partners with Uber, which can invest $250M based on performance  —  Waabi Innovation Inc., a Canadian startup that develops self-driving technology for trucks, has secured $1 billion in funding …
New York Times:
Internal documents from 2025: Microsoft expects its annual water consumption to reach 28B liters by 2030, up from 7.9B liters in 2020 and 10.4B liters in 2024  —  Driven by the artificial intelligence frenzy, Microsoft is internally projecting that water use at its data centers will more than double …
More: WinBuzzerX: @ralph_grabowskiLinkedIn: Adam SatarianoBluesky: @justinhendrixForums: r/technology

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Earlier Picks

John Sakellariadis / Politico:
David Gilbert / Wired:
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review: