Welcome again to Week in Assessment! Tons of stories from this week for you, together with a hacking group that’s linked to the Spanish authorities; CEOs utilizing AI avatars to ship firm earnings; Pocket shutting down — or is it?; and rather more. Let’s get to it!
Greater than 10 years within the making: Kaspersky first revealed the existence of Careto in 2014, and on the time, its researchers referred to as the group “one of the crucial superior threats in the mean time.” Kaspersky by no means publicly linked the hacking group to a particular authorities. However we’ve now discovered that the researchers who first found the group were convinced that Spanish government hackers had been behind Careto’s espionage operations.
23andWe: Regeneron introduced this week that it’s buying genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million, together with the corporate’s genomics service and its financial institution of 15 million prospects’ private and genetic knowledge. The pharma large stated it plans to make use of the shopper knowledge to assist drug discovery, saying that it’s going to “prioritize the privateness, safety, and moral use of 23andMe’s buyer knowledge.” Let’s hope so!
Google I/O: Google’s greatest developer convention usually showcases product announcements from throughout Google’s portfolio, and to no one’s shock, AI was the speak of the city. However what we didn’t financial institution on was Sergey Brin admitting that he made “lots of mistakes” with Google Glass.
That is TechCrunch’s Week in Assessment, the place we recap the week’s greatest information. Need this delivered as a publication to your inbox each Saturday? Sign up here.
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io, not I/O: OpenAI is acquiring io, the gadget startup that CEO Sam Altman has been engaged on with Jony Ive, in an all-equity deal that values that startup at $6.5 billion. Apart from the truth that the announcement was accompanied by maybe the strangest corporate headshot of all time, we noticed another surprising information: Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s household funding workplace, Flat Capital, had bought shares in io six months earlier, which suggests these io shares shall be transformed into shares within the for-profit arm of OpenAI. Not dangerous!
AI avatar contagion? Talking of Klarna’s CEO, Siemiatkowski used an AI version of himself to ship the corporate’s earnings this week. And he’s not the one one! Zoom CEO Eric Yuan followed suit, additionally utilizing his avatar for preliminary feedback. Cool?
Out of Pocket: Mozilla is shutting down Pocket, the beloved read-it-later app, on July 8. The corporate didn’t say why it’s shutting Pocket down, solely that it’s going to proceed to put money into serving to folks uncover and “entry prime quality internet content material.” However possibly it may be saved: Quickly after, Digg founder Kevin Rose posted on X that his company would love to buy it. Net 2.0 is again, child.
AI on my face: Apple is reportedly working on AI-powered glasses, just like Meta’s Ray-Bans, someday subsequent 12 months. They’ll have a digital camera and microphone and can work with Siri. Certain, why not?
Uh, no thanks: At its very first developer convention, Anthropic unveiled Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, which might analyze giant datasets, execute long-horizon duties, and take advanced actions, based on the corporate. That’s all nice and good till I discovered the Claude Opus 4 mannequin tried to blackmail developers after they threaten to exchange it with a brand new AI system. The mannequin additionally provides delicate details about the engineers answerable for the choice.
Ah, now I really feel higher: However don’t fear! Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated that today’s AI models hallucinate at a lower rate than people do. That could be true, however no less than people don’t instantly flip to blackmail after they don’t like what they hear.
Bluesky blue checks: The decentralized social community Bluesky quietly rolled out blue verification badges for “notable and genuine” accounts. Individuals can now apply for verification by means of a brand new on-line kind. However Bluesky is leaning on different programs past the blue badge to confirm customers.
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Google’s new look: For what looks as if 100 years, Google hasn’t modified a lot. Certain there are advertisements and bins and now AI summaries that, for higher or worse, get you to the appropriate solutions — normally. However the premise has at all times been the identical: Kind your question right into a field, and Google will floor outcomes.
At this 12 months’s Google I/O, we started noticing a change. As Maxwell Zeff, writes, “At I/O 2025, Google made clear that the idea of Search is firmly in its rearview mirror.” The most important announcement of I/O was that Google now provides AI mode to each Search consumer in the US, which suggests customers can have an AI agent search (and even buy issues) for them.
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