Prime Air’s Gap: Nearly 500 Communities, Dozens a Day
Amazon plans to take Prime Air to almost 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026—roughly six times its current footprint—even as its Phoenix operation delivers only dozens of packages a day.
Meta’s Azure Bill Tests Microsoft’s Inference Bet
Bloomberg reports that Meta spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on Azure to consume trillions of AI tokens weekly, even as Meta reportedly prepares a competing cloud. Neither company has confirmed the Azure arrangement.
Stripe agrees to acquire NYC-based OpenRouter; a source says Stripe is paying $7.5B, with $1.5B going to the startup's founders and $6B to its investors
The deal is significant for the artificial intelligence industry, uniting Stripe's payments business with OpenRouter's helping businesses direct their spending on A.I. models.
Trump urges Congress to pass the Clarity Act at a White House event with execs, including the CEOs of Coinbase and Robinhood; the bill has stalled in the Senate
President Donald Trump pressed Congress to pass digital asset market structure legislation that is a top priority for the industry …
Former Facebook Director of Engineering Arturo Béjar testifies that Mark Zuckerberg prioritized Facebook and Instagram's growth and engagement over child safety
A former engineering director at Meta Platforms (META.O) testified on Wednesday that CEO Mark Zuckerberg fostered a culture …
Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker Unitree's stock surges 460% in its Shanghai trading debut, giving it a $50B+ market cap, after it raised ~$904M in its IPO
Unitree Robotics shares surged 460% in their Shanghai trading debut after the company raised 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) …
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold review: a tougher body, an IP68 rating, and a decent triple rear camera, but an iterative hardware upgrade with a dated-looking design
The foldable phone market is in the middle of a huge transformation, but no one told Google. — Last year, Samsung transformed …
Google unveils new study tools, including a student hub, notebooks, and interactive 3D visualizations in Gemini, plus college student offers for Google AI plans
Head back to school equipped with AI tools for studying, researching and more — Once again, Google is giving eligible college students …
Memo: the GOP asks AI companies to stem the public backlash against data centers, saying the issue could kill its chances of holding a vital Senate seat in Ohio
The Senate GOP campaign arm, in a private memo to top AI companies, warns that toxic views of U.S. data centers are killing …
Sources: YouTube is offering top creators millions to post videos exclusively on YouTube for a period and will penalize those that post to Netflix concurrently
YouTube will pay creators to post their videos to YouTube before any other service. If creators post to YouTube and Netflix at the same time, they will face consequences.
OpenAI rolls out an Apple Messages plugin for ChatGPT on macOS, letting ChatGPT read, search, and analyze chats, prepare and send messages, and more
Well, this seems interesting. ChatGPT's latest update adds a new Mac integration: the ability to work with conversations from Apple's Messages app.
Sources: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands that OpenAI “will be a public company in 2027”, or sooner if “our business continues to inflect”
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees during an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence lab …
Virginia's Loudoun County hosts 250+ data centers that bring in huge tax revenues, but in 2025, its board voted to slow construction after residents pushed back
Loudoun County, Va., hosts more than 250 data centers that bring in huge tax revenues. But some officials and residents worry the county has become too dependent on that cash.
OpenAI is testing Private Safety Processing, a new technique to identify misuse patterns while preserving zero data retention protections, with early customers
OpenAI said Wednesday that it believes a new technique will allow it to safely serve its most advanced models to businesses without needing to retain their data.
Sources: Nvidia plans to begin small-batch shipments of an LPU tailored for Chinese customers by the end of 2026; the chip complies with US export control rules
Nvidia plans to begin small-batch shipments of an AI chip specially tailored for Chinese customers by the end of the year …
Sources: SpaceX approached Cognition about a potential acquisition, but Cognition didn't engage; Cognition CEO Scott Wu: the AI coding startup is “not for sale”
SpaceX Attempted to Buy AI Coding Startup Cognition — Video Player is loading. — Unmute — Current Time 0:00 Loaded: 26.60% Playback Rate
Slack launches Slack Code, adding dedicated, project-specific code channels that let teams collaborate with AI coding agents “like teammates” across all plans
Slack Code provides a dedicated open space for teams to collaborate with AI agents.
GTA 6 leaker CyberLeek releases more footage, including a video of a character spelling “leek” with bullet holes in a wall, suggesting direct access to the game
A real plane. — Follow Grand Theft Auto VI — UPDATE 1PM BST: A previous version of this article erroneously suggested …
At a White House event, Trump says CFTC Chair Michael Selig is working to bring crypto platform Hyperliquid onshore; Hyperliquid's HYPE token jumps 18%+
President Donald Trump said US regulators are working to bring Hyperliquid, a fast-growing crypto platform, into the country …
Binance launches Agent OS, a platform that lets AI agents analyze markets and execute trades on users' behalf; users have to limit AI agents' access and trades
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange with more than 300 million registered users, on Thursday launched a platform …
Sources: Anthropic expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record-setting IPO, as it prepares to file publicly for its IPO as soon as the end of August
Anthropic PBC expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record-setting initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter …
Amazon makes its AI-powered Alexa+ free on all compatible Fire TV devices in the US, automatically upgrading all its users even if they don't subscribe to Prime
AI is coming to your TV, whether you want it or not. — On Wednesday, Amazon said its AI assistant, Alexa+ …
Google rolls out an embeddable “Preferred Sources” button, natural language Discover controls, and custom audio briefings in the Google News app on Android
Google is rolling out a new embeddable Preferred Sources button, natural language Discover controls, and customizable audio briefings in the Google News app.
Alibaba reports Q1 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$39.64B, meeting est., and net income down 75% to ~$1.54B due to heavy AI spending and weak domestic retail consumption
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s profit plunged more than 75% after China's e-commerce leader ratcheted up AI spending while grappling with a broad Chinese consumption slowdown.
Google DeepMind says its Gemma family of open models has surpassed 1B downloads and developers have published 100K+ Gemma model variants over the past two years
From outer space to underwater, here's how developers are bringing a positive impact with our open models.
Charter closes its $34.5B Cox acquisition, announced in May 2025, uniting two of the biggest US cable and broadband providers, and completes its Liberty deal
“When Liberty first invested in Charter more than a decade ago, we saw an opportunity to build scale behind a great management team and operating model," said John Malone.
South Korean media: SK Hynix and its union reach a tentative deal, featuring a 6.3% salary increase and profit-sharing bonuses paid as 60% shares and 40% cash
SK Hynix Inc. and its labor union have reached a tentative wage and collective bargaining agreement, featuring a 6.3% salary increase …
Pornhub says the UK's new internet age checks have boosted non-compliant porn sites, which occupied seven of the top 10 search results for “free porn” in June
Country's most-visited porn website lobbies MPs for changes to flagship Online Safety Act
The US Army is phasing out its drone assault battalion, as part of a “back-to-basics” approach; it was created in January to learn from the conflict in Ukraine
Email: Apple Music tells industry partners that songs tagged as “materially generated using AI” by content providers will be visibly labeled on the service
The news builds on Apple's recent announcement of AI Transparency Tags for songs. Now, the service will soon make those disclosures visible to users.
The Chinese city of Hangzhou deploys traffic-control robots that operate autonomously, using cameras and radar to signal traffic and flag violations
It is not quite the “RoboCop” of the 1987 movie: no gun, no power to arrest and wheels rather than the Hollywood cyborg's mechanical stride.
Amazon plans to expand Prime Air drone delivery to almost 500 cities and towns in the US by the end of 2026, a sixfold increase from its current footprint
London-based Callosum, whose software matches AI tasks with models and chips, raised a $100M seed led by Atomico; the UK's Sovereign AI Fund also invested
Callosum, a startup that makes software to match specific artificial intelligence tasks with different models and chips …
A hacker known as Cyberleek leaks two GTA VI gameplay clips and the full map in protest of Rockstar Games' digital-only release; Rockstar issues DMCA takedowns
A bankruptcy court delays Google's $10M purchase of Spirit Airlines' data after former flight attendants objected, seeking assurance their info would be removed
The flight attendants want assurance that their confidential information will be removed from the sale of the defunct airline's digital records
A look at Backstory, Google DeepMind's experimental AI image authentication tool that Google has asked journalists, researchers, and other fact checkers to test
Every day the fact-checking team for one of India's largest news organizations works to debunk a slew of false and misleading images circulating across social media.
Waymo says it has built an ASIC chip that will improve its robotaxis' reflexes and navigational skills and help it diversify away from third parties like Nvidia
Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo has built a custom chip that the company said will improve the performance of its robotaxis …
Astromech, which uses genomic data to build predictive AI models of biological change, raised $20M at a $3.8B valuation, bringing its total funding to $60M
Become a member of GB MAX to gain exclusive access to the industry and to the most influential global B2B leadership community …
Google Pixel 11 review: a great design, fantastic camera features, and some Pro phone specs, but few gen-to-gen hardware improvements and it's expensive at $899
Cameron Faulkner /The Verge:
GitHub says its 7+ hour August 17 outage was caused by a capacity failure when peak traffic overwhelmed an infrastructure component in a Central US data center
An update on the August 17 outage and the steps we're taking to improve reliability. — On August 17, GitHub experienced an outage that lasted 7 hours and 47 minutes.
Source: Anthropic plans a change for later this year that still requires enterprises to retain data for 30 days but lets them do so on their own cloud systems
Anthropic PBC plans to allow business customers to keep greater control of their data when using its most capable artificial intelligence models …
Meta launches a Mac app for Meta AI and says Meta AI can now work directly with Instagram and Facebook accounts, Meta ad campaigns, and Google Workspace
Sources: AI chip startup Fractile is in talks to raise ~$600M at a $6.5B pre-money valuation, up from ~$1B in May, and has an initial ~$250M deal with Anthropic
Fractile, a startup developing chips tailored for artificial intelligence use that has a deal to supply Anthropic PBC …
Filing: in 2025, TikTok generated $702.5M in net profit in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, its first annual profit, on $9.1B in revenue, up 45.7% YoY
TikTok's operations in Europe, Africa and Latin America saw revenues jump 45.7% to $9.1 billion and turn its first profit but the Chinese-owned social network …
Letter: Stripe told investors January 1 marked the “beginning of the singularity”, a major inflection point in long-term trends, and H1 revenue rose 41% YoY
Stripe on Wednesday told investors that January 1st marked the “beginning of the singularity,” which it refers …
Sources: Poolside struck a non-exclusive $6B licensing deal with Nvidia, plus a $1B investment at a $12B pre-money valuation; 109 staffers get Nvidia job offers
EXCLUSIVE TO NEWCOMER: Poolside AI, the artificial intelligence model-building startup, has struck a non-exclusive licensing deal …
Ramp launches Router, an AI model routing service it has been using internally over the past three years, in the US; Router is free to use for the rest of 2026
Corporate expense management platform Ramp is hot on the heels of Stripe in setting up toll houses for AI inference.
Uber, Verne, and Pony.ai launch autonomous rides in Zagreb, making the Croatian capital the first European city where users can book such rides via Uber's app
Uber (UBER.N), Verne and Pony.ai (PONY.O) said on Wednesday they had launched autonomous rides in Zagreb, making the Croatian capital …
Pixel 11 Pro review: Magic Capture can be useful and Rambler might be Google's best feature in years, but gaming performance is subpar and HiLight is useless
Julian Chokkattu /Wired:
Source: Meta is spending hundreds of millions per year to use trillions of AI tokens weekly via Azure, quietly becoming one of Microsoft's largest AI customers
Meta Platforms Inc. has become one of Microsoft Corp.'s biggest AI customers, underscoring how demand for the emerging technology remains concentrated in the tech industry.
Amazon appears to have leaked Jason Statham's new film Mutiny, streaming it in full on Prime Video in the US, two days before it is supposed to hit theaters
Meta rolls out Pocket, an experimental vibe-coding app that lets users create and share small games, in the US, after launching it in Brazil last month
Meta's experimental vibe-coding gaming app, Pocket, is now rolling out to everyone in the U.S. The app, which arrived quietly last month …
Australia passes the News Bargaining Incentive, which will tax tech giants 2.5% on their Australian ad revenue if they don't strike deals with local news media
Australia passed legislation on Thursday that will force tech giants to pay millions of dollars in levies if they fail …
Two US senators demand answers from TikTok about a “depraved” test that withheld a safety feature from 10% of US users, including a teenager who died by suicide
Two US senators have sent a letter to TikTok executives demanding answers about an experiment the company ran …
Sources: China is restricting or delaying exports to Taiwan of germanium- and quartz-based materials used in fiber optics, photonics, and chip manufacturing
TAIPEI — China is restricting or delaying exports of key aerospace and optical materials to Taiwan, creating painful supply chain bottlenecks …
PitchBook: 4,000+ California-based startups have raised ~$366B in venture capital in 2026 so far, more than triple the total of all other 49 US states combined
California-based companies have announced a record haul in startup funding, despite billionaire-tax fears
Sources: Trump officials expect Elon Musk to spend $100M to $200M in the November midterm elections, with a focus on voter turnout in key races, including Texas
Sources tell WIRED that Elon Musk is expected to spend up to $200 million in the midterms. It could be a big boost …Forums:r/politicsandr/texasForums:r/politics:Elon Musk Is Expected to Point His Mon...
Google Pixel Watch 5 review: improved GPS is good and gesture controls are great, but it's $50 more expensive and the new health features haven't rolled out yet
and it's the new king of on-wrist safetyLewis Painter /Trusted Reviews:Google Pixel Watch 5 ReviewTom Morgan-Freelander /Stuff:The Google Pixel Watch 5 is a more refined version of an Android wearable...
German insurance giant Munich Re agrees to acquire cyber insurance provider At-Bay for $575M; At-Bay has raised $276M to date and had a $1.35B valuation in 2021
San Mateo-based Twin1 AI, which creates professional digital twins that integrate with tools like Slack, launches from stealth with a $20M seed
Twin1 AI, a startup that helps professionals create a digital twin, launched from stealth with a $20 million seed round, co-founder Lewis Liu tells Axios Pro.
Circana: US video game hardware spending fell 29% YoY in July to $282M, the lowest since COVID, shipments fell 39% YoY, and console prices grew 16% YoY to $542
Nintendo Co.'s Switch 2 sales in the US this July were less than half what they were the same month a year ago, leading an industrywide hardware decline, according to Circana.
Muon Space, which is building a spacecraft platform for orbital data centers and AI computing, raised a $250M Series C; Google and Salesforce Ventures invested
Satellite startup Muon Space Inc. closed a $250 million funding round, raising capital from Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Salesforce Ventures LLC …
The EU seems to be shifting from outsized regulatory fines against Big Tech to technical DMA orders that force compliance, like sharing search data with rivals
BRUSSELS — The European Commission's days of outsized fines against Big Tech appear to be over. — When Brussels fined Google €890 million …
The US FTC says businesses must disclose when they use personalized pricing and it will “deploy enforcement resources” against companies that do not disclose it
Marvell and Google expand their chip development deal, and Marvell grants Google a warrant to buy as much as $12.2B of its shares; MRVL closes up 9.85%
Sources: Broadcom is in talks with a group of lenders to raise $60B+ in debt for an AI chip financing deal that will benefit Anthropic and other companies
Broadcom Inc. is in talks with a group of lenders to raise more than $60 billion in debt for an AI chip financing deal …
The US CFTC bans former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang from trading for five years, as part of a settlement over their roles at FTX
Anthropic-backed enterprise AI venture Ode acquires four-year-old AI consultancy Casper Studios for an unknown amount; Ode employs 100+ after buying Fractional
A joint venture established by Anthropic and Wall Street firms such as Blackstone has made its first acquisition since its July launch …
Super Micro says its independent probe found no evidence its CEO or senior management knew of an alleged scheme to smuggle $2.5B worth of Nvidia chips to China
Super Micro Computer said on Thursday that an independent investigation led by its board found no evidence that current members …
Study: 150+ Polymarket wallets may have traded on internal US military information, making $8M overall with a 97.2% average win rate and attracting copycat bets
More than 150 wallets on Polymarket International may have traded on inside U.S. military information, attracting copycat bets …
Sources: Veeda, which is developing world models and is led by ex-Nvidia VP of AI Research Sanja Fidler, raised a $90M+ seed and is backed by Khosla and Radical
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal's Bengaluru-based fintech Navi raised $100M from Prosus, its first institutional funding, sources say at a ~$1.3B valuation
How Unitree's Go series, which helped the company dominate the quadruped robot market, drew on openly published US university research funded by the US military
entirely legitimately, as Reuters itself acknowledges.https://www.reuters.com/ ...
Source: Nvidia has discussed an investment in Mercor as part of a round valuing the startup at $20B; Nvidia paid Mercor tens of millions of dollars last quarter
Network Bio, which is developing an AI foundation model from datasets of patient tissue and blood samples created by pooling access to biobanks, raised $50M
Nielsen rolls out changes to make its ratings more accurate, including using data from smartwatch-like devices worn by its panelists without requiring logins
Rivian spinout Also, which is developing autonomous driving tech, raised a $150M Series D led by Prysm Capital, after announcing a $200M round in March 2026
Reconstructed code from Flock's login pages reveals OS Investigate, a new AI system that integrates license plate scans, arrest records, case files, and more
China's humanoid robot makers derive much of their revenue from government-backed training centers that sell training data back to them, raising demand concerns
Companies are selling machines to government-backed centres that then sell training data back to robot makers.
Sources: Nvidia is seeking to connect companies holding its GPUs with data center operators that have available capacity to deploy them in the Nordics
Stripe's OpenRouter acquisition, its largest yet, is a bet on a future where users turn to a mix of AI models and tokens are the central currency for businesses
Kate Clark /Wall Street Journal: