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July 29, 2025, 9:55 PM
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Reece Rogers / Wired:
OpenAI debuts a ChatGPT study mode, designed to guide students through learning material at their level, available to logged-in Free, Plus, Pro, and Team users  —  OpenAI's new study mode for ChatGPT throws questions back at students, but the learning feature doesn't address generative AI's underlying disruption of education.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube is rolling out age estimation tech in the US to identify teen users and serve more age-appropriate content, regardless of the birthday given at signup  —  YouTube on Tuesday announced it's beginning to roll out age-estimation technology in the U.S. to identify teen users in order to provide a more age-appropriate experience.
Renju Jose / Reuters:
Australia says it will include YouTube in its ban on social media for children under 16 years of age, reversing an earlier decision to exempt the platform
Katherine Sayre / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify reports Q2 revenue up 10% YoY to €4.2B, MAUs up 11% to 696M, subscribers up 12% to 276M, and an €86M net loss; SPOT closes down 11.6% after missed est.  —  The audio streaming service added more listeners than it had forecast, but reported a net loss for the second quarter
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Palo Alto Networks is in talks to acquire Israeli cybersecurity company CyberArk Software as soon as this week; a premium would put the deal above $20B  —  Deal for Israeli firm would be latest in big tech's cybersecurity consolidation  —  Palo Alto Networks is in talks to acquire …
Kylie Robison / Wired:
Source: Meta approached over a dozen people at Thinking Machines Lab and one offer was for $1B+ over a multiyear span; not a single person has left for Meta  —  More than a dozen people at Mira Murati's 50-person startup, Thinking Machines Lab, have been approached or received offers from the tech giant.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple loses its fourth AI researcher in a month to Meta's superintelligence team; the AFM team is in flux and Apple marginally increased AFM staff pay
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg mulls more shake-ups to Meta's AI strategy; he lost faith in the team in part due to a controversy over whether it gamed AI benchmarks
Financial Times:
Sources: Anthropic is nearing a deal to raise $5B in a funding round led by Iconiq at a $170B valuation, after being valued at $61.5B in a $3.5B round in March  —  Deal would almost triple valuation of OpenAI's rival to $170bn  —  Iconiq Capital is set to lead a $5bn funding round …
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
An interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and how his father's passing from an illness, four years before a breakthrough made it 95% curable, shaped his path
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out new AI Mode features: Search Live with video input, Canvas for planning, image and PDF uploading, and AI Mode in Google Lens in desktop Chrome  —  After adding Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google is updating AI Mode with four big features across Search Live (video with Google Lens access), Canvas, and more.
Dave Michaels / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the US DOJ fired two of its most senior antitrust enforcers after disagreements related to defusing its lawsuit against HPE over its $14B Juniper deal
André Beganski / Decrypt:
The US SEC approves in-kind creations and redemptions for crypto ETFs, allowing institutional investors to exchange ETF shares for the underlying BTC or ETH  —  The SEC has approved in-kind redemptions for crypto ETFs, enabling a feature sought by Bitcoin and Ethereum fund issuers.
AnnaMaria Andriotis / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: JPMorgan Chase is in advanced talks to take over Apple's credit-card program from Goldman Sachs, with Apple telling JPMorgan it is its preferred choice  —  Discussions between the country's biggest bank and Apple accelerated in recent months  —  JPMorgan Chase is in advanced talks …
Ernesto Londoño / New York Times:
Gov. Tim Walz activates the Minnesota National Guard to help St. Paul address a cyberattack detected Friday that led the city to shut down many of its systems  —  Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota activated the National Guard to help the city of St. Paul address a cyberattack that was detected last Friday.
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Tea, which claims to make dating safer for women, is the #2 app in the US App Store, despite multiple security flaws exposing private chats, photo IDs, and more  —  Two major security vulnerabilities in the Tea app - which claims to make dating safer for women - have exposed the private chats …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
PayPal reports Q2 net revenue up 5% YoY to $8.29B, vs. $8.08B est., but sees slowing transaction margin dollars growth, up 7% to $3.84B; PYPL closes down 8.66%  —  PayPal reported better-than-expected results for the second quarter but saw slowing growth in transaction margin dollars, a key measure of profitability.
Bloomberg:
A profile of Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old Thiel Fellow who gained recognition for using AI to help decipher the Herculaneum papyri and later joined DOGE  —  Luke Farritor could have been an artist, or a builder, or someone dedicated to seeing a great historical mystery through.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is in advanced talks to land a deal that could give it ongoing access to critical OpenAI tech even if OpenAI reaches its goal of building AGI  —  Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to land a deal that could give it ongoing access to critical OpenAI technology …
Stephen Council / SFGATE:
Wag, the pet care tech company reportedly valued at ~$650M after a $300M investment from SoftBank Vision Fund in January 2018, filed for bankruptcy on July 21  —  The pet care company Wag, as of Monday, was valued at less than $6 million  —  During the 2010s' boom in on-demand services …
Bluesky: @carnage4life.  Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to.  X: @armchairatty.  Forums: r/technology, r/bayarea, and Slashdot
Associated Press:
A survey of US adults: only 37% report using AI for work tasks and 60% say they use AI to find info at least some of the time, rising to 74% for those under 30  —  Most U.S. adults say they use artificial intelligence to search for information, but fewer are using it for work, drafting email or shopping.
More: Implicator.ai.  Bluesky: @karlbode.com and @childlesscatperson.  Mastodon: @koen_hufkens@mastodon.social.  Forums: Slashdot
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe rolls out beta Photoshop generative AI features that let users more easily add or remove people and objects in photos, including “Harmonize” compositing  —  Generative AI is rapidly eroding the photo editing skill barrier. … Adobe is launching some new generative AI features …

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From Mediagazer

The Guardian:
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and the Netherlands exit Eurovision after Israel received an all-clear to compete; the BBC and Germany's SWR plan to participate

David Pierce / The Verge:
Yahoo launches Game Breakdowns in beta, offering AI-generated game summaries, stats, and play recaps, all updated live, to Yahoo Fantasy Plus subscribers

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Bloomberg Media COO Julia Beizer is leaving the company, a source says to lead Microsoft's AI news product, working under Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman

More News

RT Watson / The Block:
eToro says it's launching tokenized US equities, ETF, and futures trading via ERC-20 tokens, citing regulatory clarity from the US' Genius Act and the EU's MiCA
Anthony Hughes / Bloomberg:
Sources: Figma's IPO, which could raise as much as $1.2B after Figma raised its range to $30 to $32 per share on July 28, is approaching 40 times oversubscribed
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Block-owned Cash App unveils Pools, a new peer-to-peer feature for group payments, and says users can accept contributions via Apple Pay or Google Pay, a first

Earlier Picks

Brunella Tipismana Urbano / Bloomberg:
Ambience Healthcare, which uses AI to automate administrative tasks for medical professionals, raised $243M led by a16z and Oak HC/FT at a $1B+ valuation
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Internal memo: Meta is piloting letting job candidates use AI assistants during coding interviews and asks employees for “mock AI-enabled interview” volunteers
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple says it will open the Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit in August, run by Michigan State University, as Trump ramps up pressure to invest in the US
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Waymo plans to launch its robotaxi service in Dallas in 2026 with Avis as the fleet partner, a first after exclusively working with Uber in Austin and Atlanta
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Sony sues Tencent for copyright and trademark infringement in California federal court, accusing the Chinese tech giant of ripping off its Horizon game series
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