The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

The FCC says foreign-made routers and drones can now receive software updates at least until 2029, extending its earlier 2027 cutoff (Michael Kan/PCMag) [5d]
Sources: WH is preparing to order US agencies to partner with AI companies on cybersecurity; the EO wouldn't require pre-release model testing by the government (Bloomberg) [5d]
EU warns that VPNs are being used to bypass online age-verification systems, calling their use "a loophole in the legislation that needs closing" (Alex Lekander/CyberInsider) [5d]
Impressions of China's AI ecosystem after visiting many leading AI labs there, and the similarities and differences in working on LLMs in China and the West (Nathan Lambert/Interconnects AI) [5d]
Sources: Apollo Global and Blackstone are among private credit lenders in talks with Broadcom over a ~$35B financing deal to fund the development of AI chips (Bloomberg) [5d]
Sources: Cerebras plans to raise its IPO price range from $115-$125 per share to $125-$135 after drawing orders for more than 20x the number of shares available (Bloomberg) [5d]
A hack of Instructure's Canvas locked out students at schools and universities across the US in the middle of finals period; some US colleges postponed exams (Associated Press) [5d]
Sources: Isomorphic Labs, an AI-powered drug discovery company spun out of Google DeepMind, is in advanced talks to raise $2B+ led by Thrive Capital (Bloomberg) [5d]
Akamai says it struck a seven-year cloud computing deal with a "leading frontier model provider"; sources: the deal was with Anthropic and is worth $1.8B (Rachel Metz/Bloomberg) [5d]
Interviews with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and other execs about the challenges of a turnaround, along with efforts to instill a sense of urgency in the organization (Ian King/Bloomberg) [5d]
Sources: Apple and Intel have reached a formal deal in recent months for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices (Wall Street Journal) [6d]
OnlyFans agrees to sell a ~16% stake to Architect Capital for $535M in a deal that values the company at about $3.15B (Olivia Solon/Bloomberg) [6d]
Investor letter: TCI, one of the world's biggest hedge funds, cut almost all of its $8B stake in Microsoft, citing AI-related risks to Office and Azure (Costas Mourselas/Financial Times) [6d]
Whoop plans to offer on-demand video consultations with licensed clinicians for US users, and adds electronic health records and AI-powered health guidance (Brandon Gomez/CNBC) [6d]
Sony reports a $765M impairment loss due to underperformance of Marathon developer Bungie during the financial year ending March 31, 2026 (Wesley Yin-Poole/IGN) [6d]
Sources: DeepSeek seeks to raise ~$7.3B in its first-ever funding round at a $50B+ valuation, with CEO Liang Wenfeng making a personal investment of ~$2.9B (The Information) [6d]
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde expressed skepticism over the need for euro-pegged stablecoins, saying they could hamper the ECB's work (Reuters) [6d]
Substack says paid subscriptions to creators in the UK, its second-largest market, hit 500K+; global paid subs hit 5M+, with 50+ creators earning $1M+ annually (Lily Ford/The Hollywood Reporter) [6d]
Filing: Lime files for an IPO, reporting 2025 revenue of $886.7M, up from $686.6M YoY, and a net loss of $59.3M, up from $33.9M; it was valued at $510M in 2020 (Jordan Fitzgerald/Bloomberg) [6d]
Nintendo reports Q4 revenue of ~$2.60B, below ~$2.75B est., net profit of ~$416M, above ~$403.68M est., and forecasts a decline in FY 2027 Switch 2 unit sales (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC) [6d]
Datadog closed up 31%+ after reporting Q1 revenue up 32% YoY to $1B and raising its FY revenue forecast, an outlier in the software industry amid the AI boom (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE) [6d]
Sony reports Q4 revenue of $19.4B, above ~$18.4B est., operating profit of ~$1.06B, below ~$1.7B est., and forecasts FY 2027 net profit to rise 13% to ~$7.4B (Kai Nicol-Schwarz/CNBC) [6d]
Sony and TSMC announce a new JV to build next-gen image sensors for robots and cars, as Sony moves from in-house manufacturing to a more asset-light approach (Bloomberg) [6d]
Musk v. Altman docs: Microsoft execs had reservations about funding OpenAI in 2018 but worried that withholding support could push OpenAI into Amazon's arms (Wired) [6d]
Sources: the US suspects OBON, a key company behind Thailand's national AI effort, of smuggling Super Micro servers with export-controlled Nvidia chips to China (Bloomberg) [6d]
Nintendo said it would increase the price of the Switch 2 to $500, up from $450, globally from September 1, and offered a downbeat performance outlook for 2026 (Bloomberg) [6d]
Surveys: half of US adults under 50 get health info from influencers or podcasts; 86% of the health influencers are on Instagram, 62% on TikTok, 45% on YouTube (Pew Research Center) [6d]
Analysis: the combined free cash flow of Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta is expected to fall to ~$4B in Q3 and hit its lowest full-year level since 2014 (Financial Times) [6d]
Filings: Baidu's AI chip unit Kunlunxin is planning a dual IPO on Shanghai's STAR Board and in Hong Kong; Baidu holds a 58% stake in Kunlunxin (Bloomberg) [6d]
Fintech app Toss, used by ~66% of South Korea's 51M people, says its FacePay service, available at 330K retail outlets, has attracted 4.8M users since September (Song Jung-a/Financial Times) [6d]
Sources: SK Hynix's big customers have been proposing a range of offers to secure memory chip supplies, including investing in dedicated chip production lines (Reuters) [6d]
Instructure disables its Canvas edtech platform, used by thousands of schools and universities, amid a data extortion attack claimed by ShinyHunters (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security) [6d]
Sony reports 1.5M PS5 unit sales in Q4, down 46% YoY, and forecasts annual sales at its gaming business to fall 6% YoY to $1.69B, amid memory chip price surge (Sam Nussey/Reuters) [6d]
Sources: Anthropic weighs raising as much as $50B at a ~$900B pre-money valuation, likely closing within two months; its annualized revenue is nearing $45B (Financial Times) [6d]
Sources: White House unease over Mythos has left some administration officials fearful that the change represents a reversal of its hands-off AI policy (Wall Street Journal) [6d]
OpenAI is rolling out GPT-5.5-Cyber, a security-focused variant of the model, in a limited preview capacity to vetted cybersecurity teams (Sam Sabin/Axios) [6d]
A US judge blocks DOGE's termination of $100M in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, saying ChatGPT prompts used to decide the cuts were ill-defined (Zoe Tillman/Bloomberg) [6d]
Mozilla says Anthropic's Mythos Preview and other AI models helped it identify and ship 423 Firefox security bug fixes in April, compared to 31 a year earlier (Russell Brandom/TechCrunch) [6d]
Sources: AI model builder Core Automation, founded in March by Jerry Tworek, aims to raise $300M-$500M at a $4B valuation after raising $100M at a $1B valuation (The Information) [6d]
MercadoLibre reports Q1 revenue up 49% YoY to $8.8B, vs. $8.4B est., and net income down 16% to $417M, vs. $433M est.; MELI drops 5%+ after hours (Bloomberg) [6d]