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Wispr raises $280M at $2B valuation as it looks beyond dictation
Wispr’s total funding is now over $361 million.
The Download: dead robot friends and the “censorship-industrial complex”
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. What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies? When Xander...
Semiconductor Giants Are Busy Backing Startups This Year
Massive AI spending has helped push earnings and valuations for semiconductor industry leaders to record levels, prompting the sector's giants to invest record sums in artificial intelligence and...
How much hydrogen awaits us underground?
In the 1990s, Barbara Sherwood Lollar descended into the Kidd Creek mine in northern Ontario, which cuts more than three kilometers into the ancient root of North America. There her team of...
What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies?
When Xander first met Moxie, she taught him that when he was anxious, he could calm down by exhaling through his lips so that he buzzed like a bee. They practiced breathing like dragons to manage...
Stripe will reportedly acquire AI gateway startup OpenRouter for $7B+
OpenRouter's CEO recently described the startup as Stripe for AI.
Why people aren’t buying Mark Zuckerberg’s AI future
On the latest episode of Equity podcast, we discuss why not everyone is buying Zuckerberg’s vision.
Woman claims her stepfather used Grok to transform childhood photo into explicit imagery
The woman claimed that AI tools are "taking everyday life and turning it into child sexual abuse."
Anthropic shares more details about how Claude’s new watermarks will work
How will the watermarking actually work? Can it be hidden with editing? And how does this affect code?
SpaceX officially closes its Cursor acquisition
AI coding startup Cursor is now officially a part of SpaceX.
Amazon Can Use Your Twitch Content to Train Its AI—Unless You Opt Out
When Twitch announced that streamers could opt out, thousands of users questioned why their content was being used to train AI models in the first place.
The Next Big Influencer Is This 4-Foot-Tall Robot From China
The Unitree G1 has found online fame as a relatively affordable robot that can charm a crowd. But can it ever hold down a real job?
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Data, Neolab, AI Infrastructure, Defense And AI Coding Lead
Databricks is back raising another $5 billion, after it raised that amount just eight months ago. The largest fundings this week also went to an AI neolab, data center and electricity storage,...
Google will now allow users to remove visible watermark from its AI generations
Turning off this setting won't affect invisible benchmarks used to identify an AI generated file.
Does Mark Zuckerberg really believe AI is ‘for everyone’?
Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI model anyone can download and run on their own hardware — a contrast to Muse Spark, the company’s more powerful model that stays locked behind its...
Tech Visionary Says the Big AI Labs Don’t Get What People Want
Tim O’Reilly built a publishing empire that AI is helping to destroy. Yet he loves AI—as long as it’s open source.
Kog is going deeper to squeeze more inference out of GPUs
The idea that GPUs are poorly suited for agentic workflows may be a misconception, according to French startup Kog.
Hyperscalers might regret embracing natural gas if new forecast proves correct
Natural gas prices could triple in some parts of the U.S., which could saddle hyperscalers with massive bills to power their AI data centers.
Meta’s ‘open’ AI, and a $250M deal gone very wrong
Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI model anyone can download and run on their own hardware — a contrast to Muse Spark, the company’s more powerful model that stays locked behind its...
Samsung health AI models analyse wearable biosignal data
Samsung Research America’s Digital Health Team has presented two AI foundation models designed to learn from wearable biosignals. The work centres on data captured by smartwatches, including heart...
The Download: Flock’s new rules, cloning’s future, and children’s cells
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. Flock is tightening its rules in response to a growing...
40 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In July, The Highest Count In 4 Years
The sectors leading the herd to the Unicorn Board in July, by count, were financial services, robotics, AI orchestration, multimodal AI, energy and semiconductors, with the U.S. adding nearly half of...
These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI
Joi AI hired 10 people to masturbate using AI companions as part of a monthlong “wellness” study. The company claims the practice could help “solve male loneliness.”
People Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots. These Lawmakers Want to Stop Them
Human-AI marriages are not currently recognized by US law. Some Republican state policymakers are drafting legislation to keep it that way.
Google AI health coach to use Abbott glucose data
Abbott and Google are linking continuous glucose monitoring data with Google’s AI-powered health coaching tools, giving the Gemini-powered service access to another source of personal health...
Job titles of the future: Space travel agent
Roman Chiporukha has long turned wild travel dreams into reality. Over two decades as co-owner of the luxury lifestyle firm Roman & Erica, he has orchestrated everything from the construction of a...
Mark Zuckerberg’s AI Manifesto Is 6,500 Words—and Barely Says Anything
AI is shifting the culture, from tech CEO manifestos to 1 am job interviews. We unpack some of the latest, along with the top findings from Black Hat and Defcon, this week on Uncanny Valley.
Writer introduces new AI model and upgraded harness to contain token costs
Built as a post-training variation on Z.ai's open source model GLM-5.2, Writer says the new system should provide deployment-ready capabilities at a much lower price.
Databricks wanted to raise $1B, investors wanted $15B. It settled on $5B at a $190B valuation.
AI is expensive, Ali Ghodsi tells TechCrunch. With so many investors wanting into his latest round, he said yes to more than planned.
OpenAI introduces ‘Ultrafast,’ a new mode that makes GPT-5.6 Sol work at 14x the speed
OpenAI is launching a preview of a sped up version of its latest, most powerful model, in an effort to court enterprise users.
Startup Funding Hits Record $510B in H1 2026 — AI Took the Lion's Share
Global venture funding smashed every record in the first half of 2026, and AI swallowed most of it — OpenAI and Anthropic alone pulled in $217B.
MGX Raises $49 Billion — One of the Biggest AI Funds Ever
Abu Dhabi's MGX, just two years old, closed a $49B fund dedicated to AI deals — instantly one of the most consequential investors in the sector.
AI Agents Market Hits $7.6B — Individual Developers Are Building Custom Agents for $500-1,500 Each
The AI agents market reached $7.63 billion in 2025, projected to hit $183 billion by 2033. Solo builders are cashing in.
Anthropic Raises $3.5B at $61.5B Valuation — AI Safety Race Intensifies
Anthropic's latest funding round makes it the second most valuable AI startup after OpenAI.
OpenAI Slashes API Prices by 40% — Startups See Immediate Margin Boost
GPT-4o API costs drop significantly, making AI products cheaper to build and run.
Cursor Becomes #1 AI Coding Tool — Developers Are Switching in Droves
The AI-first code editor surpasses GitHub Copilot in developer satisfaction surveys.
EU AI Act Enforcement Begins — Companies Face Up to 7% Revenue Penalties
The world's first comprehensive AI law starts enforcing compliance requirements across Europe.
DeepSeek V3 Proves You Don't Need Billions to Build Frontier AI
The Chinese open-source model matches GPT-4 performance at 1/10th the API cost.
Enterprise AI Adoption Hits 58% — What Separates Winners from Failures
More than half of enterprises now use AI in production, but 42% of projects fail to deliver ROI.
Hot Right Now
Wispr raises $280M at $2B valuation as it looks beyond dictation
The Download: dead robot friends and the “censorship-industrial complex”
Semiconductor Giants Are Busy Backing Startups This Year
How much hydrogen awaits us underground?
What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies?