☕️ Anthropic to sue Pentagon

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In today's Techpresso:

⚖️ Anthropic to sue Pentagon over supply chain risk designation

🤖 OpenAI launches GPT-5.4

🎮 Microsoft's next console will play "Xbox and PC games"

🎬 Netflix buys Ben Affleck's AI filmmaking startup

🔒 US may impose new export rules on AI chips

💼 Oracle plans thousands of job cuts in face of AI cash crunch

Plus: 🎁 19 other news you might like, 🧰 5 tools, and 📚 2 papers.

⚖️ Anthropic to sue Pentagon over supply chain risk designation LINK

Anthropic plans to sue the Department of War after receiving a letter confirming the company has been designated as a supply chain risk to national security under statute 10 USC 3252.

The company says the designation has a narrow scope, applying only to customers using Claude as a direct part of Department of War contracts, not all business relationships with Anthropic.

Anthropic also apologized for a leaked internal post written on a difficult day, calling its tone not reflective of careful views, and offered to keep supporting warfighters during any transition.

🤖 OpenAI launches GPT-5.4 LINK

OpenAI released GPT-5.4 on Thursday, a new foundation model designed for professional work, available in standard, Thinking, and Pro versions through its API with up to 1 million tokens of context.

The model posted record scores on benchmarks like OSWorld-Verified, WebArena Verified, and Mercor's APEX-Agents test for law and finance, while using significantly fewer tokens than its predecessor.

OpenAI introduced Tool Search to cut token costs when calling many tools, and a new safety evaluation found the Thinking version is less likely to misrepresent its chain-of-thought reasoning.

🎮 Microsoft's next console will play "Xbox and PC games" LINK

Microsoft's next console, codenamed Project Helix, will "play your Xbox and PC games," according to newly named Executive Vice President for Gaming Asha Sharma in a social media post.

Sharma said she would discuss Project Helix with developers and partners at Game Developers Conference next week, though her statement leaves wiggle room on how PC game access will work.

A plain reading suggests Microsoft may open its next console to a complete Windows installation, following last year's Windows-based ROG Xbox Ally and a trend of fewer Xbox-exclusive games.

🎬 Netflix buys Ben Affleck's AI filmmaking startup LINK

Netflix announced it is acquiring InterPositive, a filmmaking technology company that actor Ben Affleck founded in 2022, with Affleck joining Netflix as a senior advisor as part of the deal.

InterPositive built a model that helps production teams make edits in post-production, like fixing continuity issues, making lighting adjustments, or background replacements — not creating AI actors or synthetic performances.

The deal fits Netflix's existing approach to generative AI in filmmaking, as the company has already used generative AI for special effects in some original content and told investors it is well positioned.

🔒 US may impose new export rules on AI chips LINK

The Trump administration has reportedly drafted rules that would require U.S. government approval for shipping AI chips to any destination outside the country, giving regulators more control over companies like AMD and Nvidia.

Under the proposed system, the Commerce Department would review each purchase, with small orders getting a basic review and large orders potentially requiring involvement from the buyer's own government.

Nvidia is already feeling the effects of export restrictions, having lost Chinese customers after nearly a year of uncertainty, raising concerns that tighter controls could push buyers toward non-U.S. chip sources.

💼 Oracle plans thousands of job cuts in face of AI cash crunch LINK

Oracle is preparing to cut thousands of jobs across multiple divisions as it faces a cash crunch driven by its expensive AI data center expansion effort.

Wall Street projects Oracle's cash flow will turn negative over the coming years before its data center spending pays off in 2030, and the company plans to raise $50 billion through debt and equity sales.

Oracle's stock has fallen 54% from its September 2025 high, and the company disclosed in September a restructuring plan costing as much as $1.6 billion in severance and related expenses.

Other news you might like

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• Meta sued over AI smart glasses’ privacy concerns, after workers reviewed nudity, sex, and other footageLINK

• Son of government contractor arrested after alleged $46M crypto heist from US MarshalsLINK

• Anthropic's new study shows AI is nowhere near its theoretical job disruption potentialLINK

• Roblox launches real-time AI chat rephrasing to filter out banned languageLINK

• Cursor is rolling out a new kind of agentic coding toolLINK

• Proton Mail payment data helped FBI identify ‘Stop Cop City’ account holderLINK

• Apple's 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortageLINK

• Google Play Store starts flagging battery-hogging appsLINK

• Cluely CEO Roy Lee admits to publicly lying about revenue numbers last yearLINK

• Apple reportedly geoblocking downloads and updates of ByteDance-owned apps in the USLINK

• Wikipedia hit by self-propagating JavaScript worm that vandalized pagesLINK

• Congress steps up pressure on NASA to support private space stationsLINK

• Black-box AI and cheap drones are outpacing global rules of warLINK

• ChatGPT users research products but won't buy there, forcing OpenAI to rethink its commerce strategyLINK

• Anthropic says Claude is adding over a million new users every dayLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Swarm: program 200 ants using custom assembly language to collect food via pheromone coordination across different map layouts.LINK

CoChat: a collaborative workspace where team members and AI agents work together in shared threads with enterprise security, audit logs, and approval workflows.LINK

ChatGPT for Excel: generates and modifies spreadsheets from natural language prompts while explaining changes, analyzing data across tabs, and maintaining full transparency over edits.LINK

Gemlet: a native macOS client for Gemini with global hotkeys, split-view workspaces, and keyboard-first navigation that eliminates browser tab switching for AI access.LINK

Pitwall F1: a macOS menu bar app that displays live Formula 1 timing, positions, and race data without opening browser tabs or cluttering your screen.LINK

📚 Trending papers & reports

Dyson spheres would appear as infrared bright objects in stellar surveys, giving astronomers a practical search target for advanced alien civilizations.LINK

Large language models challenge linguistics by succeeding at language tasks without human-like grammar rules, forcing the field to reconsider fundamental theories about how language works.LINK

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