German Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) to Buy Concord in Deal That Creates a New Major $14 billion Music Giant

This is big news!

Many years ago I was an intern at the headquarters of Bertelsmann in Gütersloh (thanks to my late father Horst Bingel)!

"German media giant Bertelsmann SE agreed to buy Nashville-based independent music group Concord and merge it with its BMG Rights Management business in a deal that will create one of the largest music companies in the world."

BMG to Buy Concord in Deal That Creates a New Major Music Giant - Bloomberg (behind paywall)

Credits: Musik kommt ganz groß raus bei Bertelsmann

The company and all its divisions

Gone in 9 Seconds: AI Coding Agent Deletes Entire Database and All Backups of software company PocketOS

Headline of the day!

"The founder of a software company has issued a public warning after an AI coding assistant erased his company’s entire production database and all backups in just nine seconds.

Tom’s Hardware reports that Jer Crane, founder of PocketOS, a platform serving car rental businesses, experienced what he describes as catastrophic failures when an AI coding agent deleted critical company data that took months to accumulate. The incident occurred when Cursor, an AI coding tool powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, was performing what should have been a routine task in the company’s staging environment. ..."

Gone in 9 Seconds: AI Coding Agent Deletes Entire Company Database and All Backups

Claude-powered AI coding agent deletes entire company database in 9 seconds — backups zapped, after Cursor tool powered by Anthropic's Claude goes rogue "PocketOS founder blames ‘Cursor running Anthropic's flagship Claude Opus 4.6’ plus Railway’s infrastructure for data disaster."

DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data

Good news! This could be an interesting venture/enterprise by David Silver!

The urge to get away from expensive, insufficient human annotated data etc. has been going on for at least 15 years or so in ML & AI.

"Ineffable Intelligence, a British AI lab founded a mere few months ago by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has raised $1.1 billion in funding at a valuation of $5.1 billion to join the race for novel AI models that could outperform large language models.

According to its newly launched site, Ineffable aims to create a “superlearner” capable of discovering knowledge and skills without relying on human data by leveraging reinforcement learning — a technique in which AI systems learn through trial and error rather than studying human-generated examples. This is Silver’s area of expertise. ..."

DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data | TechCrunch

David Silver (Source)

Christian Lindner wird Chef der Autoland AG. Wirklich!

Falls sie Aktien von diesem Unternehmen halten, besser sofort verkaufen!

Lindner hat mächtig dazu beigetragen die FDP zu ruinieren. Welches Unternehmen macht diesen Kasper zum Chef?

Oder wer den Bock zum Gärtner macht!

"Der ehemalige Bundesfinanzminister und FDP-Chef Christian Lindner soll im kommenden Jahr Vorstandsvorsitzender des Automobilhandelskonzerns Autoland AG werden, berichtet die dpa. ..."

Business-Liveticker: Christian Lindner wird Chef der Autoland AG | FAZ

Christian Lindner

The largest orbital compute cluster of 10 satellites is open for business

Good news!

"For all the hype about data centers in space, there just aren’t very many GPUs up there. As that starts to change, the near-term business of orbital compute is starting to take shape.

The largest compute cluster currently in orbit was launched by Canada’s Kepler Communications in January, and boasts about 40 Nvidia Orin edge processors onboard 10 operational satellites, all linked together by laser communications links.

The company now has 18 customers, and announced its newest on Monday — Sophia Space, a startup that will test the software for its unique orbital computer onboard Kepler’s constellation. ...

In the new partnership, Sophia will upload its proprietary operating system to one of Kepler’s satellites and attempt to launch and configure it across six GPUs on two spacecraft. ..."

The largest orbital compute cluster is open for business | TechCrunch

Waymo’s skyrocketing ridership in one chart

Good news! What an amazing business success!

Since I live in the Phoenix metro area, I can confirm that Waymo cars now can be seen almost everywhere on the streets all the time.

"Waymo is now providing 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across 10 U.S. cities, the company shared in a post on X this week. The eye-popping figure is reflective of the Alphabet-owned company’s accelerated commercial expansion. But it’s Waymo’s rate of growth in ridership and markets that offers a more compelling story. 

In less than two years, the company’s average weekly paid robotaxi trips have grown tenfold, from 50,000 per week in May 2024 to 500,000 per week today. Over that same two-year timespan, Waymo has expanded within its initial markets of Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — and beyond them to Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. Those seven cities in the Sun Belt were all added in just the past year. ..."

Waymo’s skyrocketing ridership in one chart | TechCrunch

VW in talks with Rafael to produce Iron Dome in a German VW car plant - report

Sounds embarrassing, but typical for the banana republic of Germany! Volkswagen is becoming an assembly line for foreign companies!

"Israeli government owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is in advanced negotiations to convert a huge Volkswagen car plant in Germany into a factory for manufacturing components for the Iron Dome air defense system, UK newspaper "The Financial Times" (FT) reports. Iron Dome has already been sold to a range of European countries including Finland and Greece and other countries are in talks to buy the defense system including Germany. Rafael has German subsidiaries engaged in defense production for Germany and other European countries.

Volkswagen has encountered severe financial difficulties with profits cut by tens of percentages in recent years and for the first time in its history the company is considering shutting down factories in Germany."

VW in talks with Rafael to produce Iron Dome - report - Globes "Rafael is in advanced negotiations to convert a Volkswagen plant in Germany into a factory producing components for the defense system, “The Financial Times” reports."

Ein Schweizer Unternehmer findet Fälschungen seines Garns auf Temu

«In China kopiert man Rolex oder Louis Vuitton – und jetzt Lang Yarns»

Jakob Lang verkauft Handstrickgarne in sechster Generation. Kann er den chinesischen E-Commerce überleben? Quelle

Chart of the day

Welch ein Gefälle! 

Quelle

YouTube surpasses Disney, Paramount, WBD in 2025 ad revenue

 Good news! YouTube is now among the largest media companies by revenue!

"... YouTube pulled in $40.4 billion in ad revenue last year, which is more than Disney, NBC, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery combined. ...

Last month, parent company Alphabet reported that YouTube’s total revenue in 2025 soared to $60 billion. A big portion of YouTube’s revenue now comes from subscriptions, which include services like YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, and NFL Sunday Ticket. (For context, that’s well above Netflix’s reported $45.2 billion for the full year.) ..."

YouTube surpasses Disney, Paramount, WBD in 2025 ad revenue

Disclaimer:
I am currently blogging from behind the Great Firewall of China.
My Internet service in China is very spotty. Thus, I am not able to blog as usual.

A new way to make steel could reduce America’s reliance on imports

Good news!

"... Now Hertha Metals ... is scaling up a new steel production system powered by natural gas and electricity. The process, which can also run on hydrogen, uses a continuous electric arc furnace within which iron ore of any grade and format is reduced and carburized into molten steel in a single step.

It also eliminates the need for coking and sintering plants, along with other dangerous and expensive components of traditional systems. As a result, the company says its process uses 30 percent less energy and costs less to operate than conventional steel mills in America. ..."

A new way to make steel could reduce America’s reliance on imports | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Hertha Metals, founded by Laureen Meroueh SM ’18, PhD ’20, uses natural gas and electricity to produce steel and high-purity iron for magnets."

China's top solar panel makers warn of record $5bn loss despite anti-price war bid

Bad news!

"China's top solar panel makers have forecast losses of up to 38.4 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) for 2025 due to overcapacity and rising raw material prices, underscoring the uphill battle to rein in excessive price competition under the country's "anti-involution" campaign. ..."

China's solar giants warn of record $5bn loss despite anti-price war bid - Nikkei Asia "Companies hit by oversupply, trade tensions and rising material prices"

The German Aldi grocery chain is to expand to 2,800 stores in the US in 2026

Good news! Competition is good, more competition is better!

"Aldi, the budget-friendly grocery chain, plans to open more than 180 stores by the end of 2026, pushing its total footprint to nearly 2,800 stores this year, including its first stores in Colorado and additional stores in the Southeast and West markets."

Wednesday, January 14, 2026 - Join The Flyover

From The ‘School Of Elon Musk’ To Billion-Dollar Startups: Meet SpaceX’s Alumni Founders

Recommendable! Total valuation about $11 billion for those startups!

The Trump Organization announced a $10 billion in new Trump-branded real estate developments in Saudi Arabia. Really!

This does not look good! Was this Art of the Deal necessary President Trump?

Complaining about the possibly shady business dealings of the son of the 46th President, but the family of President Trump is also very active doing business overseas while Trump is in office.

"... including a luxury golf resort in Diriyah and a mixed-use tower in Jeddah."

Monday, January 12, 2026 - Join The Flyover

‘1,000 TIMES FASTER’ with superconducting qubits and far less control lines: D-Wave buys Quantum Circuits

Good news! Quantum computing merges with error correction!

Siemens im Umbau: Vom Industriegiganten zur Tech-Plattform – Risiko oder Zukunft?

Empfehlenswert!

Bosch: Das Ende der Auto-DNA? Radikaler Kurswechsel weg von Automotive

Empfehlenswert!

Apple has slashed its production and marketing budget for Vision Pro headset

Bad news! Is the Vision Pro headset the Rolls Royce of headsets?

Apparently, the Apple company has not yet released an official press release about it according to Google.

How much will the headset sell at half price?

"... cutting the latter by 95%, for its Vision Pro after low sales results for the $3,499 headset."

Monday, January 5, 2026 - Join The Flyover

An updated list of 13 nuclear fusion startups that have raised over $100M

Will the enormous energy demand of machine learning & AI and data centers finally drive the commercialization of nuclear fusion as a economical source of power generation? 

"Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines.

The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today ... to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. If startups are able to complete commercially viable fusion power plants, then they have the potential to upend trillion-dollar markets. ..."

Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M | TechCrunch