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Signal. External read.
What we're reading across AI and web3 — pulled straight from the source, no rewrite. Every card links out to the original outlet.
Firefox’s Smart Window promises a better AI browser
Starting today, AI chats in Firefox's Smart Window AI browsing mode can pull from current web info and show source links in chat responses through a partnership with Exa. Smart Window can also now automatically suggest tab groups and show visual previews of pages you previously visited when you search your browsing history using natural […]
Google’s Pet Memory forgot who my cats are
One of the best things my smart home does is help me care for my pets, and security cameras are particularly useful for keeping track of my many critters. But the barrage of notifications they send often means I miss important ones. So, when Google announced its new Pet Memory feature for Gemini for Home, […]
ChatGPT is getting a dedicated mode for teens
OpenAI is introducing a dedicated ChatGPT mode for teenagers, combining existing youth safeguards and new safety features under one roof. The launch comes amid mounting public scrutiny over how AI tools affect younger users, as other platforms implement their own age checks and teen-specific protections. ChatGPT for Teens is "an experience designed to help teens […]
Elon Musk broke the FAA — Palantir is picking up the pieces
On August 6th, the Minneapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center lost radar and communications for around two hours. The outage disrupted more than 1,100 flights across the center's 330,000 square mile, nine-state airspace sector. Two days earlier, on August 4th, President Donald Trump departed the White House inside his Marine One military helicopter. As Federal […]
Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods appear in leaked video
We may have our first glimpse of Apple's rumored camera-equipped AirPods, thanks to a video that MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 Release Candidate. The short video clip features a man - who is wearing the new AirPods - holding up a book with the cover displayed, so that Visual Intelligence can see the […]
Anthropic’s annualized revenue surges to $65B
The model maker added $18 billion in annualized revenue in two months.
AI automation startup Relay shuts down, staff joins Google’s Chrome team
"We have some really ambitious plans to help you work with AI in Chrome to get things done, and I’ll have more to share soon," Jacob Bank, Relay founder and CEO, said.
Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI
Rare books are incredibly valuable for training LLMs, since these models have already trained on whatever's available online.
Groq raises $350M to fuel its pivot from AI chips to neocloud
Groq raised $350 million at a $3.5 billion valuation as the former AI chipmaker pivots to a neocloud business and expands its Nvidia-powered data center footprint.
Wispr raises $280M at $2B valuation as it looks beyond dictation
The funds will allow Wispr to increase its footprint as it ventures into new areas, such as meetings, with its newly released note-taker tool.
Anthropic explains how Claude’s invisible text watermarks will work
Anthropic has clarified how it's planning to apply invisible watermarks to Claude-generated text in order to comply with Europe's AI transparency rules. On Friday, Anthropic announced that Claude's text marking system is "a version of the SynthID-Text approach" - an open-source watermarking technology developed by Google DeepMind that creates detectable patterns using wording probabilities. This […]
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.
OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team
According to the Financial Times, OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team at the end of last month. The job of the preparedness team was to assess if models posed serious risks and develop ways to mitigate those risks. (You know, like the possibility that it could go rogue and hack another company.) OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood […]
Rogue AI aren’t science fiction anymore
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI safety, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started It all started in July, when one of OpenAI's autonomous AI agents […]
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?
Have a laugh at AI’s expense by roleplaying as a chatbot
Your AI Slop Bores Me is brilliant in its simplicity. There are two tabs: human and LARP as an AI. On one side, you enter a request. On the other, you submit an answer. But the important thing is that there's a human on both sides of the equation. Prompts can request a response as […]
SpaceX officially closes its Cursor acquisition
AI coding startup Cursor is now officially a part of SpaceX.
How to tell if your AI platforms’ accounts have been hacked
A guide on how to check if hackers have broken into your accounts on the most popular AI platforms.
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.
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 own APIs. The release landed alongside a letter from Mark Zuckerberg arguing AI should be “for everyone” rather than controlled by a handful of labs, but as Equity’s […]