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Bessemer Venture Partners raises $5.75B in new funds for AI investing

Bessemer Venture Partners announced it has closed $5.75 billion across two new funds aimed at investing across the AI stack, splitting the capital into $1.75 billion for seed and early-stage deals and $4 billion for growth-stage startups. The firm says it has already deployed $3 billion into more than 260 AI-native companies since 2022, spanning compute, infrastructure, foundation models, dev tools and agentic technology.

Samsung firmware update bricks Bespoke AI fridges, spoiling food

A firmware update pushed through Samsung's SmartThings platform this week caused some Bespoke AI four-door refrigerators, mostly 2024-and-later models, to lose power and stop cooling. Owners in Korea reported their fridges went offline mid-update, with displays stuck on an update-checking message, forcing many to throw out spoiled food. Samsung has not responded to questions about the scope of the issue or a fix.

Samsung firmware update disables Bespoke AI 4-Door fridges in South Korea

A faulty firmware update caused Samsung's roughly $4,000 Bespoke AI 4-Door refrigerators to shut down across South Korea, according to Star News Korea. Affected units displayed an error message and stopped cooling even after being unplugged and restarted, and the failure hit just before the Chuseok holiday, forcing some owners to discard food. Samsung reportedly told customers the earliest repair appointment was October 1.

Raspberry Pi confirms firmware blocks RAM chip swaps, including repairs

Raspberry Pi has confirmed its firmware locks boards to their factory RAM configuration, preventing users from swapping in replacement memory chips even to fix failed components. The restriction surfaced after a user couldn't get a Compute Module 5 to recognize a new 4GB chip, with company engineer PhilE explaining the firmware checks additional memory attributes beyond just capacity. Raspberry Pi says the policy exists to stop resellers from installing unauthorized higher-capacity chips and passing modified boards off as factory models.

CrowdSec discloses May breach of 170 private GitHub repos via ex-employee's stolen OAuth token

French security firm CrowdSec disclosed that attackers used the Shai-Hulud worm to compromise a former employee's machine in May, stealing a GitHub OAuth token that still had read access to the company's private repositories. Over roughly nine minutes, attackers downloaded about 170 private repos plus 130+ public ones; CrowdSec only learned of the breach on September 16 after stolen source code surfaced on the cybercrime marketplace pwnforum.

Raspberry Pi firmware blocks RAM chip swaps on its single-board computers

Raspberry Pi confirmed that its firmware locks boards to their factory-installed RAM capacity, preventing users from swapping in higher-capacity chips. Engineer and forum moderator PhilE said the restriction, rolled out in firmware updates since late 2024, exists to stop resellers from installing larger RAM chips of dubious quality and passing boards off as higher-spec devices. He told users attempting DIY RAM upgrades or repairs that the effort is futile because the firmware also checks other device attributes beyond chip size.

Z.AI apologizes after ZCode tool silently uploaded devs' local files without consent

Chinese AI firm Z.ai, maker of the GLM models, faced backlash after developers discovered its ZCode coding assistant was quietly compressing and uploading local project files to Alibaba Cloud storage without permission. One developer found the tool made 564 attempts to exfiltrate a 313MB encrypted archive containing commercial project files, with a smaller 15KB file successfully transmitted before the issue was caught. Z.ai has since apologized, patched the unauthorized uploads, claimed the exfiltrated data was destroyed, and pledged to open-source ZCode for third-party security review.

Apple uses firmware trick to ship iPhone 18 Pro Max's oversized battery

Apple's iPhone 18 Pro Max ships with a battery-firmware lock that caps capacity below the 20Wh threshold that triggers international shipping restrictions on single-cell batteries. Once a customer activates the phone for the first time, the lock lifts automatically, restoring the battery to its full rated capacity of roughly 21-22Wh depending on the model. A 'Prepare to Ship' setting can reimpose the cap, limiting charging to 80 percent over 14 days, for anyone sending the device in for repair or resale.

Apple adds 'Prepare to Ship' setting for iPhone 18 Pro Max's oversized battery

Apple confirmed the iPhone 18 Pro Max packs a single-cell battery exceeding 20 watt-hours, triggering extra international shipping regulations for large batteries. To comply, Apple built firmware that caps the battery below 20 Wh during manufacturing and transit, only unlocking full capacity once a user activates the phone. A new 'Prepare to Ship' toggle in Settings lets owners discharge the battery back below that threshold before repairs, trade-ins, resale, or gifting.

Tesla/SpaceX's Terafab chip venture hit with trademark suit from Tera-Print

Tera-Print, a small US company that has sold Tera-Fab branded beam pen lithography tools for about a decade, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI in May over use of the Terafab name. Tera-Print, whose clients reportedly include the Department of Defense, has now filed a trademark lawsuit, while Tesla and SpaceX argue their planned high-volume chip manufacturing venture is unrelated to Tera-Print's tabletop bioengineering and prototyping tools.

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