Pinterest has added multiple “where-to-buy” options it says make it easier for consumers to shop with Pins. This new menu of links allows brand advertisers to drive potential customers to a selection of purchase sites instead of a single source, surfacing multiple in-stock retailer options for a product directly from an ad. Pinterest claims the new presentation format offers richer purchase data and new CPG opportunities. Advertisers will no longer face the “tough choice” of directing shoppers to a retail site for a familiar purchase experience but losing valuable insights or linking to their own site and sacrificing lower-funnel performance. Continue reading Pinterest Says Where-to-Buy Links Add Richer Purchase Data

Four years after its announcement, Spotify Lossless is arriving for Premium subscribers, offering HD-quality sound for just about every song in the catalog. The reveal was issued by Spotify VP of Subscriptions Gustav Gyllenhammar, who attributed the delay to “time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality” and ease of use. Spotify Lossless enables streaming in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC. Lossless joins the previous settings of Low, Normal, High and Very High for data management across Wi-Fi, cellular and downloads. Spotify has also added Smart Filters for better playlist building. Continue reading Spotify Delivers New Lossless Audio Tech for Premium Subs

Amazon Ads and Netflix have partnered to provide advertisers direct access to Netflix’s premium ad inventory via Amazon DSP. Beginning in Q4, marketers using Amazon DSP in the U.S., UK, France, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Australia, will be able to purchase programmatic ad inventory from Netflix using the e-retailer’s demand-side platform. In June, Amazon and Disney did a similar deal and Netflix partnered with Yahoo DSP. Netflix has expanded outreach to Madison Avenue through its own internal ad-tech platform, now in 12 markets, including South Korea in addition to those mentioned above. Continue reading Netflix Taps Amazon DSP for Programmatic Advertising Sales

AI infrastructure company Nebius Group NV has entered into a $17.4 billion deal to provide dedicated compute power to Microsoft from a new data center in Vineland, New Jersey. The five-year agreement could be worth up to $19.4 billion with additional capacity and services. The news sent Nebius shares surging by 49 percent on the Nasdaq composite, underscoring how the rapidly growing demand for AI support can influence the fate of companies. The deal added $1 billion to the value of Nebius founder Arkady Volozh’s stake. The Russian expatriate founded that country’s equivalent of Google. Continue reading Microsoft Contracts with Nebius for $17.4 Billion in AI Capacity

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the latest customer to purchase spectrum from EchoStar as that company continues to restructure. The firms have reached a definitive agreement for SpaceX to acquire $17 billion worth of AWS-4 and H-block spectrum, designated for mobile and satellite communications. SpaceX will also fund approximately $2 billion of cash interest payments payable on EchoStar debt through November of 2027. In addition, EchoStar is entering into a long-term commercial agreement that will allow it to access SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink Direct to Cell service for EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers. Continue reading SpaceX Paves Starlink Mobile Path with $17B EchoStar Deal

During its latest live-streamed event yesterday, Apple debuted new product models, including the iPhone 17 Air, the company’s first ultra-slim smartphone. Made of titanium, it’s priced at $1,000. The entry level of the group, the iPhone 17, costs the same as the iPhone 16, at $800, with an improved display and double the storage (256GB). Fully loaded, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the company’s most expensive phone ever at $2,000 with 2TB of storage and a 6.9-inch OLED screen. All four models come with a 48MP rear camera, while the new A19 Pro chipset powers the 17 Pro, Pro Max and Air. Apple also unveiled a new collection of smartwatches and the AirPods Pro 3. Continue reading Apple Unveils New iPhone 17 Line, Watches and AirPods Pro

OpenAI is said to be in talks with Broadcom about developing custom AI inference chips to run its models. On an earnings call last week, Broadcom disclosed that an AI developer had placed a $10 billion order for AI server racks using its chips. That new customer was reported to be OpenAI, which has relied primarily on hotly sought-after Nvidia GPUs for model training and deployment. Broadcom specializes in XPUs — accelerator chips designed for specific uses, like inference for ChatGPT. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly complained that a shortage of chips has impeded the company’s ability to get new models and products to market. Continue reading OpenAI Reportedly Turning to Broadcom for Custom AI Chips

Following the reveal of its new foldable phones, Samsung hosted a second Galaxy Unpacked summer event to unveil its Galaxy S25 FE smartphone and Galaxy Tab S11 and Tab S11 Ultra tablets. Equipped with Samsung’s latest One UI 8 user interface, the Galaxy S25 FE features multimodal Galaxy AI capabilities including Generative Edit and Instant Slow-mo and a 12MP front-facing camera powered by the ProVisual Engine for enhanced selfies. The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is billed as “the thinnest Galaxy Tab to date.” Both new tablets also boast multimodal AI capabilities with Galaxy AI. Continue reading Samsung Unveils Galaxy S25 FE Smartphone and S11 Tablets

Samsung is integrating Microsoft Copilot with its 2025 lineup of AI-powered TVs and monitors. Copilot can be accessed through the Samsung Tizen OS, the Samsung Daily+ lifestyle hub and Click to Search, enabling conversational AI support for personalized recommendations, searches, interactive learning and other experiences. The South Korean manufacturer’s high-end hardware already has Samsung Vision AI, and the AI-assisted Click to Search and Bixby voice assistant. Copilot joins the mix, appearing on the home screen app menu. Once selected, Copilot appears as an animated emoji that reacts with simple expressions and lip movements. Continue reading Samsung Offers Microsoft Copilot via Premium TVs, Monitors

OpenAI and Anthropic — rivals in the AI space who guard their proprietary systems — joined forces for a misalignment evaluation, safety testing each other’s models to identify when and how they fall short of human values. Among the findings: reasoning models including Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, and OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini resist jailbreaks, while conversational models like GPT-4.1 were susceptible to prompts or techniques intended to bypass safety protocols. Although the test results were unveiled as users complain chatbots have become overly sycophantic, the tests were “primarily interested in understanding model propensities for harmful action,” per OpenAI. Continue reading Anthropic and OpenAI Report Findings of Joint AI Safety Tests

AT&T is acquiring wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar for roughly $23 billion in cash. The acquisition will provide AT&T an average of approximately 50MHz of low-band and mid-band covering virtually all U.S. markets, bolstering connectivity across 5G and fiber, according to CEO John Stankey. AT&T says the deal will accelerate its ability to expand converged subscriber base, customers with both AT&T’s mobile 5G and home Internet services. EchoStar and AT&T have amended their network services agreement to enable EchoStar to operate as a hybrid MNO under the Boost Mobile brand, with AT&T as the primary network services partner. Continue reading AT&T Agrees to Purchase EchoStar Spectrum for $23 Billion

Instagram has started to let creators link multiple Reels, effectively creating their own “series.” The new capability, which TikTok already offers, makes it more convenient for viewers to discover and follow related content. The new “Link a Reel” feature lets creators sequentially either link generally related content or connect specific, sequentially related material, as in Part 2, Part 3, etc. Meta Platforms has also added a free AI-powered voice translation feature. Now available globally on Facebook and Instagram, it automatically dubs and lip syncs Reels into other languages using the sound and tone of the creator’s own voice. Continue reading Meta Updates Features for Reels on Facebook and Instagram

The U.S. government is taking a 10 percent stake in Intel in exchange for $5.7 billion in grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and $3.2 billion awarded to the company as part of the Secure Enclave program. Intel had already received $2.2 billion from those funds, bringing the U.S. investment to $11.1 billion. However, the company’s mounting losses — $2.9 billion in Q2, a 57 percent increase over Q2 2024’s $1.61 billion loss — made it questionable as to whether the company could continue to fulfill terms for the funding without intervention. The Intel agreement marks the largest U.S. government equity deal for an individual tech firm. Continue reading U.S. Is Taking 10 Percent Intel Stake in Equity for Grants Deal

Google is adding subscription-based agentic features to AI Mode, a Google Search function that lets users query complex questions verbally or with a text interface. AI Mode now answers multipart requests, like researching a dinner reservation at a set time for a specific number of people and with food preferences or dietary restrictions, responding in real time. The feature personalizes responses by drawing on past conversations and has a new “share” button that can circulate information, allowing others to jump in on the conversation. Google is expanding the global availability of AI Mode, which launched in the U.S. in May. Continue reading Google Adds Paid Features to AI Mode, Now in 180 Countries

This week, DeepSeek-V3.1 dropped on Hugging Face. Media outlets immediately began citing benchmark scores that rival proprietary systems from OpenAI and Anthropic for a system that is available via a permissive license, facilitating wide access. The 685-billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model has 37 billion active parameters and is designed for efficiency. It builds on DeepSeek-pioneered processes like multi-head latent attention (MLA) and multi-token prediction (MTP) to optimize inference, enabling high-performance computing on both enterprise servers loaded with H100 GPUs and consumer hardware like a Mac Studio or comparably powered PC. Continue reading DeepSeek-V3.1 Offered with Improvements in Speed, Context