<h2>Must know</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Meta pivots from metaverse to AI, cuts Reality Labs staff</strong>: Meta is closing three VR studios—Twisted Pixel Games, Sanzaru Games, and Armature Studio—and laying off approximately 1,500 Reality Labs employees, about 10% of the division. This strategic shift comes after Reality Labs lost over $70 billion since 2021, with Meta now prioritizing AI-powered glasses and wearable technology over immersive VR experiences. The company’s 2021 rebranding around the Metaverse is being deprioritized in response to sustained financial losses and slow market growth for VR hardware, as reported by multiple sources. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/7ystcAQPc" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Cloudflare fined by Italy for not blocking pirate sites</strong>: Italy’s communications regulator, AGCOM, has fined Cloudflare €14.2 million for refusing to block pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver, citing the Piracy Shield law. Cloudflare argues that compliance is technically infeasible without increasing latency for all users and potentially blocking legitimate sites, stating ‘Non C’è Modo’ (No Way). CEO Matthew Prince is seeking U.S. government support and has warned the IOC about potential cybersecurity risks for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, threatening to withdraw servers from the country if forced to comply. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/Q0IbcQd4P" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Microsoft AI data center expansion faces backlash</strong>: Microsoft’s ‘Community-First AI Infrastructure’ initiative, promising to cover power costs and minimize water usage for its U.S. data centers, is a direct response to widespread public backlash. Activist groups in 24 states have protested the environmental and social impacts of these centers, leading Microsoft to abandon projects in Wisconsin and face ongoing resistance in Michigan and Ohio. The IEA projects global data center electricity demand to more than double by 2030, intensifying concerns about rising residential energy rates and strained local resources. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/jqtBl3Jnb" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Good to know</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Astro 6 beta adds Cloudflare Workers support</strong>: Astro 6 Beta introduces a redesigned development server that mirrors production, native support for Cloudflare Workers, stable live content collections, and enhanced Content Security Policy (CSP) support, requiring Node 22+ and upgrading to Zod 4. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/a23rECuU6" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>WordPress 7.0 to drop PHP 7.2/7.3 support</strong>: The WordPress core team is preparing for the 7.0 release, which will discontinue support for PHP 7.2 and 7.3, and is seeking volunteers for the release process. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/xho5u0zys" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Apple launches Creator Studio subscription bundle</strong>: Apple unveiled Creator Studio, a subscription bundle for creative professionals launching January 28, 2026, including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro (now on iPad), and premium iWork features, priced at $12.99/month or $129/year, with a student discount. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/gpfpGVE8Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Node.js releases security updates</strong>: Node.js 20.20.0 (LTS) and 25.3.0 (Current) were released with security updates addressing multiple CVEs, including disabled futimes with permission model enabled, default TLSSocket error handlers, and tightened symlink API permissions. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=DwsoMgMKH&amp;id=Zr0Dv9dwZ&amp;id=37PkHkE8t" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Compose Multiplatform 1.10 launches with stable hot reload</strong>: JetBrains released Compose Multiplatform 1.10.0, featuring stable Compose Hot Reload 1.0.0 for dynamic app updates without losing state, a unified @Preview annotation, and Navigation 3 for non-Android targets. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=qzPVbng9O&amp;id=y1ZFPOP5i" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Laravel 12.47.0 introduces new Blade directive and cache controls</strong>: Laravel 12.47.0 brings developer-focused upgrades like the @includeIsolated Blade directive for isolated variable scope, Cache::withoutOverlapping() for concurrent cache operations, and improved enum support. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/SQ5jDUcaB" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Linux Mint 22.3 enhances accessibility and graphical tools</strong>: Linux Mint 22.3 ‘Zena’ introduces a redesigned Mint Menu, an on-screen keyboard, improved language handling, and new system apps for hardware info and GRUB editing, all based on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/ecK1ViBJk" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Bullshit police</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>AI agents: the new productivity panacea, or just more code to debug?</strong>: Salesforce just relaunched Slackbot as an AI agent, promising it can ‘organize work, create content, and schedule meetings’ by leveraging context from Slack and third-party tools. Meanwhile, LangSmith’s new Agent Builder lets you create AI agents for ‘complex, multi-step tasks’ with ‘no coding required.’ It’s almost like they’re trying to convince us that AI will magically solve all our problems, even though Gartner predicts 40% of agentic AI projects will fail by 2027 due to inadequate guardrails. So, more AI, more problems, less actual work getting done, probably. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=VpXLIsjSp&amp;id=sDf9ENrg4&amp;id=9X1ifJmCu" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>Anthropic’s token crackdown: ‘No way’ to use our AI, unless you pay more</strong>: Anthropic, in a move that surprised absolutely no one who’s been paying attention, started strictly enforcing token restrictions on Claude Code for third-party tools like Cursor and Open Code. Apparently, using their AI through other platforms was always against the terms of service, but they just decided to start caring now. Developers are, naturally, upset, especially since open-source alternatives like grepai offer more efficient semantic search without relying on Anthropic’s ‘financially stressed’ infrastructure. It’s a classic case of a company trying to lock down its ecosystem after developers built workflows around their previous leniency. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=DEqFrm707&amp;id=jcpFkjQkx" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li><strong>AI is killing open source, but don’t worry, it’s making cloud companies rich</strong>: Tailwind CSS saw an 80% revenue drop because AI models are apparently so good at documentation caching and search that no one needs to visit their website anymore. Now, open-source maintainers are shifting to AGPL-3.0 licenses to stop AI from training on their code without compensation, and AI-generated contributions are ‘overwhelming’ them with low-quality submissions. But fear not, because this ‘threat’ to open source is a ‘boost’ for hosted cloud services like Databricks and Vercel, which are achieving ‘record valuations.’ So, AI is destroying one part of the tech ecosystem while making another part obscenely wealthy. Progress! <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=2a8HRxzCb&amp;id=Ml47Y2Hd6&amp;id=g50WJmopi" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
</ul>
