January 12, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Luminar lines up $22 million bidder for its lidar business: The bid comes from Quantum Computing Inc., which already lined up to buy Luminar's semiconductor division. Luminar founder Austin Russell has also expressed interest. Read More

Harmattan AI raises $200M Series B led by Dassault Aviation, becomes defense unicorn: French defense tech company Harmattan AI is now valued at $1.4 billion after raising a $200 million Series B round led by Dassault Aviation, which is best known for making the Rafale fighter jet. Read More

Meta hires former Trump advisor Dina Powell McCormick as president and vice chair: Before joining Meta, Powell McCormick was working as deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

Google announces a new protocol to facilitate commerce using AI agents: Google said that merchants can now offer discounts to users directly in AI mode results Read More

Google co-founders may be leaving California: Sergey Brin and Larry Page appear to be pulling back from the state where they co-founded Google. Read More

Indonesia and Malaysia block Grok over non-consensual, sexualized deepfakes: Indonesian officials said Saturday that they are temporarily blocking access to xAI's chatbot Grok. Read More

Google removes AI Overviews for certain medical queries: This follows an investigation by the Guardian that found Google AI Overviews offering misleading information in response to some health-related queries. Read More

OpenAI is reportedly asking contractors to upload real work from past jobs: An intellectual property lawyer says OpenAI is "putting itself at great risk" with this approach. Read More

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Last but Not Least

Instagram says there's been 'no breach' despite password reset requests: Instagram says that although some users received suspicious-looking password reset requests, it has not been breached. Read More