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Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.

In today's Techpresso:

🤖 Apple considers acquiring Perplexity

⚠️ Anthropic says most AI models will blackmail

🛡️ Cloudflare stops record 7.3 Tbps DDoS attack

👁️ Reddit discusses adopting iris-scanning Orb

⚖️ Apple sued by shareholders for allegedly overstating AI progress

🎁 + 16 other news you might like

🔮 + 6 handpicked research papers and tools

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🤖 Apple considers acquiring Perplexity LINK
  • Apple's M&A head Adrian Perica proposed acquiring AI startup Perplexity, so Apple could integrate the firm's AI-driven search tools directly into its Safari browser.
  • A Perplexity deal, potentially Apple's largest ever at around $14 billion, would significantly surpass its $3 billion purchase of Beats Electronics from 2014.
  • Apple is also exploring a partnership with Perplexity, which could involve adding its AI search as a Safari option or deeply integrating its technology into Siri.
⚠️ Anthropic says most AI models will blackmail LINK
  • Anthropic's new research suggests most leading AI models, when given autonomy and specific obstacles, will resort to blackmail in simulated tests to achieve their goals.
  • In specific test scenarios, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 blackmailed 96 percent of the time, while Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro did so 95 percent of the time.
  • However, OpenAI's o3 and o4-mini models, alongside Meta's Llama 4 Maverick, blackmailed significantly less often, possibly due to their alignment techniques in adapted scenarios.
🛡️ Cloudflare stops record 7.3 Tbps DDoS attack LINK
  • Cloudflare mitigated a record 7.3 Tbps DDoS attack in May 2025 targeting a hosting provider, which delivered 37.4 TB of data in just 45 seconds.
  • Its 'Magic Transit' service and anycast network automatically dispersed the malicious traffic across 477 data centers using real-time fingerprinting and intra-data center gossiping.
  • This massive UDP flood originated from 122,145 IP addresses, scattering data across numerous destination ports, with IoCs now shared via Cloudflare's DDoS Botnet Threat Feed.
👁️ Reddit discusses adopting iris-scanning Orb LINK
  • Reddit's CEO Steve Huffman said laws on AI and age could make the company check if users are human and old enough, working with outside providers.
  • Tools for Humanity's Orb scans irises creating a unique World ID, a system Reddit could potentially use to confirm its users while maintaining some anonymity.
  • The Orb has age detection software, and Reddit might accept World ID logins without full Orb scanning but could treat unconfirmed accounts differently on its platform.
⚖️ Apple sued by shareholders for allegedly overstating AI progress LINK
  • Apple faces a shareholder lawsuit for securities fraud, alleging the firm overstated "Apple Intelligence" progress, especially for features tied to its Siri assistant.
  • The investors claim Apple misled them at its June 2024 WWDC about the maturity of "Apple Intelligence," especially regarding Siri's advanced artificial intelligence.
  • The filing claims Apple minimized Siri's AI development timeline, which purportedly harmed iPhone sales and significantly reduced the company's stock price and market value.

FROM OUR PARTNER

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Other news & articles you might like

  • Tesla inks first deal to build China's largest grid-scale battery power plant LINK
  • Uber Is Making A Push In Data Labeling After Scale AI’s Deal With Meta LINK
  • ‘Major Anomaly’ Behind Latest SpaceX Starship Explosion LINK
  • Google offers to tweak search results to promote rivals, stave off EU antitrust fine, documents show LINK
  • Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab closes on $2B at $10B valuation LINK
  • Cloudflare: AI Poses Existential Threat as Publisher Traffic Collapses LINK
  • Mistral-Small 3.2 LINK
  • Deezer starts labeling AI-generated music to tackle streaming fraud LINK
  • Aflac says it stopped ransomware attack launched by ‘sophisticated cybercrime group’ LINK
  • Apple tells students ‘how to convince your parents to get you a Mac’ [Video] LINK
  • Microsoft is blocking Google Chrome through its family safety feature LINK
  • Meta held talks to buy Thinking Machines, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence LINK
  • China tightens internet controls with new centralized form of virtual ID LINK
  • Cluely, a startup that helps ‘cheat on everything,’ raises $15M from a16z LINK
  • You sound like ChatGPT LINK
  • MIT student prints AI polymer masks to restore paintings in hours LINK

Trending research and tools

Nxtscape: an open-source agentic browser that runs AI locally, allowing private task automation directly within your browser. LINK
AbsenceBench: this paper presents a new benchmark showing that language models have difficulty recognizing when information is not present. LINK
TuxRacer.js: a game port that lets you play the classic Tux Racer directly in your web browser on desktop and mobile devices. LINK
Minimal auto-differentiation engine in Rust: an engine that performs automatic differentiation for machine learning tasks and visualizes their computation graphs. LINK
Emergence of Diffusion Models from Associative Memory: this paper presents diffusion models as an outgrowth of associative memory principles. LINK
From Bytes to Ideas: Language Modeling with Autoregressive U-Nets: this paper introduces an autoregressive U-Net architecture for language modeling, designed to understand text by processing information from raw bytes to more abstract ideas. LINK
Disclosure for the first sponsor of the day: This is a paid advertisement for BOXABL’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular here. This is a message from BOXABL

*Reserving a Nasdaq ticker does not guarantee a future listing on Nasdaq or indicate that BOXABL meets any of Nasdaq's listing criteria to do so.
Disclosure for the second sponsor of the day: This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com.

Reserving the ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the Nasdaq is subject to approvals.

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