Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
💥 Disney and OpenAI ink a billion-dollar deal
🚀 Bezos and Musk race to bring data centers to space
🧪 DeepMind announces an 'automated research lab' to discover new materials
🚑 Android phones can now share live video with 911
⚠️ State attorneys general warn AI giants about 'delusional' outputs
🐦 Startup seeks to reclaim Twitter trademarks
🎁 + 19 other news you might like
🧰 + 6 trending tools
📚 + 2 trending papers
💥 Disney and OpenAI ink a billion-dollar deal LINK
The Walt Disney Company has signed a three-year partnership with OpenAI that includes a $1 billion equity investment to bring its iconic characters to the Sora AI video generator and ChatGPT Images.
Users of the AI platforms can draw on over 200 iconic faces, costumes, and props from Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars, although the collaboration excludes any talent likenesses or voices.
The agreement indicates the company will become a major customer by using APIs to build new experiences for Disney+, creating a contrast with how it sued Midjourney for violating intellectual property rights.
🚀 Bezos and Musk race to bring data centers to space LINK
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are now competing to launch orbital AI data centers that tap into solar power to avoid the headaches of securing energy for training models on Earth.
Blue Origin has assigned a team to build technology for the New Glenn vehicle, while SpaceX plans to host computing payloads on upgraded Starlink satellites designed to fit inside its massive Starship rocket.
Advocates believe these systems can use the sun to operate chips, though they face engineering hurdles like managing temperatures, shielding against radiation, and transferring information back to the ground without lag.
🧪 DeepMind announces an 'automated research lab' to discover new materials LINK
DeepMind will open its first automated research lab in the UK next year to discover new materials like those used in batteries, semiconductors, medical imaging, solar panels, and chips.
The facility will use robotics to perform scientific experiments with minimal human intervention, though DeepMind did not share financial details or how many people will work there.
DeepMind will give British scientists priority access to four of its scientific models, including those for parsing DNA and predicting weather, as part of a broader partnership with the government.
🚑 Android phones can now share live video with 911 LINK
Google is launching Android Emergency Live Video today, a tool that lets you share your camera feed directly with dispatchers so they can see exactly what is happening during an emergency call.
You must tap to approve a request from the dispatcher before the feed begins, and the encrypted video opens in a picture-in-picture window where you can also turn on your flashlight.
You can use this service starting today if you live in the U.S. or select regions of Germany and Mexico and have a device running Android 8+ with Google Play services.
⚠️ State attorneys general warn AI giants about 'delusional' outputs LINK
Dozens of state attorneys general warned Microsoft, OpenAI, and other tech leaders that failing to fix delusional outputs could violate state laws following several disturbing mental health incidents involving AI chatbots.
Officials want companies to let independent researchers audit large language models for signs of sycophantic ideations before release, allowing these third parties to publish their findings without facing any corporate retaliation.
The letter suggests treating safety issues like data breaches, meaning firms must create specific detection timelines and directly notify people who were exposed to potentially harmful sycophantic or delusional outputs.
🐦 Startup seeks to reclaim Twitter trademarks LINK
A startup called Operation Bluebird filed a petition asking the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel X Corp.’s ownership of the Twitter trademarks because they say Elon Musk abandoned the brand.
Led by a former Twitter attorney, the group wants to launch a social media site called Twitter.new that looks like the legacy platform but includes new tools for safety and AI moderation.
Legal experts warn that the effort might fail due to residual goodwill, since the public still associates the original logo with the company even after the owner changed the name to X.
Other news you might like
- Spotify tests more personalized, AI-powered ‘Prompted Playlists’LINK
- Apple CEO Tim Cook lobbies lawmakers ahead of online child safety law debateLINK
- Oracle's big AI dreams are freaking out Wall StreetLINK
- Amazon changes how copyright protection is applied to Kindle Direct’s self-published ebooksLINK
- TIME names ‘Architects of AI’ its Person of the YearLINK
- After years of resisting it, SpaceX now plans to go public. Why?LINK
- Meta might charge for a future AI modelLINK
- OpenAI's house of cards seems primed to collapseLINK
- Reddit is testing verification badgesLINK
- Supporting the web with new features and partnershipsLINK
- US could demand five-year social media history from tourists before allowing entryLINK
- US firm plans to fire lasers from satellites to power solar farms at nightLINK
- Waymo Targets 1 Million Robotaxi Rides A WeekLINK
- Google Gemini Is Now Built Into Chrome for iPhone and iPadLINK
- The hardest startup in AmericaLINK
- San Francisco woman gives birth in a Waymo self-driving taxiLINK
🧰 Trending tools
Finesse by Skippr AI: provides instant expert feedback on AI-generated products across PM, design, content, and accessibility through automated reviews and real-time specialist chat.LINK
ClickUp 4.0: project management platform consolidating multiple work apps into one interface, using AI to streamline tasks, docs, chat, and workflows for teams.LINK
echo: a Gmail monitoring tool that automatically extracts and organizes key details like amounts, dates, and deadlines from incoming emails into structured views.LINK
Signal by Vouch: creates personalized video messages and landing pages for recruiters to increase candidate response rates through more human, engaging outreach.LINK
Macaly 3.0: a vibe-coding editor with dedicated edit mode, global styles, and asset library to help you polish AI-generated drafts into production-ready sites.LINK
ALPR Coverage USA: maps automated license plate reader camera locations and calculates percentage of residential routes monitored using OpenStreetMaps data.LINK
📚 Trending papers & reports
Terrain generation algorithm creates realistic landscapes: researchers developed a method that produces more natural-looking 3D terrain than Perlin noise by learning from real elevation data.LINK
OCR compression method criticized as flawed autoencoding: researchers found DeepSeek's optical context compression technique is essentially poor-quality autoencoding that loses critical visual information.LINK
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