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February 2, 2026, 9:50 AM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| 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.
More: TESLARATI, Crypto Briefing, and DigiTimes
X: @highyieldharry, @stevehou, @compound248, and @junkbondanalyst
| 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: Macworld, AppleInsider, T3, PCMag, iPhone in Canada, Tom's Guide, 9to5Mac, 9to5Mac, GameRevolution, The Mac Observer, Moneycontrol, Digital Trends, 9to5Mac, Phandroid, iLounge, Trusted Reviews, Sam Lover, Cult of Mac, The Indian Express, Appleosophy, Hypebeast, Business Standard, SamMobile, The Hans India, Digit, Android Authority, Mashable, SammyGuru, Livemint, MacDailyNews, GSMArena.com, 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: @karlbode.com, @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
| 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.| 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, Fox News, DatacenterDynamics, The Register, Engadget, PCMag, TechRadar, PetaPixel, Forbes, and Tech in Asia. X: @tiktokusdsjv
| Luke James / Tom's Hardware: |
OpenSourceMalware: 230+ malicious OpenClaw extensions, posing 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 …
More: OpenSourceMalware.com, CNBC, Koi, and CyberInsider
| 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, @ryan_t_lowe, @fu_joehudson, @maxsloef, @alexhillman, @gailcweiner, @saffronhuang, @thedataroom, @russellbrandom, @genai_is_real, @cryptopunk7213, @jankulveit, @moleh1ll, @danshipper, @1a3orn, @jonnym1ller, @macbrennan_cc, @ai_for_success, @mattbeane, @roanoke_gal, @infinitereign88, @missmi1973, @ellgood, @barthazian, @dave_bernardi, @m47429m, @justenmichel, @kahntweets, @kindkristin, and @anthropicai. Forums: Ars OpenForum
| 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 … | @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
| 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 … | Sybille de La Hamaide / Reuters: |
French IT company Capgemini plans to sell its US subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions, after French lawmakers asked about its contract with US agency ICE — French IT company Capgemini (CAPP.PA) will sell its U.S. subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions, it said on Sunday …
| 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 … Sponsor Posts
Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Zoho Writer's latest automation updates: smarter formulas, dynamic content, and less manual work — Create personalized documents with smarter formulas, dynamic content, and payment links, and update templates without rebuilding …
Zoho Writer's latest automation updates: smarter formulas, dynamic content, and less manual work — Create personalized documents with smarter formulas, dynamic content, and payment links, and update templates without rebuilding …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.Featured Podcasts
Machine Gods:
Crypto's Biggest Heist Ever + The Spy Who Loved Nvidia + Hacktober's Unsolved Mysteries
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Barry Diller on Big Bets, AI, and Knowing When to Walk Away
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Invest Like the Best:
Martin Casado on Frontier Model Economics, AI's Slowdown, and the Cursor Deal
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
A quiet investor's $10 billion bet on AI, chips, and defense
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.
Subscribe to Sources.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building America's uranium supply from scratch
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
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Grit:
The Difference Between 1% Improvements and 10x Growth | Immad Akhund
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
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