Techmeme: Lemon Slice, which launched a 20B-parameter model that creates digital avatars for AI agents, streaming video at 20 FPS on a single GPU, raised a $10.5M seed (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

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Juli Clover / MacRumors:

The European Commission says Apple will bring AirPods-like pairing and iPhone notification access to third-party devices under the DMA in iOS 26.3 in 2026 — The European Commission today praised the interoperability changes that Apple is introducing in iOS 26.3, once again crediting the Digital Markets Act …

More: Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Thurrott, BGR, Mashable, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, SammyGuru, and SamMobile

Bluesky: @gateklons. Forums: Hacker News, r/europe, and MacRumors Forums

Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:

The US FCC bans imports, marketing, and sales of new foreign-made drones and components, including from China's DJI and Autel, citing national security concerns — American customers hoarding products in anticipation of restrictions against popular Chinese manufacturer DJI and a smaller competitor, Autel Robotics

More: Politico, The Verge, Tom's Hardware, PCMag, US FCC, Reuters, Washington Examiner, Kotaku, The Daily Caller, Digital Trends, Modern Diplomacy, PetaPixel, Sherwood News, DroneXL.co, The Independent, Tom's Guide, CNN, Fox News, DroneDJ, Android Authority, GSMArena.com, The Hacker News, The Hill, Associated Press, New York Times, Telecompaper, TechNode, and Bloomberg

X: @brendancarrfcc and @fcc. Mastodon: @SuffolkLITLab@esq.social

Forums: r/radiocontrol, r/technology, r/politics, and r/fpv

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:

OpenAI details efforts to secure its ChatGPT Atlas browser against prompt injection attacks, including building an “LLM-based automated attacker” — Even as OpenAI works to harden its Atlas AI browser against cyberattacks, the company admits that prompt injections …

More: OpenAI, eWeek, Fortune, Gizmodo, Shelly Palmer, The Decoder, Digit, WinBuzzer, The Indian Express, Digital Trends, and KnowTechie

X: @dfinke, @xiangyuqi_pton, and @_lamaahmad

Forums: r/artificial, r/BlackboxAI_, r/BetterOffline, and r/firefox

Reece Rogers / Wired:

Google's Nano Banana Pro and OpenAI's ChatGPT Images can make nonconsensual bikini deepfakes from photos of fully clothed women; Reddit bans r/ChatGPTJailbreak — Users of AI image generators are offering each other instructions on how to use the tech to alter pictures of women into realistic, revealing deepfakes.

More: Associated Press. Bluesky: @hypervisible.blacksky.app. Forums: r/artificial

Yueqi Yang / The Information:

Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, raised $35M for his new global exchange AX, which offers perpetual futures, a source says at a $187M valuation — Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, has raised $35 million for his startup Architect Financial Technologies, which offers a global perpetual futures exchange.

More: The Block, Architect Financial …, Chicago Business, Pulse 2.0, and Crypto Briefing

X: @brettharrison88 and @brettharrison88

Kate Duguid / Financial Times:

US companies sold $1.7T of investment-grade bonds in 2025, nearing the $1.8T 2020 record, driven by AI infrastructure borrowing; Goldman says AI makes up ~30% — Investment-grade borrowers have issued $1.7tn of bonds this year, closing in on 2020s Covid debt rush

More: Silicon UK, Tech in Asia, Reuters, and Semafor

Bonny Chu / Fox News:

The Pentagon partners with xAI to embed the company's frontier AI systems, based on the Grok family of models, directly into GenAI.mil as soon as early 2026 — Grok will be deployed across systems serving 3 million military and civilian personnel by early 2026

More: U.S. Department of War, eWeek, The Information, xAI, Benzinga, Crypto Briefing, Townhall, TESLARATI, and Sherwood News

X: @silvermanjacob. Bluesky: @nicholasgrossman, @therao, @grumpyoldveteran, @alejandrobriceno, and @spiritualmantis. Forums: r/BetterOffline

Bloomberg:

Samsung's Harman agrees to acquire ZF's radar and automotive computing driver-assistance business for €1.5B, as the European auto-supplier sector struggles — Samsung Electronics Co.-owned Harman International is buying the advanced driver assistance systems business of Germany's ZF Group …

More: Samsung Newsroom, Reuters, Korea Joongang Daily, Wall Street Journal, electrive.com, SammyGuru, Analytics India Magazine, SamMobile, Automotive World, and KED Global

MiniMax:

China's MiniMax releases M2.1, an upgrade to its open-source M2 model that it says has “significantly enhanced” coding capabilities in Rust, Java, and others — MiniMax has been continuously transforming itself in a more AI-native way. The core driving forces of this process are models …

More: SiliconANGLE. X: @arafatkatze, @yashasgunderia, @tokenbender, @tphuang, @rudrank, @minimax__ai, @goosewin, and @minimax__ai. Forums: r/singularity

Bloomberg:

ServiceNow agrees to acquire cybersecurity startup Armis for $7.75B, set to close in H2 2026, pending approvals; Insight acquired Armis in a $1.1B deal in 2020 — ServiceNow Inc. has reached a deal to buy the cybersecurity startup Armis in a deal valued at $7.75 billion, representing its largest acquisition to date.

More: CNBC, CyberScoop, Globes, CRN, The Information, Investor's Business Daily, MarketWatch, Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Benzinga, Axios, Constellation Research, Wall Street Journal, Business Wire, and VINnews

Jordan Fabian / Bloomberg:

The US says China is engaging in unfair trade practices in the chip sector, but holds off on imposing additional tariffs on chip imports at least until mid-2027 — The US accused China of engaging in unfair trade practices in the semiconductor sector, but is declining to impose additional tariffs …

More: Reuters, New York Times, ZeroHedge News, and NewsMax.com. Forums: Slashdot

Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:

The Canada Pension Plan Board and Australia's Goodman agree to invest $2.6B+ in data centers in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Paris, starting to build in June 2026 — The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Australia's Goodman Group agreed to set up a multibillion dollar European data center business …

More: DatacenterDynamics, Verdict, Capital Brief, Telecompaper, and Dow Jones Newswires

Financial Times:

Despite concerns, Labour MPs and other left-wing UK politicians stay active on X; the UK government says it stopped paid ads in 2024, after spending £9M in 2021 — Despite concerns, politicians continue to use Elon Musk's platform in search of a ‘civilised debate’ with constituents

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Lemon Slice, which launched a 20B-parameter model that creates digital avatars for AI agents, streaming video at 20 FPS on a single GPU, raised a $10.5M seed — Developers and companies are increasingly deploying AI agents and chatbots within their apps, but so far they've mostly been restricted to text.

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