TikTok's First Week: The Algorithm Adjustments
Four days after the deal closed, TikTok US is blocking "Epstein" in DMs, experiencing convenient outages, and facing a censorship investigation. Everyone got what they wanted.
Tim Cook attending a private White House screening of the documentary Melania hours after US agents killed a man suggests horrible judgment, or worse, cowardice
Tim Cook is captured. There is simply no other explanation for his actions over the past year or so.
Moonshot says Kimi K2.5 builds on K2 with “pretraining over ~15T mixed visual and text tokens” and “can self-direct an agent swarm with up to 100 sub-agents”
Today, we are introducing Kimi K2.5, the most powerful open-source model to date.
Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla and Ethan Choi disavow Keith Rabois' comments after border agents killed Alex Pretti; Rabois said Pretti was committing a “felony”
To understand the stance of an unwavering Trump loyalist after United States Custom and Enforcement shocked the nation …
Chinese startup Moonshot releases Kimi K2.5, saying the model can process text, images, and videos simultaneously and beats its open-source peers in some tests
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.-backed Moonshot AI released an upgrade of its flagship model, heating up a domestic arms race ahead …
TikTok settles a California lawsuit ahead of a landmark social media addiction trial; Snap recently settled the suit, while Meta and YouTube remain defendants
The settlement means TikTok will avoid a trial where plaintiffs had planned to argue that social media platforms are inherently defective …
TikTok US says it is working to restore services after a data center power outage, and that any algorithm changes users noticed were likely due to the outage
- TikTok's algorithm was disrupted on Sunday as the company dealt with a data center outage. — Users reported seeing a flurry of old videos in their feeds.
OpenAI launches Prism, a free cloud-based LaTeX editor that embeds GPT-5.2 to assist in scientific paper drafting and citation management
Accelerating science writing and collaboration with AI.
Internal Slack message: Sam Altman tells OpenAI staff that “What's happening with ICE is going too far” and he hopes President Trump “will rise to this moment”
Business leaders continue to feel pressure to speak out about the immigration crackdown and the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens.
An interview with OpenAI for Science head Kevin Weil on the team's mission, why LLMs can't come up with game-changing discoveries yet, and more
In the three years since ChatGPT's explosive debut, OpenAI's technology has upended a remarkable range of everyday activities at home, at work …LinkedIn:Will Douglas HeavenLinkedIn:Will Douglas Heaven...
Sources: Anthropic is set to raise about $20B led by Singapore's GIC and Coatue, double the amount it had targeted, at a $350B valuation
Company in talks to raise new funds from Coatue, GIC, Iconiq and Sequoia at $350bn valuation — Anthropic is set to raise about $20bn from venture capitalists …
WhatsApp launches Strict Account Settings, a high-security mode to protect high-risk users like journalists and public figures from sophisticated cyberattacks
Meta's WhatsApp messaging service is offering users an advanced security mode, joining a growing number of U.S. tech firms …
In a 38-page essay, Dario Amodei warns of civilization-level damage from superintelligent AI, questioning whether humanity has the maturity to handle such power
- Massive job loss: “I ... simultaneously think that AI will disrupt 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs over 1-5 years …
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.
Clawdbot creator Peter Steinberger says he is changing the name of the viral AI agent to Moltbot after he “was forced to rename the account by Anthropic”
- Clawdbot, the viral AI agent that's leading techies to buy up Mac Minis, is now named Moltbot.
Cloudflare stock surged 9.2% on Monday and ~9% on Tuesday as users of Moltbot, previously Clawdbot, adopt the Cloudflare Tunnel tool to secure their connections
and buying Mac MinisReuters:Cloudflare surges as viral AI agent Clawdbot buzz lifts expectations
US court filings detail Anthropic's Project Panama, an effort to “destructively scan” up to 2M books with a hydraulic “cutting machine” led by an ex-Google exec
In early 2024, executives at artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic ramped up an ambitious project they sought to keep quiet.
An interview with Mozilla president Mark Surman about plans to deploy its ~$1.4B in reserves to fund an AI “rebel alliance” to challenge companies like OpenAI
From his small, snow-covered farm outside Toronto, home to cats and a dog, and soon some donkeys …
Amazon plans to close all 57 Fresh and 15 Go locations in the US, as it pivots its physical retail strategy to focus exclusively on Whole Foods
Amazon's homegrown grocery stores are getting shelved. — The company said Tuesday morning that it's closing all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations …
Google adds Gemini 3 to AI Overviews as the default model globally and now lets users ask follow-up questions “seamlessly” via AI Mode
Gemini 3 is coming to AI Overviews and you can ask follow-ups for a ‘seamless Search experience.’ — Google is making Search less about links and more about AI.
Sources: the interim director of CISA, Madhu Gottumukkala, triggered automated security warnings last summer by uploading sensitive documents to ChatGPT
Cybersecurity sensors at CISA flagged the uploads this past August, said the four officials. One official specified there were multiple …
Apple releases iOS 12.5.8 for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6, extending software support for these devices to 13 and 12 years after their respective launches
Alongside iOS 26.2.1, Apple today released an updated version of iOS 12 for devices that are still running that operating system update …
Meta blocks users from sharing links to ICE List, which compiles names of DHS staffers; Meta cites a policy against “asking for personally identifiable” info
Users of Meta's social platforms can no longer share links to ICE List, a website listing what it claims are the names of thousands of DHS employees.
Court filings: Mark Zuckerberg approved allowing minors to access AI chatbot companions that safety staffers warned were capable of sexual interactions
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg approved allowing minors to access AI chatbot companions that safety staffers warned were capable …
Tether launches USAT, a US-regulated stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, marking the company's direct return to the US market that it left in 2018
Tether Holdings SA said it has launched a US-focused stablecoin, as the world's largest issuer of dollar-pegged tokens prepares to return to crypto's largest market.
France plans to replace Microsoft Teams and Zoom with French-made and Outscale-hosted Visio by 2027, as part of a push to drop US software vendors in government
France announced that it will roll out the Visio platform across all government departments by 2027.
Crypto payments network Mesh raised a $75M Series C led by Dragonfly at a $1B valuation, bringing its total funding to $200M
Partner offers — Quick Take — Mesh raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by Dragonfly Capital, valuing the crypto payments startup at $1 billion.
Privacy-focused MVNO Cape, which has raised $61M from a16z and others, launches across the US following a March 2025 beta, offering a $99 monthly plan
Cape, which offers a range of enhanced privacy and security measures, is now offering service across the United States.
Sonos announces the Amp Multi, a large digital amplifier and its first new device in over a year, ending a pause in hardware releases as it focused on software
Sonos Inc. introduced its first new device in over a year, marking the end of an intentional lull in product launches …
California Governor Gavin Newsom says he will launch a review into whether TikTok is violating state laws by censoring content critical of President Trump
Tyler Katzenberger /Politico:
Google expands Android's anti-theft suite, including a dedicated toggle for its Failed Authentication Lock feature on devices running Android 16 or later
Google on Tuesday announced an expanded set of Android theft protection features, designed to make its mobile devices less of a target for criminals.
Google expands its AI Plus subscription to 35 new countries and territories, including the US at $7.99/month, with “enhanced access” to Gemini 3 Pro and more
After introducing the plan internationally in September, Google is bringing its AI Plus subscription to 35 new countries, including the US.
Ai2 launches Open Coding Agents, starting with SERA, an open-source family that includes 32B and 8B parameter models designed to adapt to private codebases
Artificial intelligence is moving swiftly, changing how developers craft, as code flows ever faster into repositories such as GitHub …
The EU gives Google a six-month deadline to lift technical barriers to rival AI search assistants on Android and give key data to other search engine providers
Google was handed a six-month European Union deadline to lift technical barriers to rival AI search assistants on Android …
Yahoo launches Scout, an AI answer engine powered by Claude, in beta for US users on desktop and mobile, and joins Microsoft's Publisher Content Marketplace
Amazon agrees to pay a $309M settlement and return $600M to users in a US class action lawsuit over allegedly incorrectly denied refunds since September 2017
Amazon (AMZN.O) has agreed to pay $309 million and provide other benefits in a class action settlement with customers who claimed …
Seagate reports Q2 revenue up 22% YoY to $2.83B, vs. $2.73B est., forecasts Q3 results above estimates on strong data storage demand; STX jumps 8%+ after hours
Texas Instruments reports Q4 revenue up 10% YoY to $4.42B, vs. $4.44B est., and forecasts Q1 revenue above estimates; TXN jumps 9%+ after hours
Billionaire Tom Steyer, who is running for California governor, says he plans to vote for the one-time 5% tax on billionaires if it reaches the November ballot
Billionaire Tom Steyer came out in favor of a proposed tax on California's wealthiest residents, adding a prominent voice …
Flora, whose node-based design tool uses AI to create media assets for clients like Lionsgate, raised a $42M Series A, bringing its total funding to $52M
Revolut launches full banking operations in Mexico in its first expansion outside Europe, with capital of $100M+, more than double the regulatory minimum
DeepSeek launches DeepSeek-OCR 2, an upgraded optical character recognition model that replaces OpenAI-developed CLIP framework with Alibaba's Qwen2-0.5b
Ben Jiang /South China Morning Post:
TikTok US says it doesn't “have rules against sharing the name Epstein in direct messages” and is “investigating why some users are experiencing issues”
Officials at TikTok say they are looking into why many users have been unable to send the word “Epstein” …
The UK government says it recruited a team of AI specialists to build AI tools to improve transport, public safety and defense, backed by Meta's funding
The British government said on Tuesday it had recruited a team of artificial intelligence specialists to build AI tools to improve transport …
Wikimedia data: iOS 26 adoption was ~50% in January, below iOS 18's 72% in 2025, as Apple slows auto-updates; Statcounter had 15% after missing Safari changes
Summize, which uses AI to let in-house legal teams manage contract workflows within apps like Slack, raised $50M, bringing its total funding to $65M
Uber launches Uber AV Labs, a division to collect real-world driving data via sensor-equipped vehicles to train reinforcement learning models for its partners
Uber has more than 20 autonomous vehicle partners, and they all want one thing: data. So the company says it's …
Zoom's shares closed up 11.28% after analysts at Baird estimated that Zoom's 2023 investment in Anthropic could be worth $2B to $4B, depending on dilution
Source: OpenAI targets ~$60 per 1,000 views for ChatGPT ads, on par with live NFL broadcasts and above Meta's sub-$20 CPM, while offering little conversion data
Israeli startup Memcyco, which offers real-time phishing and account takeover protection, raised a $37M Series A led by NAventures and others
The round included Steve Pagliuca's Pags Group, as Memcyco focuses on stopping AI-driven attacks before credentials are misused.
Intel Panther Lake laptop CPU review: the 18A-based Core Ultra X9 388H delivers impressive performance and efficiency and is a solid option for 1080p gaming
Zocks, which offers an AI assistant for financial advisers, raised a $45M Series B co-led by Lightspeed and QED Investors, taking its total funding to $65M
Nvidia announces its Earth-2 Medium Range weather model, built on its Atlas architecture, claiming it outperforms Google DeepMind's GenCast in 70+ variables
Abu Dhabi's top tech university MBZUAI launches K2 Think, a new model it says is capable of advanced reasoning, as part of the UAE's push into “sovereign” AI
University's K2 Think system ranks alongside best open models from US and China, say researchers
UPS plans to eliminate 30,000 jobs in 2026 as part of winding down its partnership with Amazon, and expects $3B in savings related to the Amazon unwind
United Parcel Service on Tuesday announced that it was planning to eliminate an additional 30,000 jobs this year as part of winding …
The EU Commission says WhatsApp's Channels fall under the DSA's Very Large Online Platform rules, joining Instagram and Facebook, requiring it to address risks
How the explicit deepfake ecosystem evolved from images to high-quality video; an analysis shows 1.4M+ Telegram accounts signed up to 39 deepfake creation bots
TSMC's conservative capex approach is resulting in supply-demand imbalances and foregone revenue, and hyperscalers must build up Samsung or Intel as its rivals
Pornhub parent Aylo says it will restrict UK users from February 2, after six months of complying with the UK's OSA; users who verified their ages can log in
Starting February 2, many people connecting from the UK will not be able to access the porn site and many others.
StepFun, a Chinese AI startup that develops LLMs and has partnered with automaker Geely and smartphone brands like Oppo and Honor, raised a ~$717M Series B+
Sources: the US DOT plans to use Gemini to draft federal regulations, cutting the process to just 30 days; the DOT used it to draft a still-unpublished FAA rule
iNvidia invests $2B more in CoreWeave to speed up an effort to add 5GW+ of AI computing capacity by 2030 and deploy Nvidia's new Vera CPUs; CRWV closed up 5.7%
Interviews with 100+ therapists and psychiatrists on clients' AI chatbot usage show, while there are some upsides, conversations also deepened negative feelings
SEC filing: Pinterest plans to lay off less than 15% of its workforce by Q3 and cut back on office space, saying it is “reallocating resources” to AI teams
Pinterest said Tuesday it plans to lay off less than 15% of its workforce and cut back on office space as the company embraces artificial intelligence.
Montreal-based Vention raised a $110M Series D to scale its physical AI platform into manufacturing plants worldwide, taking its total raised to ~$216M
A group of YouTubers with a combined 6.2M subscribers adds Snap to a class action lawsuit, alleging the company trained its AI systems on their video content
A group of YouTubers suing tech giants for scraping their videos without permission to train AI models has now added Snap to their list of defendants.
Apple unveils a second-gen AirTag with an updated speaker and the same second-gen Ultra Wideband chip as in the iPhone 17, costing $29 for one and $99 for four
Google agrees to pay $68M to settle a class action lawsuit claiming that Google Assistant inappropriately recorded private conversations on users' devices
Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated assistant spied inappropriately on smartphone users, violating their privacy.
Upwind Security, which filters out false security alerts in cloud apps to let security teams address actual risks, raised a $250M Series B at a ~$1.5B valuation
Ricursive, founded by ex-Google researchers to automate advanced chip design, raised $335M from Sequoia, Radical, Lightspeed, and others at a $4B valuation
Samsung says the Galaxy Z TriFold costs $2,899, or $899 more than the Galaxy Z Fold 7, launching in the US on January 30 exclusively via its website and stores
Samsung Electronics Co. announced that its Galaxy Z TriFold, the first foldable phone of its kind to ship in the US, will sell for $2,899 and become available Jan. 30.
The US Army signs a $5.6B, 10-year contract with Salesforce to speed up outdated practices; as part of the deal, military recruiters will get access to Slack
Recruiters will get access to Slack as part of a contract that reflects the Pentagon's drive to adopt commercial software tools
Microsoft unveils the Maia 200, its second-generation AI accelerator built on TSMC's 3nm process, deploying today in its Azure US Central data center region
The Maia 200 chip is starting to roll out to Microsoft's data centers today. … Microsoft is announcing a successor to its first in-house AI chip today, the Maia 200.
Chinese-language crypto laundering networks processed ~$16.1B in 2025, or $44M per day on average across 1,799+ wallets, representing 20% of laundering activity
TL;DR — After emerging at the start of the pandemic, Chinese-language money laundering networks (CMLNs) …
YC updated its website to remove Canada from its list of approved jurisdictions for incorporation, leaving the US, Cayman Islands, and Singapore as options
Silicon Valley's most famous accelerator now requires Canadian firms to incorporate in the U.S., Cayman Islands or Singapore in order for it to invest
Qwen releases Qwen3-Max-Thinking, its flagship reasoning model that it says demonstrates performance comparable to models such as GPT-5.2 Thinking and Opus 4.5
· QwenTeam丨Translations:.体中文 — Introduction# — We present Qwen3-Max-Thinking, our latest flagship reasoning model.
UpScrolled, a platform for sharing photos, videos, and text that claims political impartiality, says user growth has surged since TikTok's US takeover
not censorship — caused widespread glitchesJuli Clover /MacRumors:TikTok Faces Outage and Censorship Concerns Days After U.S. Ownership Deal ClosesMinh Le /Tech in Asia:Social app UpScrolled downloads...
Corning says Meta committed to paying up to $6B through 2030 for fiber-optic cable in its AI data centers, and it plans to expand its Hickory, NC, factory
As Meta tries to rapidly construct massive data centers to keep pace with the artificial intelligence craze, it's turning to a 175-year-old glass manufacturer for help.
Micron plans to invest $24B over the next decade to build a 700,000-square-foot memory chip facility in Singapore, with wafer output set to start in H2 2028
US company says new wafer fabrication facility to meet growing demand — U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology announced on Tuesday …
The EU opens a formal DSA investigation into xAI over Grok generating sexualized images of women and children; xAI faces fines of up to 6% of global revenue
European regulators begin investigation into creation and spread of sexualised images of women and children
A profile of White House AI adviser Sriram Krishnan, who wrote an EO against “Woke” AI, aims to “fight China”, and rallies executives around Trump's policies
White House adviser Sriram Krishnan has been instrumental to the US administration's light touch on AI
A test of ChatGPT Health and Claude for Healthcare with data from Apple Health finds the chatbots provided questionable and inconsistent responses
ChatGPT now says it can answer personal questions about your health using data from your fitness tracker and medical records.
Anthropic rolls out a new extension to MCP to let users interact with apps directly inside the Claude chatbot, with support for Asana, Figma, Slack, and others
Anthropic's one step closer to having an everything app. … Anthropic's Claude got a bit livelier today thanks …
TikToker Khaby Lame partners with Nasdaq-listed Rich Sparkle in a $975M, 36-month deal, including an AI version, to monetize his 360M social media followers
Khaby Lame, the world's biggest TikToker, partnered with Rich Sparkle Holdings Ltd. to transform his 360 million social-media followers into a commercial venture.
Meta says it will test new paid subscriptions that give people access to exclusive features on its apps and plans to scale Manus as part of those offerings
Meta plans to test new subscriptions that give people access to exclusive features on it apps, the company told TechCrunch on Monday.
Documents: a whistleblower details the Boshang scam compound in Laos that defrauded victims of ~$2.2M over 11 weeks and utilized a system of worker debt bondage
A whistleblower trapped inside a “pig butchering” scam compound gave WIRED a vast trove of its internal materials …
As tech CEOs stay silent after two fatal shootings, 450+ workers at Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and others urge CEOs to cancel any ICE contracts and speak out
across NVIDIA, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Salesforce, Adobe, PayPal, YouTube, Slack, Meta—we are now hundreds strong.Hemant Taneja /@htaneja:This is not politics as usual. As investors, innovators, le...