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Tech

AI Summary

  • Artificial Intelligence is rapidly expanding across industries, attracting substantial investment for autonomous vehicles and AI assistants, integrating into consumer products and scientific research, and also prompting corporate restructuring and layoffs as companies prioritize AI development.
  • Social media companies are facing heightened scrutiny and legal challenges, with platforms addressing concerns about data privacy, content moderation, user safety, and addiction, leading to ownership restructuring and new security measures.
  • The autonomous vehicle sector is seeing accelerated development and deployment, with significant funding for robotaxi and self-driving truck initiatives, alongside a narrowing price gap with traditional ride-hailing services.
  • Major tech companies are implementing significant strategic realignments, characterized by large-scale layoffs, business unit closures, and a reallocation of resources, often in favor of AI-driven projects.
  • International efforts toward digital sovereignty are increasing, with European governments actively seeking to reduce dependence on US tech providers and implementing regulations to ensure equitable access and control over digital services.

TechCrunch


Hacker News


Engadget

  • Anker's new 45W Nano charger with smart display is on sale for $10 off an hour ago by Lawrence Bonk
    Technology & Electronics, site|engadget, provider_name|Engadget, region|US, language|en-US, author_name|Lawrence Bonk

    Anker introduced a nifty little charger at CES 2026, which is a refresh of the pre-existing Nano Charger. It's already on sale for $30, which is a discount of $10 when you clip the on-page coupon on Amazon. The 45W charger includes a smart display that shows real-time data like power flow, temperature and charging status. It also features "fun animations to keep things cheerful." Anker says it can recognize what's being charged and automatically adjust certain metrics to ensure a longer battery lifespan. To that end, it works with just about everything. The company advertises that this charger is a good

  • China finally approves the first batch of NVIDIA H200 AI GPU imports an hour ago by Steve Dent
    Politics & Government, site|engadget, provider_name|Engadget, region|US, language|en-US, author_name|Steve Dent

    China has agreed to import its first batch of NVIDIA’s H200 AI chips after the government initially rejected the idea, Reuters reported. Several hundred thousand H200 chips were approved for sale in the country following NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang’s visit there last week, according to two people familiar with the matter. The US government allowed the sale of NVIDIA’s H200 processors to vetted and approved companies in China late last year. The first sales have been allocated mainly to three unnamed Chinese internet companies and the government is accepting applications for future approvals, according to the sources. NVIDIA’s most powerful AI chip,

  • Shokz OpenFit Pro review: Reducing distractions while keeping your ears open an hour ago by Billy Steele
    Audio Technology, Technology & Electronics, site|engadget, provider_name|Engadget, region|US, language|en-US, author_name|Billy Steele

    Rarely does a set of open-fit earbuds actually impress me. I tend to find them underwhelming because overall sound quality is subpar compared to the more “traditional” in-ear models. Any promise of noise reduction, or a far-fetched claim of noise cancellation, usually doesn’t hold true. The first time I used the Shokz OpenFit Pro ($249.95) I was immediately met with better audio performance than I’d just experienced on Sony’s new LinkBuds Clip and noise reduction technology that actually lessened some distractions. These aren’t the perfect set of open earbuds, but they have a lot more to offer than most of

  • Apple Creator Studio is now available: What's included, how much it costs and what it means for creators an hour ago by Georgie Peru
    Software, Technology & Electronics, Handheld & Connected Devices, site|engadget, provider_name|Engadget, region|US, language|en-US, author_name|Georgie Peru

    Apple has been leaning harder on services for several years now. That part of the business brought in tens of billions of dollars in revenue last year alone, and the company says 2025 was a record year. With Apple Creator Studio, Apple is extending that strategy further into professional creative software. Apple Creator Studio is a new subscription bundle that packages several of the company’s pro apps under a single monthly or yearly fee. It launches on January 28 and includes a one-month free trial. The key shift is that some of these apps are now subscription-only on iPad, even as

  • Amazon's latest round of layoffs will affect 16,000 workers 2 hours ago by Mariella Moon
    Technology & Electronics, site|engadget, provider_name|Engadget, region|US, language|en-US, author_name|Mariella Moon

    Amazon has confirmed that it’s letting go of 16,000 workers and employees across its organization. In an announcement by company SVP Beth Galetti, she explained that Amazon was going through organizational changes to reduce layers and remove bureaucracy. Affected employees in the US will be given 90 days to look for another internal role and will receive severance pay if they do not find any. Galetti also said that Amazon doesn’t have plans to announce “broad reductions every few months” but admitted that the company could “make adjustments as appropriate.” News about the layoffs was leaked in an email mistakenly sent


The Verge

  • Grok is the most antisemitic chatbot according to the ADL 2 hours ago by Mia Sato
    AI, Elon Musk, News, Tech, Twitter - X, xAI

    Across six top large language models, xAI's Grok performed the worst at identifying and countering antisemitic content, according to a study published Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League. On the other end of the spectrum, Anthropic's Claude performed the best according to the report's metrics, but the ADL said all models had gaps that required improvement. The ADL tested Grok, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Meta's Llama, Claude, Google's Gemini, and DeepSeek by prompting models with a variety of narratives and statements falling under three categories defined by the ADL: "anti-Jewish," "anti-Zionist," and "extremist." The study rated chatbots on th … Read the full story at

  • Windows 11’s ability to resume Android apps on your PC is getting closer 3 hours ago by Tom Warren
    Microsoft, News, Tech, Windows

    Microsoft is getting ready to improve Windows 11's ability to resume Android apps on a PC. The software giant first introduced its cross-device resume last year, letting Windows 11 users resume OneDrive sessions from their Android device on a PC. Now, it's expanding this to Spotify playback, browsing sessions, and more. The improved cross-device resume support, which has been in testing since August, is part of the latest Release Preview update to Windows 11 that started rolling out yesterday. It includes the ability to resume Spotify playback on a PC from a phone, as well as any work in Word, Excel,

  • Astronomers used AI to find 1,400 ‘anomalous objects’ from Hubble archives 3 hours ago by Robert Hart
    AI, News, Science

    Six anomalies found in Hubble’s archives. A pair of astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) discovered more than 800 previously undocumented "astrophysical anomalies" hiding in Hubble's archives. To do so, researchers David O'Ryan and Pablo Gómez trained an AI model to comb through Hubble's 35-year dataset, hunting for strange objects and flagging them for manual review. It's "a treasure trove of data in which astrophysical anomalies might be found," O'Ryan said in a statement. Studying space is hard. There's lots of it, it's noisy, and the flood of data generated by tools like the Hubble Space Telescope can overwhelm even large

  • Self-driving truck startup Waabi is teaming up with Uber on robotaxis 3 hours ago by Andrew J. Hawkins
    Autonomous Cars, News, Ride-sharing, Transportation, Uber

    Waabi, the Toronto-based autonomous trucking startup, is expanding its portfolio to include robotaxis. And it's bringing Uber along for the ride. Raquel Urtasun, the former chief scientist at Uber's now defunct Advanced Technologies Group, founded Waabi in 2021 to be a more "AI-centric approach" to autonomous vehicles. That approach initially focused on trucking, with Waabi using its proprietary software to automate driving on commercial delivery routes in Texas. But with self-driving trucks turning out to be a way harder problem than originally thought, and robotaxis seemingly having their own moment, Waabi is now turning its focus to auto … Read the full

  • Tim Cook had ‘a good conversation’ with Trump about deescalation 3 hours ago by Jess Weatherbed
    Apple, News, Policy, Politics, Tech

    Apple’s CEO is the latest executive to speak out following the killing of Alex Pretti. | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken out about "the events in Minneapolis" after federal agents shot and killed another protester over the weekend, telling employees that he has shared his feelings with President Trump. In an internal memo reported by Bloomberg, Cook said that "this is a time for deescalation," and that he had "a good conversation with the President this week where I shared my views." Cook was one of several Tech CEOs, alongside Amazon's Andy Jassy and


Wired


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