Tech Brew Ride Home

Sam Altman's home has been targeted twice in three days, first a Molotov cocktail, then a shooting from a passing car. Apple is testing four designs for AI smart glasses. OpenAI is touting its Amazon partnership while publicly distancing from Microsoft. GPU prices are surging as an agentic AI compute crunch threatens the whole industry. And Mark Zuckerberg is still keen on photorealistic Metaverse avatars.


Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested (SF Standard)


Apple AI Smart Glasses Features, Styles, Colors, Cameras; Giannandrea Leaving (Bloomberg)


OpenAI touts Amazon alliance in memo, says Microsoft has 'limited our ability' to reach clients (CNBC)


AI Is Using So Much Energy That Computing Firepower Is Running Out (WSJ)


Meta builds AI version of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with staff (FT)

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The US government is taking the Anthropic warning seriously. Google is showing prediction markets alongside various search results. Europeans ARE beginning to decouple from US tech. Kicking the tires on SpaceX’s actual business. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.


Anthropic Model Scare Sparks Urgent Bessent, Powell Warning to Bank CEOs (Bloomberg)


Google rolls out Gmail end-to-end encryption on mobile devices (Bleeping Computer)


Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets (Futurism)


France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech (TechCrunch)


YouTube Premium is getting pricier (The Verge)


OpenAI Backs Bill That Would Limit Liability for AI-Enabled Mass Deaths or Financial Disasters (Wired)


SpaceX Posted Nearly $5 Billion Loss Last Year from AI Spending (The Information)

Weekend Longreads Suggestion:


An Internet of Checkpoints (Longreads)

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Meta releases its first model in the great AI horserace catchup race. OpenAI is expecting to make as much money from ads as the biggest social media companies. Meta doesn’t want you to see ads encouraging you to join lawsuits against them. And Amazon’s big Starlink competitor is coming as soon as this summer.


Meta releases first AI model since Zuckerberg’s spending spree (FT)


AI Horserace Thread (@emollick)


Anthropic Completes Tender Offer, But Employees Hold Onto Shares (Bloomberg)


OpenAI Forecasts Advertising to Hit $102 billion by 2030 (The Information)


Scoop: Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation (Axios)


Amazon’s Starlink competitor Leo gets a new date (The Verge)


Deere settles US right-to-repair lawsuit with $99 million fund, repair commitments (Reuters)


Gen Z Is Using A.I., but Doesn’t Feel Great About It (NYTimes)

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I’ve got another potential tipping point day for you. Anthropic is making yet more shockwaves across the industry by NOT releasing a model. Why? Because it could potentially break everything software related. Does that matter if the Chinese AI companies will just release everything open source? And Elon says he personally doesn’t want a dime from Sam Altman.


Anthropic says its most powerful AI cyber model is too dangerous to release publicly — so it built Project Glasswing (VentureBeat)


AI joins the 8-hour work day as GLM ships 5.1 open source LLM, beating Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.4 on SWE-Bench Pro (VentureBeat)


Elon Musk Asks for OpenAI’s Nonprofit to Get Any Damages From His Lawsuit (WSJ)

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Anthropic’s new deal with Google and Broadcom (and some newly released numbers) might be the tipping point in a couple of AI Horse Races. The gold rush/landgrab in the world model space. The dubious goldrush for SEO in the AI era. And an urgent wakeup call in the quantum computing will break cryptography space.


Anthropic Tops $30 Billion Run Rate, Seals Deal With Broadcom (Bloomberg)


Jeff Bezos’s new lab hires xAI co-founder from OpenAI (FT)


How Accurate Are Google’s A.I. Overviews? (NYTimes)


Can AI responses be influenced? The SEO industry is trying (The Verge)


A Cryptography Engineer’s Perspective on Quantum Computing Timelines (Filippo Valsorda)

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