Google releases Gemini 3.5 Live Translate, which it says can deliver "near real-time speech-to-speech translation in over 70 languages" (The Keyword)

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SF voters reject the Overpaid CEO Act, a union-backed ballot measure to raise taxes on any large business where the CEO earns 100x more than the median employee (Bloomberg)

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If Apple's Siri AI works as it was shown in the WWDC demos, Apple is set to take the lead in consumer AI, with iPhone becoming the first true AI device (M.G. Siegler/Spyglass)

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EU regulators order Meta to give rival AI chatbots free access to WhatsApp while they continue to probe if Meta abused its market power by blocking competitors (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)

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Meta plans to expand the use of off-platform data, such as e-commerce purchases, from serving ads to personalize content feeds and AI responses (Emma Roth/The Verge)

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Sources: India froze Starlink approvals to begin commercial operations due to concerns over the use of its terminals in Iran despite not being licensed there (Bloomberg)

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China starts operations of the world's first wind-powered underwater data center off Shanghai coast, and says it uses 20% less power than land-based facilities (Amy Hawkins/The Guardian)

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Vinyl Equity, an SEC-registered transfer agent that has launched a payments platform earlier this year, raised a $20M Series A led by Jump Capital (Ryan Lawler/Axios)

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Decentralized lending protocol Morpho raised $175M led by Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, and a16z Crypto in a token sale valuing Morpho at up to $2B (Ben Weiss/Fortune)

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Apple unveils new Apple Foundation Models: two on-device models, including a 20B-parameter multimodal model called AFM 3 Core Advanced, and three cloud models (Apple Machine Learning Research)

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French government warns that hackers used a hijacked user account to breach Tchap, its encrypted messaging app for civil servants with 300,000+ monthly users (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)

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New York-based Standard Bots, which wants to make AI-powered robotic arms in the US, raised $200M led by General Catalyst and Robostrategy at a $1B valuation (Bloomberg)

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The EU says Apple decided not to roll out Siri AI in the EU after it had unsuccessfully requested to be exempted from interoperability obligations for the tool (Inti Landauro/Reuters)

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Sources: Taiwan considers restricting AI chip sales to all Chinese customers, rather than only blacklisted entities like Huawei, to align with US measures (Bloomberg)

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Sources: Microsoft laid off 200 to 400 Azure unit employees in Beijing and Shanghai, at least its third round of downsizing in China in two years (South China Morning Post)

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The UK is conducting a full review of its NHS contract with Palantir, amid growing pressure to terminate the deal in 2027 over reliance on US tech companies (Sam Tabahriti/Reuters)

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Beacon Software, which acquires niche software businesses and transforms them with AI, raised a $225M Series C, bringing its total funding to $550M (Sarah Klearman/Wall Street Journal)

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France-based Alta Ares, which is building AI-powered air defense systems to counter drones and missiles, raised a €50M Series A led by Air Street Capital (Daphné Leprince-Ringuet/Sifted)

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In a UK online safety consultation, the US urges the UK against an under-16 social media ban, saying it would place a "disproportionate" burden on US Big Tech (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)

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Sources: China is drafting plans to spend $295B over the next five years on building AI data centers, sourcing 80%+ of tech from local suppliers like Huawei (Charlie Zhu/Bloomberg)

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A group of Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and CXMT, launches a ~$577M PE fund to boost China's "hard tech" sectors amid tightening US export curbs (Ann Cao/South China Morning Post)