<h2>Must know</h2>
<ul>
<li>Musk’s companies eye massive merger for AI and space dominance: Elon Musk’s SpaceX, xAI, and potentially Tesla are reportedly in early discussions to merge, aiming to create a trillion-dollar super-company. This consolidation, highlighted by TechCrunch, would combine AI, satellites, rockets, and electric vehicles, with a key goal of building space-based AI data centers to cut training costs. The move comes as SpaceX prepares for an IPO, potentially valuing the combined entity at over a trillion dollars, and follows recent investments by SpaceX and Tesla into xAI. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=wMYF638eZ&amp;id=QM04R10C9" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Kubernetes RCE flaw found in common permissions: Edera Advisory has identified a critical design flaw in Kubernetes that allows remote code execution (RCE) in any container on a node via commonly used <code>nodes/proxy GET</code> permissions. This issue, while not a CVE, poses a significant risk, especially since many monitoring tools and network overlays utilize these permissions. A fix is slated for Kubernetes 1.36, but given the slow update cycles in many production environments, organizations are urged to implement fine-grained authorization controls and scan for RCE attempts. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/phMyeDnVg" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Meta doubles down on AI infrastructure, Reality Labs pivots to wearables: Meta plans to invest a staggering $115-135 billion in AI infrastructure in 2026, nearly doubling its previous year’s investment, to support its Superintelligence Labs and ‘personal superintelligence’ agents. This massive expenditure, reported by various sources, aims to integrate large language models across Facebook, Instagram, and ad platforms. Concurrently, Meta’s Reality Labs, despite accumulating $83.6 billion in losses, is pivoting its strategy towards AI-integrated glasses and wearables, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg expecting FY25 to be the peak loss year. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/feed-by-ids?id=JHGPGk0MW&amp;id=ALCffHVkc" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Good to know</h2>
<ul>
<li>Google DeepMind launches Project Genie AI world generator: Google DeepMind released Project Genie, an experimental web prototype powered by the Genie 3 world model, capable of generating interactive, real-time environments from text and image prompts for Google AI Ultra subscribers. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/iit38VC43" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Microsoft’s Xbox gaming division sees significant declines: Microsoft’s Q2 FY26 results show a 32% decline in Xbox console sales and a 9% drop in gaming revenue year-over-year, marking the sixth consecutive year of declining console sales despite overall company growth driven by cloud services. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/uKbAAElcM" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Apple acquires audio AI startup <a href="http://Q.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Q.ai</a>: Apple acquired Israeli audio AI startup <a href="http://Q.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Q.ai</a> for an estimated $1.6 to $2 billion, strengthening its AI hardware capabilities with <a href="http://Q.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Q.ai</a>’s expertise in whispered speech recognition and audio enhancement, likely benefiting AirPods and Vision Pro. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/PknWg8Xks" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>NVIDIA launches native Linux support for GeForce NOW: NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW cloud gaming service now offers native Linux PC support in beta, providing RTX performance streaming up to 5K at 120fps on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and later, distributed as a Flatpak. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/RB8XUehQ7" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Google Cloud introduces Conversational Analytics in BigQuery: Google Cloud launched Conversational Analytics in BigQuery (preview), an AI-powered agent integrated into BigQuery Studio that enables natural language data analysis, generating and visualizing SQL queries without requiring users to learn SQL. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/2YKMeABdR" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>NVIDIA releases open physical AI models for robotics: NVIDIA has open-sourced physical AI models and frameworks, including Cosmos world models and Isaac Lab-Arena, to accelerate robotics and autonomous vehicle development, leveraging OpenUSD and Omniverse for simulation and training. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/dtPuS18HT" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Microsoft deploys Maia 200 AI chip, continues Nvidia partnership: Microsoft has deployed its Maia 200 AI inference chip in data centers for frontier AI models and OpenAI, but CEO Satya Nadella confirmed the company will continue purchasing AI chips from Nvidia and AMD, indicating a diversified supply chain strategy. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/kN85HgrLU" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Developer container security practices show significant gaps: A BellSoft survey reveals that 23% of developers experienced container-related security incidents, with human error being the primary cause (62%), and nearly half (48%) prefer pre-hardened images, yet many still use general-purpose Linux distributions and JDKs requiring more security effort. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/I55IVTrKU" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Upwind raises $250M for runtime cloud security: Upwind Security secured $250 million at a $1.5 billion valuation to expand its runtime cloud security platform, which uses internal signals like network requests to prioritize real-time threats in active services, contrasting with traditional agentless scanning. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/LGgCBPA2D" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>formae IaC platform adds multi-cloud support and Plugin SDK: Platform Engineering Labs announced beta multi-cloud support for its open-source IaC platform, formae, now including Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle Cloud, and OVHcloud, alongside a new Plugin SDK for custom extensions. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/bqzmDPKsL" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Node.js affected by OpenSSL vulnerabilities: Three OpenSSL CVEs (two Low, one Moderate) related to PFX certificate processing affect Node.js, impacting TLS configuration, with fixes planned for regular Node.js releases rather than dedicated security patches due to limited attack surface. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/jITntLdtr" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Ruby ecosystem updates for January 2026: Ruby Weekly Issue 785 reports on recent developments including a RubyConf startup pitch competition, tutorials on optimistic UI in Rails and AI-assisted Rails development, and releases of Devise 5.0, Rails 8.1.2, and the Mudis in-memory cache library. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/p4p5rYaQJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>freeCodeCamp releases relational database design course: freeCodeCamp launched a 6-hour video course on relational database design, covering SQL basics, entity-relationship modeling, normalization forms, indexing strategies, and security concepts, based on the book ‘Grokking Relational Database Design’. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/xdwl0QPIc" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Bullshit police</h2>
<ul>
<li>GDC attendance concerns vs. organizer optimism: Despite GDC organizers claiming attendance is ‘tracking in line with expectations’ and ‘haven’t seen cancellations reflected in ticket sales yet,’ many international developers are openly reluctant to attend due to US immigration concerns and violence. This optimistic framing, as noted by various industry observers, conveniently ignores confirmed non-attendance from UK and European publishers, suggesting a disconnect between PR and reality. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/dX5Rur1jC" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>AI coding assistants won’t make you code more, just different: Apparently, developers can only manage 3-4 hours of ‘deep, focused coding’ per day, with AI coding assistants merely handling the ‘shallow tasks.’ So, if you thought AI would magically extend your productive coding hours, think again. It just means you’ll be staring at your screen for the same amount of time, but now with more AI-generated boilerplate to review, according to ‘Tech World With Milan.’ <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/6CCjFqKqC" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
<li>Vivaldi surfs the anti-AI wave, because users ‘dislike’ it: Vivaldi’s latest browser release proudly boasts a new tab tiling system while deliberately avoiding AI features, with CEO Jon von Tetzchner claiming users view AI as a ‘data collection tool’ rather than useful. It’s refreshing to see a company position itself against the industry’s AI-everything hype, though one wonders if ‘dislike’ is truly the sentiment or just a convenient marketing angle for a niche browser. <a href="https://app.daily.dev/posts/ztifZ6N8Z" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Read more</a></li>
</ul>