• Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI are reportedly holding merger talks

    January 29, 2026

    Two Elon Musk companies are reportedly planning to merge. On Thursday, Reuters reported that SpaceX and xAI are holding merger talks ahead of a planned IPO. Part of their plan is to launch AI data centers into space (but unfortunately, only as far as Earth’s orbit). Last week, it was reported that Musk planned to take SpaceX public despite having once said it wouldn’t happen until the company had a presence on Mars. Now, the IPO could happen as early as this year. Shares of xAI would reportedly be exchanged for shares in SpaceX under the merger. Reuters reports that…

  • Fintech firm Marquis blames hack at firewall provider SonicWall for its data breach

    January 29, 2026

    Fintech firm Marquis told customers that it plans to seek compensation from its firewall provider after blaming the company for a breach that allowed hackers to steal its customers’ personal and financial data. In a memo shared with customers this week and seen by TechCrunch, Marquis said it believes that its August 2025 ransomware attack happened because the company’s firewall service provider SonicWall had its own data breach that exposed critical security information about its customers’ firewalls. That earlier breach of SonicWall allowed hackers to obtain credentials needed to launch a ransomware attack against Marquis, the memo said. Marquis said…

  • Waymo begins service at San Francisco International Airport

    January 29, 2026

    As fans and media prepare to descend on the Bay Area for Super Bowl LX, what does a high-tech city like San Francisco do? Why, call in the robotaxis, of course. On Thursday, Alphabet’s Waymo began offering fully autonomous rides at San Francisco International Airport (SFO). There are some limits. For now, SFO access is restricted to “a select number of riders.” However, access will gradually expand over the coming months. The service is also limited to the SFO Rental Car Center (pickups and drop-offs) at launch. Waymo says it will expand to other airport locations, including terminals, “in the…

  • Satya Nadella insists people are using Microsoft’s Copilot AI a lot  

    January 29, 2026

    Microsoft delivered a solid earnings report on Wednesday with $81.3 billion in revenue for the quarter (up 17%), net income profits of $38.3 billion (up 21%) and a record breaking Microsoft cloud revenue of over $50 billion.  But the stock was getting pounded on Thursday as investors worried about how much the tech giant was spending to build out its cloud and questioned whether that investment would pay off. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says, yes  — and spent considerable time on the earnings call trying to make that point Microsoft has spent almost as much on capital expenditures in the…

  • Music publishers sue Anthropic for $3 billion over ‘flagrant piracy’

    January 29, 2026

    A group of music publishers led by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group Anthropic, . The suit accuses the AI company of illegally downloading more than 20,000 copyrighted songs, including sheet music, lyrics and compositions. These songs were then allegedly fed into the chatbot Claude for training purposes. There are some iconic tunes named by Universal in the suit, including tracks by The Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond and Elton John, among many others. Concord is an independent publisher that handles artists like Common, Killer Mike and Korn. The publishers issued a statement saying that the damages could amount to…

  • Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides to and from San Francisco International Airport

    January 29, 2026

    After years of negotiations and false starts, Waymo is now allowed to operate a robotaxi service to and from the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The Alphabet-owned company said in a blog post Thursday it will begin offering access to SFO to a select number of riders before offering it to all customers in the coming months. Pickups and drop-offs will occur at the SFO Rental Car Center, which is accessible via AirTrain. Waymo said it plans to serve additional airport locations in the future. Waymo’s SFO win comes as the company faces criticism and concerns about safety in some…

  • 2026 Mercedes-Benz S-Class revealed with stars in its eyes

    January 29, 2026

    The heavily upgraded Mercedes-Benz S-Class has made its world debut, five years after the German automaker’s current W223-series flagship sedan debuted in 2020. Mercedes-Benz says the 2026 S-Class represents the most comprehensive mid-cycle update in the model’s history, with more than 50 per cent of the extra-large luxury limousine (around 2700 components) being newly developed, updated or refined to better compete with rivals including the BMW 7 Series and Porsche Panamera. Key highlights of the latest S-Class, which arrives in Australia in the fourth quarter of this year, include an optionally illuminated three-pointed star emblem on the bonnet, a 20…

  • Maingear’s latest retro gaming desktop takes you back to the Quake era

    January 29, 2026

    Maingear is back with another nostalgia-fueled gaming PC. The Retro98 may look like it’s made for playing Quake while you wait for The Phantom Menace trailer to drop. But on the inside, the beige box is powerful enough to slay today’s most demanding AAA games. “You’re not going to find this PC at your local Radio Shack,” Maingear promises. If you’re at least middle-aged, the Retro98’s exterior is instantly familiar. The hand-built tower includes an LED fan-speed display, a working turbo button and a power-lockout key. Sticking with the nostalgic motif, its front I/O is hidden behind the Maingear logo.…

  • I built marshmallow castles in Google’s new AI world generator

    January 29, 2026

    Google DeepMind is opening up access to Project Genie, its AI tool for creating interactive game worlds from text prompts or images.  Starting Thursday, Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. can play around with the experimental research prototype, which is powered by a combination of Google’s latest world model Genie 3, its image generation model Nano Banana Pro, and Gemini.  Coming five months after Genie 3’s research preview, the move is part of a broader push to gather user feedback and training data as DeepMind races to develop more capable world models.  World models are AI systems that generate…

  • Honda vehicles used to proactively report road safety issues in nation-first pilot

    January 29, 2026

    Honda and DriveOhio have teamed up on a new road safety initiative in which Honda vehicles are being used to collect real-time data that can advise about potential issues and road deficiencies before they become a problem. Honda’s Proactive Roadway Maintenance System, which has been in prototyping since 2021, uses “advanced vision and LiDAR sensors” to identify issues such as worn or obstructed road signs, damaged guardrails, rough roads and emerging potholes. During the pilot, members of the Ohio Department of Transportation’s smart mobility hub drove the test vehicles on around 3,000 miles of road in central and southeastern Ohio.…