OpenAI plans to update ChatGPT to better respond to mental distress cues, provide parental controls, and bolster safeguards around conversations about suicide
OpenAI is making changes to its popular chatbot following a lawsuit alleging that a teenager who died by suicide this spring relied on ChatGPT as a coach.
Sources: two AI researchers hired by Meta for its Superintelligence Labs returned to OpenAI after less than one-month stints; a third researcher also left Meta
CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a recruiting blitz to lure top AI researchers to Meta. WIRED has confirmed that three recent hires have now resigned.
Anthropic's Threat Intelligence report for August says Claude was weaponized for sophisticated cybercrimes, including a “vibe-hacking” data extortion scheme
Anthropic's new report shows how bad actors are misusing Claude —and, likely, other AI agents. … “Agentic AI systems are being weaponized.”
Sources: a Chinese fab making Huawei's AI chips is set to start production as soon as the end of 2025, with two more due in 2026; the fabs' ownership is unclear
Fabrication plants serving Huawei push to increase production as US cuts off access to Nvidia's top processors
Apple partners with TuneIn to make Apple Music's six radio stations available outside its app, a first, as it seeks to compete with Spotify; TuneIn has 75M MAUs
The tie-up with TuneIn to distribute Apple's radio stations aims to introduce the company's music service to more people
Salesloft says hackers stole OAuth tokens from its Drift chat agent integration to conduct a Salesforce data theft campaign between August 8 and August 18
Update: Story updated with further information. — Hackers breached sales automation platform Salesloft to steal OAuth and refresh tokens …
Microsoft President Brad Smith addressed protests over Israel contracts after seven protesters, including two current Microsoft employees, occupied his office
REDMOND, Wash. — A few hours after his office was infiltrated and occupied by a group protesting Microsoft's technology contracts with Israel …
Elon Musk now regularly posts AI images and videos of scantily clad women generated by Grok's Imagine tool on X, including avatar Ani dancing in her underwear
The billionaire has sought to promote his AI chatbot Grok by emphasizing how it can generate animated images of scantily clad women
Microsoft temporarily locked down a building at its HQ after protesters got inside Brad Smith's office, demanding Microsoft cut ties with the Israeli government
Tom Warren / The Verge :
The FBI and agencies in the UK, Canada, and others warn that a Chinese hacking campaign targeting US telecoms has expanded to 80 countries and 200+ US companies
The advisory shows global resolve against a hacking campaign that exceeds accepted norms for snooping.
Chinese AI chip designer Cambricon reports H1 2025 revenue up 44x YoY to $405.2M and a ~$144M profit, after Beijing encouraged companies to use homegrown tech
Rachel Yeo / Bloomberg :
Filing: Anthropic reached a settlement in a copyright class action brought by authors whose works were included in two pirate databases Anthropic downloaded
Anthropic PBC reached a settlement with authors in a high-stakes copyright class action that threatened the AI company with potentially billions of dollars in damages.
Google updates video editing tool Vids to add AI avatars, automatic transcript trimming, and image-to-video tools, and releases a basic version to all users
Google debuted its new-age video editor called Vids for the Google Workplace productivity suite last year.
Anthropic releases Claude for Chrome, which lets Claude take actions on the user's behalf within the browser, as a research preview for 1,000 Max subscribers
Anthropic is launching a research preview of a browser-based AI agent powered by its Claude AI models, the company announced on Tuesday.
Taiwan indicts three people for allegedly stealing TSMC's 2nm secrets to help Tokyo Electron, the first such case, and recommends a combined 14-year prison term
Taiwan prosecutors said on Wednesday that they indicted three people for theft of trade secrets from chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW) …
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says the US plans to publish GDP and economic data on the blockchain, but gave no details on the blockchain or timeline
Start trading crypto Get a crypto rewards card 1inch: Swap Sol ↔ EVM — U.S. will start issuing economic data on the blockchain …
Sources and docs: a Russia-based Yandex employee maintains open-source tool fast-glob, embedded in 30 US DOD software packages and downloaded 70M times per week
The package is listed inside Platform One's Iron Bank, a vetted Defense Department software repository, people familiar say.
Sources: OpenAI's restructuring may slip into 2026 as it negotiates with Microsoft; failure to reach a deal in 2025 would let SoftBank withhold its $10B funding
Software giant wants to retain access to start-up's technology while removing artificial general intelligence' clause
AI avatars of the deceased, or “Deadbots”, are used for advocacy and emotional connection, but their potential commercial use raises ethical and legal concerns
AI avatars of deceased people — or “deadbots” — are showing up in new and unexpected contexts, including ones where they have the power to persuade.
Plaud unveils the $179 Plaud Note Pro, an AI note-taking device with two extra mics to hear audio 16.4 feet away and a 1-inch display, shipping in October
The Plaud Note Pro can pick up audio from larger areas and has a new battery-saving mode. … Plaud, the company behind an AI wearable …
South Korean lawmakers pass a bill to ban using mobile phones and other smart devices during classes at elementary and middle schools nationwide, starting 2026
It becomes the latest country to restrict phone use in schools, with a law that will go into effect in 2026.
Sources: ByteDance plans an employee share buyback at $200.41/share, valuing it at $330B+, up from $315B in March 2025, and its Q2 revenue grew 25% YoY to $48B
ByteDance, the owner of short-video app TikTok, is set to launch a new employee share buyback that will value the Chinese technology giant …
Court filing: Elon Musk's lawyers ask a US judge to block OpenAI from obtaining documents from Meta related to a previous $97.4B bid for OpenAI's assets
Lawyers for Elon Musk have asked a U.S. judge to block ChatGPT-owner OpenAI from obtaining documents from Meta Platforms (META.O) …
Memo: Verily, Alphabet's life sciences unit, lays off staff and ends its medical devices program, shifting its focus instead to precision health, data, and AI
- Verily, Google's life sciences sister company, has laid off staff and cut its devices program.
Okta reports Q2 revenue up 13% YoY to $728M, vs. $711.8M est., net income up 131% to $67M, and increases its fiscal 2026 forecast; OKTA jumps 6%+
Jordan Novet / CNBC :
President Trump says Meta plans to spend $50B on its “Hyperion” data center under construction in Louisiana; earlier, Meta said the investment would exceed $10B
Riley Griffin / Bloomberg :
Circana: in July, Sea's Free Fire jumped seven spots to 6th in US mobile game sales, above COD, driven by anime and Netflix tie-ins; US users buy 2M Switch 2s
US gamers are spending more on Sea Ltd.'s Free Fire than Call of Duty Mobile, with anime and Netflix tie-ins helping the title surge …
Google DeepMind's Weather Lab, launched in June, showed superior accuracy in forecasting Hurricane Erin's path up to 72 hours ahead, beating traditional models
Now give it away. [embedded post] James Franklin / @franklinjamesl : I chose Google Deepmind (GDMI) against a slightly different group of models that I thought were more representative (except no EMX...
Q&A with Francis Dufay, CEO of Jumia, Africa's largest e-commerce platform, on Temu and other rivals, adding Chinese sellers to stay competitive, AI, and more
Damilare Dosunmu / Rest of World :
Meituan reports Q2 revenue up 11.7% YoY to ~$12.8B and net income down 97% YoY to ~$51M, blaming “irrational competition” in the Chinese food delivery market
Bloomberg :
MongoDB reports Q2 revenue up 24% YoY to $591.4M, vs. $553.9M est., net loss down 14% to $47M, and increases its full-year guidance; MDB jumps 28%+
#BuildInPublic, What makes MongoDB appealing for #AI applications? [embedded post]
Q&A with General Catalyst's Hemant Taneja on the VC firm's “AI roll-up” strategy to buy service businesses and inject them with AI, investment bubbles, and more
Head of venture capital firm talks about trusting founders' intuition during a bubble, and the threat of mass job losses
A look at the possible remedies a US court might impose on Google after its antitrust loss last year, including a breakup, with a decision expected this week
Tim Wu / New York Times :
A look at Xiaomi's evolution from a tech assembler to a high-tech manufacturer, as it applies its smartphone manufacturing strategy to developing EVs and chips
Formerly dismissed as a ‘Lego’ assembler, Xiaomi is building its reputation as a high-tech manufacturer Bluesky: @jsphctrl.ft.com Bluesky: Joseph Cotterill / @jsphctrl.ft.com : “Xiaomi's loyal fans, s...
Inside India's growing ~$1.5B e-waste recycling industry: about 95% of workers are employed informally, doing dangerous, toxic, and lawless work for meager pay
https://restofworld.org/... Gayathri Vaidyanathan / @gayathriv : India's informal recycling economy is turning global e-waste into profit, but it comes at a steep human and environmental cost. India i...
A profile of Egune AI, a startup building LLMs for the Mongolian language, as it navigates geopolitics, a lack of resources, and the nascent local tech scene
https://restofworld.org/2025/mongolia- egune-ai-llm
UK-based Yoto, whose screen-free speakers for kids play audiobooks and music, reports 2024 revenue up 86% YoY to £94.8M and expects to turn a profit in 2025
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times :
Malaysian chip designer SkyeChip unveils the MARS1000, the country's first edge AI processor, as Malaysia seeks to climb the global semiconductor value chain
Bloomberg :
Internal memo: Indian IT services giant TCS forms a new unit for AI-based operations and names Amit Kapur, who led TCS' UK and Ireland business, as its chief
Sai Ishwarbharath B / Reuters :
Intel has partnerships with multiple Chinese surveillance companies sanctioned by the US for enabling human rights abuses, including Uniview and Hikvision
www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb... Alex Knapp / @thealexknapp : My colleague @ebakerwhite.bsky.social has uncovered that Intel's tech has been used by sanctioned Chinese surveillance and facial recognitio...
Tussell: UK government contracts for AI-related projects have reached £573M in 2025 to July 15, up from £468M for the whole of 2024, as it seeks efficiency
Josh Gabert-Doyon / Financial Times :
Sources: HongShan, formerly Sequoia China, has invested only a quarter of the ~$9B it raised in 2022 and has been increasingly looking beyond China for deals
The Information :
AI firms are striking partnerships and giving some users in Asia free access to AI tools, in pursuit of larger sources of real-world consumer data for training
https://restofworld.org/2025/ai-data- collection-global-deals
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