Techmeme
June 18, 2026, 2:35 AM

Top News

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
In an interview, Tim Cook says Apple price hikes are “unavoidable” to offset surging memory and storage chip costs, and “the situation has become unsustainable”  —  The CEO tells the Journal in an exclusive interview that soaring costs make price increases ‘unavoidable’
The Information:
Noam Shazeer leaves Google to join OpenAI as lead for architecture research; he rejoined Google as a Gemini co-lead in 2024 during the $2.7B Character.AI deal  —  Noam Shazeer, the Google DeepMind researcher whose work underpinned the generative AI boom, is joining OpenAI, the AI firm told staff on Wednesday.
Financial Times:
Sources: Amodei, Altman, and Hassabis called for US-led collaboration on AI rules at the G7 summit; Macron and Modi raised concerns over the US' block of Mythos  —  Dario Amodei is supported by rival Sam Altman in call for international co-operation  —  Anthropic chief executive Dario …
Hugo Lowell / Wired:
Trump administration officials say Anthropic must ensure Fable 5's guardrails can't be circumvented before rerelease; experts say that may not be possible  —  Trump administration officials tell WIRED that if Anthropic wants to rerelease Fable 5, it will need to ensure the model's guardrails can't be circumvented.
New York Times:
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Midjourney unveils its first hardware product, the Midjourney Scanner, an ultrasound-based full-body scanner; it is unclear how AI fits into the medical effort  —  The AI image generator says this side project will be ‘in many ways superior to even MRI machines.’
Andy Robinson / Video Games Chronicle:
Epic says Unreal Engine 6, planned for early access in late 2027, will unify UE5 and Unreal Editor for Fortnite, add Claude and Gemini integrations, and more  —  Epic has detailed Unreal Engine 6, which it says will prominently integrate generative AI models to allow developers to …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a second-generation iPhone Air, planned for spring 2027, with a second rear camera for ultrawide-angle photos and better battery life  —  Apple Inc. is preparing a second-generation iPhone Air for spring 2027, aiming to boost the appeal of the slimmed-down device …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
AWS Summit: Amazon unveiled AWS Continuum, which uses AI to find and fix code vulnerabilities, AWS Context, which organizes company data for AI agents, and more  —  Amazon Web Services is announcing a new set of AI agents for businesses, developers, and individual users …
Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:
Businesses have started using Kalshi to hedge business risks; Kalshi says institutional trading volume on its platform has grown 800% since November 2025  —  Platforms like Kalshi let millions wager on sports and pop culture.  They're now hoping institutions will use them for big-ticket trading like hedging.
More: kentucky.gov
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
A newly discovered data leak has exposed what appears to be a collection of Fortinet and FortiGate VPN credentials for 73,932 firewall URLs across 194 countries  —  A newly discovered data leak dubbed “FortiBleed” has exposed what appears to be a collection of Fortinet and FortiGate VPN credentials …
Financial Times:
Sources: JPMorgan Chase has stopped its staff in Hong Kong from accessing Anthropic's AI models, following a similar move by rival Goldman Sachs  —  Bank follows Goldman Sachs in preventing use of Claude in Asian financial hub  —  JPMorgan Chase has stopped its staff in Hong Kong …
More: Reuters
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Financial Times:
A Blackstone-led consortium agrees to take control of software company Medallia from Thoma Bravo, which will lose the entire $5B it invested in Medallia  —  Blackstone-led consortium to take over software company and inject $150mn to help cut its debt load  —  A Blackstone-led consortium …
More: Bloomberg
Heesu Lee / Bloomberg:
The Bank of Korea warns rising bonuses at some South Korean chipmakers could fuel broader wage growth and consumer spending, complicating the inflation outlook  —  South Korea's artificial intelligence-driven semiconductor boom may wind up complicating the inflation outlook …
Adeel Hassan / New York Times:
As tech giants rush to build AI infrastructure, some residents living near data centers say a constant infrasonic vibration is ruining their health and homes  —  As tech giants rush to build infrastructure, some residents who live near data centers say a constant low-frequency vibration is ruining their health and homes.
Forums: r/politics
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Nation-state hackers are increasingly using preinstalled software on low-cost home devices to create residential proxy networks and mask cyberattack traffic  —  Nation-state cyberattackers are increasingly using residential proxy networks to mask their traffic, turning everyday electronics into a massive global threat

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Earlier Picks

Anhata Rooprai / Reuters:
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