The UK ICO is “making enquiries with Microsoft” over the company's Recall feature, which some privacy campaigners have called a potential “privacy nightmare”  —  The UK data watchdog says it is “making enquiries with Microsoft” over a new feature that can take screenshots of your laptop every few seconds.

Sources: Humane is seeking a buyer for its business, after the rocky launch of its Ai Pin; a source says the startup, founded in 2018, is seeking $750M to $1B  —  - Humane's AI pin was billed as an alternative to smartphones  — AI hardware product received poor reviews after its launch

Sources: Amazon plans to launch a more conversational Alexa later in 2024, adding generative AI features, and will charge a subscription fee to offset the cost  —  WATCH NOW  —  Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative artificial intelligence and plans …

Microsoft will soon let businesses build custom Copilot AI agents for automating tasks, and unveils Team Copilot to help with tasks in Teams, Loop, and Planner  —  Microsoft will soon allow businesses and developers to build AI-powered Copilots that can work like virtual employees and perform tasks automatically.

OpenAI's Scarlett Johansson debacle is merely a reminder of AI's manifest-destiny philosophy: “This is happening, whether you like it or not”, consent be damned  —  If you're looking to understand the philosophy that underpins Silicon Valley's latest gold rush, look no further than OpenAI's Scarlett Johansson debacle.

Google starts rolling out its Magic Editor and other AI tools to all Android and iOS users for free via Photos, offering 10 Magic Editor library saves per month  —  Last month, Google Photos announced that it would be making Magic Editor and other AI-powered tools free for all Android and iOS users.

Chinese automotive cybersecurity firm GoGoByte demonstrates a cheap and simple relay attack to unlock a Tesla Model 3 despite its ultra-wideband keyless system  —  Ultra-wideband radio has been heralded as the solution for “relay attacks” that are used to steal cars in seconds.

China releases an AI model trained on “Xi Jinping Thought” and other official literature, a source says currently for research, before a possible wider launch  —  Internet regulator uses Chinese leader's political philosophy to help answer questions posed to latest large language model

Gordon Bell, who helped design several influential minicomputers at Digital Equipment Corporation, including the 12-bit PDP-8, died on May 17 at age 89  —  It cost $18,000 when it was introduced in 1965, but it bridged the world between room-size mainframes and the modern desktop.

Spotify begins rolling out Spotify Mix, a new bespoke font, replacing the Circular typeface variant used in everything from playlists to marketing campaigns  —  Spotify's latest update is visibly changing the audio streaming service to improve the experience for your eyeballs, rather than your ears.

A review of privacy-focused /e/OS, a fully “deGoogled” OS based on the Android Open Source Project, that combines Micro G, to handle Google APIs, and LineageOS  —  Even if you aren't technically inclined, this privacy-first mobile operating system helps you escape surveillance capitalism.

Link-in-bio startup Linktree passes 50M users, up from 41M in December 2023 and 47M+ in March 2024, and launches a beta of its social commerce product  —  Link-in-bio startup Linktree said on Wednesday that it has surpassed 50 million users.  —  The figure represents a significant uptick …

AWS plans to invest €15.7B in data centers in Spain's Aragon region, replacing a 2021 plan to spend €2.5B; the Aragon government says the deal is over 10 years  —  Tech giant Amazon's (AMZN.O) cloud computing unit AWS will invest 15.7 billion euros ($17.02 billion) …

An investigation into online ticketing service Eventbrite found 7.4K+ illicit listings, including illegal drug sales, some of which its algorithm recommended  —  A WIRED investigation found thousands of Eventbrite posts selling escort services and drugs like Xanax and oxycodone …

Chinese smartphone maker Honor plans to include Google's Gemini and Imagen 2, powered by Google Cloud, in upcoming devices, one of the first companies to do so  —  Chinese smartphone maker Honor on Wednesday became one of the first device makers to say it will bring Google's artificial intelligence features to its upcoming devices.

Anthropic researchers detail attempts to peer inside the “black box” of LLMs, learning which combinations of neurons evoke specific concepts  —  What goes on in artificial neural networks work is largely a mystery, even to their creators.  But researchers from Anthropic have caught a glimpse.

Cologne-based AI translation startup DeepL, which develops its own models, raised $300M led by Index Ventures at a $2B valuation and reports 100K+ customers  —  The round, led by Index Ventures, reflects businesses' increasing interest in function-specific AI models

How Pinecone and other startups use vector databases and retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, to help businesses link their private data with LLMs  —  Vector databases were an obscure technology until Pinecone and other startups turned it into a billion-dollar market amid the AI boom

Sources: Snowflake's talks to acquire Reka AI, which builds LLMs for businesses, for more than $1B have broken down  —  Snowflake Inc.'s talks to acquire startup Reka AI for more than $1 billion have broken down, dashing an effort by the software company to bring more generative AI muscle in-house.