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Tech News
A reviewer tested Vari's Ergo electric standing desk over several months, finding it easy to assemble in about 10 minutes and stable across its full height range of 25 to 50.5 inches. The desk uses a quiet dual-motor lift system, supports up to 200 pounds, offers four programmable height presets, and comes with a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects.
Apple has revised its trade-in payout tables just a month after last raising them, lowering the maximum credit offered for every returning iPhone model by as much as $120. At the same time, trade-in values rose across the entire iPad lineup and for nearly all Mac models except the Mac Pro, while Apple Watch and Android device values were mostly reduced or held steady. The updated figures, effective September 9, 2026, also add trade-in support for the new iPhone 17 line and iPhone Air.
Legal AI startup Harvey has closed a $550 million funding round valuing it at $15.5 billion, co-led by Diffusion and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The raise comes just months after an $11 billion valuation in March and an $8 billion mark last December, bringing Harvey's total funding past $1.55 billion. The deal follows the company's launch of its own in-house model, Harvey Tenet, built on an open-weight foundation with help from Fireworks.
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.
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.
A business contributor argues that many companies are slapping 'AI' onto products and marketing without delivering meaningfully different customer experiences, citing examples from business software and home appliances. The piece compares this to past buzzword cycles like dot-com, Web 2.0, big data and blockchain, where messaging often outpaced actual value delivered to customers.
A Sydney court convicted Enrico Pucci, 50, on 30 domestic violence charges against his former partner Stacey, including remotely manipulating her Tesla via the vehicle's app. He added an unauthorised 'parental control' profile giving him command over the car's temperature, locks, curfew and speed, at one point triggering Valet Mode to cap it at 40km/h while she was driving. Police documents describe him boasting he was 'in her car' and 'in her maps' while stalking her.
The 2025 Ig Nobel prizes, which honor quirky but genuinely published research, were held outside the United States for the first time since the ceremony began, after founder Marc Abrahams cited safety concerns for international guests visiting the US. This year's fungus-themed event kept its trademark paper-plane openings, banana-suited timekeepers enforcing 60-second speeches, and 24/7 lectures, while handing out awards including a posthumous medicine prize for nose-blowing aerodynamics research and an economics prize on wealth and candy-jar theft.
Cognition, maker of the AI coding assistant Devin, closed a $2 billion funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst and Avenir, pushing its valuation to $48 billion—up from $26 billion just four months earlier. The company says its annualized run-rate revenue nearly doubled since May, climbing from $492 million to $900 million.
Google's threat intelligence team says cybercriminals and state-backed actors from China, Iran, and Russia are increasingly adopting autonomous AI agent systems rather than relying on simple prompt-and-response chatbots. These agents can independently execute multi-step tasks, expanding what threat actors can automate in their operations.
A design educator who teaches a course on behavior change argues that every design decision—whether for a book cover, app, or ad—is ultimately an attempt to influence user actions, most often to boost sales or shareholder value. The essay contrasts public companies, B corps, and nonprofits, noting that even mission-driven organizations use design to drive fundraising or other outcomes, and that designers rarely know an employer's true motives until they're inside.
Grass Valley Police Department ended its contract with Flock Safety and removed the company's license plate cameras, but Flock reinstalled at least two of them without authorization weeks later. Flock says its automated maintenance system misread the city's early camera removal as an equipment failure, triggering repair crews to dispatch and replace units. GVPD says it continues to monitor for and remove any cameras Flock puts back up.