🔥 Story Of The Week: Apple's iPhone 17 launch showcased new hardware but downplayed AI. This continues the company's cautious approach, focusing on practical on-device integration rather than joining the large-scale model race.
⭐️ Must Reads: The conflict over AI's use of web content is escalating. Google admitted in a court filing that the open web is in "rapid decline," validating publisher concerns. Publishers are fighting back and introduced the RSL protocol to control how their content is used. The financial stakes of this conflict were also made clear as Anthropic agreed to a landmark $1.5 billion settlement with authors. Separately, OpenAI is moving into content creation itself, collaborating on an AI-driven animated film.
🧰 Technology: Looks like there is no stopping Nvidia in the hardware race as it unveiled its Rubin CPX, a new GPU for long-context AI. In contrast, Arm introduced its new Lumex platform, optimized for on-device AI. In human-computer interaction, a new wearable from AlterEgo enables silent, near-telepathic communication with AI.
📊 Business: Microsoft announced it will integrate Anthropic's models into Office 365. Microsoft is rapidly ending its exclusive reliance on OpenAI. OpenAI is also diversifying, with a reported $10 billion Broadcom chip order signaling a new supply chain and the launch of a jobs platform showing a new business model.
📝 Policy: Legal battles over AI and copyright continue as Warner Bros sues Midjourney for generating images of its iconic characters. Following other safety warnings, a new assessment has labeled Google's Gemini as "high risk" for kids and teens. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman raised concerns about AI bots flooding social media, questioning the authenticity of online interactions.
⚡ Startups: A major European tech alliance forms as chip giant ASML invested €1.3 billion in French AI startup Mistral. The race to build new AI-powered interfaces also heated up as enterprise software firm Atlassian acquired The Browser Company for $610 million. The AI coding space continues to see heavy investment as well, with Replit raising $250 million.
