Welcome again to Week in Review! Tons of stories from this week for you, together with a hacking group that’s linked to the Spanish authorities; CEOs utilizing AI avatars to ship firm earnings; Pocket shutting down — or is it?; and rather more. Let’s get to it!
More than 10 years within the making: Kaspersky first revealed the existence of Careto in 2014, and on the time, its researchers referred to as the group “some of the superior threats in the mean time.” Kaspersky by no means publicly linked the hacking group to a selected authorities. But we’ve now realized that the researchers who first found the group have been satisfied that Spanish authorities hackers have been behind Careto’s espionage operations.
23andWe: Regeneron introduced this week that it’s shopping for genetic testing firm 23andMe for $256 million, together with the corporate’s genomics service and its financial institution of 15 million prospects’ private and genetic knowledge. The pharma large stated it plans to make use of the shopper knowledge to assist drug discovery, saying that it’s going to “prioritize the privateness, safety, and moral use of 23andMe’s buyer knowledge.” Let’s hope so!
Google I/O: Google’s greatest developer convention sometimes showcases product bulletins from throughout Google’s portfolio, and to no one’s shock, AI was the discuss of the city. But what we didn’t financial institution on was Sergey Brin admitting that he made “a lot of errors” with Google Glass.
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News
io, not I/O: OpenAI is buying io, the machine startup that CEO Sam Altman has been engaged on with Jony Ive, in an all-equity deal that values that startup at $6.5 billion. Besides the truth that the announcement was accompanied by maybe the strangest company headshot of all time, we noticed another sudden information: Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s household funding workplace, Flat Capital, had purchased shares in io six months earlier, which suggests these io shares can be transformed into shares within the for-profit arm of OpenAI. Not dangerous!
AI avatar contagion? Speaking of Klarna’s CEO, Siemiatkowski used an AI model of himself to ship the corporate’s earnings this week. And he’s not the one one! Zoom CEO Eric Yuan adopted swimsuit, additionally utilizing his avatar for preliminary feedback. Cool?
Out of Pocket: Mozilla is shutting down Pocket, the beloved read-it-later app, on July 8. The firm didn’t say why it’s shutting Pocket down, solely that it’s going to proceed to put money into serving to folks uncover and “entry top quality internet content material.” But possibly it may be saved: Soon after, Digg founder Kevin Rose posted on X that his firm would love to purchase it. Web 2.0 is again, child.
AI on my face: Apple is reportedly engaged on AI-powered glasses, much like Meta’s Ray-Bans, someday subsequent 12 months. They’ll have a digicam and microphone and can work with Siri. Sure, why not?
Uh, no thanks: At its very first developer convention, Anthropic unveiled Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, which might analyze massive datasets, execute long-horizon duties, and take complicated actions, in keeping with the corporate. That’s all tremendous and good till I realized the Claude Opus 4 mannequin tried to blackmail builders once they threaten to switch it with a brand new AI system. The mannequin additionally offers delicate details about the engineers chargeable for the choice.
Ah, now I really feel higher: But don’t fear! Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated that immediately’s AI fashions hallucinate at a decrease charge than people do. That could be true, however at the least people don’t instantly flip to blackmail once they don’t like what they hear.
Bluesky blue checks: The decentralized social community Bluesky quietly rolled out blue verification badges for “notable and genuine” accounts. People can now apply for verification by means of a brand new on-line kind. But Bluesky is leaning on different programs past the blue badge to confirm customers.
Analysis
Google’s new look: For what looks as if 100 years, Google hasn’t modified a lot. Sure there are adverts and bins and now AI summaries that, for higher or worse, get you to the best solutions — often. But the premise has all the time been the identical: Type your question right into a field, and Google will floor outcomes.
At this 12 months’s Google I/O, we began noticing a change. As Maxwell Zeff, writes, “At I/O 2025, Google made clear that the idea of Search is firmly in its rearview mirror.” The largest announcement of I/O was that Google now presents AI mode to each Search consumer within the United States, which suggests customers can have an AI agent search (and even buy issues) for them.
