Author: GT

Last week, Ukrainian drone hunters picking up the debris from Russia’s nightly assault on their cities found a weapon that stood out from the rest.It had an advanced camera, a computing platform powered by artificial intelligence and a radio link, allowing an operator to pilot it remotely from Russia. It also contained new, Iranian-made, anti-jamming technology, according to a Ukrainian drone expert.Most Russian attack drones are black, said Serhii Beskrestnov, an electronics expert more widely known as Flash. The new one, he told The Associated Press, was white.Inside, there were no markings or labels consistent with Russian-made drones. Instead, the…

The VCs, pod bros, and self-proclaimed “besties” of the All-In Podcast launched their own tequila brand Saturday night and it promptly sold out, according to liquor e-commerce sites. Their version of the Mexican spirit cost a jaw-dropping $1,200 per bottle, but only 750 bottles were made. The stacked poker-chip container was inspired by the “besties’” love of the card game. The All-In Podcast is one of the most popular shows by venture investors who have turned to politics. The besties consist of Launch founder Jason Calacanis; Craft Ventures founder David Sacks, who is the AI czar in the Trump administration;…

Abridge, an AI startup automating medical notes, has secured a $300 million Series E at a $5.3 billion valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal. The round, led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Khosla Ventures, follows the company’s $250 million February fundraise at a $2.75 billion valuation. The 7-year-old Abridge is widely considered to be the leader in the increasingly crowded AI-powered medical scribe market, largely due to its early entry and integration with Epic Systems, the dominant health record software. In Q1, Abridge reached $117 million in contracted annual recurring revenue (a metric that includes all signed recurring…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers backing Tehran have targeted U.S. banks, defense contractors and oil industry companies following American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — but so far have not caused widespread disruptions to critical infrastructure or the economy.But that could change if the ceasefire between Iran and Israel collapses or if independent hacking groups supporting Iran make good on promises to wage their own digital conflict against the U.S., analysts and cyber experts say.The U.S. strikes could even prompt Iran, Russia, China and North Korea to double down on investments in cyberwarfare, according to Arnie Bellini, a tech entrepreneur and…

Modern fighter jets contain hundreds or even thousands of sensors. Some of those sensors collect data every second, others every nanosecond. For the engineering teams building and testing those jets, all those data points are hugely valuable — if they can make sense of them.Nominal is an advanced software platform made for engineers building complex systems ranging from fighter jets to nuclear reactors, satellites, rockets, and robots. Nominal’s flagship product, Nominal Core, helps teams organize, visualize, and securely share data from tests and operations. The company’s other product, Nominal Connect, helps engineers build custom applications for automating and syncing their…

After a wave of mass bans affecting Instagram and Facebook users alike, Meta users are now complaining that Facebook Groups are also being impacted by mass suspensions. According to individual complaints and organized efforts on sites like Reddit to share information, the bans have affected thousands of groups both in the U.S. and abroad and have spanned various categories. When reached for comment, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed the company was aware of the issue and was working to correct it. “We’re aware of a technical error that impacted some Facebook Groups. We’re fixing things now,” he told TechCrunch in…

Measuring AI progress has usually meant testing scientific knowledge or logical reasoning — but while the major benchmarks still focus on left-brain logic skills, there’s been a quiet push within AI companies to make models more emotionally intelligent. As foundation models compete on soft measures like user preference and “feeling the AGI,” having a good command of human emotions may be more important than hard analytic skills. One sign of that focus came on Friday, when prominent open source group LAION released a suite of open source tools focused entirely on emotional intelligence. Called EmoNet, the release focuses on interpreting…

US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters about the Israel-Iran conflict, aboard Air Force One on June 24, 2025, while traveling to attend the NATO’s Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague in the Netherlands. Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images The ceasefire between Israel and Iran appears to be holding. In yesterday’s newsletter, we talked about how a blitzkrieg of missile-led diplomacy seemed to help de-escalate tensions.The flipside of that strange path to a truce is that missiles, well, are fundamentally weapons. Mere hours after both countries agreed to the ceasefire, Israel said its longtime rival…

GoKwik, an Indian startup that offers a suite of integrated e-commerce products, has raised a small round of $13 million, which it calls a “growth” round, that has boosted its valuation to $450 million pre-money. While the new funding round, led by RTP Global, is 63% smaller than its Series B of $35 million, announced in May 2022, it has valued the New Delhi-based startup 43% more than its last pre-money valuation of $315 million. The fresh funding also included participation from the startup’s existing investors, namely Z47, Peak XV Partners, and Think Investments, bringing its total fundraising to $68…

The conversational AI market has exploded since ChatGPT was released in November 2022 and is predicted to grow into a nearly $50 billion global industry by 2031, according to MarketsAndMarkets. Synthflow AI is just one of many companies building in this space that hopes to stand out from the pack because of its focus on being enterprise-grade and easy to set up. Berlin-based Synthflow is a no-code platform that lets enterprises build and deploy customized white-labeled voice AI customer service agents. The company, which launched in 2023, has amassed more than 1,000 customers and has handled more than 45 million…