- Tokyo-based Turing, which is developing an AI model for self-driving vehicles, raised a $99M Series A, sources say at a ~$388M valuation (Min-Jeong Lee/Bloomberg)
- Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai are exploring future lunar and orbital AI data centers which could offer steady solar power with fewer regulations (Tim Higgins/Wall Street Journal)
- BNPL use in the US has grown to 91.5M users, with 25% financing groceries, as default rates accelerate and most loans aren't reported, creating "phantom debt" (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)
- Forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center are increasingly leaning on Google's new DeepMind prediction model, though questions about its methods remain (Eric Holthaus/The Guardian)
- Tokyo-based Sakana AI becomes Japan's most valuable unicorn at a ~$2.6B valuation, following a ~$130M raise from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and US VC firms (Nikkei Asia)
- A look at Flighty, a flight-tracking app that often beats airline updates; downloads went up 3x when the FAA cut air traffic during the US government shutdown (Ben Cohen/Wall Street Journal)
- Samsung, SK Group, and others announce billions in domestic investment after US-South Korea trade deal; Samsung plans to invest $310B and SK Group pledged $88B (Kim Tong-Hyung/Associated Press)
- Sources: Apple to launch 3 high-end iPhones next fall, with lower-end iPhones and likely new Air in Q2 2027; Mac Pro gets deprioritized; Jeff Williams retires (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
- Sources: Demis Hassabis pursued a Nobel as a DeepMind goal and favored high-minded work over short-term revenue or a stronger AI race position for Alphabet (Jeffrey Dastin/Reuters)
- Sources: Vinted is exploring a share sale that could value the company at ~€8B; Vinted says it expects 2025 revenue to cross €1B+, up from €813M in 2024 (Financial Times)
- Dealogic: 51 US tech IPOs raised $16.8B in 2025, driven by AI and crypto, above the past three-year average but far below 2021's 127 IPOs raising $74.4B (Valida Pau/The Information)
- A cat's killing by a Waymo robotaxi sparked outrage in San Francisco, as some questioned why deaths caused by human drivers don't get the same level of concern (Heather Knight/New York Times)
- Some experts question Anthropic's claims of cyberattack breakthroughs using its tools, noting that white-hat hackers report modest gains from AI-aided hacking (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)
- The current AI strategies of China and the US are complementary, as unlike the US, China isn't "AGI-pilled" yet, focusing on embodied AI and open source models (Dean W. Ball/Hyperdimensional)
- Apple updates App Review Guidelines to require apps to disclose and obtain users' permission before sharing personal data with third-party AI providers (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)