The Brutalist Report - techmeme
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- Cadence unveils AuraStack AI Super Agent, an AI platform for PCB and advanced chip packaging design, with Nvidia, TSMC, and Schneider Electric among early users (Marco Chiappetta/Forbes) [58d]
- Sources: Microsoft security chief Hayete Gallot, who took over in February, has prioritized AI tools, cut several hundred roles, replaced senior execs, and more (The Information) [58d]
- Venture funding of fintech startups grew 22.7% YoY in H1 2026 to $28.6B globally, but deal count fell 25.7% and funding fell 17.3% vs. H2 2025's $34.6B funding (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News) [58d]
- Coinbase's Jesse Pollak says Jordan Fish, aka "Cobie", will now lead the Base app team after acknowledging some of Base's bets on social features fell short (Daniel Kuhn/The Block) [58d]
- SpaceX shares fell for a fourth-straight session on Wednesday, briefly dropping below their $135 IPO price for the first time before closing at $135.27 (Samantha Subin/CNBC) [58d]
- Apple publishes a policy for upcoming Maps ads, says home services ads are banned, medical services ads will be "evaluated on a case-by-case basis", and more (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [58d]
- OpenAI details GPT-Red, an internal automated red-teaming model that helps it find and fix prompt injection vulnerabilities at scale before wider deployment (OpenAI) [58d]
- Uber and Waymo are engaged in a DC lobbying battle over AV legislation, with Uber supporting a hybrid human-robotaxi model and Waymo pushing for pure robotaxis (Liam Denning/Bloomberg) [58d]
- AWS SVP Dave Brown is leaving after 19 years for a new job; he led compute and machine learning services and is a member of the S-team advising Andy Jassy (Greg Bensinger/Reuters) [58d]
- Apple raises AppleCare+ prices for Macs and iPads by $0.50 per month and $5 per year; the increases are exclusively for new sign-ups (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [58d]
- Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area (Thinking Machines Lab) [58d]
- Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman's $1.5B AI implementation company, announced in May, launches with the name Ode with Anthropic and 100 engineers (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch) [58d]
- Lumin Digital, which provides cloud-based digital banking software to banks and credit unions, raised more than $115M at a $1.6B post-money valuation (Ryan Lawler/Axios) [58d]
- OpenAI employees donated a combined $215K+ to Guardrails Alliance, a super PAC seeking stricter AI rules and opposing Greg Brockman-backed Leading the Future (Maxwell Zeff/Wired) [58d]
- OpenAI launches Codex Micro, a $230 desktop keypad built in collaboration with keyboard maker Work Louder, with backlit keys, a rotary knob, and a tiny joystick (Megan Morrone/Axios) [58d]
- Sources: ASML has discussed raising prices for its EUV systems with TSMC and plans to charge 10% more for its DUV systems; TSMC is resisting ASML's plans (Qianer Liu/The Information) [58d]
- Source: OnePlus will begin to cease operations in the US and Europe as early as this week and Realme will exit China as part of a restructuring by parent Oppo (Bloomberg) [58d]
- Hyundai's South Korea auto workers have gone on a partial strike over wages, AI, and the prospect of the company deploying its new humanoid robot in factories (Jiyoung Sohn/Wall Street Journal) [58d]
- Sources: Apple is looking for chip companies to buy to boost its AI server chip efforts as it struggles with the performance of its servers running on M2 Ultra (The Information) [58d]
- Spectro Cloud, an AI infrastucture company helping manage token costs, raised a $100M Series D from AMD, LG, others at a $1B+ valuation, up from $750M in 2024 (Lucinda Shen/Axios) [58d]
- How TikTok Shop sellers are using AI creators and AI twins to boost sales; eMarketer: US sales on TikTok Shop are expected to hit $23.4B in 2026, up 48% YoY (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal) [58d]
- Israel-based Hemispheric, whose AI model can analyze brain activity measured non-invasively and turn it into quantitative metrics for diagnoses, raised $52M (Meytal Vaizberg/Globes) [58d]
- Amsterdam-based Monumental, which develops autonomous robotics and software for the construction industry, raised a $32M Series B led by Khosla Ventures (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu) [58d]
- Miami-based Cyclops, which sells an infrastructure platform that bundles crypto and stablecoin services to payments companies, raised a $20M Series A (Camila Grigera Naón/Fortune) [58d]
- Rime, which helps companies field calls using AI voice models trained on conversational data it records in a studio, raised a $24M Series A led by M13 (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [58d]
- How Anthropic is pursuing a state-by-state push for ever-tougher AI safety laws, in contrast with OpenAI's "reverse federalism" strategy for common state rules (Politico) [58d]
- Sources: the EU is set to fine Google hundreds of millions of euros over alleged self-preferencing of its services in Search and restrictions on app developers (Barbara Moens/Financial Times) [58d]
- American Growth Insurance, which aims to acquire struggling independent insurance firms and transform them using AI, raised almost $70M (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE) [58d]
- Gavin Newsom is tempering his pro-tech instincts with economic populism ahead of a likely presidential bid, proposing giving Americans equity in AI companies (Jeremy B. White/Politico) [58d]
- Indian AI coding startup Emergent raised a $130M Series C at a $1.5B post-money valuation, up from $300M in January, bringing its total funding raised to $230M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch) [58d]
- Hinge adds Friend's Take, a new feature that lets daters enlist 10 close contacts to share written feedback, photos, voice notes, or videos on their profiles (Samantha Kelly/Bloomberg) [58d]
- Israel-based Oak, which is building an AI-native identity access management system, comes out of stealth with a $60M seed (Anna Heim/TechCrunch) [58d]
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