Morning Brief

1. Google unveils the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
2. Apple and Google reach a partnership on AI models
3. Xianyu launches a collectible consignment service “Yuligou”
4. Anthropic announces the launch of an AI healthcare service
5. OpenAI acquires AI healthcare company Torch
6. Google removes AI-generated summaries for searches involving specific medical keywords
7. Instagram mistakenly sends millions of password reset emails due to a system bug
8. China’s first 3D-printed aircraft engine completes its maiden flight
9. Rumors You Can Just Glance At

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Google unveils the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

Recently, Google, together with retail giants such as Walmart, Shopify, and Etsy, introduced a new standard for AI shopping agents called UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol), which was officially announced at the NRF (National Retail Federation) conference in the United States. UCP is a new open standard designed to unify digital commerce. Google plans to integrate UCP-related services into its search engine and Gemini in the future, enabling users to find desired products more accurately and quickly when searching or interacting with AI, and to complete purchases directly via Google Pay without leaving the interface. It is also worth noting that at the same conference, Walmart officially announced a partnership with Google that will allow consumers to shop for products at Walmart and Sam’s Club directly through Gemini. This service will launch first in the United States and will later expand to global markets. Source

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Apple and Google reach a partnership on AI models

On January 12, Google and Apple released a joint statement announcing that the two companies have entered into a long-term collaboration. The next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be built on Google’s Gemini large language model and cloud technologies. These models will power Apple Intelligence features as well as a more personalized version of Siri scheduled to launch later this year. The statement said that after careful evaluation, Apple believes Google’s AI technology is the best fit for Apple Foundation Models, and that Apple Intelligence will not alter its existing privacy commitments, including on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute. Previous reports claimed that Apple pays Google about USD 1 billion annually to integrate Gemini, and that the new Siri model would have around 1.2 trillion parameters. After the announcement, Elon Musk commented on X, saying that given Google also owns Chrome and Android, this collaboration looks like an “unreasonable concentration of power.” Source

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Xianyu launches a collectible consignment service “Yuligou”

Recently, Xianyu has “quietly” rolled out its new trendy-toy consignment service, Yuligou. Under this program, Xianyu officially inspects the seller’s items. Yuligou strictly controls goods shipped directly from official sources to ensure authenticity and traceability. Items are either ordered by sellers through official brand channels (such as official apps, mini programs, or Tmall flagship stores) and shipped to the warehouse by changing the delivery address, or shipped directly into the warehouse by Xianyu-certified brand partners. From receiving and quality inspection, warehousing and listing, to order picking, packing, and shipping, the entire in-warehouse process is recorded on video, with professional procedures providing peace of mind. To avoid players relying on “luck-based blind draws,” all items sold on Yuligou are pre-inspected confirmed units rather than blind boxes. In addition, sellers set their own prices. The platform compares listings and displays the current lowest price for each item in real time, making it easier for buyers to compare prices and make purchases. Source

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Anthropic announces the launch of an AI healthcare service

On January 11, Anthropic officially announced that its AI product, Claude, will roll out a healthcare service compliant with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The service will be available to hospitals, medical institutions, and individual users for handling protected health information. Claude has also integrated multiple scientific databases and enhanced its support for biomedical research. For individual users, Anthropic will allow people to export their personal health data from apps such as Apple Health and Function Health, making it more efficient to organize medical records and share them with healthcare providers. Anthropic said that Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit healthcare systems in the United States, already has more than 22,000 clinicians using Claude, with 85% reporting improvements in work efficiency and accuracy. The company is also collaborating with organizations including Novo Nordisk and Stanford Medicine. In addition, all healthcare-related responses are supported with citations from authoritative sources such as PubMed and the NPI Registry, and medical user data will not be used to train the model. Source

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OpenAI acquires AI healthcare company Torch

On January 13, OpenAI announced its acquisition of the AI healthcare company Torch. Founded less than a year ago, Torch has released an iOS app designed to bring together users’ medical and health data — including hospital lab results, medication records, wearable device data, and direct-to-consumer testing services — into a single place, providing a unified “medical memory” for connected AI services. The four founders of Torch will join OpenAI. People familiar with the matter said the deal was an equity transaction valued at over USD 100 million. Source

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Google removes AI-generated summaries for searches involving specific medical keywords

Recently, while testing Google’s AI summary feature, The Guardian found that for some medical-related keywords — such as several specific liver function blood test indicators — the summaries generated by Google omitted conditions that are crucial for interpreting those metrics and instead presented only numerical values. Experts interviewed by The Guardian said that some of these summaries were misleading and could cause users to misjudge their own health conditions. After the report was published, Google quietly removed the AI summary feature for the related keywords. A Google spokesperson said the company would not comment on individual removals, but that when the AI summary feature performs inappropriately, Google will make broader improvements and take action under its policy framework when necessary. Source

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Instagram mistakenly sends millions of password reset emails due to a system bug

Over the past weekend, millions of users around the world received password reset emails from Instagram. Security organizations and media outlets suggested that Instagram might have suffered an information leak. Meta responded that there was a vulnerability in its system that allowed external third parties to bypass the normal verification process and submit password reset requests in bulk for some Instagram users. Because the requests appeared to be legitimate, the system automatically sent genuine reset emails to the registered email addresses of affected users. Meta emphasized that this was only a flaw that triggered the sending of reset emails and did not mean that its internal systems had been illegally accessed. The company said it has identified and fixed the issue, and users who received the emails can simply ignore them. Source

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China’s first 3D-printed aircraft engine completes its maiden flight

According to People’s Daily, a turbojet aircraft engine produced using 3D printing technology and developed by the Hunan Power Machinery Research Institute of AECC (Aero Engine Corporation of China) has successfully completed a test flight in Dingbian County, Shaanxi Province. This marks China’s first domestically developed 3D-printed turbojet engine, filling a gap in the engineering application of full-engine 3D printing in the country. In the past, subtractive manufacturing required machining from a solid block of raw material, resulting in significant material waste. By contrast, 3D printing is an additive manufacturing process, with material utilization exceeding 90%. It also enables precision designs that traditional manufacturing processes cannot achieve, such as labyrinth-style cooling channels and integrated load-bearing structures, making designs more open and flexible. In addition, 3D printing technology allows manufacturers to switch between different products without adjusting production lines. Small-batch and customized production can shorten the R&D cycle by more than 30%. Source

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Rumors You Can Just Glance At

• At CES 2026, Qualcomm officially unveiled its Snapdragon X2 Plus chip. The chip features a third-generation Oryon CPU, an integrated Adreno X2-45 GPU, and the latest Hexagon NPU. This brings notable performance gains over the previous generation, along with a significant reduction in power consumption, and more balanced improvements in AI and ray tracing performance. According to currently leaked CineBench benchmark scores, Apple’s M4 chip still leads in single-core performance with 173 points, compared to 133 points for the X2 Plus. In multi-core performance, however, the X2 Plus narrowly edges out the Apple M4 with 1,011 points versus 993 points. Source
• According to the latest support documentation released by Microsoft, Microsoft Lens has been discontinued on both Android and iOS as of January 9, 2026. Starting February 9, the app will no longer be supported and will be removed from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Users will still be able to scan documents until March 9, after which new scan requests will no longer be possible, though existing scan records can still be accessed via the last signed-in Microsoft account. Microsoft recommends switching to OneDrive for document scanning. OneDrive includes a built-in scanning feature that can be accessed by tapping the “+” icon at the bottom of the app interface. However, OneDrive does not save scanned files locally, storing them in the cloud instead. Source
• Google has confirmed that Chrome 150, scheduled for release later this year, will be the last version to support macOS 12 Monterey. Source
• Due to Australia’s ban on social media use by minors under the age of 16, Meta has removed 544,052 underage accounts since December 11, including 330,000 Instagram accounts, 170,000 Facebook accounts, and nearly 40,000 Threads accounts. Source
• According to leaker Ice Universe, Samsung will adopt a new main camera sensor, the S5KHP6, on the S27 Ultra. The sensor has the same size as the HP2 released in 2023. Source
• Microsoft announced the immediate retirement of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), an enterprise deployment tool first released in 2003. The software will no longer be supported, its download packages will be removed, and no future compatibility updates will be provided. Source