WhatsApp is testing a paid subscription at EUR 2.49 per month as Meta rolls out premium tiers across its apps
Summary: WhatsApp has begun testing a paid consumer subscription called WhatsApp Plus at approximately EUR 2.49 per month, offering cosmetic upgrades including 18 chat themes, custom icons, exclusive [...]
VisioLab raises $11M to scale its AI-powered iPad checkout to stadiums, canteens, and campuses worldwide
The Osnabrück startup’s camera-based self-checkout, which identifies food and drinks without barcodes in under 10 seconds, is already running at 43 points of sale inside the Orlando Magic’s NBA a [...]
Jeff Bezos’ physical AI lab is close to raising $10 billion at a $38 billion valuation
Project Prometheus, launched in November 2025 with $6.2 billion in initial funding, is developing AI systems that understand the physical world, targeting engineering, manufacturing, aerospace, roboti [...]
Clarifai says it deleted 3 million OkCupid user photos and the facial-recognition models trained on them
The AI company received the photos from OkCupid in 2014 without users’ knowledge, in a data transfer that breached OkCupid’s own privacy policy. The FTC’s late March settlement with OkCupid and [...]
Amazon puts up to $25 billion more into Anthropic and secures 10-year cloud commitment in return
The deal is Amazon’s second consecutive mega-round with a frontier AI lab, following a near-identical $50 billion investment in OpenAI two months ago. Anthropic’s annualised revenue has reached $3 [...]
Meta has hired five founding members of Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab in a systematic talent raid
In summary: Meta has hired five founding members of Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup built by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, after she rejected a reported $1 billion acquisition offer. The most e [...]
John Ternus built Apple’s hardware for 24 years and now he has to figure out AI
Summary: John Ternus, Apple’s incoming CEO effective 1 September, is a 50-year-old mechanical engineer who reversed a period of declining product quality, personally lobbied for the creation of iPad [...]
