GoKawiil
Tech News
Sony Music and Warner have filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging the AI company scraped and used their song catalogs without permission to train its models. This follows a similar suit from Universal Music Group in January, meaning all three major music publishers are now pursuing legal action against Anthropic.
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan told CNBC he opposes any regulatory crackdown on AI model distillation, even suggesting U.S. open-weight labs should distill from American frontier labs the way Chinese firms reportedly do. His comments come as Anthropic released a report accusing Chinese labs of illicit distillation attacks using stolen credentials, with CEO Dario Amodei calling for regulators to intervene.
Apple has re-entered TIME's World's Best Companies ranking at No. 3 with an overall score of 93.16, a year after being absent from the list entirely. The 2026 list is led by Nvidia at 97.51 and Cigna at 94.37, with scores based on employee satisfaction, three-year revenue growth, and sustainability transparency.
Twenty-five Fields Medal winners signed an open letter warning that AI labs, especially OpenAI, are racing to claim credit for solving famous math problems without proper verification or acknowledgment of human collaborators. The dispute intensified after NYU's Tristan Buckmaster alleged OpenAI pressured him to omit credit to an Anthropic-affiliated collaborator, and OpenAI subsequently pulled its sponsorship from a CalTech math event following backlash from researchers there.
Apple introduced its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, at a launch event where CEO John Ternus showed off the $2,000 passport-style device with dual 48-megapixel rear cameras. The phone opens for preorder Oct. 16 and hits stores Oct. 23, arriving years after competitors already established the foldable phone category. CNET staff writers offered varied reactions, from excitement about foldables regaining relevance to skepticism about buying the very first version.
A hobbyist using a metal detector in Finland found a large cache of Iron Age silver coins, marking the biggest such hoard ever recorded in the country. Experts have not finished analyzing the find, but the raw silver alone is estimated to be worth close to $10,000 at current prices.
ElevenLabs has released Music v2.5 as the new default model in ElevenMusic, improving audio quality with richer melodies and more natural instrument sounds across genres. Users on all plans, including Free, now own the rights to tracks they create, and can download lossless copies—five daily for Free users and 400 monthly for Pro subscribers. Tracks that reference other artists' songs are blocked from download to protect original creators.
TechCrunch is giving startups until September 18 at 11:59 p.m. PT to reserve an exhibit table at Disrupt 2026, warning that inventory is limited and may run out before the cutoff. Each table spans 6 feet by 30 inches and sits in the Expo Hall for the full three-day event, coming with 10 team passes, lead-generation tools via the Disrupt app, event branding, and press-list access.
A DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled that the Department of Energy's use of emergency wartime powers to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan running past its scheduled closure was unlawful. The DOE had issued five consecutive 90-day emergency declarations under the Federal Power Act to prevent the plant from shutting down, despite no actual power shortage.
TechCrunch announced that tonight, September 11 at 11:59 p.m. PT, is the absolute final deadline to apply to host an official Side Event at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. The company stated there will be no further extensions or chances to apply after this cutoff.
Meta piloted a Model Capability Initiative that would have captured employees' keystrokes and mouse movements to help train its AI models. Workers pushed back quickly, circulating an internal petition, and the program was ultimately shelved after concerns about privacy and a reported data breach.
MIT Technology Review is hosting a live roundtable discussion examining claims from AI lab employees that advanced AI systems could pose an existential threat to humanity. The session, led by executive editor Niall Firth alongside senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins, will scrutinize the origins and credibility of these fears. It airs Tuesday, September 15 at 16:00 BST.