Zuckerberg says superintelligence is in sight, and, when personal superintelligence comes, context-aware devices like glasses will become our primary computers
Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves. The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable.
Substack apologizes after sending a push alert encouraging some users to subscribe to NatSocToday, a Nazi newsletter advocating for a “White homeland”
The alert contained a swastika and prompted users to subscribe to newsletter featuring opinions and news important to the “white nationalist community.” Bluesky: @jonayariley , @jimllmixit , @dankenne...
Apple responds to the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit from March 2024, saying it sets “a dangerous precedent” and “threatens the very principles that set iPhone apart”
The US Department of Justice formally sued Apple in March 2024, accusing the company of having a “smartphone monopoly.”
Australia says it will include YouTube in its ban on social media for children under 16 years of age, reversing an earlier decision to exempt the platform
Australia said on Wednesday it will include Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O) YouTube in its world-first ban on social media for teenagers …
YouTube will now allow videos with strong profanity in the first seven seconds to be fully monetized, reversing previous restrictions that limited ad revenue
Videos that use the F-word in the first seven seconds are now eligible for full ad revenue.
OpenAI debuts a ChatGPT study mode, designed to guide students through learning material at their level, available to logged-in Free, Plus, Pro, and Team users
OpenAI's new study mode for ChatGPT throws questions back at students, but the learning feature doesn't address generative AI's underlying disruption of education.
Italy opens a probe into Meta, says it may have violated EU competition rules by integrating its Meta AI assistant into WhatsApp without user consent
Italy's antitrust authority said on Wednesday it had launched an investigation into Meta Platforms (META.O) over allegations the company abused …
YouTube is rolling out age estimation tech in the US to identify teen users and serve more age-appropriate content, regardless of the birthday given at signup
here's what's going to change Laura Varley / Silicon Republic : YouTube rolling out AI-powered age verification tech Rishaj Upadhyay / Windows Report : YouTube Will Use AI to Spot Underage Accounts Au...
Sources: Revolut considers buying a US bank to get an American banking license to expand lending capabilities, a faster route than applying for its own permit
Acquisition would be faster route for fintech to start lending in US than applying for permit of its own
Gov. Tim Walz activates the Minnesota National Guard to help St. Paul address a cyberattack detected Friday that led the city to shut down many of its systems
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota activated the National Guard to help the city of St. Paul address a cyberattack that was detected last Friday.
The US SEC approves in-kind creations and redemptions for crypto ETFs, allowing institutional investors to exchange ETF shares for the underlying BTC or ETH
The SEC has approved in-kind redemptions for crypto ETFs, enabling a feature sought by Bitcoin and Ethereum fund issuers.
Sources: Bank of England governor blocked a meeting arranged by UK Chancellor between regulators and Revolut to discuss Revolut's full banking authorization
Financial Times :
Palo Alto Networks has agreed to buy CyberArk Software in a cash-and-stock deal valuing the Israeli cybersecurity company at about $25B
Palo Alto Networks Inc. agreed to buy CyberArk Software Ltd. in a cash-and-stock deal valuing the Israeli cybersecurity company at about $25 billion.
JPMorgan Chase and Coinbase signed a deal to directly link customers' bank accounts to their cryptocurrency wallets, with the feature expected to launch in 2026
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Coinbase Global Inc. signed an agreement to directly link customers' bank accounts to their cryptocurrency wallets …
Google says it will sign the EU's AI Code of Practice, in a boost to EU's efforts to regulate AI in the face of opposition from Meta and pressure from the US
Move set to boost efforts to regulate artificial intelligence in face of opposition from Meta and pressure from US
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg's aim with the Superintelligence Labs is to create a startup-like unit within Meta that is unencumbered by the company's bureaucracy
Meta has splashed out on star hires and infrastructure as it tries to make up ground in the artificial intelligence race
RD Technologies, which is developing a stablecoin backed by Hong Kong dollar, raised $40M ahead of HK's stablecoin licensing regime set to take effect on Aug. 1
- RD Technologies announced today that it has completed its $40 million series A2 funding round.
Sources: the US intelligence community persuaded the DOJ that allowing the HPE-Juniper merger was essential to US national security and competing with Huawei
- The official said blocking the deal would have “hindered American companies and empowered” Chinese competitors.
Sources: Amazon is paying $20M to $25M a year to use NYT's editorial content in a multi-year deal for its AI platforms, which is ~1% of NYT's total 2024 revenue
The multiyear deal lets Amazon use content from the Times's news and cooking sections and the Athletic
Sources: the US Commerce Department is discussing charging patent holders 1%-5% of their patent value, a radical move likely to spark pushback from businesses
Commerce Department officials discuss new fee based on patent value, which could fuel backlash from businesses
Indonesia raises taxes on crypto sellers, from 0.1% to 0.21% in domestic exchanges, and from 0.2% to 1% in overseas exchanges, but removes VAT on buyers
Indonesia will raise taxes on cryptocurrency transactions, with a higher rate on trades hosted by overseas bourses, starting from August 1 …
A profile of Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old Thiel Fellow who gained recognition for using AI to help decipher the Herculaneum papyri and later joined DOGE
Luke Farritor could have been an artist, or a builder, or someone dedicated to seeing a great historical mystery through.
China showcased many of the initiatives for AI self-sufficiency at Shanghai's World AI Conference, as it invests heavily in power generation and skills training
As Washington tries to limit China's progress, Beijing is spending more to build AI that doesn't rely on U.S. technology
A look at OneChronos, as it seeks to create “smart markets” that would allow firms to trade GPU compute like other commodities, such as electricity and oil
OneChronos teamed up with prize-winning economist Paul Milgrom of Auctionomics to develop the world's first financial market for GPU compute. Bluesky: @alexrkonrad . LinkedIn: Stephen Johnson and Kell...
A US trade group for 30+ fintechs and aggregators says JPMorgan's plan to charge for data access could cost some firms 60% to over 100% of their annual revenue
Start-ups say having to pay for consumer's financial information would run them out of business
How Meituan used Hong Kong as a trial market for global food delivery expansion, with its Keeta service driving out Deliveroo before moving to Saudi Arabia
Meituan, the Chinese food delivery giant, tested its global expansion in Hong Kong, where its Keeta service displaced a rival before moving to other markets.
Docs: Groq revised its 2025 revenue projections to $500M+ within the past month, citing delays in data center capacity, after projecting $2B+ earlier this year
Groq, a richly funded chip startup trying to take on Nvidia, told investors early this year it was on track to have more than $2 billion in revenue for 2025. X: @jordannanos and @barneyflames X: Jorda...
Daniel Ek says Spotify's ad business has “been moving too slowly”; Spotify ad chief Lee Brown left on July 28 to join DoorDash as its chief revenue officer
Catherine Perloff / The Information :
Sources: Cohere has told investors it expects to generate $200M+ in annualized revenue by the end of 2025, up from $70M in annualized revenue as of February
Cohere, a Canadian artificial intelligence developer that competes with Anthropic and OpenAI, has sustained one of the richest valuations …
A look at Russia's coordinated crackdown on foreign tech services and shift to state-backed alternatives, as it names VK's Max its national messaging app
A coordinated effort is underway to crack down on foreign tech services and build up domestic options controlled by the government.
An interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and how his father's passing from an illness, four years before a breakthrough made it 95% curable, shaped his path
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology :
The judge in Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit strikes down 16 of OpenAI's 55 affirmative defenses, accuses both sides of “gamesmanship” and over-litigating the case
- The judge in Elon Musk's racketeering lawsuit against Sam Altman chastised both sides on Tuesday.
Ramp raised a $500M Series E-2 led by Iconiq Growth at a $22.5B valuation, says it has 40,000+ businesses as clients, with $700M in annualized revenue in March
Startup raises $500 million to further develop AI-based agents, CEO says — Ramp, a startup that uses artificial intelligence …
Ofcom: YouTube is the second most-watched TV service in the UK, behind the BBC and ahead of ITV; one in five Gen Alpha viewers turn to YouTube first on their TV
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times :
Israel-based Teramount, which develops fiber-to-chip interconnect tools for AI infrastructure chips, raised a $50M Series A led by Koch Disruptive Technologies
Israeli startup's optical tech promises 100x data speeds and 70% power savings. — Fiber Optics — Teramount — Funding
Sources: Groq is set to raise ~$600M in a funding round led by Disruptive, which committed more than $300M to the deal that would give Groq a ~$6B valuation
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg :
TikTok adds new safety features, including enhanced parental controls, and publicly launches Footnotes, its Community Notes-like feature, in the US
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch :
The US-China trade war has spurred demand for Vietnamese companies that produce chip components like wafers, as Vietnam scales up its semiconductor ambitions
New from @lamle52.bsky.social: — restofworld.org/2025/vietnam... LinkedIn: Mehboob Jeelani : Trump's tariff war has created unexpected winners in Vietnam's semiconductor sector. Smaller Vietnamese ...
Worldline reports Q2 revenue down 4.4% YoY to €1.14B and a net loss of €4.2B for H1 2025, after booking a €4.1B impairment tied to merchant services business
reflects challenges encountered over the last months X: @business : Worldline took a €4.1 billion hit on its merchant business as it reported earnings for the first time since fraud warning allegation...
EA reports Q1 net bookings up 3% YoY to $1.3B, above $1.29B est., and forecasts Q2 net bookings of $1.8B to $1.9B, below estimates of $2.01B
Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters :
Wag, the pet care tech company reportedly valued at ~$650M after a $300M investment from SoftBank Vision Fund in January 2018, filed for bankruptcy on July 21
It's a huge $300M miss for Softbank, but I guess when you count Alibaba, ARM, Uber, DoorDash, and ByteDance among your hits you can afford to look silly when the dog-walking one flops Mastodon: Dare O...
Google rolls out new AI Mode features: Search Live with video input, Canvas for planning, image and PDF uploading, and AI Mode in Google Lens in desktop Chrome
with a Kill Switch Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable : Daily Search Forum Recap: July 30, 2025 Emma Roth / The Verge : Google Search's AI Mode gets an update to ‘see’ your homework The Indian ...
Klarna gets an electronic money institution license for its UK division, which could let it directly compete with Revolut and Monzo for retail bank customers
Aisha S Gani / Bloomberg :
Repeated warnings of AI-driven layoffs is fueling anxiety among workers, who report feeling pressured to accept pay cuts or worse conditions to keep their jobs
nobody-wants-this.ghost.io/ai-is- alread... LinkedIn: Brian Betkowski : Only 5% of Americans say they fully trust AI tools to answer complex questions, according to a new AP-NORC poll. …
Lumana, which integrates vision-language models and agentic AI into its video surveillance system, raised a $40M Series A led by Wing Venture Capital
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE :
Yelp is creating videos about restaurants and other businesses using AI-generated scripts and voice-overs based on reviews, with user-posted pictures and videos
Jay Peters / The Verge :
The UK Supreme Court denied Uber's appeal in a case over VAT, forcing Uber to pay a 20% VAT on fares outside London while rival private taxi operators pay none
Sam Tobin / Reuters :
An inside look at ex-unicorn Builder.ai's demise, which oversold its AI platform's abilities and frustrated customers with delivery delays and buggy products
In our new feature, we set out to find the truth. X: Varsha Bansal / @varshaabansal : Inside the collapse of London's hottest AI startup https://builder.ai/. This is a story about AI washing with the ...
Runway and Luma AI say they are talking to robotics and self-driving car companies about their video models and expect these revenue sources to eclipse studios
Rocket Drew / The Information : See also Mediagazer
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.