The Vacuum
In 2018, a dozen Google employees resigned over a Pentagon AI contract. Eight years later, Palmer Luckey's Anduril is raising $4 billion at a $30 billion valuation, and every company whose employees once protested military AI has signed a NATO pledge to build it. The red line didn't hold. It moved.
Apple refreshes the 14" and 16" MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max: up to 4x faster LLM prompt processing, up to 2x faster SSD speeds, and 1TB of base storage
The world's best pro laptop raises the bar again with blazing-fast CPU and GPU performance, plus up to 2x faster SSD speeds and 1TB of starting storage
Apple unveils the $599+ iPhone 17e, offering a 60Hz 6.1-inch display, a 3nm A19 chip, a C1X modem, MagSafe, and a 48MP Fusion camera, shipping from March 11
iPhone 17e delivers incredible value with faster performance, an advanced camera system, enhanced durability, the magic of MagSafe, and double the starting storage at 256GB
Apple unveils the M5 MacBook Air in 13" and 15" sizes, boosting its starting price by $100 to $1,099 and doubling base storage to 512GB, shipping from March 11
Apple has officially announced the new M5 MacBook Air. While the starting price has increased by $100, it now comes with double …
Apple updates the iPad Air with M4, featuring an 8-core CPU, 9-core GPU, 12GB of unified memory, an N1 networking chip, for $599+ and $799+ in 11" or 13" sizes
With blazing performance, more memory, enhanced connectivity, and game-changing iPadOS 26 features, iPad Air is a fantastic value
AWS warns of “unpredictable” Middle East operations after drones “directly struck” two UAE facilities and a drone strike near one of its Bahrain facilities
Amazon Web Services said late Monday two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and a facility in Bahrain were damaged by drone strikes, taking the facilities offline.
Sam Altman says OpenAI amended its DOD contract to ensure “the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals”
Sam Altman says company is working with defence department on provisions covering mass surveillance
Sources: amid negotiations with the DOD, Anthropic submitted a bid to compete in a $100M DOD contest to develop voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarming tech
Anthropic PBC was among the artificial intelligence companies that submitted a proposal earlier this year to compete …
OpenAI releases GPT-5.3 Instant, which it says delivers more accurate answers and better-contextualized results when searching the web, for all ChatGPT users
Today, we're releasing an update to ChatGPT's most-used model that makes everyday conversations more consistently helpful and fluid.
Google launches Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, which it says delivers “enhanced performance” at a fraction of the cost of larger models and outperforms 2.5 Flash
Get best-in-class intelligence for your highest-volume workloads. … Today, we're introducing Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite …
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's and Trump's actions against Anthropic have serious legal issues, and its designation exceeds what the statute authorizes
This is designation as political theater: a show of force that will not stick. — alanrozenshtein.com — Meet The Authors
The US Treasury Department, State Department, and Federal Housing Finance Agency stop using Anthropic's AI products; the State Department will switch to OpenAI
The U.S. Treasury Department, State Department and the federal housing agency are terminating all use of Anthropic products …
Investigation: Sama data annotators in Nairobi say they view private videos from Ray-Ban Meta glasses, like bathroom visits; ex-Meta staff say faces are blurred
Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta's new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce …
Google adds new Android features, including custom calling cards, real-time location sharing in Google Messages, and luggage tracking with partner airlines
Google will let users of its Android mobile operating system set up custom calling cards and share their live location in messages …
Google plans to move Chrome to a two-week release cycle, instead of the current four, starting with the Chrome 153 stable release on September 8
The browser is moving from a four-week release cycle to two in September. … Google is moving its Chrome browser to a two-week release cycle …
An internal DHS document shows CBP used location data sourced from the online ad industry to track phone locations; ICE has bought access to similar tools
An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations.
Google unveils Google Home updates to fix many annoyances and idiosyncrasies, and debuts Live Search to let Gemini describe what it sees in live camera feeds
Amazon tells users it is shutting down the Wondery podcast app and Wondery+ subscription service “in the coming months”; some shows will be available on Audible
Amazon is pulling the plug on the Wondery dedicated podcast app and subscription service.
Apple updates the $1,599+ Studio Display and unveils a $3,299+ 27" 5K Studio Display XDR, with a 120Hz refresh rate, a mini-LED backlight, and up to 2,000 nits
Studio Display XDR is the world's best pro display, featuring a 27-inch 5K Retina XDR display with a mini-LED backlight …
Apple unveils the M5 Pro and M5 Max, offering a new Apple-designed Fusion Architecture, a next-generation up-to-40-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and more
Built using the new Apple-designed Fusion Architecture, M5 Pro and M5 Max feature an advanced CPU, a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerators …
X announces a policy change suspending users from Creator Revenue Sharing for 90 days if they post AI-generated videos of an armed conflict without disclosure
The new policy is the platform's first rule requiring any kind of AI content disclosure. — X will suspend creators …
Audible launches a cheaper, $8.99/month streaming tier in the US, vs. $14.95/month for its premium plan, to rival Spotify; the plan includes ad-free podcasts
- New plan costs $8.99 in US versus $14.95 for premium offering — Offering includes ad-free podcasts available on Wondery+ app
A look at the US DOJ's December 2025 indictment that alleged a smuggling ring illegally exported or tried to export $160M+ in advanced Nvidia AI chips to China
When President Donald Trump announced last December that Washington would let Nvidia sell its advanced H200 chips to China …
TikTok USDS says users “may temporarily experience lags in posting content” due to an issue at Oracle's Ashburn data center, the second Oracle outage in a month
TikTok users in the US may experience lag while trying to post content until the outage is resolved.
Microsoft moves Build from Seattle back to San Francisco, scheduled for June 2-3, instead of May, and invites 2,500 developers, down from the usual 3,000-5,000
Sources: OpenAI agreed to follow US laws that have allowed for mass surveillance in the past, and the DOD didn't budge from its demands over bulk analyzing data
On Friday evening, amidst fallout from a standoff between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced …
Filing: Tokyo-based PayPay is seeking to raise up to $1.1B at an up to $13.4B valuation in its US IPO, selling nearly 55M shares priced between $17 and $20 each
PayPay and a selling shareholder are aiming to raise as much as $1.1 billion in an initial public offering in the United States …
Anthropic brings Claude's memory feature to free users, after launching it for paid users in October 2025; users can pause the feature or delete all memories
It's the latest upgrade to arrive for free users. — Anthropic is bringing another paid feature to Claude's free tier. The next time you chat with Claude, you'll have the option …
Meta is testing a shopping research feature in its Meta AI chatbot on the web for select US users, positioning it against e-commerce tools in ChatGPT and Gemini
Apple says the M5 MacBook Pro starts at $1,699 for the 14" model, up $100, and the M5 Pro and Max models start at $2,199 and $2,699, respectively, both up $200
But MacBook Pro prices have jumped up a bit across the board. — It happened much later than we expected …
Sources: Meta is creating a new applied AI engineering organization that will have an ultra-flat structure and help bolster Meta's superintelligence efforts
Sam Altman says the DOD affirmed that OpenAI's tools wouldn't be used by agencies like the NSA, and services to them would need a further contract modification
Dylan Butts /CNBC:
The Anthropic-DOD skirmish is the first major public debate on control over frontier AI, and institutions behaved erratically, maliciously, and without clarity
On Anthropic and the Department of War — I. — A little more than a decade ago, I sat with my father and watched him die.
Source: Cursor's annualized revenue topped $2B in February, doubling from three months earlier, with ~60% coming from new and existing corporate customers
Cursor's annualized revenue topped $2 billion in February, according to a person familiar with the matter …
Alibaba releases its open-weight Qwen3.5 Small Model Series in 0.8B, 2B, 4B, and 9B sizes, claiming the 9B model rivals OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b on some benchmarks
Earlier today, e-commerce giant Alibaba's Qwen Team of AI researchers, focused primarily on developing and releasing to the world …
Anthropic's concerns are legitimate, but its position is intolerable and misaligned with a reality where US foes are developing autonomous fighting capabilities
Ben Thompson, writing at Stratechery:Charlesarthur /The Overspill:Start Up No.2621: Anthropic's doomed military standoff, chatbots v PDFs, ChatGPT's bad health, 25 years after the iPod, and moreJudd R...
Sources: X and xAI are set to repay ~$17.5B of debt in full; X took on ~$12.5B of debt during Musk's purchase, and xAI borrowed $5B via bonds and loans in June
The roughly $17.5 billion of debt tied to Elon Musk's social network X and artificial intelligence startup xAI is set to be paid back in full …
A look at the rights AI companies have in US government contracts, such as the “any lawful use” standard, amid the Anthropic-DOD dispute and the OpenAI-DOD deal
But Users Aren't Buying It
Yahoo sold tech news site Engadget to Static Media in a deal that was signed in early February and is scheduled to close later in March
The consolidation of iconic internet publishing brands continues, as Static Media takes over another site. … Engadget, the long-running tech news website, has a new owner.
OpenAI and the DOD agree to add more surveillance protections to their AI deal; sources say Sam Altman approached the DOD's Emil Michael to rework the contract
OpenAI and the Pentagon have agreed to strengthen their recently agreed contract, following widespread backlash …
Anthropic launches a tool to bring a user's preferences and context from other AI platforms to Claude with one copy-paste command, available on all paid plans
here's how to make the switchJackson Chen /Engadget:Anthropic's Claude can now absorb your past conversations with other AI chatbotsEric Hal Schwartz /TechRadar:Claude just got a vital free upgrade to...
Sources: in the EU, US criticism over censorship has been met with disbelief and anger, and some Big Tech lobbyists acknowledge US accusations are overstated
EU efforts to regulate the digital sphere are under attack from the Trump administration and, increasingly, Silicon Valley
Intel unveils its Xeon 6+ Clearwater Forest CPUs, its first data center CPUs built on 18A, offering up to 288 Darkmont efficiency cores, set for a 2026 release
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour says the startup will void certain bets related to Iran's Ali Khamenei and claims it doesn't “list markets directly tied to death”
ergo, the no price by Feb. 28th was 99 cents. Pay me my money Tarek.@0xmerp:Yes I'm sure the guy that was supreme leader since the year 1989 was planning to peacefully retire How else did they expect ...
Source: OpenAI is developing an alternative to GitHub; the project is nascent, and the decision came after OpenAI engineers experienced an increase in outages
OpenAI is developing an alternative to GitHub, Microsoft's popular code repository that lets software engineers store …
Anthropic says voice mode for Claude Code is now live for about 5% of users, with a broader rollout planned in the coming weeks
JetStream Security, which offers an “AI Blueprints” tool that provides real-time mapping of AI agent activity, raised a $34M seed led by Redpoint
X is testing a standalone X Chat iOS app with 1,000 users via Apple's TestFlight, a shift away from Elon Musk's plan to make X an “everything app”
Social network X is bringing its private messaging service, dubbed X Chat, to a standalone app.
Iranian cryptoasset outflows reached ~$10.3M between February 28 and March 2 amid US and Israeli airstrikes; in 2025, Iran's crypto ecosystem was worth $7.78B+
TL;DR — On-chain data shows a sharp increase in activity from major Iranian exchanges in the hours following the February 28 …
Activist investor Elliott invests $1B into Pinterest to fund stock buybacks; PINS jumps 7%+
OpenAI says GPT-5.3 Instant's tone should feel less “cringe” than GPT-5.2 Instant and the model has a smoother, more to-the-point conversational style
Marcus Schuler /Implicator.ai:
Nvidia says it plans to invest $2B each in photonic product makers Lumentum and Coherent to support the companies' R&D and manufacturing operations in the US
Iranians turn to Starlink, decentralized messaging apps, and VPNs to circumvent an internet blackout; NetBlocks says connectivity is at ~1% of ordinary levels
it's never who you thinkTimes of India:Iran's internet shutdown extends for more than 2 days amid US-Israel cyberattack reportsAisha Down /The Guardian:Internet blackout is tool of desperate regime to...
SCOTUS declines to hear a dispute over copyrights for AI-generated material, in a case where a computer scientist was denied a copyright for AI-generated art
A UK trial by the National Grid, Nvidia, and others finds AI data centers can operate without using peak power continuously, adjusting consumption when asked
Qualcomm forms a “strategic coalition” to launch 6G in 2029 and unveils FastConnect 8800, an “AI-native” Wi-Fi 8-ready NIC that doubles peak speeds over Wi-Fi 7
Sam Altman says rushing the DOD deal on Friday “looked opportunistic and sloppy” but OpenAI was “trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome”
Katherine Li /Business Insider:
Anthropic's $60B+ in funding from 200+ investors, half of which came just last month, is now at risk due to the company's contract dispute with the Pentagon
but that's not the case. Investors are just worried about their ROI depending on how this supply chain risk designation plays out. A nothing story. [embedded post]
Bengaluru-based Pronto, which offers on-demand home-help services like cooking and cleaning, raised a $25M Series B led by Epiq Capital at a $100M valuation
All-hands: Sam Altman defended OpenAI's DOD deal, saying it was the right decision with “extremely difficult brand consequences and very negative” short-term PR
Berber Jin /Wall Street Journal:
Google adds a feature to let users with a Pixel 8 and newer connect their device to an external monitor via USB-C for a “desktop-like multi-window experience”
Ziff Davis agrees to sell its Connectivity division, including Ookla and Downdetector, to Accenture for $1.2B in cash, to focus on enthusiast websites like IGN
X announces a “Paid Partnership” label that creators can apply to their posts to indicate they're ads; until now, creators relied on hashtags to label posts
ByteDance details its “Project Swan” headset, set to launch in 2026 with micro-OLED panels with 4,000 pixels per inch, and unveils Pico OS 6, its revamped XR OS
Israel-based Fig Security, which makes tools for companies to monitor their security stack, raised $38M in seed and Series A funding
Sources: Anduril is seeking to raise about $4B in a round co-led by Thrive Capital and a16z, which could nearly double the startup's valuation to ~$60B
Ayar Labs, which aims to replace the copper wiring in semiconductors with fiber optics, raised a $500M Series E led by Neuberger Berman at a $3.8B valuation
Grow Therapy, which connects patients with therapists covered by their insurance, raised a $150M Series D at a $3B valuation and hits $1B+ in annual revenue
Sources: at Apple's request, Google investigated hosting servers inside its data centers to run a Gemini-based Siri while abiding by Apple's privacy standards
MongoDB reports Q4 revenue up 27% YoY to $695.1M, above $670M est., net income down 2% YoY to $15.5M, and forecasts Q1 adjusted EPS below est.; MDB drops 20%+
Sources: the US considers limiting Chinese companies to 75K Nvidia H200 chips each, less than 50% of what some want; AMD's MI325 would also count toward the cap
CrowdStrike reports Q4 revenue up 23% YoY to $1.31B, vs. $1.30B est., a profit of $38.7M, compared with a loss of $86.3M a year earlier
Senator Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee's top Democrat, vows to “pull out all the stops” to fight back after Trump barred Anthropic from government work
Congressional Democrats are vowing to contest the Trump administration's unprecedented actions against the artificial …Forums:r/technologyForums:r/technology:Senate's Wyden Pledges Battle Over Pentago...
Sources: Samsung Foundry has frequently shifted the timeline for its plant in Taylor, Texas; Samsung delayed mass production plans from H2 2026 to early 2027
Shanghai-based MiniMax reports 2025 revenue up 159% YoY to $79M, above $71.4M est., and a $1.87B net loss, up from a $465.2M net loss in 2024, after its IPO
Sources: SoftBank-owned Japanese payments app PayPay delays its IPO roadshow that was scheduled to launch Monday, as markets were rattled by the strikes in Iran
Echo Wang /Reuters:
Sources: Meta has signed a multiyear AI content licensing deal with News Corp worth $50M per year; the deal will run for at least three years
Sam Altman says that “the democratic process must stay in control, and we must democratize AI” and that no private company should decide the fate of the world
(I also would like to share this, which I wrote after thinking a little more.) There is a lot we will talk about in the coming days …