The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

Waymo says it is continuing to "refine" its system preventing kids under 18 from riding alone, after adult riders reported new age-verification checks (Aarian Marshall/Wired) [12d]
xAI launches Grok 4.3, featuring "always-on reasoning", 1M token context window, and low API pricing, and releases a voice cloning suite called Custom Voices (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat) [13d]
Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have been down for more than a day, following a "sustained, cross-border attack" (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica) [13d]
Apple has stopped offering a 256GB storage option for the Mac mini globally; Mac mini now starts at 512GB for $799 in the US (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors) [13d]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issues new rules saying acting and writing must be performed by humans and not AI to be eligible for Oscars (Lisa Richwine/Reuters) [13d]
Sources: Cerebras is seeking to raise as much as $4B in its IPO and is targeting a valuation of about $40B (Bloomberg) [13d]
How influencers boosting US-based AI and opposing Chinese AI are paid with money tied to Leading the Future, funded by execs from OpenAI, Palantir, a16z, others (Taylor Lorenz/Wired) [13d]
"Podslop" is flooding listening platforms like Spotify; Podcast Index: of ~11K new podcast feeds in a recent 9-day span, ~39% were likely for AI content shows (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg) [13d]
Pushing back on AI job loss fears, AWS CEO Matt Garman says Amazon plans to hire 11,000 software engineering interns in 2026, a figure in line with recent years (Ben Shimkus/Business Insider) [13d]
Some retail traders are training AI agents to buy and sell assets on their behalf, as exchanges like Polymarket and Bybit roll out agent-friendly interfaces (Emily Nicolle/Bloomberg) [13d]
The US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand publish guidance on orgs' use of agentic AI systems, saying many give AI more access than can be safely monitored (Greg Otto/CyberScoop) [13d]
The gender gap in AI use may be a matter of visibility more than usage, as data suggests women face more judgment for using AI and are less likely to admit it (Issie Lapowsky/Bloomberg) [13d]
The FBI warns of rising cyber cargo theft, where attackers hack freight brokers' accounts and dupe carriers; 2025 cargo theft losses in N. America rose 60% YoY (Pierluigi Paganini/Security Affairs) [13d]
Meta acquires a startup Assured Robot Intelligence to bolster its robotics team, which is working on humanoid hardware and the underlying AI that powers it (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [13d]
A bug in popular cPanel, WHM, and WP Squared software has reportedly been exploited since Feb.; CISA it gives a 9.8 CVSS score, tells agencies to patch by May 3 (Jonathan Greig/The Record) [13d]
Experts say supply chain attacks compromised SAP and Intercom npm packages, plus the PyPI package Lightning, in a campaign that calls itself Mini Shai-Hulud (Jessica Lyons/The Register) [13d]
Fun, which builds fiat and crypto payment rails for platforms like Polymarket and Aave, raised a $72M Series A in January, co-led by Multicoin and SignalFire (Ben Weiss/Fortune) [13d]
Sources: Coatue formed Next Frontier in 2025 to buy land for data centers; Next Frontier has a JV with neocloud Fluidstack that's raised $5.7B via junk bonds (Wall Street Journal) [13d]
The US Navy awards Domino Data Lab a contract worth up to $100M for AI software that teaches underwater drones to identify new mines in the Strait of Hormuz (Mike Stone/Reuters) [13d]
Sources: Peter Thiel's Founders Fund raised $6B for a fund to invest in later-stage companies, marking its largest haul ever; $4.5B comes from limited partners (Natasha Mascarenhas/Bloomberg) [13d]
Tim Cook says that the Mac Studio and the Mac mini, used for AI and agentic tools, "may take several months to reach supply demand balance" (Juli Clover/MacRumors) [13d]
Amazon launches "Join the chat", an AI-powered feature that allows users to ask questions about products and receive conversational audio responses in real time (Lauren Forristal/TechCrunch) [13d]
Sources: the US DOD strikes agreements with Nvidia, Microsoft, Reflection AI, and AWS to use their AI tools on classified military networks for "lawful" use (Katrina Manson/Bloomberg) [13d]
Cloud computing provider Nebius agrees to buy Eigen AI, which optimizes the performance of chips running AI inference tasks, for $615M in stock and cash (Dina Bass/Bloomberg) [13d]
Apple CFO Kevan Parekh says "the iPhone 17 family is now the most popular lineup in our history" and "we believe we gained market share during the quarter" (Michael Acton/Financial Times) [13d]
China's EV makers are competing on in-car AI features; ByteDance says its Doubao AI is used in 7M+ cars across 145 models, including from Mercedes, Audi, and VW (Evelyn Cheng/CNBC) [13d]
Researchers detail CopyFail, a now-patched Linux vulnerability that lets unprivileged users gain admin access, as many distributions have yet to add fixes (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica) [13d]
Sources: Huawei expects AI chip revenue to hit ~$12B in 2026, up 60% from $7.5B in 2025, as orders for its Ascend 950PR chip surge and Nvidia stalls in China (Zijing Wu/Financial Times) [13d]
Musk v. Altman: OpenAI lawyers claim Shivon Zilis, a longtime Musk employee and mother to four of his children, acted as a covert liaison between him and OpenAI (Wired) [13d]
The persistent notion that AI disruption could create a permanent underclass signals how much collateral damage AI companies might tolerate in pursuit of AGI (Jasmine Sun/New York Times) [13d]
Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Dave McCormick introduce a bill banning members of the legislative and executive branches from trading on prediction markets (Jason Beeferman/Politico) [13d]
Apple forecasts Q3 revenue above estimates and reports Q2 results above projections in China but below expectations in the Americas and Europe regions (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [13d]
Intel shares jumped 114% in April, hitting a record on April 24 and lifting its market cap past $470B, closing out the chipmaker's best month on record (Katie Tarasov/CNBC) [13d]