☕️ Apple launches new MacBooks with M5 chips

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.

In today's Techpresso:

💻 Apple launches new MacBooks with M5 chips

🏛️ OpenAI amends Pentagon deal after backlash

👓 Meta Ray-Ban glasses share private videos with human reviewers

🛒 Meta tests AI shopping tool to rival ChatGPT and Gemini

⚖️ Supreme Court rejects AI-generated art copyright case

💬 X starts testing standalone chat app on iOS

Plus: 🎁 15 other news you might like, 🧰 6 tools, and 📚 2 papers.

💻 Apple launches new MacBooks with M5 chips LINK

Apple announced new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, powered by its M5 chips, including the more powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max processors built on what Apple calls Fusion Architecture.

The MacBook Air now starts at $1,099, a $100 increase over last year, but comes with 512GB of storage instead of 256GB, and still offers 18 hours of battery life.

The M5 Pro and M5 Max chips combine two dies into a single processor with up to 18-core CPUs, and Apple says the M5 Max delivers 8x faster AI image generation than the M1 Max.

🏛️ OpenAI amends Pentagon deal after backlash LINK

OpenAI changed parts of its Pentagon agreement after public backlash, but the contract still grants the military permission to use its AI for "all lawful purposes," the same phrase Anthropic refused to accept.

The contract's restrictions on autonomous weapons and surveillance only apply where existing law or policy already requires limits, meaning OpenAI's stated "red lines" borrow their force from government rules, not independent standards.

Over 1.5 million people joined the "QuitGPT" boycott, and Anthropic's Claude became the top free app on Apple's App Store, though Anthropic itself has defense partnerships through Palantir and AWS.

👓 Meta Ray-Ban glasses share private videos with human reviewers LINK

Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses send private video recordings — including nude scenes, sex clips, and banking details — to human data workers in Nairobi, Kenya, who review them to train the company's AI.

Workers at Sama, a data services company contracted by Meta, label and categorize objects in images and videos, but say automatic face-blurring often fails, especially in difficult lighting conditions.

Data privacy lawyers warn that users may not realize the glasses are recording when they talk to the AI assistant, and that both transparency and a legal basis for processing are lacking in Europe.

🛒 Meta tests AI shopping tool to rival ChatGPT and Gemini LINK

Meta is quietly testing an AI-powered shopping research feature inside its Meta AI chatbot, putting it in direct competition with similar tools already launched by OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

The browser-only feature, limited to a small group of U.S. users, shows product carousels with images, prices, and recommendations, but the buy button is non-functional and routes to external retailer sites.

Meta enters four months after ChatGPT's shopping launch, arriving late to retailer partnerships but bringing Facebook Shops, Instagram Shopping, and behavioral data from 3.2 billion daily active users across its apps.

⚖️ Supreme Court rejects AI-generated art copyright case LINK

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case asking whether artwork created entirely by artificial intelligence can receive copyright protection, leaving lower court rulings that require human authorship firmly in place.

The case involved computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who sought copyright for an image generated independently by his AI system DABUS, but courts consistently ruled that human authorship is a "bedrock requirement of copyright."

The decision follows a similar loss for Thaler in the patent arena, reinforcing a consistent position across U.S. intellectual property law: fully autonomous AI systems cannot be recognized as authors or inventors.

💬 X starts testing standalone chat app on iOS LINK

X has started testing a standalone iOS app called X Chat, making an initial beta available to 1,000 users through Apple's TestFlight platform on Monday.

The beta filled up within two hours, and xAI product designer Michael Boswell said the company plans to expand access "soon," while an Android version is also expected shortly.

The standalone app marks a shift away from Elon Musk's "everything app" vision for X, and security experts have previously warned that X Chat is less secure than rivals like Signal.

Other news you might like

• Apple announces new Studio Display and $3,299 Studio Display XDRLINK

• No one has a good plan for how AI companies should work with the governmentLINK

• Anthropic upgrades Claude’s memory to attract AI switchersLINK

• Apple might use Google servers to store data for its upgraded AI SiriLINK

• Anthropic made pitch in drone swarm contest during Pentagon feudLINK

• Elon Musk’s xAI and X to pay off $17.5B debt in full: reportLINK

• Cursor Recurring Revenue Doubles in Three Months to $2 BillionLINK

• Stripe wants to turn your AI costs into a profit centerLINK

• New DNA HDD can be ‘erased and overwritten repeatedly’LINK

• HBO Max and Paramount+ to be merged into one streaming serviceLINK

• Google fixes Gemini’s biggest Google Home frustrationsLINK

• A stolen Gemini API key turned a $180 bill into $82,000 in two daysLINK

• A YouTuber Made An EV Powered By 500 Vape BatteriesLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Krisp Accent Conversion: converts your accent in real-time during calls to improve clarity and comprehension, while also removing background noise and transcribing meetings across platforms.LINK

Shuo: a voice agent achieving ~400ms end-to-end latency using streaming STT, LLM, and TTS with semantic end-of-turn detection and instant barge-in handling.LINK

getviktor.com: an autonomous AI agent that integrates with 3,000+ tools via Slack to proactively automate workflows, manage tasks, and solve problems across your entire tech stack.LINK

Mailercloud Email API Platform: a cloud-based email service enabling developers to send transactional emails, OTPs, and marketing campaigns with high deliverability and performance tracking.LINK

Springfield Oracle: a searchable database that verifies Simpsons prediction claims with episode references and fact-checks to separate real coincidences from AI-generated fakes.LINK

SuperMoney: an AI personal finance app that tracks spending, identifies debt optimization opportunities, and recommends actionable money-saving decisions based on your financial data.LINK

📚 Trending papers & reports

AI agents give different answers each run: researchers tested coding and web tasks, finding agents produce inconsistent results even with identical inputs, making them unreliable for production use.LINK

AI learns to write GPU code through trial and error: the system generates CUDA programs, tests their speed, then improves based on performance feedback without needing human examples.LINK

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