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Tencent's Apache-licensed Hy3 takes on GLM-5.2 at half the size — and wins everywhere except coding

For the past year, the awkward secret of the open-weight model boom has been that many of the strongest Chinese releases were off-limits to a large slice of the enterprises most interested in them. License terms that excluded the European Union, the United Kingdom and South Korea meant legal teams killed deployments before engineering teams finished their evals — not just for companies headquartered there, but for any enterprise serving traffic into those regions. For IT teams weighing open mode

Apple brings back card payments for Apple Account purchases in India after a four-year hiatus

Apple has started a phased rollout of card payments for Apple Account purchases in India after adapting to the country's payments framework.

Klarna applies for a US banking licence, its boldest American move yet

Klarna wants to be a real American bank. The Swedish BNPL giant has applied for a US banking licence, betting a friendlier Washington will let it crack a market that has bruised European rivals. Klarna has applied to US regulators to set up its own bank, tech.eu reports. The Swedish fintech filed with the Utah […]This story continues at The Next Web

Microsoft lays off nearly 5,000 employees across Xbox, commercial sales

Microsoft cut around 4,800 roles, or 2.1% of its global workforce, on Monday — the latest in a series of layoffs that’s stoking fears of AI replacing jobs. The layoffs will hit Xbox and commercial sales the hardest.

Reddit fights AI marketing ‘slop’ with its own AI, as GEO becomes the new SEO

People increasingly ask ChatGPT instead of Google. So marketers now plant fake opinions on Reddit, hoping the chatbots repeat them. Reddit is fighting back with AI of its own. Reddit has a new spam problem, and a strange one. Brands seed the platform with stealth marketing, Bloomberg reports. They plant posts and comments that pose […]This story continues at The Next Web

Reddit is using LLMs to solve a problem LLMs largely created

In the AI era, platforms have no choice but to fight fire with fire to cull spam.

Microsoft guts Xbox: 3,200 jobs cut and five studios divested, two of them European

Microsoft told its Xbox staff the truth in blunt terms: the business “is not healthy.” The fix? 3,200 job cuts, five studios out the door, two of them European. Xbox chief executive Asha Sharma laid it out in an official memo on Monday. She called it the most significant restructure in the division’s history. Xbox […]This story continues at The Next Web

Broadcom extends its Apple chip work through 2031 in a fresh custom-silicon deal

Broadcom has extended its long-running relationship with Apple through 2031, signing new multi-year agreements to design and supply a range of custom chips for the iPhone maker. The deal deepens one of the most important supplier relationships in consumer electronics, and it sent Broadcom’s shares up around 4% as investors read it as a guarantee […]This story continues at The Next Web

What billions of AI predictions taught Expedia before the age of AI agents

There's an important distinction between AI that just works today, and AI that lasts at scale. Many companies optimize hard for the first one without ever asking whether they're building the second.Velocity without discipline and strategic direction is a liability, not an asset. The hardest part of building AI at scale isn't getting a model to work once. It's building systems that continue to work, scale beyond individual teams and use cases, and improve consistently over tim

Canadian spy agency says it hacked drug traffickers, extremists and a ransomware gang last year

The hacking operations disclosed in a Canadian spy agency's annual report underscores some pressing national security threats facing the country and its top allies.

Uber quietly pauses 5 of 7 European food-delivery launches as it chases Delivery Hero

Five months ago, Uber promised to storm five new European countries with its food-delivery app. It just quietly hit the brakes, and the reason looks a lot like a €10bn takeover. Uber has paused five of its seven planned 2026 European launches, the Financial Times reported. Uber announced the push in February, targeting Austria, Norway, […]This story continues at The Next Web

Camera-free smart-glasses maker Even Realities hits $1bn on a $150M raise

Meta has sold millions of camera-equipped smart glasses, and landed in a privacy storm for it. A Shenzhen startup is betting $1bn that the smarter move is to leave the camera off. Even Realities has raised $150m at a $1 billion valuation, TechCrunch reported. Chinese giants Meituan and Tencent led the round. It makes the […]This story continues at The Next Web

Denmark steps into an EU court fight over what platforms owe publishers

Denmark has taken a side in one of the quieter but more consequential legal battles over how the internet pays for journalism. The Danish government has filed a written intervention at the Court of Justice of the European Union, backing Belgium in a case brought by a group of technology companies that dispute how Belgium […]This story continues at The Next Web

Cambridge’s Worldmodeldata raises £7M to turn video games into AI training data

The last wave of AI learned to describe the world. The next needs to learn how the world pushes back. A Cambridge startup thinks the answer hides inside video games. Worldmodeldata has raised £7m (€8m) to turn gameplay into AI training data, Tech Funding News reported. London’s Iona Star Capital led the seed round. Lord […]This story continues at The Next Web

How to reserve and change your WhatsApp username

WhatsApp now lets users reserve usernames ahead of the feature’s full rollout, making it possible to connect without sharing a phone number once usernames go live.

Station F ramps up as a launchpad for Europe’s hottest AI startups

Station F, a Paris-based startup hub founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel, is gearing up for a new edition of its F/ai accelerator program in a bid to strengthen its positioning as a stepping stone for promising AI startups.

Hedge funds sold chip stocks for a fourth week, but not the AI trade

Hedge funds cut their holdings of semiconductor stocks for a fourth straight week, according to Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data, in a run of selling that has made chipmakers and their equipment suppliers the most heavily net-sold corner of the US market. The move comes as parts of the AI trade wobble, and it will […]This story continues at The Next Web

Finland’s CurifyLabs raises $14M to 3D-print personalised medicine in the US

Your prescription, printed to order. A Finnish startup wants to turn the back room of your pharmacy into a tiny, automated drug factory, and it just raised $14m to do it in America. CurifyLabs has closed a $14m (€12m) Series A, the company announced. The Helsinki firm makes machines and software that let pharmacies 3D-print […]This story continues at The Next Web

Elon Musk Is Charging Starlink Customers Gigantic Bogus Fees Because Its Network Is Being Crushed by “High Demand”

Good luck fighting those charges. The post Elon Musk Is Charging Starlink Customers Gigantic Bogus Fees Because Its Network ...

Elon Musk's Cars: Does The Tesla Boss Actually Drive One?

Elon Musk is perhaps the most famous person in the world, but is his car collection just as infamous as the world's first trillionaire?