Switzerland's new open-source AI model Apertus tackles what kills 95% of AI projects: lack of transparency. Full visibility into code and training data promises to solve bias, compliance headaches, and corporate trust issues.
Warp challenges "hands-off" agent coding with human-in-the-loop approach, charging $200/month for enterprise tier. While competitors push automation, Warp bets on oversight—real-time code review and mid-flight steering as agents work.
Anthropic's $1.5B settlement with authors establishes first pricing benchmark for AI training data—$3,000 per pirated book. Court ruling split training rights from acquisition methods, reshaping how tech giants source content.
Chinese teen hackers turned government spies. AI companies paying experts instead of $2/hour workers. YouTube beating Disney on TV. This week's biggest tech stories show how the rules are changing—and who's scrambling to keep up.
Wired • Kim Zetter
Chinese teens who hacked for patriotism in the 1990s became the backbone of state espionage. The report follows hackers like Tan Dailin, who won university contests before joining APT 41 and facing US indictment. Many of these hackers started cybersecurity companies that also work for Chinese intelligence, creating hacking tools like PlugX.
Read full article →Financial Times • Melissa Heikkilä
AI companies are ditching $2/hour workers for high-paid specialists. Scale AI, Turing, and Toloka now hire biologists and finance experts at 20-30% above market rates to train next-gen models like OpenAI's o3. Companies now care more about getting better data than getting lots of data, especially as they try to build AI smarter than humans.
Read full article →Wall Street Journal • Ben Fritz
YouTube dominates American TV screens with over a billion daily viewing hours. That's more than Disney's entire empire of networks and streaming services combined. Video makers are creating longer content for people watching on TVs, and YouTube keeps adding features to make the app work better with remotes—helping them earn $54.2 billion last year.
Read full article →Bloomberg • Mark Gurman
Apple will launch its first foldable iPhone in late 2026, seven years after Samsung. The device will look like Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold and use Samsung display parts—a rare case of Apple following rather than leading. Still, millions of iPhone users have been waiting for Apple to make a foldable, and that demand could help Apple take over the market even at $2,000+.
Read full article →Wall Street Journal • Tim Higgins
Microsoft's AI chief takes a different path than rivals chasing superintelligence. While Zuckerberg and Musk claim AGI is imminent, Mustafa Suleyman says it's 10 years away and focuses on solving real problems in energy, education, and healthcare. His pragmatism shows the split between startups dreaming big and companies building for today.
Read full article →New York Times • Joseph Bernstein
Podcasts have gone visual, with 2-5 hour YouTube shows of people talking in chairs. Three-quarters of listeners now watch video versions, though many just minimize the window while working. The shift created new business models and viral social clips, changing how Americans consume long conversations.
Read full article →New York Times • Stuart A. Thompson
The Dor Brothers make videos entirely with AI and earned over $1 million last year. Their viral political satires and sci-fi trailers show a new creative era where anyone with a keyboard can produce professional-looking content. Critics call it "AI slop," but their 100 million views suggest AI video is becoming a real creative medium.
Read full article →
Anthropic's $1.5B settlement with authors establishes first pricing benchmark for AI training data—$3,000 per pirated book. Court ruling split training rights from acquisition methods, reshaping how tech giants source content.
OpenAI's $10 billion custom chip bet with Broadcom promises cheaper ChatGPT and less Nvidia dependence—if the software stack delivers. First silicon ships 2026, but the real test is whether custom accelerators can match CUDA's mature ecosystem.
Atlassian pays $610M for The Browser Company, betting that browsers will become AI-powered workplace control centers. With 85% of enterprise work happening in tabs but only 10% using secure browsers, the market gap is massive—if Dia can deliver.
Switzerland just shipped a fully transparent AI model, trading ChatGPT-level performance for complete openness. Every line of code, training recipe, and data source is public—a radical bet that compliance beats capability in regulated markets.
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