#BrainUp Daily Tech News – (Saturday, January 17ᵗʰ)
Welcome to today’s curated collection of interesting links and insights for 2026/01/17. Our Hand-picked, AI-optimized system has processed and summarized 19 articles from all over the internet to bring you the latest technology news.
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1. OpenAI will begin testing ads on ChatGPT’s free Go tiers in 2026
OpenAI plans to introduce advertisements on the free ChatGPT Go tiers starting in 2026, aiming to monetize its popular #AI chatbot platform without affecting paid subscriptions. The company announced the rollout will start with a limited test phase to assess user experience and ad effectiveness before wider deployment. This move reflects OpenAI’s strategy to balance revenue generation while maintaining a free access option, which has driven user growth and platform engagement. By integrating ads thoughtfully, OpenAI seeks to sustain its AI development funding while keeping the core user experience positive. The decision highlights the evolving business models in the #generativeAI landscape as firms look to capitalize on large user bases.
2. Anthropic (an AI Company) Warns That AI Will Worsen Inequality
Anthropic warns that AI adoption could widen global inequality because the costs and infrastructure required concentrate benefits in rich countries, a concern stressed by @Dario Amodei. Anthropic’s analysis of over 2 million Claude conversations across free, paid, and Enterprise versions shows richer countries adopting AI much faster, with no clear sign that lower-income nations are catching up. A @Microsoft report is cited as finding that the global north nearly doubled adoption relative to the global south, and that overall AI uptake remains higher in wealthier nations. Even if productivity gains materialize, studies like MIT’s finding that 95% of businesses investing in generative AI have not yet achieved net-positive ROI, and a @Upwork survey where many workers report reduced productivity or increased workload, suggest adoption does not automatically translate to universal gains. Thus, while AI can boost productivity, distributing those gains remains uncertain and inequality could persist or widen.
3. Mandiant releases rainbow table that cracks weak admin password in 12 hours
Security firm Mandiant has released an NTLMv1 rainbow table hosted in Google Cloud that can recover Net-NTLMv1 passwords in under 12 hours using consumer hardware under $600, aiming to nudge defenders and researchers to confront the insecurity of the deprecated hashing function. NTLMv1’s limited keyspace makes these rainbow tables feasible, and the release demonstrates per-byte hash results with a known plaintext attack using 1122334455667788, enabling password recovery when a Net-NTLMv1 hash is captured. The move comes despite NTLMv1’s longstanding vulnerabilities, with history tracing back to early critiques by cryptanalyst @Bruce Schneier and others, and Microsoft plans to deprecate NTLMv1 were announced last August. Mandiant says the goal is to lower the barrier for security pros to demonstrate NTLMv1 insecurity, and researchers and admins on Mastodon applauded the move, while attackers may still leverage familiar tools such as Responder, PetitPotam, and DFSCoerce.
4. Rackspace raises email hosting prices by as much as 706 percent
Rackspace has significantly increased prices for its email hosting services, with hikes reaching up to 706 percent. Customers have reported steep price adjustments, especially those on legacy plans, leading to widespread dissatisfaction. The company justified the changes by citing the need to align with market rates and cover growing infrastructure costs. This sharp increase has raised concerns about affordability and customer retention in the competitive #emailhosting market. Rackspace’s pricing update underscores the challenges for service providers balancing operational expenses with customer expectations.
5. Supreme Court will decide on use of warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users
The @Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of broad warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users to locate people near crime scenes, raising questions about how data on movements is treated #locationHistory #warrants. The case centers on whether accessing long-term location data without targeted suspicion encroaches on individual privacy #privacy. A ruling could clarify how courts balance investigative needs with privacy expectations in mobile data and set limits on location-record seizures #cellphoneData. The decision will influence how privacy rights are treated in future investigations and how location information is used by law enforcement #privacy.
6. YouTube relaxes monetization policy on videos with controversial content
@YouTube is relaxing its monetization policy for videos that tackle controversial content, such as abortion and self-harm, allowing more creators to earn full ad revenue when topics are presented in a nongraphic way. The update expands advertiser guidelines to cover nongraphic treatment of sensitive issues, widening eligibility for monetization. This shift could help creators engage with timely debates while maintaining brand safety by limiting graphic content, though it may raise questions about advertiser comfort and content boundaries. It signals a broader trend in platform monetization policy toward balancing creator expression with advertiser considerations, linking to #monetizationPolicy and #advertiserBrandSafety.
7. An OpenAI safety research lead departed for Anthropic
Andrea Vallone, formerly @OpenAI’s head of safety research, has departed for @Anthropic to join its alignment team and focus on how models should behave in emotionally sensitive contexts. At @OpenAI, she built the #model_policy research group and helped shape safety work around GPT-4 and GPT-5, including developing training processes for safety techniques such as #rule_based_rewards. She will be working under @JanLeike, the OpenAI safety research lead who departed the company in May 2024 due to concerns that safety culture and processes had taken a backseat to product momentum. The move highlights the AI industry’s sustained attention to #alignment and #safety as researchers confront real-world harms linked to chatbot conversations and lessons about mental health distress. It also reflects ongoing industry dynamics as talent moves between @OpenAI and @Anthropic to address fundamental risks in models like #Claude.
8. Patch Tuesday update makes Windows PCs refuse to shut down
The January Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 23H2 has caused some PCs to refuse to shut down or enter hibernation when #SecureLaunch is enabled. Microsoft says the issue is tied to #SecureLaunch and confirmed on the Windows release health dashboard, noting that shutdown or hibernate may fail to complete, although the command ‘shutdown /s /t 0’ can force a shutdown. There is no detailed technical explanation or quantified scope yet, and Microsoft has not provided a fix, promising a resolution in a future update. Admins and users are advised to save work, monitor Microsoft’s status pages, and be aware of a separate Outlook POP profile issue introduced by the patches, as well as the teased @Copilot removal for admins, underscoring how updates can bring disruptive side effects.
9. U.S. says Canada’s decision to allow imported Chinese EVs is problematic
The U.S. government criticized Canada’s recent decision to permit the import of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), stating it raises concerns about trade fairness and national security. U.S. officials argue that allowing Chinese EVs into Canada undermines efforts to support domestic and allied EV manufacturing sectors, which are key to economic competitiveness and supply chain security. The move reflects ongoing tensions in North American trade policies and the broader geopolitical rivalry involving #China and Western nations over EV technology. These concerns highlight the complexities governments face in balancing open markets with protecting strategic industries. The U.S. stance signals potential diplomatic and trade negotiations to address these challenges in cross-border EV commerce.
10. RFK Jr. Orders Study on Cellphone Radiation as FDA Drops Assurance That Phones Are Not Dangerous
The FDA has removed older webpages asserting that wireless phones are not dangerous as the @HHS conducts new safety studies into electromagnetic radiation to identify knowledge gaps and ensure safety and efficacy. An archived page stated that, based on the evaluation of currently available information, the weight of scientific evidence had not linked exposure to radiofrequency energy from cell phone use with health problems at FCC exposure limits. @Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that radiation from wireless phones can cause neurological damage in children and cancer, while @CTIA contends that current standards are adequate and many medical associations see no cancer link. The study was directed by President Trump’s #MAHA Commission in its strategy report, and advocates such as @Joseph Sandri of the Environmental Health Trust urge a more transparent safety discussion and stronger U.S. safety standards, arguing that funding and attention to wireless health research have waned. The piece frames ongoing calls for a transparent safety discussion and for updating U.S. standards for wireless technologies.
11. First ‘dark factory’ where robots build the entire car tipped to open in China or U.S. by 2030
Automakers are racing toward fully automated car assembly, with experts predicting at least one automaker will achieve it by 2030. Hyundai plans to deploy @Boston Dynamics humanoid robots at its Georgia plant in 2028, signaling a shift toward humanoid-assisted assembly, while @Mercedes expects robots to work alongside people in its plants by 2030. This transition will require workers to develop new skills to understand and assess digital technology on factory floors, underscoring a broad #workforceTransformation. @Accenture says advanced automation could cut costs and time to market by about 50%, highlighting the efficiency gains driving the push #automation #digitalTechnology. The trend points to a radical redefinition of factory work, with #robotics and #automation making fully automated car assembly plausible in China or the U.S. by the end of the decade.
12. X Is Down: More Than 200,000 Users Report Outage on Social Media Platform
X, the @ElonMusk-led platform, suffered a Friday-morning outage that left hundreds of thousands of users unable to reach the service. By 10:52 a.m. ET, about 200,000 people had reported issues on Downdetector, with 56% of problems tied to the X app, 33% to the website, and 10% to server connections. The disruption began around 10:10 a.m., briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and resumed at about 10:41 a.m. This incident fits a pattern of past outages for X, including events in November and March 2025, underscoring ongoing reliability challenges. The report highlights Downdetector as the source tracking the outages and emphasizes the platform’s recurring outages.
HDD pricing across the market has surged on average about 46% since September 2025, a trend driven by AI expansion and tighter supply that has pushed even flagship drives into new price territory, with the Seagate BarraCuda 24TB model climbing to about $499 after previously dipping as low as $239. Evidence from ComputerBase shows a 12-model sampler in mainstream drives showing similar increases, and Tom’s Hardware finds US prices tracking the same trajectory for lines such as @Seagate IronWolf, @Toshiba Cloud Scale Capacity Drives, and @WD Red, with increases ranging roughly 23% to 66%. The pressures are tied to AI data-center demand that siphons DRAM capacity and compresses RAM and SSD pricing, while HDDs, still essential for bulk data storage, are seeing production skew toward higher-capacity enterprise drives, reducing consumer availability. Optical hard drives are also affected as part of broader supply-chain strains, while RAM, SSDs, GPUs, and other core components all feel ongoing AI-driven price pressure that challenges enthusiasts and professional builders alike. As a result, the market faces a persistent tilt toward higher prices and tighter supply for mainstream and high-capacity HDDs, suggesting continued caution for buyers and a potential shift back to older or alternative storage configurations.
14. Over half of enterprise AI stalls on infrastructure mess
More than half of AI projects are delayed or canceled due to infrastructure complexity, according to a DDN–Google Cloud–Cognizant study of 600 US enterprise decision-makers. Two-thirds say their AI environments are too complex to manage, with infrastructure, power, and the operational foundation delaying IT projects, causing GPUs to be underutilized and power costs to rise. @AlexBouzari, CEO of @DDN, says the bottlenecks stem from core requirements that don’t disappear in the cloud, as cloud scaling still needs unified data and large‑scale orchestration and demands IT education to succeed. The finding sits alongside MIT’s Project NANDA result of 95% zero measurable return on generative AI investments, Gartner’s forecast that >40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by 2027, and Forrester’s note that 25% of planned AI spend will be delayed into 2027 with only 15% reporting EBITDA lift. The article argues that progress will come from education and smarter use cases that bridge data with AI, aided by turnkey deployments from major firms like Accenture and Deloitte to move beyond pilots toward measurable ROI #AI #infrastructure #cloud #data #orchestration.
15. After Micron’s greedy decision, SK Hynix could also exit consumer DRAM and NAND business
Following @Micron’s decision to withdraw from the consumer DRAM and NAND market, SK Hynix is considering a similar exit due to worsening market conditions and low profit margins. The memory chip industry is experiencing oversupply and price drops, which force manufacturers like SK Hynix to rethink their business strategies for consumer products. Exiting the consumer segment could allow SK Hynix to focus on more profitable areas, such as enterprise and specialized memory solutions. This strategic shift reflects broader challenges faced by the #semiconductor industry amid fluctuating demand and intense competition. SK Hynix’s potential exit underscores the shifting landscape in the #DRAM and #NAND markets and the impact of major players’ decisions on market dynamics.
16. Small businesses grapple with rising online shopping scams powered by AI
Online shopping scams exploiting AI tools are increasingly targeting small businesses, causing significant financial and reputational damage. Cybercriminals use AI to create sophisticated fake websites and phishing emails, making it difficult for businesses to detect fraud. This rise in AI-enabled scams exacerbates the challenges small businesses face due to limited resources for cybersecurity. Experts warn that without increased awareness and better protective measures, these scams could grow more prevalent and destructive. Addressing this threat requires collaboration between businesses, technology providers, and law enforcement to safeguard online commerce.
17. Commodore 64 Ultimate review – it’s like 1982 all over again!
The Commodore 64 Ultimate is a faithful hardware reproduction that blends nostalgia with modern engineering, preserving the look and feel of the 1982 machine while adding contemporary touches. Built around an FPGA rather than software emulation, it can run original software via a Datasette or disk drive, includes a cartridge port for games like International Soccer, two joystick ports, and even reproduces disk drive sounds to complete the retro ambience; a Starlight edition adds LED lighting, and the packaging mirrors the original box with the breadbox silhouette. Booting it drops you at the authentic start screen showing the classic Basic V2 prompt, 64K RAM, and a small amount of free memory, reinforcing the hardware-first approach. The piece weaves personal nostalgia with technical detail, recalling childhood C64 memories such as Crazy Kong, Bruce Lee, Paradroid, Hyper Sports, and Leaderboard—the golf sim played with his dad—and even notes @Daley_Thompson’s Decathlon. The August 2025 revival of Commodore by @Peri_Fractic and fellow veterans frames the Ultimate as part of a broader effort to reinvigorate the brand while delivering a tactile, design driven machine that resonates beyond visuals alone.
18. TikTok case sparks calls for social media reform as UK mother campaigns for ‘Jools’ Law’
Ellen Roome is campaigning for ‘Jools’ Law’ in the UK to tackle the harms of social media on children after her daughter’s death, advocating tougher regulations and better support. The case highlights increasing concerns over platforms like #TikTok facilitating harmful content, leading to mental health issues among youth. Evidence shows inadequate monitoring of online content and lack of accountability by social media companies. The campaign pushes for legislative changes to hold platforms responsible and improve child safety online. This movement ties into broader debates on digital regulation and protecting vulnerable users in the social media age.
19. Watch NASA roll huge Artemis 2 moon rocket out to the launch pad on Jan. 17
@NASA will roll its Artemis 2 moon rocket and Orion crewed spacecraft from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 17. The Crawler-Transporter 2 will carry the SLS rocket and Orion on a four-mile trek, starting as early as 7 a.m. EST and likely taking eight to ten hours. Live coverage will be available here on Space.com courtesy of NASA, and Artemis 2 will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Canada’s Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day loop around the Moon. After rollout, NASA will conduct checkouts including a wet dress rehearsal planned for Feb. 2, a milestone that will shape the mission timeline; Artemis 1’s wet dress revealed leaks of liquid hydrogen that delayed its launch. There are three liftoff windows currently under consideration for Artemis 2, with opportunities in February, March and April, and NASA will set a firm date after the wet dress and other checks are completed.
That’s all for today’s digest for 2026/01/17! We picked, and processed 19 Articles. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s collection of insights and discoveries.
Thanks, Patricia Zougheib and Dr Badawi, for curating the links
See you in the next one! 🚀
