Good morning. It’s Thursday, January 29. Today we are covering:
Elon Musk says Tesla ending Models S and X production, converting Fremont factory lines to make Optimus robots
OpenAI Wants To Use Biometrics To Kill Bots And Create Humans Only Social Network
Google Aims Knockout Blow at Chinese Company Linked to Massive Cyber Weapon
Microsoft reports strong cloud earnings in Q2 as gaming declines
Your Google Chrome browser just got a useful autopilot feature - here’s how it works
Let’s dive in
By Lora Kolodny via CNBC
Elon Musk told investors on Tesla’s Q4 earnings call that the company will end production of the Model S and Model X, calling it an “honorable discharge,” and urged would-be buyers to order soon.
Tesla plans to convert Fremont production lines to build Optimus humanoid robots, with Musk claiming the site will be upgraded into a 1 million-units-per-year Optimus line and that the shift requires a largely new supply chain.
The pivot comes as Tesla beat quarterly estimates but posted its first-ever annual sales decline, with Models 3 and Y still dominating deliveries while Musk pushes the narrative toward robotics and autonomy.
𝕏: Much more coming out from @xAI. We are cooking hard on many projects. - Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
OpenAI Wants To Use Biometrics To Kill Bots And Create Humans Only Social Network
By Anna Tong via Forbes
OpenAI is exploring a “real-humans-only” social network aimed at eliminating bots, with early concepts that could require biometric “proof of personhood” such as Apple Face ID or the World Orb iris scanner tied to Tools for Humanity, chaired by CEO Sam Altman.
The project is reportedly being built by a tiny team (fewer than 10 people) with no launch timeline, and could lean into AI-assisted content creation (images and video), positioning it as a complement to viral consumer products like ChatGPT and Sora.
The idea targets a bot problem that has worsened on X, but faces steep competitive pressure from entrenched platforms like Instagram and TikTok, plus fast-growing challengers such as Meta’s Threads and Bluesky, while raising major privacy risks around irreversible biometric data.
𝕏: OpenAI is developing a “real-humans-only” social network to take on the bot problem, sources say. The play? OpenAI considered gating access with biometric verification like World’s eyeball scanning “Orb”, or Apple’s Face ID. - Anna Tong (@annatonger)
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Google Aims Knockout Blow at Chinese Company Linked to Massive Cyber Weapon
By Robert McMillan via Wall Street Journal
Google obtained a federal court order to seize and take offline dozens of internet domains tied to Ipidea, a mysterious Chinese company it says is linked to a large-scale cyber operation.
Google and outside security researchers allege Ipidea has been quietly pushing unwanted and dangerous software onto millions of consumer devices, including phones, home computers, and Android devices.
The domain takedown is framed as a direct strike against a “massive cyber weapon” that researchers believe has been operating silently at scale inside consumers’ homes.
𝕏: Unlike Jensen Huang, quietly helping DeepSeek, an extension of China’s military. Google knocked out IPIDEA proxy network (resident proxy), a Chinese company linked to massive cyber weapons that’s a go-to service for criminals and state-sponsored hackers. - Denise Wu (@denisewu)
Microsoft reports strong cloud earnings in Q2 as gaming declines
By Tom Warren via The Verge
Microsoft posted a strong fiscal Q2 2026, with $81.3B in revenue (+17% YoY) and $30.9B in net income (+23%), while its More Personal Computing segment (Windows, Xbox, Surface) was the only unit to decline, down 3%.
The standout was cloud: Microsoft Cloud revenue topped $50B (+26%), with Azure and other cloud services up 39%; Microsoft’s capex hit $37.5B as it poured money into CPUs/GPUs for cloud and AI data centers and benefited from big Azure commitments tied to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Gaming continued to slide, with Xbox hardware down 32% and overall gaming revenue down 9% (content and services down 5%), even as Windows saw modest momentum from the Windows 10 end-of-support upgrade cycle and Windows 11 reached one billion users.
𝕏: Microsoft’s Q2 2026 (fiscal) earnings: • 💻 Windows OEM + devices revenue up 1% • 👾 Gaming rev down 9% • 🕹️ Xbox content + services rev down 5% • 🎮 Xbox hardware rev down 32% - Tom Warren (@tomwarren)
Your Google Chrome browser just got a useful autopilot feature - here’s how it works
By Kyle Kucharski via ZDNET
Google Chrome is rolling out Gemini 3 with a redesigned, larger side panel that can take on assistant-style work like organizing tabs and pulling info across multiple open pages.
The headline feature, Auto Browse, lets Gemini navigate websites and complete tasks on your behalf such as filling out forms, pruning saved Redfin listings by criteria (like pet-friendly), or shopping on Etsy based on what it detects in an image.
For “agentic” shopping flows, Chrome will support Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol and include controls like a Pause button plus required confirmations for purchases, as Google positions convenience against lingering concerns around accuracy, privacy, and reliability.
𝕏: Announcing big changes to Gemini in Chrome - agentic browsing with Auto-browse, Nano Banana & more! - Addy Osmani (@addyosmani)
Trending in AI
Microsoft capital spending jumps, cloud revenue fails to impress, shares drop after hours
Amazon Found ‘High Volume’ Of Child Sex Abuse Material in AI Training Data
ByteDance, Alibaba to Launch New Models in Race for AI Supremacy in China
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