• Meta Muse exposes users' personal and business secrets when they share conversations
• Visiting Slate’s first showroom as its $25,000 electric truck nears production
• Japan launches mission to bring home a piece of the Martian moon Phobos
• Pennsylvania issues alert on congenital measles—something US hasn't seen for decades
• Russian spacecraft maneuvers in "extreme proximity" to satellite used by Ukraine
• Accused OpenAI spy had folder called “Saudi Gov Docs,” FBI says
• Batteries help reduce emissions, but how do we reduce their emissions?
• PSA: Patch your Plex media server before someone hacks it
• Startup taps underwater volcano as energy source in "proof point" test
• ReactOS reaches major milestone with NTFS install support
• AI game clones are making indie developers afraid to show their work
• Florida DMV hacked after police dept insecurely stored login info
• Disney found a way to buy Character.AI without buying its lawsuits
• A Chinese rocket deorbited over Minnesota and left this in a farmer's cornfield
• Review: Lanterns is a truly unique twist on the superhero genre
• DIY VR: How to build your own headset, and why you probably won't want to
• Stratospheric airship flew from US to Japan to test sky cell tower concept
• Anthropic gives outside AI watchdog “employee-like” access
• Science says your boss should talk less in meetings
• Why BioWare's Neverwinter Nights still has thousands of active players
| • Firefly, whose AI software connects with existing cameras, radios, and sensors to detect incidents and coordinate real-time responses, raised a $20M Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios)
• Sources: OpenAI has retreated from advocating for strict US chip export controls to China ahead of the lame-duck session, aligning closer with President Trump (Politico)
• TikTok staff depositions: TikTok executives ignored internal warnings over child sexual exploitation on Live, where staff said minors appeared in livestreams (Katie McQue/NPR)
• Arda, which develops AI software and agents to accelerate assembly line programming and manufacturing automation, raised $230M at a $1.5B valuation (Kate Rooney/CNBC)
• Eka Robotics, which is developing a "vision-force-action" architecture for its physical AI models, raised a $150M Series A at a $1.45B post-money valuation (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch)
• DeepSeek open-sources DeepInfer, its internal production stack designed to accelerate inference, optimize chip performance, and reduce energy and compute costs (Saritha Rai/Bloomberg)
• Salesforce agrees to acquire AI-powered marketing platform Braze for nearly $5.7B in enterprise value, paying $47.50 per share, set to close from February 2027 (Dana Wollman/Bloomberg)
• Spotify launches paid podcast memberships in 34 markets, including the US; creators can offer perks like bonus content or fewer ads and keep 90% of revenue (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
• Apple commits up to $100M over three years to Pennsylvania-based Perryman Company, a titanium supplier for the iPhone Duo, and expands its Qnity partnership (MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC)
• Chinese state media: China inaugurates the National Data Group, a new state-owned enterprise that will focus on developing and utilizing data resources (Reuters)
• Note-taking tool Otter.ai raised $320M in non-dilutive capital from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund; PitchBook says it raised $50M prior to this round (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
• Four Z.ai founders participated in a 2018 to 2021 research project co-funded by CGTRI, which the UK's MI5 said had "very strong ties" to China's main spy agency (Bloomberg)
• Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei are pouring billions into data centers in Shaoguan, a hinterland region with cheap power and a cool climate, angering some locals (Financial Times)
• Google says Cloud services in its London region "are experiencing issues", starting Monday at 23:08 PDT; Revolut says its major outage is due to Google Cloud (Bloomberg)
• Anthropic's leaked federal AI bill draws widespread criticism from AI safety advocates for being significantly weaker than the bipartisan FRONTIER Act (Shakeel Hashim/Transformer)
| • RAM prices are crazy high, but do not settle for an 8GB laptop
• Amazon Prime comes with an Alexa upgrade you should know about
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• Antigravity's Follow Me bundle adds accurate tracking and gesture controls to its A1 drone
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• UK antitrust regulator wants Apple to open up iPhone NFC access
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• OpenAI says its models can help banks migrate from old COBOL programs
• Spotify's Memberships program for podcasts is here to compete with Patreon
• The Apple Store will only let you check out two iPhone Duos
• How to stop audio from auto-playing on Android Auto
• What can you use the HDMI port on your Ugreen NAS for?
• Robot vacuums have a major privacy problem you should be aware of
• Meta tweaks its new terms of service after backlash against scraping
• Why your expensive Wi-Fi 7 router could be delivering slower speeds
• What does MLO mean on your router and should you enable it?
• Here's how we would build out the perfect modular electric Slate truck
• We might finally know what's written on that mysterious plaque in Super Mario 64
• Is paid antivirus actually a waste of money for your PC in 2026?
• Homeland Security bans DeepSeek use in federal civilian agencies
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