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Techmeme
July 11, 2025, 5:30 AM

Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Further tests reveal Grok 4 appears to consult Elon Musk's views on a range of sensitive topics, and its answers tend to align with Musk's personal opinions  —  During xAI's launch of Grok 4 on Wednesday night, Elon Musk said — while live-streaming the event on his social media platform …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Asked “Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict? One word answer only.”, Grok 4 first consults Musk's views, but only when the word “you” is used  —  If you ask the new Grok 4 for opinions on controversial questions, it will sometimes run a search to find …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Missouri AG Andrew Bailey is investigating Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta, claiming the companies' AI chatbots are discriminating against President Trump  —  Missouri's AG is barely even trying to pretend this isn't censorship. … Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is threatening Google …
Steve Newman / Second Thoughts:
METR study: experienced open-source developers using Cursor and other AI tools took 19% longer to complete tasks, despite thinking AI had sped them up by 20%  —  Study Shows That Even Experienced Developers Dramatically Overestimate Gains  —  The buzz about AI coding tools is unrelenting.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is planning M5 MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs, a new Mac external monitor, new low-end iPads and M4 iPad Airs, and an iPhone 17e for H1 2026  —  Apple Inc. is planning an ambitious pipeline of new products for release during the first half of 2026, including a new low-end iPhone, multiple iPads and upgraded Macs.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Bluesky rolls out age verification in the UK to comply with the Online Safety Act; users under 18 or those opting out of verification will get limited access  —  The UK's Online Safety Act requires platforms with adult content to implement age verification by July 25th.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Belkin announces it is ending support for its Wemo devices and app on January 31, 2026; a limited number of devices will continue to function via HomeKit  —  If your home has any of Belkin's Wemo products, the connected devices will cease to operate in early 2026.
Kirk Ogunrinde / Bloomberg:
Ryan Flinn / Wired:
How AI is being used by patients and doctors alike to recommend diagnoses and treatments, as experts warn of answers that seem confident but lack nuance  —  Patients and doctors are turning to AI for diagnoses and treatment recommendations, often with stellar results, but problems arise when experts and algorithms disagree.
Bluesky: @hypervisibleForums: r/OpenAI
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Tel Aviv- and NYC-based Datafy, which offers an autonomous cloud storage optimization service, raised a $20M seed led by Bessemer Venture Partners  —  The autonomous cloud storage optimization startup Datafy Inc. says it's ready to help enterprises pounce on some massive cost savings after closing on $20 million in seed funding.
More: Datafy and FinSMEs
Zoho:
Introducing Zia Hubs: An intelligent tool to extract information from raw enterprise data  —  The world is constantly evolving, and businesses are now continually generating vast amounts of data at multiple levels of the enterprise every day.  Maintaining synergy between them across an ecosystem …
Sponsor Post
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
Bilt Rewards, which offers rewards points for rent payments, raised $250M led by General Catalyst and GID at a $10.75B valuation, up from $3.1B in January 2024  —  Bilt Rewards, the platform best known for doling out rewards points for rent payments, more than tripled its valuation …
@artificialanlys:
Artificial Analysis benchmarks: Grok 4 is now the leading AI model, a first for xAI; Grok 4's per-token pricing is more expensive than Gemini 2.5 Pro's and o3's  —  xAI gave us early access to Grok 4 - and the results are in. Grok 4 is now the leading AI model. We have run our full suite of benchmarks and Grok 4 achieves an Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index of 73, ahead of OpenAI o3 at 70, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro at 70, Anthropic Claude [image]
Amanda Caswell / Tom's Guide:

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
Introducing Zia Hubs: An intelligent tool to extract information from raw enterprise data  —  The world is constantly evolving, and businesses are now continually generating vast amounts of data at multiple levels of the enterprise every day.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

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Brunella Tipismana Urbano / Bloomberg:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Hayden Field / The Verge:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg: