Tech
Appfigures: Sora's app downloads dropped 32% month-over-month in December and 45% in January to 1.2M; consumer spending on the app fell 32% MoM as of January (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Appfigures: Sora's app downloads dropped 32% month-o…
Tech
Apple acquires Q.ai, whose tech can analyze facial expressions and could enable non-verbal discussions with AI assistants; sources: the deal values Q.ai at ~$2B (Financial Times)
Financial Times : Apple acquires Q.ai, whose tech can analyze facial expressions an…
Tech
Google updates Gemini in Chrome with a new side panel, an auto browse feature that can navigate pages and take actions for AI Pro and AI Ultra users, and more (Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET)
Kyle Kucharski / ZDNET : Google updates Gemini in Chrome with a new side panel, an …
Tech
Canada says it is talking to Meta to restore news to Facebook and Instagram as the Online News Act is put on the table as part of trade negotiations with the US (Marie Woolf/Globe and Mail)
Marie Woolf / Globe and Mail : Canada says it is talking to Meta to restore news to…
Tech
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)
Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post : DeepSeek launches DeepSeek-OCR 2, an upgrade…
Tech
UpScrolled, a platform for sharing photos, videos, and text that claims political impartiality, says user growth has surged since TikTok's US takeover (Emma Roth/The Verge)
Emma Roth / The Verge : UpScrolled, a platform for sharing photos, videos, and text…
Tech
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 (Axios)
Axios : In a 38-page essay, Dario Amodei warns of civilization-level damage from su…
Tech
Many AI founders now find it necessary to raise at valuations requiring absolute domination of the field; Brex, once valued at $12B, shows the downsides of this (Jason Lemkin/SaaStr)
Jason Lemkin / SaaStr : Many AI founders now find it necessary to raise at valuatio…
Tech
A profile of Mercor, which pays about $2M daily to ~30K experts training AI models at $95/hour on average, with roles like radiologists earning up to $375/hour (Bethan Staton/Financial Times)
Bethan Staton / Financial Times : A profile of Mercor, which pays about $2M daily t…
Tech
Power prices surge in Virginia, home to the world's largest data center hub; record demand is expected during the winter storm, partly due to data center needs (Tim McLaughlin/Reuters)
Tim McLaughlin / Reuters : Power prices surge in Virginia, home to the world's …
Tech
Meta's decision to deprioritize VR in favor of AI and internet-connected glasses has chilled the VR industry, leading to concerns about its future (Jonathan Vanian/CNBC)
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC : Meta's decision to deprioritize VR in favor of AI and …
Tech
Tests show GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT citing Grokipedia as a source on a wide range of queries, including on Iranian conglomerates and Holocaust deniers (Aisha Down/The Guardian)
Aisha Down / The Guardian : Tests show GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT citing Grokipedia as a so…
Tech
Source: OpenAI mulls new tools to help business users understand the financial benefits of using its products and has made changes to its sales force strategy (The Information)
The Information : Source: OpenAI mulls new tools to help business users understand …
Tech
SanDisk's stock has surged ~1,000% in the past five months, driven by AI demand for its chips, which have a cost advantage thanks to its 20-year JV with Kioxia (Matt Phillips/Sherwood News)
Matt Phillips / Sherwood News : SanDisk's stock has surged ~1,000% in the past …
Tech
Nifty Gateway, the NFT trading platform which had facilitated $300M in sales by mid-2021, enters withdrawal-only mode and plans to shut down on Feb. 23, 2026 (CoinDesk)
CoinDesk : Nifty Gateway, the NFT trading platform which had facilitated $300M in s…
Social Plugin