Google unveils Googlebook, a laptop lineup with a unified OS that merges ChromeOS and Android, coming from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others this fall
ZDNET's key takeaways — Googlebook is a new device line coming this fall. — It merges Android and ChromeOS for smoother phone-to-laptop use.
Musk v. Altman: Sam Altman testified that in 2017, Musk insisted on complete control of a proposed OpenAI for-profit arm, saying he might pass it to his kids
OpenAI's Sam Altman testified that he was “extremely uncomfortable” with Elon Musk's insistence that he have complete control …
Nvidia says Jensen Huang has joined President Trump on his China trip; source: Trump called Huang to ask him to join after seeing media coverage of his absence
BEIJING — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has joined U.S. President Donald Trump's trip to China, after initial indications the executive had not been invited.
Google unveils Android security features like automatically ending banking scam calls, theft protection on by default, and “Mark as lost” biometric protection
Here's a look at the sweeping set of Android security and privacy upgrades Google has in store for you this year. — • — TL;DR
LinkedIn says it has “implemented organizational changes”; source: LinkedIn plans to cut ~5% of its 17,500 full-time workers and focus on business growth areas
LinkedIn planned to inform staff of layoffs on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a widening of technology sector cuts this year.
Meta debuts Incognito Chat in WhatsApp and the Meta AI app, letting users talk to Meta AI without Meta being able to access the conversations
The company says its new Incognito Chat allows you to use its AI chatbot without anyone else—including Meta—being able to access your conversations.
Anthropic names eight unauthorized secondary market sellers of its shares, including Hiive and Forge Global, warning that unapproved share transactions are void
Anthropic PBC identified a number of secondary marketplaces as unauthorized sellers of the company's shares, telling investors that buying the stock won't work.
Google DeepMind details a Gemini-powered mouse pointer that understands what it is pointing at, allowing users to perform tasks without using text-heavy prompts
We are developing more seamless, intuitive ways to collaborate with AI — The mouse pointer has been a constant companion …
Samsung and its South Korean labor union fail to reach a pay deal; the union has said workers will strike for 18 days from May 21 if its demands are not met
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and its union failed to reach a pay deal on Wednesday, heightening the risk of a massive strike …
Sources: Anthropic is in talks to raise between $30B and $50B at an up to $950B valuation, up from $380B after raising $30B in February 2026
The start-up, which recently released a powerful A.I. model called Mythos and is separately battling with the Pentagon, was previously valued at $380 billion.
Foxconn says some of its North American factories “suffered a cyberattack” in recent days; ransomware group Nitrogen claims it stole 8TB of data from Foxconn
Famous for helping build Apple's iPhones, Foxconn just suffered another cyberattack, highlighting the perils of warehousing some of the world's most valuable data.
Waymo recalls ~3,800 robotaxis in the US to fix software issues that may cause them to drive onto flooded roads, after some were seen stalled on flooded streets
Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway …
Sources: Apple plans to make the Camera app fully customizable in iOS 27, along with noticeable design changes across Siri, Safari, Weather, and more
Apple Inc. is planning to upgrade its Camera app, making the software fully customizable as part of a broader set of user interface changes coming in its next iPhone software update.
Cisco reports Q3 revenue up 12% YoY to $15.84B, vs. $15.56B est., forecasts Q4 revenue above est., and is cutting almost 4,000 jobs; CSCO jumps 17%+ after hours
Cisco shares soared 15% in extended trading on Wednesday after the networking company issued results and guidance that topped Wall Street's projections.
Anduril raised a $5B Series H led by Thrive and a16z at a $61B valuation, up from $30.5B in June 2025, taking its total funding to $6.82B, and could IPO in 2027
The start-up, which makes A.I.-backed weapons, was valued at $61 billion in the financing round, double what it was a year ago.
Microsoft unveils MDASH, a security system that orchestrates 100+ AI agents to find vulnerabilities, and says it identified 16 previously unknown Windows flaws
The agentic tool, codenamed MDASH, will open to enterprise customers in private preview in June. — Microsoft has unveiled …
Qualcomm closed down 11.46% on May 12, as chip stocks pull back from record AI-driven rally; Intel closed down 6.82%, Sandisk dropped 6%, and Micron fell 3.61%
Chip stocks dropped on Tuesday, pulling back from a massive rally that broadened the artificial intelligence trade beyond Nvidia and propelled the sector to new highs.
Analysis: a16z is the largest known donor in the current US midterm election cycle, spending $115.5M so far on pro-crypto, pro-AI, and Republican Super PACs
The biggest donor in the midterm elections is not Elon Musk, or George Soros, or any of the other billionaires who are often thought to wield the fattest wallets in politics.
Isomorphic Labs, an AI-powered drug discovery spinoff from Google DeepMind, raised $2.1B led by Thrive, after raising $600M in its first round in March 2025
Isomorphic Labs, an artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company, said on Wednesday it has raised $2.1 billion …
Tencent reports Q1 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$28.9B, below ~$29.4B est., net income up 21% YoY to ~$8.5B, meeting est., and capex up 16% YoY, amid a costly AI pivot
Tencent Holdings Ltd. reported its slowest revenue growth in six quarters, underscoring the urgency around its costly AI pivot …
Princeton's faculty votes to require proctoring in all in-person exams starting this summer, reversing an 1893 policy amid concerns about cheating with AI tools
The change reverses an honor-code policy dating back to 1893 — For more than a century, Princeton University prided itself …
Internal emails: xAI has added 19 gas turbines to Colossus 2 over the past two months; xAI is fighting a lawsuit alleging Clean Air Act violations at the site
Emails show that Elon Musk's company is expanding its use of portable gas-fired power at its Colossus 2 site as a fight over air quality continues.Forums:r/mississippiForums:r/mississippi:xAI Adds 19 ...
Source: Cerebras priced its IPO at $185 per share, above the expected range of $150 to $160, raising at least $5.55B and valuing it at $56.4B fully diluted
Cerebras Systems, a maker of artificial intelligence chips, priced its IPO at $185 a share on Wednesday, above the expected range …
Amazon is replacing its Rufus AI shopping assistant with Alexa for Shopping, which is powered by Alexa+, on Amazon.com and its app, for all customers in the US
The company is giving its AI-powered assistant special shopping skills on its website and app. … Beginning today, when you type a query into Amazon …
Tencent says it plans to spend significantly more on AI infrastructure in H2 2026 as more China-designed AI chips become available “month by month”
Tencent Holdings is gearing up to spend more on AI infrastructure after chip shortages began showing signs of relief.
Alibaba reports Q4 revenue up 3% YoY to ~$35.8B, below ~$36.3B est., and net income up 106% YoY to ~$3.7B in part due to investments, as it seeks to monetize AI
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. posted its first operating loss since the depths of the Covid pandemic, underscoring the extent …
Google unveils Gemini Intelligence, bundling existing and new Gemini features, including task automation across apps and letting users vibe code Android widgets
We're one step closer to our phones just using themselves. … It is, once again, Gemini season.
Analysts: China's AI hardware suppliers face capacity constraints and component shortages, including of optical and electronic chips, that could throttle growth
China's artificial intelligence hardware suppliers have a problem: keeping up with insatiable demand for their products.
The US FTC says Shutterstock will pay $35M to settle charges that Shutterstock misled consumers about its subscription plans and made it too difficult to cancel
Shutterstock (SSTK.N) will pay $35 million to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that the online provider of stock photography …
Q&A with Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao on the “cone of uncertainty” in AI, allocating compute, returns to frontier intelligence, platform vs. application, and more
In this episode of Invest Like The Best, Patrick O'Shaughnessy sits down with Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao …
How the “Facebook House” in Los Altos, Mark Zuckerberg's former residence, became a hub for Chinese-born tech workers, a key part of Silicon Valley's AI boom
Chinese-born tech workers have fueled Silicon Valley for decades. In the AI era, they're superstars.
Analysis: contract prices for NAND chips are up 600%+ since September 2025's end, while DRAM chip prices are up nearly 400%, and analysts expect more increases
The worsening shortage in global memory chips due to the artificial intelligence buildout is driving a widening gulf in corporate results and stock performances.
Paymentology, which provides real-time card and payment processing technology for banks and fintechs, raised $175M co-led by Apis Partners and Aspirity Partners
Paymentology provides cloud-native issuer processing technology for banks and fintechs, helping financial institutions modernise …
Mythos Preview is the first AI model to complete both of AISI's cyber ranges, which measure models' cyberattack capabilities; GPT-5.5 solved only one of them
In February 2026, we internally estimated that the length of cyber tasks AI models could complete had doubled every 4.7 months since late 2024 …
Google unveils a “full bleed” Android Auto UI that fills unconventionally shaped screens like those in the BMW Neue Klasse and plans to add YouTube streaming
Andrew J. Hawkins /The Verge:
China's CSI AI Index, which tracks AI supply chain companies, is up 28%+ YTD; Hong Kong's Hang Seng Tech Index, which includes Alibaba and Tencent, is down 8%+
Tencent and Alibaba left behind as investors focus on pure AI plays — China's big tech companies including Alibaba and Tencent …
An analysis of Tokenomist.ai data: Trump family members made ~$1.55B from sales of World Liberty Financial's WLFI tokens, lifting their total fortune by ~$660M
Trump family members made roughly $1.55 billion from sales of World Liberty Financial Inc. tokens, lifting their total fortune …
Anthropic launches Claude for Small Business, featuring a host of automated services like bookkeeping functions, business insights, and tools for ad campaigns
Anthropic is looking to court smaller companies. To that end, the company announced Wednesday the launch of Claude for Small Business …
Instagram rolls out Instants, which lets users share ephemeral photos, as an in-app feature and as a standalone Android and iOS app in select countries
Meta just launched a brand new iPhone app called Instants. Built around ephemeral photo sharing, the new social media app is also the latest Instagram feature.
The US' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is testing ACCESS, an outcome-based payment model for AI-driven medical care, with 150 tech companies
Neil Batlivala has spent seven years building a healthcare company that most of the tech industry has never heard of and that serves …
Musk v. Altman: Microsoft executive Michael Wetter testifies that Microsoft has spent $100B+ on OpenAI, including its investments and to build infrastructure
Microsoft Corp. has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a sum that underscores the significance …
How eBay CEO Jamie Iannone transformed the company, refocusing on power buyers in categories with especially high resale demand, like trading cards and sneakers
The online marketplace has remade itself by focusing on collectibles and other high-end goods — and attracted an unwelcome takeover bid from GameStop.
Google works with Meta to improve Instagram on Android, adding Ultra HDR support and more, and with Apple to overhaul the iOS-to-Android transfer process
Prakhar Khanna /ZDNET:
SoftBank reports Q4 net income up 3x to ~$11.6B, above ~$1.5B est., driven by a $25B+ gain in its OpenAI stake; its OpenAI investment will hit $64.6B by October
Japanese group books net income of $11.6bn in fourth quarter, vastly ahead of analyst expectations
Sources: Arm and its parent company SoftBank expressed preliminary interest in acquiring Cerebras weeks before its expected IPO; Cerebras rebuffed them
Arm Holdings Plc and its majority owner SoftBank Group Corp. made an approach to acquire Cerebras Systems Inc., the AI computing firm …
Metis TechBio, a biotech company using AI to deliver and formulate drugs, surged as much as 185% in its Hong Kong market debut after raising ~$270M in its IPO
Shares of Metis TechBio Co, a biotechnology company using artificial intelligence to deliver and formulate drugs …
OpenAI endorses the Kids Online Safety Act and Illinois SB 315, an AI safety bill to establish requirements around transparency, incident reporting, and more
Welcome (back) to The Prompt. For the first time, we're using it to endorse legislation. The bills we're supporting today …
Adaption, co-founded by ex-Cohere VP of AI research Sara Hooker, unveils AutoScientist, which can automate the research loop behind model training and alignment
For years, AI researchers have anticipated the moment when AI systems will be able to improve themselves better than humans could.
Trump Mobile says T1 Phone preorders will begin shipping to customers this week and that the first T1 phones were assembled in the US, after months of delays
Trump Mobile phones are being shipped this week, the company exclusively confirmed to USA TODAY in an email May 11.
Musk v. Altman: Sam Altman faced an intense cross-examination from Musk's attorney, who asked “are you completely trustworthy?”; Altman replied “I believe so”
Business Insider:
Sources: Mistral has been developing a cybersecurity-focused AI model and has held discussions about it with European banks, which don't have access to Mythos
French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI is in discussions with European banks about deploying its answer to Anthropic PBC's Mythos …
Ofcom fines an unnamed suicide forum £950K, the largest OSA fine yet, for hosting illegal content accessible in the UK, saying it had been linked to 130+ deaths
Britain's communications regulator has fined the provider of an online suicide forum 950,000 pounds ($1.28 million) …
Netflix says its ad tier now has 250M monthly active viewers, up from 94M in 2025, and is expanding to 15 new countries, as it tests an ad personalization tool
The streaming service's ad-supported tier now reaches 250 million viewers each month. … For the second year in a row …
German quantum MRI imaging startup NVision raised a $55M Series B led by Abbott at a $250M to $300M valuation, and plans a $100M+ Series C later in 2026
NVision, a German quantum imaging technology company, on Wednesday said it has raised a $55 million Series B.
Google announces Pause Point, an Android 17 feature that forces a mandatory 10-second pause before opening any app a user has labeled as a distraction
An anti-doomscrolling feature is now built into Android. (Yes, things have gotten that bad.) — On Tuesday, Google announced Pause Point …
UK chip startup Fractile raised a $220M Series B led by Factorial Funds, Accel and Founders Fund to make specialized logic and memory chips for inference
Factorial Funds, Accel and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund invest in company — The U.K. chip startup Fractile said it has raised …
A profile of California Representative Ro Khanna, who spent years cheering on the tech industry and now supports a 5% billionaire wealth tax and more AI rules
Ro Khanna spent years cheering on the tech industry and building ties with wealthy donors. Now he's pitching himself …
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe's Mind Robotics, which is building AI-powered robots for manufacturing tasks, raised $400M, source says at a $3.4B valuation
Funding for AI-powered industrial robot project now exceeds $1 billion — Mind Robotics, the startup founded by Rivian Chief Executive RJ Scaringe …
Sources: Google is in talks with SpaceX and other companies for a rocket launch deal, as Google expands its own efforts to put data centers in space
Meta schedules its annual Connect event for September 23-24 and says the event will focus on “the latest in VR, wearables, metaverse, and AI”
The US FCC approves EchoStar's sale of approximately 65MHz of spectrum to SpaceX and 50MHz to AT&T
Google launches Intrusion Logging, an Android feature developed in partnership with Amnesty International and others, on Android 16 Pixel devices for now
Amnesty says this is “a fundamental shift in the amount and quality of forensic data available on Android devices.”Catalin Cimpanu /@campuscodi.risky.biz:This was designed together with Amnesty and Re...
Google says Chromebooks will get support through their “existing date commitment”, and “many” models are “eligible to transition” to the Googlebook experience
During The Android Show earlier today, Google revealed its “Googlebook” …
Richard Socher's Recursive Superintelligence raised $650M+ from GV, Greycroft, Nvidia, AMD, and others at a $4B valuation to pursue “recursive self-improvement”
Recursive Superintelligence, founded by former Google, Meta and OpenAI researchers, is part of a growing effort …
Config, which is building a data layer for robotics foundation models, raised a $27M seed at a $200M+ valuation led by Samsung Venture Investment
Asia's push into physical AI is being fueled by the same manufacturing prowess that made the region a global industrial powerhouse.LinkedIn:ConfigLinkedIn:Config:We are excited to announce our $27M se...
Q&A with Alexandr Wang on rebuilding Meta's AI stack, Muse Spark, personal superintelligence, Meta acquiring Assured Robot Intelligence, Sam Altman, and more
Last June, Meta pried Alex Wang away from Scale AI, the company he co-founded and ran, in a deal valued at $14 billion.
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation's Project Intercept, a partnership with Google, TikTok, and Meta, sent 70M+ warning messages over two years to users seeking CSAM
More than 70 million warning messages have been sent to people attempting to access child sexual abuse material (CSAM) …
CME Group and Silicon Data announce a futures market for computing capacity, with contracts based on daily GPU benchmarks for on-demand rental rates
Threads is testing a Meta AI integration similar to X's Grok, letting users mention Meta AI in a post or a reply to get more context, in five countries
Anthropic announces 12 Claude plugins for the legal sector, including a “commercial counsel” tool for reviewing vendor agreements and a bar exam study tool
Apple files an EU submission criticizing draft DMA measures that would require Google to give competing AI services access to Android apps, citing privacy risks
Apple (AAPL.O) on Wednesday echoed Google's criticism of EU antitrust regulators' efforts to force the search giant …
How the Strait of Hormuz blockade is disrupting global chip supply chains, affecting supplies of helium, bromine, sulfur, and thinners essential to chipmaking
Poland says it plans to continue working on a digital services tax of up to 3% on large digital platforms, despite the US' threats of retaliation, like tariffs
Poland will continue working on legislation to tax digital platforms, Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said, despite threats …
Q&A with Panos Panay, SVP of Devices, Alexa, and Leo, on Alexa+, Amazon's focus on devices for the home, delivering affordable broadband to everyone, and more
Havoc, which offers autonomous boats and software to control thousands of vessels at once, raised a $100M Series A led by Cobalt and Boardman Bay
China blocking Meta's Manus acquisition challenges the sustainability of “Singapore washing”, as major Chinese tech companies build major Singapore presences
Sources: Sam Altman recently discussed launching an AI compute company that is majority-owned by OpenAI, similar to Stargate's original data center initiative
Vancouver-based quantum computing startup Photonic raised an additional $70M after a $130M raise announced in January, giving it a $2B post-money valuation
Sources: Microsoft is in discussions to acquire LLM developer Inception; SpaceX also courted Inception, which is looking for a price of over $1B
Meta offers to give rival AI chatbots free access to WhatsApp for a month while it discusses commitments with EU antitrust regulators to address their concerns
Investor docs: Anthropic's revenue run rate is on track to hit $50B by the end of June; Ramp says more of its customers now use Anthropic than OpenAI, a first
Kate Clark /Wall Street Journal:
Source: Anthropic is in advanced talks to acquire New York-based Stainless, which helps developers generate SDKs from APIs, for at least $300M
Analysts say AI fervor in the US and Asia has spread to Europe, boosting stocks like STMicro and Nokia, as investors seek the AI boom's picks-and-shovels stocks
Google says it is hiring a team of “forward deployed engineers”, a source says in the hundreds, to help customers use its business-focused AI products
Analysis: 25% of the 13,000 US federal lobbyists are involved in AI issues, up from 11% in 2023; OpenAI plans to host the opening of its DC office on Wednesday
Cecilia Kang /New York Times: