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February 2, 2026, 9:05 AM
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| Bloomberg: |
Sources: SpaceX is in advanced talks to combine with xAI and they have informed some of their investors, as Elon Musk moves quickly to consolidate his empire — Elon Musk is in advanced talks to combine SpaceX with xAI, according to people familiar with the matter, as the billionaire moves quickly to consolidate his empire.| Wall Street Journal: |
AI companies are outbidding Apple, long dominant in the electronics supply chain, for chips, memory, glass fiber, and more, as suppliers gain leverage on prices — Parts for iPhones to cost more owing to surging demand from AI companies — Apple has dominated the electronics supply chain for years.
More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Tom's Guide, The Mac Observer, SupplyChainBrain, MacRumors, Digital Trends, and Philip Elmer‑DeWitt. Forums: MacRumors Forums
| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Apple's executives question if it has the right ingredients to win the AI era, new MacBook Pros are coming, and Apple mulls a clamshell foldable iPhone — Apple's blockbuster holiday quarter was impressive — but it shouldn't give cover to avoid an AI reckoning.
More: AppleInsider, T3, PCMag, Tom's Guide, iPhone in Canada, Moneycontrol, 9to5Mac, 9to5Mac, GameRevolution, The Mac Observer, Digital Trends, Phandroid, Macworld, 9to5Mac, Trusted Reviews, iLounge, Sam Lover, Cult of Mac, The Indian Express, Appleosophy, Hypebeast, Business Standard, SamMobile, The Hans India, Digit, Android Authority, Mashable, SammyGuru, GSMArena.com, Livemint, iClarified, iClarified, Wccftech, WiFi Planet, Digital Trends, Engadget, Gizmodo, iPhone in Canada, MacRumors, The Mac Observer, iClarified, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Spyglass, Forbes, AppleInsider, and MacRumors
X: @lanceulanoff, @samsheffer, @samsheffer, @markgurman, @markgurman, and @markgurman. LinkedIn: Neal Riley
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| Washington Post: |
Inside Elon Musk's bet to hook X users that turned Grok into a porn generator; sources say xAI's AI safety team was just two or three people for most of 2025 — Under pressure to boost its popularity, Elon Musk's xAI loosened its guardrails and relaxed controls on sexual content, setting off internal concern.
Bluesky: @metacurity.com, @mistyksnow, and @justinhendrix
| Jin Yu Young / New York Times: |
More: Engadget, TechCrunch, Associated Press, Business Today, Social Media Today, Livemint, Nairametrics, Reuters, and Bloomberg
| Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter: |
TikTok US says it has resolved technical issues caused by an Oracle data center outage; features like posting and view counts were impacted over the past week — The outage happened just days after U.S. companies, including Oracle, assumed control of the domestic operations of the video platform.
More: TikTok USDS JV, DatacenterDynamics, The Register, Engadget, PCMag, TechRadar, PetaPixel, Forbes, and Tech in Asia. X: @tiktokusdsjv
| Luke James / Tom's Hardware: |
OpenSourceMalware: 230 malicious OpenClaw extensions, disguised as crypto trading automation tools to steal user info, were uploaded to ClawHub since January 27 — Or is that Moltbot, or Clawdbot? I can't keep up. … Security researchers are warning that the growing ecosystem around 'OpenClaw … | Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: |
SEC complaint: a whistleblower alleges Google broke its ethics rules in 2024 to help an Israeli military contractor use AI to analyze drone surveillance video — A whistleblower complaint filed with the SEC claims that Google breached its own ethics rules to help an Israeli contractor apply AI to drone surveillance video.
More: Wall Street Journal and Jerusalem Post
| Kyle Orland / Ars Technica: |
Anthropic researchers detail “disempowerment patterns” in AI assistant interactions where AI potentially distorts a user's reality, beliefs, or actions — At this point, we've all heard plenty of stories about AI chatbots leading users to harmful actions, harmful beliefs, or simply incorrect information.
More: arXiv.org, Digit, The Indian Express, Futurism, and Anthropic
X: @mrinanksharma, @chaos2cured, @anthropicai, @roanoke_gal, @ryan_t_lowe, @fu_joehudson, @maxsloef, @alexhillman, @gailcweiner, @saffronhuang, @thedataroom, @russellbrandom, @justenmichel, @missmi1973, @genai_is_real, @cryptopunk7213, @ellgood, @jankulveit, @moleh1ll, @infinitereign88, @danshipper, @1a3orn, @jonnym1ller, @kahntweets, @kindkristin, @macbrennan_cc, @barthazian, @dave_bernardi, @ai_for_success, @mattbeane, and @m47429m. Forums: Ars OpenForum
| @xai: |
xAI rolls out Grok Imagine 1.0, which it says can generate 720p 10-second videos with better audio, and says Imagine generated 1.245B videos in the past 30 days — Introducing Grok Imagine 1.0, our biggest leap yet. 1.0 unlocks 10-second videos, 720p resolution, and dramatically better audio. Imagine has generated 1.245 billion videos in the last 30 days alone. Try it now: https://grok.com/imagine [video]
More: Livemint and TestingCatalog
X: @x, @rafsoh, @ninzo121, @xai, @andrewcurran_, @premiumbusiness, @xai, and @elonmusk
| Reuters: |
Alibaba plans to spend ~$431M in a Lunar New Year campaign starting February 6 to attract users to its Qwen AI app, above Tencent's ~$143.7M and Baidu's ~$71.8M — Alibaba (9988.HK) said on Monday it will spend 3 billion yuan ($431 million) to attract users to its Qwen AI app during the Lunar … | New York Times: |
China's desire to lead in cutting-edge AI is bumping against its aim to control it; Zhipu warned IPO investors about the burden of complying with 6+ AI rules — Beijing wants to lead the world in developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence, but it also wants companies to adhere to an increasingly complex set of rules.| Choi Jeong-yoon / The Korea Herald: |
Seoul plans to integrate AI chatbot Maeumi into its suicide prevention hotline, offering immediate emotional support before a human counselor connects — AI chatbot, community-based counselors to bolster access to mental health support — Seoul is confronting persistent suicide pressures … | Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times: |
AI conferences have rushed to restrict the use of LLMs for writing and reviewing research papers in recent months after being flooded with AI-generated slop — Conferences restrict use of LLMs after surge of low-quality AI-generated papers and reviews — Artificial intelligence researchers … | Priya Krishna / New York Times: |
How food delivery is reshaping US mealtimes, as some users spend thousands; NRA data shows nearly 75% of 2024 restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant — Almost three of every four restaurant orders in the U.S. weren't eaten in a restaurant, according to recent data.
X: @ernietedeschi, @trumwill, @cowboy_postbop, @adam_tooze, @joepostingg, @mjpost, @imnotowned, @wmatagm, @rcobooth, @chris_arnade, @scholars_stage, @robertfreundlaw, @bigmeaninternet, @eric_erins, @birdyword, @lpolgreen, @estherzelda0514, @trumav, @mattyglesias, @jaybsauceda, @scottlincicome, @armanddoma, @lindsayballant, @wilson__valdez, @armanddoma, @daniela__127, and @ryanaclarke. LinkedIn: Yash Babar
Bluesky: @niedermeyer.online, @rebeccasolnit, and @kathbarbadoro
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
India proposes zero taxes for foreign cloud providers through 2047 on services sold outside the country as long as they run workloads from Indian data centers — As the global race to build AI infrastructure accelerates, India has offered foreign cloud providers zero taxes through 2047 …
More: Digit, PYMNTS.com, Business Today, Moneycontrol, Inc42, Fortune India, Livemint, The Indian Express, NDTV, The Economic Times, and Bloomberg
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