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AI voice input platform Willow Voice raised $4.2M in angel funding from Y Combinator. Its tool converts speech to text in real-time for macOS, with features like terminology recognition and privacy protection. Funds will boost R&D and cross-platform expansion.....

The neighborhood social application Nextdoor has launched a major update with three new features: local news aggregation (collaborating with 3,500 local media outlets), real-time safety alerts (weather, traffic, and disaster warnings), and AI-powered Faves recommendations (personalized local service suggestions generated based on 15 years of neighborhood data). The platform aims to address previous issues with incorrect information by improving content quality and timeliness to revitalize user engagement. CEO Tolia emphasized that its core advantage lies in digital neighborhood reputation, which is a unique value that other platforms cannot replicate.

AI startup Thinking Machines Lab has completed a $2 billion seed round funding, valuing the company at $12 billion, setting a new record for seed funding in Silicon Valley. Founded by Miral Kotb, former CTO of OpenAI, the company has attracted well-known investors such as NVIDIA within less than a year. The company is about to launch its first product, which includes important open-source projects aimed at supporting AI researchers and startups. Despite Meta's failed attempt to acquire the company, it is still seen as a potential challenger to industry giants. This funding reflects...

Kimi K2 excels in creative writing, outperforming o3-Pro in short story creation. This open-source model by Moonshot (Ali-backed) shows strengths in literary compression and metaphor innovation, with some works near publishable quality. Its low cost ($0.15/M tokens) and precise instruction-following attract developers, though emotional depth and multilingual performance need improvement. This breakthrough sets new AI writing standards.....

Apple's MLX framework adds CUDA support, enabling seamless AI app migration from Mac to NVIDIA platforms. This breakthrough resolves Metal framework limitations, achieved by @zcbenz through months of integration. Feature ensures code compatibility, lowering development barriers by allowing Apple Silicon prototyping with optional NVIDIA deployment.....

Mistral releases open-source audio model Voxtral, offering cost-effective AI solutions with multilingual support. Three versions available, starting at $0.001/min. Outperforms Whisper at lower cost.....

Perplexity AI partners with SheerID to offer 264M students globally 2 years of free Pro membership ($20/month value). SheerID verifies student status via 200K data sources in 190 countries within 3 minutes, preventing fraud. 86% US students use AI tools, driving demand for academic integrity-focused services. Perplexity emphasizes accuracy and data privacy, gaining academic favor. SheerID delivers 337% ROI for clients.....

Google's AI summaries in search raise publisher traffic concerns. The feature, now live in the U.S., generates news snippets with citations, mainly for trending topics. While Google claims it helps users filter content, publishers report organic traffic drops as non-click searches rose from 56% to 69% since May. Despite new monetization efforts like Offerwall, traffic decline persists. Media reactions remain mixed as outlets like WSJ explore AI a....

Meta fixed a critical AI chatbot flaw allowing unauthorized access to private chats via predictable IDs. Researcher Sandeep Hodkasia discovered it, earning a $10k bounty. Meta confirmed patching the vulnerability with no evidence of exploitation. This highlights ongoing AI security challenges.....

Italian scientists developed GO-ISMD, an artificial taste system with 90% accuracy in identifying basic tastes. Using graphene oxide, it detects flavors via conductivity changes, achieving 92.3% accuracy in distinguishing cola/coffee. Published in PNAS, it could help restore taste for impaired patients.....

Musk's AI model Grok4 excels in programming, creative tasks, and outperforms OpenAI o3 in 8 areas. It adapts explanations for all ages and shows potential to revolutionize work and life.....

Moonshot AI's Kimi K2, a 1 trillion-parameter open-source model, surpasses Grok in market share. It excels in 128K context reasoning, outperforms Claude/GPT-4 in benchmarks, and offers free API. Now open on Hugging Face.....

Claude AI introduces a major update with 'Apps & Tools Directory', enabling seamless AI-tool integration via MCP protocol. It supports both web and desktop MCP services for popular tools like Asana and GitHub, transforming Claude into a workflow platform.....

Unsloth AI quantized Moonshot AI's 1T-parameter Kimi K2 model to 1.8bit, reducing size by 80% to 245GB while maintaining performance. The MoE-based model excels in coding and reasoning, now deployable on 512GB M3Ultra devices, lowering costs. This advancement positions Kimi K2 as a GPT-4.1 competitor, benefiting SMEs and boosting open-source AI adoption in education/healthcare.....

Meta accelerates AI infrastructure, targeting a 1GW 'Prometheus' supercomputer with 1.3M NVIDIA H100 GPUs (2 exaflops) by 2026, plus 5GW 'Hyperion' cluster. Plans $60-65B investment by 2025 for AI/data centers, competing with OpenAI/xAI. Commits to open-source and privacy despite environmental concerns.....

UTCP, as an alternative to MCP, directly connects tool endpoints via JSON-defined functions, eliminating proxy layers for lower latency while maintaining security. Its simplicity and compatibility spark developer interest as a potential AI tool standard.....

Global developers have introduced a universal tool calling protocol (UTCP), allowing AI agents to directly call various tools without relying on proxy servers. Compared to traditional MCP protocols, UTCP supports native interfaces such as HTTP and gRPC, significantly reducing calling latency and complexity. The protocol retains existing enterprise security measures while providing SDKs in TypeScript and Python. Developers can participate in improving the protocol through open-source projects. UTCP has the potential to open up new pathways for AI tool integration.

A dramatic acquisition has recently taken place in the AI coding field: Cognition acquired Windsurf company. Previously, this company had experienced a $2.4 billion reverse talent acquisition by Google and an unsuccessful $3 billion acquisition offer from OpenAI. Windsurf generates $82 million in annual revenue, has 350 enterprise clients, and tens of thousands of daily active users. After the acquisition, Cognition will integrate Windsurf's AI development environment with its own Devin coding assistant and regain access to the Claude AI model. This deal marks another significant move in the competition.

Amazon Prime Day hit a record $24.1B US sales (+30.3%), equal to 2 Black Fridays. AI shopping surged 3300%, appliances/office supplies grew strongly. Extended to 4 days, Day 3 sales jumped 165%. Influencers drove 20% sales with 10x higher conversion rates.....

Musk's AI chatbot Grok introduces a new virtual companion feature, including two character options: Ani, an anime character, and Rudy, a cartoon panda. Ani supports NSFW mode. This feature is currently released in a soft launch, requiring users to enable it manually, with plans to simplify the process in the future. Additionally, it was revealed that a new character named Chad is under development, and the NSFW content toggle for voice chat mode is already supported. This innovative feature highlights the potential of AI in personalized interaction and is expected to enhance Grok's market competitiveness.