Microsoft launches Scout, an OpenClaw-inspired personal assistant
In the first weeks of 2026, OpenClaw spread through the AI world like a sonic boom, introducing many of the industry’s most ambitious technologists to the joy and chaos of…
OpenAI launches new Codex tools for white-collar work
OpenAI is getting serious about courting enterprise users. On Tuesday, the AI lab released a new set of capabilities for Codex, meant to expand the agentic tool’s uses in the…
Chinese AI developer MiniMax launches M3, a new coding model that it says rivals Opus 4.7, costing $0.12 per 1M input tokens, compared with $5 for Opus 4.7 (Juro Osawa/The Information)
Featured Podcasts Grit: What It Takes to Build Software for 171,000+ Restaurants | Aman Narang Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations. Subscribe to Grit.…
AI startup Shift launches a free home cleaning service in NYC to record first-person video with a camera-equipped cap and use it to train robots (Robert Hart/The Verge)
Featured Podcasts Hard Fork: Interesting Times: Why Are We Still Driving? The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the…
Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, launches its iOS app
On Thursday, the AI startup Sesame, co-founded by Oculus’s founders and others from the VR company that sold to Meta, released a public preview of the conversational AI agents it’s…
Meta launches ‘Plus’ plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp
Taylor Kerns / Android Authority TL;DR Meta has announced plans for several new paid subscriptions. Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, and WhatsApp plus offer additional functionality for $3 to $4 per…
Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions, with more to come, including AI plans
Meta is doubling down on its subscription offerings. On Wednesday, the social networking giant announced it’s now rolling out its consumer subscription plans globally for its flagship apps, Instagram, Facebook,…
SpaceX launches Starship V3 for the first time, but loses booster on return
SpaceX has launched the upgraded third version of its Starship rocket for the first time, though the test launch did not go perfectly for Elon Musk’s spaceflight company. The 407-foot…
Meta quietly launches a new Reddit-like app called Forum
Meta has quietly released a new standalone app for Facebook Groups, called “Forum.” The company seems to be positioning Forum as a platform that functions similarly to Reddit, describing the…
Spotify launches an ElevenLabs-powered audiobook creation tool
Alongside tools for AI-generated podcasts, Spotify on Thursday introduced a new, ElevenLabs-powered AI tool for self-publishing audiobooks within the Spotify for Authors platform. The company said at its Investor Day…