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June 17, 2026, 1:15 PM
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memeorandum
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| New York Times: |
A look at chaos inside Anthropic after disabling Fable 5 and Mythos 5 with less than 90 minutes of notice, as some staff wonder if Trump is bullying the startup — Workers at the artificial intelligence company have been puzzled and increasingly concerned by the administration's move to limit their latest A.I. models.| Wall Street Journal: |
A profile of Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini, who warned about Mythos in March and is now part of an Anthropic team briefing the White House on safeguards — Nicholas Carlini recently rang the alarm about the dangers of AI—and now he's part of a team arguing for the latest models to be released| Eleanor Mueller / Semafor: |
Sources: Trump officials discussed how to structure government equity stakes in AI companies, with Commerce Secretary Lutnick preferring a sovereign wealth fund — Senior Trump administration officials had weighed how to structure potential government equity stakes in major AI companies … | Anhata Rooprai / Reuters: |
Shoe company Allbirds changes its name to Smartbird as it pivots to an AI infrastructure company and names ex-AWS exec Nadia Carlsten as CEO; BIRD jumps 20%+ — Allbirds (BIRD.O) changed its name to Smartbird on Wednesday and appointed former Amazon Web Services (AMZN.O) … | Karen Freifeld / Reuters: |
Sources: the US has held off adding DeepSeek, CXMT, and 100+ other flagged companies to its Entity List, last updated in October, the longest gap in 10+ years — The U.S. has held off adding China's AI startup DeepSeek, memory chipmaker CXMT and more than 100 other companies flagged …
More: Tom's Hardware, Taipei Times, The Next Web, Mashable, Blockonomi, Proactive, Benzinga, Tech in Asia, and DigiTimes
| Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: |
Uber says it will expand its premium robotaxi service from San Francisco to Houston by mid-2027, in partnership with EV maker Lucid and AV startup Nuro — Uber plans to launch a premium robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027, making it the second U.S. market under its partnership …
More: Gizmodo, Barron's Online, Axios, The Next Web, Yahoo Finance, Blockonomi, Bloomberg, EV, Electrek, and Zag Daily
| Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge: |
Google's $99 Google Home Speaker, which is built for Gemini for Home and works as a Matter controller, will ship on June 29, nine months after it was announced — The Google Home Speaker is designed for Gemini for Home and its more conversational smart home assistant.
More: Ars Technica, Thurrott, Mercury News, How-To Geek, PCMag, HotHardware, XDA Developers, The Sun, Android Police, Gizmodo, CNET, IntoMobile, The Keyword, The Next Web, Forbes, Droid Life, The Shortcut, Android Authority, Wired, Digital Trends, Mashable, CGMagazine, Expert Reviews, Notebookcheck, and The Ambient. X: @anishkattukaran
| Nikkei Asia: |
Sources: Samsung is seeing a rise in advanced chip production requests from BYD, Google, AMD, Tesla, and other companies as AI demand strains TSMC's capacity — TAIPEI/HONG KONG/SEOUL — BYD, Google, AMD, Tesla and others are looking increasingly to Samsung Electronics for contract chipmaking services …
More: Blockonomi, SamMobile, and DigiTimes
| Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: |
Q&A with Luciana Lixandru, who co-leads Sequoia's global early-stage investment business, on why it is time for “act two” for Europe's tech sector, AI, and more — The global co-lead of the US venture capital firm's early-stage investment business talks about why it is time for ‘act two’ for Europe's tech sector| Financial Times: |
World models startup Odyssey raised $310M from Amazon and others at a $1.45B valuation and will use AWS as its preferred cloud partner, deploying Trainium chips — Company joins investment arms of Nvidia and AMD in $310mn funding round for Odyssey ML — Amazon is partnering with a start …
More: Reuters, PYMNTS, Unite.AI, The Next Web, About Amazon, Pulse 2.0, and Tech Funding News
X: @scobleizer and @odysseyml
| Ott Tammik / Bloomberg: |
Estonia says it will assign personal ID numbers to AI agents to give them “limited, controllable, and auditable authorizations” as they take actions for humans — Estonia plans to assign personal identification numbers to AI assistants that would give the bots legal rights …
More: Gizmodo and The Next Web
| Tim Fernholz / TechCrunch: |
XDOF, which is building data pipelines, collection tools, and annotation systems for robot training data, emerges from stealth with $70M — Two weeks ago, OpenAI said it would relaunch the robotics program it shuttered in 2021 — the latest signal that the biggest AI labs are racing to teach machines to operate in the physical world.| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
WordPress survey: 60% of US consumers say “AI” in a brand's messaging is a turnoff, and 86% always or sometimes check the source after receiving an AI summary — Getting cited by AI is easier than earning consumers' trust, according to a new report from WordPress VIP …
More: WordPress VIP, PR Daily, and TechRadar
| Nikhil Pahwa / @nixxin: |
India's Telegram ban until June 22 over exam paper leak concerns is a terrible look for the country, sets a precedent, and could happen again if unchallenged — A few additional thoughts on the Telegram ban in India: 1. Is this a permanent ban? It's unusual for the Indian government to issue a press release about the telegram ban: the precedence that I remember is when Chinese apps were banned in India in June 2020 including tiktok. A
More: TechCrunch, The Economic Times, Reuters, Bar and Bench, The Next Web, Cryptonews, Livemint, Bloomberg, The Indian Express, The Record, Telecompaper, Reclaim The Net, Tech in Asia, The National, Engadget, Arabian Business, Financial Times, Moneycontrol, and Reuters
X: @internetfreedom, @durov, @durov, @durov, @nixxin, @nixxin, @nixxin, @thebiggeek, @business, @iam_anandv, @nithinkd, @rudra9439, @kswapnil_, @_zenman, @internetfreedom, @jehunix, @shankarprakasha, @internetfreedom, @digitaldutta, @sidhant_sarthak, @sbalaji1, @nixxin, @nixxin, @internetfreedom, @squeal, and @apurvajain24
| Ryan Merket / RuntimeWire: |
Joshua Baer, the founder and CEO of Texas accelerator Capital Factory, died on Tuesday night in a business jet crash in Laredo, Texas — Joshua Baer (@joshuabaer), the founder and CEO of Capital Factory, died Tuesday night in a business jet crash in Laredo, Texas, KXAN reported … | Michael Peel / Financial Times: |
Studies: Mira, an AI medical tool developed by researchers in Germany, and Google's Amie matched or surpassed doctors on diagnostic and treatment decisions — Two health models displayed clinical value across a range of diagnostic and treatment decisions, studies show
More: Nature, Nature, The Keyword, and The Atlantic
| Muvija M / Reuters: |
The UK CMA orders Google to provide greater transparency on how its search rankings work and to let users transfer their search data to authorized third parties — Britain's competition watchdog ordered Google to provide greater transparency on how its search rankings work … | Yohan Yunstaff / Cointelegraph: |
Trace Finance, which provides stablecoin settlement infrastructure for cross-border payments across Latin America, raised a $32M Series A led by CoinFund — Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy …
More: FinSMEs, The Block, Trace Finance, IMF, crypto.news, and PYMNTS
| Ingrid Lunden / Resilience Media: |
Paris-based Comand AI, which is developing AI-based command-and-control software for military operations, raised a €32M Series A led by Blossom Capital — French startup emerges at a time when tech sovereignty has become a major talking point in defence
More: Comand AI, Start, Reuters, Tectonic Defense, and Sifted
| Financial Times: |
Sources describe Huawei's efforts to rebuild its chip business seven years after the US cut Huawei off from advanced US chips, as it bets on logic-stacking tech — Seven years after being written off the Chinese tech giant is making technical advances that appear to sidestep Washington curbs.
More: MacDailyNews
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Databricks says its annualized revenue rose 80%+ YoY to $6.9B, up from $5.4B in Q4; CEO Ali Ghodsi says AI agent usage is increasing costs and lowering margins — Databricks has a unique role in the AI boom. Revenue continues to soar as businesses swarm to the company's data analytics tools.
More: CRN, SiliconANGLE, and Bloomberg
| Ben Bergman / Business Insider: |
Convey, which is building AI “teammates” to automate manual work at clients like NBCUniversal, raised a $38M Series A led by a16z — Convey, a startup founded last year that builds AI “teammates,” has raised $38 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Khosla Ventures and Pear VC.
More: FinSMEs, The Next Web, and a16z
| Chris Metinko / Axios: |
Conduct, which uses AI to let companies maintain, change, and modernize their legacy IT systems, raised a $60M Series A, bringing its total funding to $72M — Enterprise IT startup Conduct raised a $60 million Series A co-led by Index Ventures and ICONIQ, CEO Jan Philipp Haas tells Axios Pro exclusively.
More: FinSMEs, Tech.eu, Tech Funding News, Pulse 2.0, Startup.eu, and UKTN
| Russell Brandom / TechCrunch: |
Pramaana Labs, which uses the LEAN programming language to build a deterministic verification layer on top of LLMs, raised a $27M seed led by Khosla Ventures — As enterprises struggle to turn AI pilot programs into functional parts of their business, reliability has taken center stage.
More: The Economic Times, Entrackr, and Inc42
| Politico: |
The UK says reports that Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought a carve-out to US export controls imposed on Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 are “categorically untrue” — EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not sought a carve-out to U.S. export controls imposed …
More: Business Insider and GB News
| Ina Fried / Axios: |
Nauk Nauk, which runs an AI video app that turns photos of toys into short animated videos, raised $20M and is coming out of beta; it claims to have 1M+ users — Nauk Nauk has raised $20 million to expand its AI video app that turns photos of toys into short animated videos, co-founder Daniel Liu tells Axios.
More: FinSMEs, The Guardian, Pulse 2.0, SammyGuru, Digital Trends, and The Indian Express
| Ryan Lawler / Axios: |
Andera, which uses AI to automate corporate audit and compliance testing, raised a $37M Series A led by Lightspeed — Andera, which uses AI to automate corporate audit and compliance testing, raised $37 million in Series A funding, CEO Aryo Patel tells Axios exclusively.| Colin Demarest / Axios: |
Twenty, which uses AI to help US military hackers penetrate adversary computer networks, raised a $100M Series B led by Accel at a $1B valuation — Twenty, a cyber warfare startup, raised $100 million and is now valued at $1 billion. … - Even rarer is Twenty's unabashed pursuit and advertisement of offensive cyber tools.
More: FinSMEs, Reuters, and The Next Web
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