DeepSeek Seeks First Outside Funding at $45B Valuation as China Backs Homegrown AI Rival

AirPods Pro 3 | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple's rumored AirPods with cameras are nearing a stage where the company will test early mass production, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. Currently, Apple testers are "actively using" prototypes that are in the design validation test stage, which is one step before the production validation test stage. The AirPods' cameras "aren't designed" to snap photos or video but instead can take in "visual information in low resolution" that users can query Siri about, like asking the AI assistant what they should cook with the ingredients they have in front of them, according to Gurman. They may also use the cameras to help with things like turn-b … Read the full story at The Verge.

The deal marks Kraken's largest acquisition as it pushes into Asian cross-border payments through stablecoin infrastructure.

In just a few weeks of talks, DeepSeek's potential valuation has reportedly soared from $20 billion to $45 billion.

Value soars in ongoing fundraising discussions as investors including Tencent seek slice of AI lab

The next update to Apple's operating systems could allow users to choose their preferred AI model for running Apple Intelligence. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to allow third-party chatbots to power its AI features system-wide in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, all expected for this fall. In addition to running Siri, compatible third-party AI models, called "Extensions," will also now be able to run other Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools and Image Playground. According to Gurman, Apple will also allow users to choose different Siri voices for different AI models - Siri responses from one of Apple's … Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple has held “exploratory” talks about manufacturing processors for its devices in the US, Bloomberg reports. The move seems to reflect Apple’s need to secure additional chip supplies to meet growing demand for its products, but could also represent a contingency plan to reduce the company’s reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC’s) advanced manufacturing facilities in Taiwan. I doubt this means Apple doesn’t want to work with TSMC, nor does it mean TSMC is cooling on Apple. I suspect company management is far more concerned about what might happen in the event China attacks TSMC’s home nation.  Contingency planning  That concern seems legitimate in the context of unravelling of international relations and a recently-disclosed warning the CIA gave to tech leaders back in 2023. Executives from Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm were all warned that China might attack Taiwan. Such an attack would comprise a huge threat to the entire tech industry. Speaking at the World Econ

China made the inner workings of the A.I. model open to all, and that’s starting to look like a soft-power win.

New research from the Oxford Internet Institute indicates that AI chatbots trained to be extra warm, friendly, and empathetic can also become less reliable, according to the BBC. The researchers analyzed more than 400,000 responses from five different AI models from Meta, Mistral AI, Alibaba, and OpenAI. The results showed that the “kinder” versions more often gave incorrect answers, reinforced users’ misconceptions, and avoided stating uncomfortable truths. For example, a friendlier model might deal with conspiracy theories about the moon landing more cautiously instead of clearly stating that they are false. On average, incorrect answers increased by about 7.43 percentage points when the models were made to sound warmer in tone. Cooler and more direct models made fewer mistakes. According to the researchers, AI makes the same trade-off as humans: it sometimes prioritizes being perceived as pleasant rather than being direct.