Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
🤖 Microsoft unveils Mico, a ‘Clippy’ for the AI era
🤝 Google to supply AI chips to Anthropic in multibillion-dollar deal
👟 Nike unveils robot-assisted shoes
📜 Trump pardons founder of crypto exchange Binance
💻 OpenAI buys AI startup for Mac computers
⚛️ IBM runs key quantum algorithm on conventional AMD chips
🎁 + 14 other news you might like
🔮 + 6 handpicked research papers and tools
🤖 Microsoft unveils Mico, a ‘Clippy’ for the AI era LINK
Microsoft introduced Mico as the face of its Copilot AI, a customizable avatar blob that visually reacts to conversations by changing colors when you use voice mode.
The company embraces the comparison to its past by including an Easter egg where tapping the new avatar multiple times transforms the floating blob into the classic assistant Clippy.
A separate mode called “Real Talk” will let the chatbot mirror a user's conversational style while also challenging ideas from its own grounded perspective, unlike other agreeable assistants.
🤝 Google to supply AI chips to Anthropic in multibillion-dollar deal LINK
Anthropic plans to spend tens of billions of dollars securing up to one million of Google's TPUs by 2026, adding more than one gigawatt of new computing capacity.
Even with the new Google capacity, the company confirmed that Amazon remains its "primary training partner and cloud provider," where it accesses a large cluster of AI chips.
The deal follows a familiar industry pattern where tech giants invest capital in startups, which then purchase the cloud and hardware services from those same large investors.
👟 Nike unveils robot-assisted shoes LINK
Nike unveiled Project Amplify, a robotic system for footwear that includes a motor, a drive belt, and a rechargeable cuff battery connecting to a carbon fiber-plated running shoe.
The system is engineered to mimic natural lower-leg and ankle movements, working as a “second set of calf muscles” to help regular users move more often with less effort.
Instead of targeting pro athletes, the shoes are designed to help walkers and joggers achieve a running speed of nearly 10 to 12 minutes per mile, much like an e-bike.
📜 Trump pardons founder of crypto exchange Binance LINK
President Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws and already completed a four-month prison sentence for the crime last year.
The White House framed the pardon as ending the "Biden Administration's war on crypto," arguing the prior prosecution of Zhao had damaged America's reputation as a leader in technology.
The decision comes as Trump embraces the crypto industry, where his family's venture, World Liberty Financial, recently handled a $2 billion investment from MGX into the Binance exchange.
💻 OpenAI buys AI startup for Mac computers LINK
OpenAI has acquired Software Applications, the creators of an unreleased AI interface for Mac computers called Sky, which is designed to see a user's screen and take action.
The team behind Sky previously created the app Workflow, which was sold to Apple and became the technology now known as Shortcuts, with the founders working there for several years.
While deal terms were not revealed, the startup had raised $6.5 million from investors, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who held a passive interest through an investment fund.
⚛️ IBM runs key quantum algorithm on conventional AMD chips LINK
IBM successfully ran its key quantum error correction algorithm, designed to manage errors from unstable qubits, in real time on a conventional field programmable gate array from AMD.The company’s work shows the system for addressing qubit mistakes can operate on a readily available AMD chip, proving it does not require "ridiculously expensive" custom hardware.This implementation proved ten times faster than necessary for the quantum computer and was finished a full year ahead of schedule for the upcoming Starling project in 2029.
Other news you might like
- Two days after OpenAI’s Atlas, Microsoft launches a nearly identical AI browserLINK
- Apple loses major class action lawsuit in the U.K. over its 30% App Store commissionsLINK
- How the AWS outage happened: Amazon blames rare software bug and ‘faulty automation’ for massive glitchLINK
- With an Intel recovery underway, all eyes turn to its foundry businessLINK
- Anthropic’s Claude chatbot is getting a ‘memory’ upgradeLINK
- OpenAI made ChatGPT better at sifting through your work or school informationLINK
- Microsoft reportedly ordered its Xbox division to boost profits to an unrealistic levelLINK
- Instagram and Facebook are breaking the EU’s illegal content rulesLINK
- Microsoft AI chief says company won’t build chatbots for eroticaLINK
- Apple decries ‘intense lobbying,’ threatens to turn off App Tracking Transparency in EuropeLINK
- Apple Starts Shipping Made-in-America AI Servers EarlyLINK
- Armed police handcuff teen after AI mistakes crisp packet for gunLINK
- Tesla VP explains why end-to-end AI is the future of self-drivingLINK
- Why Dropbox’s Drew Houston still does his own codingLINK
Latest research and tools
FocusTube: a Chrome extension that removes the YouTube Shorts block from the homepage and reduces video thumbnail sizes to help users focus.LINK
OpenMaxIO: a community fork of the MinIO user interface that provides a free and fully open-source way to manage your object storage.LINK
React Flow: an open-source library for building interactive node-based user interfaces and diagrams with React.LINK
Twake Drive: an open-source alternative to Google Drive for storing, sharing, and collaborating on files and documents online.LINK
Tiny8: an 8-bit CPU simulator built in Python that allows users to explore core computer concepts through assembly and visualization tools.LINK
Fast-DLLM: Training-Free Acceleration of Diffusion LLM: this paper presents a method to speed up diffusion-based large language models without needing to retrain them.LINK
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