TC
India’s richest man now wants to turn aging computers into AI-ready PCs
Jio is betting it can turn an aging computer into an AI-ready PC for as little as about $11 for two months.
Global AI Picks
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TC
Wonderful more than doubles its valuation to $5B in under 6 months
Wonderful's $550M Series C was led by Insight Partners, with Salesforce, Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures, 9Yards and Bessemer participating.
TC
Adobe acquires Indian market intelligence startup Rilo
This is Adobe's second acquisition out of India after Rephrase.ai in 2023
MIT
The Download: AI puzzles and a path to our nearest star system
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI models flub these intelligence tests. Can you fare any better? Puzzles and games have always been central to AI development. The term “machine learning” was popularized in a 1959 article…
TC
OpenAI faces 30 more lawsuits tied to Tumbler Ridge shooting
Edelson PC is filing 30 new lawsuits against OpenAI over the Tumbler Ridge shooting, escalating claims to aiding and abetting and naming Chris Lehane, though evidence remains unconfirmed.
WD
Pangram Has Emerged as the Gold Standard of AI Detection. Should You Trust It?
Meet the AI police who can make or break careers—in publishing and beyond.
TC
Google’s Android update tackles motion sickness, accessibility, and more
While some of the features see Google playing catch-up to Apple, which already offers similar features for iPhone users, others specifically leverage Gemini to provide various improvements.
TC
Open AI’s Astra model is on the way—and very good at breaking into computer systems
OpenAI previewed the precautions it is taking as it prepares to release Astra, its newest, cyber-critical LLM.
TC
AfterQuery reportedly becomes Y Combinator’s fastest-ever unicorn, now valued at $3.2B
AI model-training startup AfterQuery has reportedly raised a round that valued it at $3.2 billion, just five months after announcing its $30 million Series A at a $300 million valuation in April.
MIT
How AI plotted an interstellar journey to Alpha Centauri
A nonprofit organization called the Fermi Explorer Mission announced today that it intends to launch a spacecraft to our nearest star system by the end of 2029.  It’s a hugely ambitious mission—if all goes well, the spacecraft could take up to 80,000 years to arrive at Alpha Centauri, which is 4.4 light-years away. And the…
TC
Anthropic’s new Fable release is cheaper, less restrictive
Fable 5.1 includes changes meant to reduce token cost and false-positive restrictions from the model's safeguards.
WD
OpenAI Is About to Release Its First AI Model With ‘Critical’ Cyber Abilities
The company will give select partners early access to its Astra AI model—so they have time to shore up their defenses.
TC
Sequoia-incubated Empirik launches with $21M to predict outages before they happen
The startup wants to do for IT infrastructure what Cursor did for software engineering.
TC
ChatGPT Health adds Epic integration for clinicians to import patient data
OpenAI said that the integration provides read-only access to health records for clinicians.
TC
Google’s answer to Canva is an AI tool where you prompt instead of design
With Google Pics, Google is pushing deeper into the creative software market dominated by Canva and Adobe, but with a distinctly AI-first approach.
WD
Sonos Ace Ultra, Beam Ultra, Sonos Fabric, and a New App: Everything Sonos Just Announced
Sonos is cramming AI into its software because it’s “very hot these days.” The new features, which include agentic automation, are opt-in.
TC
Fambot introduces an ‘AI chief of staff’ for families
Fambot is building an AI “chief of staff” to help families manage the emails, calendars, school updates, sports schedules, and other logistics of raising kids.
TC
AIR raises $50M to help companies vet the skills and add-ons AI agents use
AIR's platform can discover agents running at a company, continuously vets any skills and add-ons they use, and blocks any unwanted behaviour.
TC
Amazon Alexa can now alert you when something new might tempt you to shop
Amazon is adding a new Alexa-powered feature called “Update Me When” that can send personalized alerts about product launches, tours, books, shows, and other events that could trigger a purchase.
MIT
Making the AI-powered case for legacy modernization
For years, legacy technology has been a problem companies knew they needed to solve, but one they often struggled to tackle. The cost, complexity, and risk of replacing business-critical systems could make modernization feel like a disruption to manage instead of an opportunity to pursue. But with the rise in customer expectations and the changes…