Alpaca, which builds software to let companies offer stocks, ETFs, and other financial instruments, raised a $150M Series D led by Drive at a $1.15B valuation (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/01/14/alpaca-fundraise-series-d-brokerage-infrastruct…

Brokerage tech firm Alpaca raises $150 million in push to compete with trading giant Interactive Brokers
Drive Capital led the round, with participation from Citadel Securities and the crypto exchange Kraken.

Parliament votes on government reshuffle (LIVE): https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/parliament-votes-on-government-reshuffle.html

Take the good news where you can find it: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/12/orsted-rhode-island-wind-project-trump

i absolutely love going through https://okstupid.lol/ and seeing all the MEN who signed up for "WhiteDate" thinking they could find far right women to mingle yet all it lead to was their insane incel beliefs being leaked alongside their real address and name

Can’t wait for the unquestionably super annoying in-app upsells in the free versions of Apple’s productivity apps
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/introducing-apple-creator-studio-an-inspiring-collection-of-creative-apps/

Adelaide Festival board resigns and Adelaide Writers’ Week cancelled after 180 authors pull out in protest of Zionist board decision to disinvite Palestinian author.
Remember this, if you’re a Zionist: like the Nazis before you, you are committing genocide, you are on the wrong side of history, and – as long as there are people of good moral character and conscience to oppose you – you will not succeed. Your only allies are the MAGAs of the world and those too spineless to stand up to …

Adelaide Writers' Week cancelled after week of escalating controversy around author Randa Abdel-Fattah
The remaining members of the Adelaide Festival board will step down and this year's Writers' Week event has been cancelled, after days of furore regarding the decision to cancel a scheduled appearance by Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.

Yet another major Korean cyber incident
Kyowon Group shuts down internal network after suspected ransomware attack
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2026-01-12/business/tech/Kyo…

Kyowon Group shuts down internal network after suspected ransomware attack
Kyowon Group said on Monday it had shut down parts of its internal network after detecting what it believes to be a ransomware attack and is investigating whether any customer data was compromised.

Rokid bringt neue KI-Brille mit ChatGPT und Bezahlfunktion auf den Markt
Rokid veröffentlicht eine leichte KI-Brille ohne Display – mit ChatGPT, 12 Stunden Akkulaufzeit und Alipay . Der Startpreis liegt bei rund 300 US-Dollar.

2022 was 20 years ago

Love how Gavin Newsom is trolling Trump, but that alone does not make him viable as a Presidential Candidate. IMHO, he is not at all the best choice to be President of the USA. He has the liberal glow, but really inside he is a neo-liberal that works for the billionaires, not the rest of us.
#USPolitics
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/12/gavin-newsom-moves-neutralize-tax-billionaires-00723633

Digg, rebooted under original founder Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, launches its open beta; the site had been open to 67,000 users on an invite-only basis (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/digg-launches-its-new-reddit-rival-to-the…

Digg launches its new Reddit rival to the public | TechCrunch
Digg, a reboot of an earlier social news site, is now relaunching as a Reddit competitor focused on communities.

RE: https://systemli.social/@anneroth/115888496344931905
Es wird hoffentlich große Freude auslösen, dass die Koalition gnädig war und unserem Antrag auf Öffentlichkeit zum zweiten Thema zugestimmt hat! Dabei geht's um

On absolute immunity:
https://www.the-reframe.com/absolute-immunity/

Absolute Immunity
Alignment with supremacy is a vile choice. Raising the natural costs for those who make that choice by putting first things first.

Well this is, uh... interesting.
"We are now working on an open-source, Teensy-compatible board."
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/01/12/discontinuing-the-teensy-at-adafruit/

Anzahl der #Windkraftanlagen je Hersteller in #Deutschland mit Stand vom 12.01.2026.
Ohne Berücksichtigung des Betriebsstatuses. Teilweise Berücksichtigung von M&A durch händische Recherche. Ansonsten keine Berücksichtigung im MaStR.
👉 Zusatzlesestoff: Wie läuft es eigen…

The Resistance Libs Were Right (Michelle Goldberg/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/resistance-libs-trump-fascism.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260113/p20#a260113p20

How #Github #monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem
https://ploum.net/2026-01-05-unteachin

A profile of Eric Migicovsky's Core Devices, a five-person company that he says is "not a startup" and aims to be "sustainable", as it builds new Pebble devices (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/12/pebble-f…

Pebble founder says his new company is 'not a startup' | TechCrunch
Pebble's founder talks about how his new company is doing things differently.

'A series of loud explosions' — Ukraine 'destroys' key Russian drone factory in Taganrog, SBU says: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/a-series-of-loud-explosions.html

Habt ihr ein Amazon Prime Abo, das schon vor 2022 bestand? Dann aufgepasst! 👀
Zum Artikel: https://heise.de/-11139222?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

From “Dream Machines”, Ted Nelson, 1974
I guess these children are now in their 50s

Weather Advisory
WHERE...Portions of north, south and weast hemispheres 🌐

🇵🇸 To support families facing genocide in Gaza, consider donating to them via Gaza Verified.
#GazaVerified

Gaza Verified
We’ve personally had video conversations on Signal with the people from Gaza whose Mastodon accounts on the fediverse are listed here and we verify that their accounts are genuine. – Joy & Aral Balkan

Anzahl der neuen #Windkraftanlagen je #Bundesland in #Deutschland im Jahr 2026 mit Stand vom 12.01.2026.
Die "Ausschließliche Wirtschaftszone" bedeutet

Sources: Bari Weiss has privately been deeply frustrated by the negative reaction to her CBS tenure and has blamed subordinates for not stanching the criticism (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/business/media/cbs-evening-news-bari-weiss.ht…

‘We Need to Be the News’: Inside Bari Weiss’s Bumpy Revamp at CBS
Her reimagining of “CBS Evening News” is under heavy scrutiny, and even became a punchline on her own network on Sunday at the Golden Globes.

Researchers at OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are studying LLMs like living things, not just software, to uncover some of their secrets for the first time (Will Douglas Heaven/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/1

Meet the new biologists treating LLMs like aliens
By studying large language models as if they were living things instead of computer programs, scientists are discovering some of their secrets for the first time.

Treacherous Russian STRIKE: consequences of the attack in the Kharkiv region and Odesa #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/treacherous-russian-strike-consequences-of.h…

Grok soll in KI-Plattform des US-Verteidigungsministeriums integriert werden
Der KI-Chatbot Grok soll künftig in den Systemen des US-Verteidigungsministeriums eingesetzt werden. Das kündigte Pete Hegseth am Montag bei SpaceX an.

Next stop, the Fediverse! :3

Entwicklung des Rotordurchmessers von #Windkraftanlagen an Land in #Deutschland mit Stand vom 12.01.2026.
Der kleinste registrierte #Rotordurchmesser misst 0.2 m.
Der gr…

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr defends using a public interest standard for broadcasters at a House hearing; commissioner Anna Gomez calls the standard "undefined" (Ted Johnson/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/01/fcc-brendan-carr-trump-public-…

At House Hearing, FCC Chairman Continues To Defend Authority To Enforce “Public Interest Standard” — Whatever That Is (Analysis)
Brendan Carr told House lawmakers that he has authority to treat broadcasters differently from other media.

Boston- and Tel Aviv-based Converge Bio, which uses AI trained on molecular data to help pharma and biotech companies develop drugs, raised a $25M Series A (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/ai-d

Converge Bio raises $25M, backed by Bessemer and execs from Meta, OpenAI, Wiz | TechCrunch
AI drug discovery startup Converge Bio raised $25 million in a Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with additional backing from executives at Meta, OpenAI, and Wiz.

Wine 11.0 entkorkt: Neue WoW64-Architektur ist fertig
Wine 11.0 ist verfügbar. Die Entwickler heben besonders die neue WoW64-Architektur sowie die Unterstützung von Linux NTSync hervor.
https://www.

I don’t get the urge of Democratic politicians to write condolences when a Republican dies, especially when they did egregious things, repeatedly.
Like you could just not say anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Parliament appoints Mykhailo Fedorov as defense minister: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/14/parliament-appoints-mykhailo-fedorov-as.html

Boop 🫵

Polygon buys crypto startups Coinme and Sequence for a total of $250M , as it seeks to bolster its stablecoin and fintech infrastructure and compete with Stripe (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/01/13/polygon-labs-acquisition-coinme-seq…

Polygon Labs buys two crypto startups for $250 million as it looks to compete with Stripe
The longtime blockchain developer bought cash-to-crypto company Coinme and wallet infrastructure firm Sequence.

Tony Dokoupil's CBS News road trip, where each episode ends in a squishy pabulum, revealed the problems with CBS' Bari Weiss-era focus on viewers' feelings (James Poniewozik/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/arts/television/cbs-news…

Tony Dokoupil’s Road Trip on CBS News Hits a Rough Patch
A stretch of big news revealed growing pains for CBS’s new evening anchor and problems with its Bari Weiss-era philosophy.

Jährlicher Zubau und Rückbau der #Windenergieleistung in #Deutschland. Stand: 12.01.2026.
Summen der Inbetriebnahmen und Stilllegungen pro Jahr.
Der Datenbestand enthält ggf. unplausible Datensätze.
👉 Zusatzlesestoff:

Erhöhte Sonnenaktivität: Weltraumteleskop Hubble droht verfrühter Absturz
Nach über 35 Jahren im Erdorbit könnte das Weltraumteleskop Hubble früher als erwartet abstürzen. Mitverantwortlich ist auch die erhöhte Sonnenaktivität.

Ukraine launches first lithium mining project: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/ukraine-launches-first-lithium-mining.html

US Big Tech companies have been on an energy-related hiring spree; Workforce.AI says Microsoft has hired 570 people with energy-related expertise since 2022 (Tasmin Lockwood/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/big-tech-google-microsoft-energy-hiring-ai.html…

Big Tech is poaching energy talent to fuel its AI ambitions
Hires of energy-related talent by Big Tech was 30% higher in 2025 than pre-AI levels.

🤖🔨
https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/s/MxlnOG093F

I deleted the "I deleted the post for misinfo" post for misinfo.

Zahlen, bitte! 14 Strafzettel als Keimzelle für die norwegische E-Autowende
Norwegen hat EU-weit die mit Abstand größte Anzahl E-Autos auf ihren Straßen. Den Anfang zu dieser E-Wende schufen die Band a-ha und ein umgebauter Fiat Panda.

🚀 Massive attack on Ukraine. Boomerang hits RUSSIA: “Atlant AERO” factory on fire: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/massive-attack-on-ukraine-boomerang.html

Apple unveils Apple Creator Studio, a "groundbreaking collection" of creative apps like Final Cut, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro for $12.99/month or $129/year (Chance Miller/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2026/01/13/apple-debuts-apple…

Apple debuts 'Apple Creator Studio' subscription, here's what you get - 9to5Mac
Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, which it describes as a “groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed to put...

heise | HBO Max im Test: Das bietet der neue Abo-Videostreamingdienst
Der Streamingdienst von HBO startet in Deutschland. Der erste Eindruck ist gut, es gibt aber auch Schwächen.
https://www.

Syrskyi calls for urgent air-defense aid in call with US commander: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/syrskyi-calls-for-urgent-airdefense.html

More please
https://www.ign.com/articles/warhammer-maker-games-workshop-bans-its-staff-from-using-ai-in-its-content-or-designs-says-none-of-its-senior-managers-are-currently-excited-about-the-tech

Checkr, which offers employee background checks, says its revenue grew to $800M, up 14% from 2024, amid a surge in AI-generated CVs and fake financial documents (Iain Martin/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20…

AI Fraud Has Exploded. This Background-Check Startup Is Cashing In.
San Francisco-based Checkr has seen its revenues jump 14% to $800 million as companies try to spot a flood of AI-generated CVs and faked financial documents.

Chinesische Software berechnet die Uhrzeit auf dem Mond
Wegen der geringeren Schwerkraft vergeht Zeit auf dem Mond schneller als auf der Erde. Eine neue Software synchronisiert die Uhren auf beiden Himmelskörpern.
h…

Reports say Russian diplomat who died in Cyprus was a GRU officer preparing to flee: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/reports-say-russian-diplomat-who.html

Speaking of subscription services, reminder to occasionally pretend to cancel your e.g. Adobe subscription (but it works with many other subscriptions as well) just to see what they offer you to stay, often it's quite substantial savings.

Caterpillar hits a $300B market cap for the first time, driven by demand for its data center power generation equipment; CAT is up 12% in 2026 to a record ~$640 (Matthew Griffin/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Digitale Souveränität oder Kosteneinsparung? In Bayern tobt ein Regierungsstreit über die Microsoft-Strategie! 💻
Zum Artikel: https://heise.de/-11137842?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=m…

Putin's “blitzkrieg” is crumbling! $400 million from Norway and Zelenskyy's tough plan: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/putins-blitzkrieg-is-crumbling-million.html

~timeline cleanser~
We should talk more about the IBM Leapfrog from the early 90s

Gov. Gavin Newsom has engaged in months of negotiations to neutralize a proposed California wealth tax ballot initiative; a compromise does not appear imminent (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/12/gavin-newsom-moves-neutralize-t…

Ukraine officially awards lithium deposit to Trump-linked investors, $179 million set for development: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/ukraine-officially-awards-lithium-deposit.html

President Trump renominates Sean Plankey to be the next director of CISA, which has been running without a full-time chief since Trump's return to office (John Sakellariadis/Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/13/sean-plankey-cisa-direc…

"Adams' first ex-wife said he's converting to Christianity because of the 'risk-reward' calculation"
Nice try

“ORESHNIK” – FOR THE SECOND TIME! Kilzons, convict POWs, and the blockade of RUSSIA in the Atlantic!: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/oreshnik-for-the-second-time.html

Polymarket is hosting a growing number of contracts related to military conflicts, including China invading Taiwan; possible US strikes in Iran has $18M volume (Denitsa Tsekova/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Good news everyone, Scott Adams died

EASTERN DONBAS: WHO WILL OWN THESE LANDS according to TRUMP'S plan? #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/eastern-donbas-who-will-own.html

Project Eleven, which builds tools to prepare blockchains for post-quantum threats, raised a $20M Series A led by Castle Island at a $120M post-money valuation (Yogita Khatri/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/385583/project-eleven-series-a-fun…

I'm surprised Apple didn't announce an exclusive app for their subscription.
Stocks Pro is right there.

The Russian army is acting as if it HAS NO INTENTION of ending the war, says Zelenskyy #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/the-russian-army-is-acting.html

the trick to a happy social media life is to block early and often

Analysis: DeepSeek's hedge fund parent High-Flyer posted 56.6% average returns across its quant funds in 2025, boosting potential cash available for DeepSeek (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-12/dee…

The Next Generation will be 40 years old next year, so about two generations ago

Sources: Chinese authorities told domestic companies to stop using cybersecurity software made by ~12 US and Israeli companies due to national security concerns (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/beijin

From PRISON to POWs: three Russians SURRENDER on CAMERA #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/from-prison-to-pows-three.html

Sources: AI chip startup Etched raised $500M led by Stripes at a $5B valuation, bringing its total funding to almost $1B (Dina Bass/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-13/ai-chip-startup-etched-raises-500-m…

How Ireland, an early data center winner, missed out on much of the current AI boom, hampered by creaking infrastructure and a strained electricity grid (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-14/ireland-wants-to-get-bac…

Saudi Arabia's PIF is transferring ~$12B worth of gaming company shares, including Nintendo, to Savvy Games; PIF transferred 11M Take-Two shares in December (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-14/sau…

Z.ai releases GLM-Image, an open-source multimodal AI model trained on Huawei chips that it says is China's first to be fully trained using domestic chips (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-…

NYC-based Proxima, which uses AI to design drugs that control protein interactions, raised an $80M seed led by DCVC, with participation from Nvidia and others (Agnee Ghosh/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Sources: OpenAI plans a 60-second Super Bowl ad during NBC's broadcast, the second straight year of doing so; ad buyers say clients pay $8M for just 30 seconds (Suzanne Vranica/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/super-b

China's market regulator says it is investigating Trip.com, the country's largest online travel agency, over alleged antitrust conduct, without offering details (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026…

CoinDesk Data: Binance's market share of spot crypto trading fell to 25% in December, its lowest since 2021, and it is also losing ground in derivatives trading (Sidhartha Shukla/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20<…

Airbnb hires Meta executive Ahmad Al-Dahle, who led generative AI and the Llama team after working at Apple, as its CTO, as it aims to integrate AI in its app (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…

Pittsburgh-based Skild AI, which makes robotics foundation models, raised a $1.4B Series C at a $14B valuation, up from $4.5B after raising $300M in June 2025 (Samantha Kelly/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Sources: Chinese chip designer Montage, a Shanghai-listed company valued at $22B, plans a Hong Kong IPO that could raise $900M , backed by Alibaba and JPMorgan (Dave Sebastian/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Sources: McKinsey pilots an overhaul in how it recruits its next generation, asking candidates to use its AI tool Lilli to analyze a case study during a test (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/de7855f0-f586-4708-a8ed-f0458eb25586

Filing: the US greenlights Nvidia H200 exports to China; the chips will be tested by a 3rd-party lab to confirm their AI capabilities before they can be shipped (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-eases-regulation…

X updates Grok to prevent the "editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis" and geoblocks it for all users "where it's illegal" (Karissa Bell/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/ai/x-says-grok-wi

X says Grok will no longer edit images of real people into bikinis
X says it is changing its policies around Grok’s image-editing abilities following a multi-week outcry over the chatbot repeatedly being accused of...

Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz are returning to OpenAI, a move which "has been in the works for several weeks" (Fidji Simo/@fidjissimo)
https://x.com/fidjissimo/status/2011592010881446116

Fidji Simo (@fidjissimo) on X
Excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back to OpenAI! This has been in the works for several weeks, and we’re thrilled to have them join the team. Barret will report to me; Luke and Sam will report into Barret. More to come on what they’ll focus on soon!

Sources: Amazon is seeking supplier discounts, from low single digits to 30%, as it moves to reverse concessions made to limit the shock of Trump's tariffs (Rafe Rosner-Uddin/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/6f7ad580-a237-4cb7-86bc-f68e4e44f511
…

UK satellite company Open Cosmos wins a highly contested Ka-band spectrum license, used for high-speed internet, beating companies backed by Peter Thiel (Josh Gabert-Doyon/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/8262dff8-38da-4230-855d-9b7da1bc1c36

Ahead of WEF 2026, the IMF urges governments to step up support for young workers displaced by AI, arguing candidates could use AI "rather than compete with it" (Delphine Strauss/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/7e2ae3ad-4cfb-4e3f-a370-702781899e05…

Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone and other execs discuss the challenges Netflix faces in streaming live events, after broadcasting 200 live events since March 2023 (Isabelle Bousquette/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/…

IDC: in Q4 2025, global PC shipments rose nearly 10% YoY to 76.4M units, helped by Windows 10 end-of-support and OEMs pulling forward inventory amid tariffs (Tom Warren/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/861124/pc-market-growth-q4-2025-idc

PC shipments just grew unexpectedly amid RAM shortages
The PC market just grew nearly 10 percent. The end of Windows 10 support and global memory shortages helped boost PC shipments over the holidays.

Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, with Soumith Chintala taking over the role; sources say the termination is due to "unethical conduct" (Kylie Robison/@kyliebytes)
https://x.com/kyliebytes/status/2011572331798548899

Kylie Robison (@kyliebytes) on X
BREAKING: Thinking Machines has terminated its CTO, Barret Zoph, due to unethical conduct according to two sources familiar with the matter. CEO Mira Murati announced the news at an all-hands with employees today. Soumith Chintala will be taking over as CTO.

Google announces MedGemma 1.5 with improved medical imaging support, and MedASR for medical dictation, both available on Hugging Face and Vertex AI (Google Research)
https://research.google/blog/next-generatio…

Next generation medical image interpretation with MedGemma 1.5 and medical speech to text with MedASR

As part of its Reality Labs cuts, Meta is closing three VR gaming studios and will stop developing new content and features for its VR fitness app Supernatural (Jay Peters/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/861420/meta-reality-la…

Meta is closing down three VR studios as part of its metaverse cuts
Meta’s Reality Labs layoffs include shutting down some of its VR studios, according to employees affected by the cuts.