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May 21, 2025, 4:00 PM
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Bloomberg:
OpenAI is buying io, Jony Ive's secretive AI startup, for ~$6.5B in stock; Ive and LoveFrom will remain independent but take over design for all of OpenAI  —  OpenAI will acquire the AI device startup co-founded by Apple Inc. veteran Jony Ive in a nearly $6.5 billion all-stock deal …
OpenAI:
In a video and letter signed “Sam & Jony”, Altman and Ive announce io, founded last year by Ive, Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan to create new products  —  This is an extraordinary moment.  —  Computers are now seeing, thinking and understanding.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Sam Altman and LoveFrom have been working for two years on a new device to move consumers beyond screens, including headphones and devices with cameras  —  OpenAI to buy Ive's startup in $6.5 billion deal, as Ive and CEO Sam Altman work on new generation of devices and other AI products
New York Times:
Sources: OpenAI owned a 23% stake in io from a 2024 deal so is now paying ~$5B to fully acquire it; separately, OpenAI's Start-up Fund invested in io last year  —  Jony Ive, a former top executive at Apple, said that the goal with OpenAI was to create “amazing products that elevate humanity.”
Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times:
Jensen Huang calls US AI chip export controls “a failure” that spurred Chinese rivals, cutting Nvidia's market share in China from 95% to 50% over four years  —  World's top AI semiconductor maker says export controls have accelerated Chinese rivals' advances
Reuters:
Distributed Denial of Secrets: the TeleMessage hacker stole messages from 60+ US government users spanning about one day ending on May 4, including travel plans  —  A hacker who breached the communications service used by former Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz earlier …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Epic v. Apple: Microsoft files an amicus brief supporting Epic Games and blames Apple for delaying the Xbox mobile gaming store, first announced in May 2024  —  Microsoft has filed support for Epic Games' fight with Apple, as it wants to launch new Xbox mobile improvements.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Epic Games says Fortnite for iPadOS and iOS is back on the US App Store, and on the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the EU; Apple kicked it off in August 2020
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft seizes ~2.3K domains globally to disrupt Lumma's malware-as-a-service operation, after finding 394K+ PCs infected by Lumma  —  Earlier this month, a coordinated disruption action targeting the Lumma malware-as-a-service (MaaS) information stealer operation seized thousands of domains …
Matthew Gault / 404 Media:
Brazilian researchers scraped 2B+ Discord messages from 3,167 public servers using Discord's public API, covering 2015 to 2024, and publish the messages online  —  A Brazilian team used Discord's API to scrape 10% of its open servers.  —  Researchers published a massive database …
More: Gizmodo.  Bluesky: @daphnek, @danhon.com, @josephcox, @cfiesler, @vortexegg.com, and @acab.dad.  LinkedIn: Casey Fiesler.  Forums: r/technology
William Langley / Financial Times:
Inside China's “stolen iPhone building”: electronics traders in Shenzhen describe how even remotely locked stolen iPhones can be stripped and sold for a profit  —  We track the roaring trade of mobiles grabbed in London and New York, then sold on a single district in Shenzhen
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Mistral partners with All Hands AI to release Devstral, a model to help with coding, in “research preview” under Apache 2.0, and says it outperforms Gemma 3 27B  —  AI startup Mistral on Wednesday announced a new AI model focused on coding: Devstral.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft's AI security chief accidentally displayed internal Teams messages about Walmart's AI plans, after her Build talk was disrupted by a protest  —  Internal messages were displayed after two former Microsoft employees disrupted a Build session.
Andrew Romero / 9to5Google:
AI videos from Google's Veo 3, which features synchronized audio as well as crisper, more detailed video, are both impressive and terrifying  —  If the internet wasn't already full of misinformation and general filler content, Veo 3 is going to take it to an entirely new level.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Maine AG filing: Coinbase says its recent data breach impacted 69,461 individuals; stolen data included government IDs, account info, and personal identifiers  —  Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange with over 100 million customers, revealed that a recent data breach in which cybercriminals stole customer …
Eric Geller / Cybersecurity Dive:
In a joint statement, the US, France, Germany, and eight other countries say Russia has stepped up cyber attacks on firms aiding Ukraine, often via Fancy Bear  —  One of Moscow's most infamous hacker teams is targeting logistics and technology companies supporting Kyiv's war effort.  —  Listen to the article
MIT Technology Review:
An analysis of AI's energy footprint, from the demands for making a model and the impact of a query to the emissions from data centers and the future ahead  —  The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn't tracking and consider where it's heading next.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Volvo expands its Google partnership to integrate Gemini across its model lineup, the first automaker to do so, hoping to ease its drivers' “cognitive load”  —  Gemini can ease a driver's “cognitive load” so they can keep their eyes on the road, the automaker says.
CoinDesk:
The US SEC sues Unicoin and its executives, alleging they broke securities laws by raising $100M+ for crypto tokens falsely claimed to be backed by real estate  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto company Unicoin and three executives on Tuesday night on fraud charges …
Tobias Mann / The Register:
AMD unveils Zen 5-based Threadripper 9000 CPUs with up to 96 cores, and an RDNA 4-based Radeon AI Pro R9700 workstation GPU, both slated to launch in July 2025  —  COMPUTEX AMD aims to extend its lead over Intel in the high-end desktop (HEDT) and workstation arenas with its 9000-series …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Google's I/O keynote was both scary and chill, a fever dream of sizzle reels selling how AI changes everything, even search, and can give users superpowers  —  At its annual developer conference, the company seeks to reassure everyone that AI is for everyday utility — but the great disruption to the web continues
Michael L Hicks / Android Central:
Google's Android XR Gemini-powered prototype glasses hands-on: light, comfortable to wear, the single display in the right lens works well, and Maps is seamless

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From Mediagazer

CNN:
CNN employees and viewers have serious concerns about whether Ellison will uphold CNN's editorial independence amid severe political pressure

Chris Gardner / The Hollywood Reporter:
Equalpride, parent company of LGBTQ+ outlets like Out and The Advocate, cuts staff, including the EICs of Pride.com and The Advocate

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Spotify launches Audiobook Charts in the US and the UK, which will be updated weekly and highlight the top audiobooks overall and by genre

More News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google tests bringing ads to AI Mode, both below responses as well as “integrated into” them, and expands ads in AI Overviews to desktop in the US

Earlier Picks

Colin Lecher / The Markup:
New York City's AI tool, launched in 2018 to score families at risk for child abuse using factors like their neighborhood, is raising racial bias concerns
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
Matthew Lane, a 19-year-old from Massachusetts, pleads guilty to hacking two US companies and extorting them for ransoms; a source says one firm is PowerSchool
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