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AI coding startup Cognition has closed a Series E funding round of $2 billion, valuing the company at $48 billion. The round includes backing from investors such as Peter Thiel, underscoring strong investor confidence in AI-driven software development tools.
Several U.S. states that previously granted multi-decade tax exemptions to lure data center investments from Amazon, Meta and Google are now reconsidering or rolling back those deals. The reversal follows growing public backlash over the facilities' strain on local resources and limited job creation relative to the tax revenue forgone.
Reddit users report receiving personalized win-back offers on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, with one subscriber getting a 30% discount ($16.09 vs $22.99 monthly) after repeatedly canceling and resubscribing over two years. Other users have shared similar discounted offers, including an $18 rate for 12 months on a secondary Xbox account.
Uber has put another $10 million into Indian fleet operator Carrum Mobility through a Series B round, pushing the startup's valuation to about $168 million, up from $63 million after Uber's earlier $7 million investment in January. Uber now holds a mid-teens stake in Carrum, which operates roughly 5,100 vehicles and over 18,000 drivers across six Indian cities and generates about $45 million in annualized revenue.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev defended his company's tokenized stock products, arguing that once a company goes public, other firms can build financial instruments referencing its shares without needing the issuer's permission. This follows AMC CEO Adam Aron's public criticism that Robinhood's tokenized AMC shares let the brokerage profit from exposure to the stock without AMC's involvement or consent.
Analysts examining OpenAI's newly released GPT-6 Astra note it outperforms its GPT-5.6 predecessor across writing, math, coding, and especially 3D rendering tasks, jumping from 7.8% to 99.9% on the ARC-AGI-3 benchmark. Speculation has emerged that Astra uses a looped or recurrent-depth transformer architecture and may be concealing parts of its chain-of-thought reasoning process from users.
Android Authority found code in a beta build of the Google app (version 17.56.14) suggesting Gemini's floating overlay could soon let users assign tasks to Spark, Google's autonomous AI agent, without launching the full Gemini interface. The same handover option is also being tested in the main Gemini app, alongside a possible model-switching shortcut in the overlay.
Microsoft, acting through TracerAI, has withdrawn its DMCA takedown notice that accused the open-source voxel game Luanti of infringing Minecraft's copyright. The Luanti app has been reinstated on Google Play immediately, without needing to wait out the standard counter-notice period, signaling Microsoft has abandoned the case entirely.
OpenAI Korea's general manager Harrison Kim said the company has made significant progress working with Samsung Electronics on next-generation chip development and production. This suggests OpenAI could source future AI accelerators from both Samsung Foundry and TSMC, rather than relying solely on TSMC as it does for its current Jalapeño inference chip built with Broadcom.
Private equity firm Silver Lake is combining two of its portfolio companies, French business software maker Cegid and payroll platform Silae, into a single entity valued at over 10 billion euros. The merged company will unite payroll, accounting, e-invoicing and finance data under one roof, with a 1,400-person developer team dedicated to AI investment. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027 pending regulatory approval, with combined annual revenue projected at 1.9 billion euros.
At its fall event, Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and a new foldable iPhone Duo, but held back the standard iPhone 18, which is now expected in early 2026. Alongside this, Apple raised prices by $100 across its existing iPhone 17 models and even the older iPhone 16, which returns to its original $799 price.
Apple's Series 12 smartwatch now offers a ceramic case, the first time the material has appeared since the Series 5 in 2019. Buyers can choose pearl white or night blue finishes, with prices starting at $899 and rising to $949 for the 46mm model, well above the $399 base price.