☕️ OpenAI's new model codes 15x faster

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In today's Techpresso:

🏎️ OpenAI's new Spark model codes 15x faster thanks to new chip

👓 Meta plans facial recognition for its smart glasses

💰 Anthropic raises $30B at $380B valuation

🚫 Amazon's Ring cancels Flock partnership amid Super Bowl ad backlash

🇺🇸 OpenAI accuses DeepSeek of distilling US AI models

🚗 Waymo launches next-gen Ojai robotaxis

Plus: 🎁 20 other news you might like, 🧰 6 tools, and 📚 4 papers.

🏎️ OpenAI's new Spark model codes 15x faster thanks to new chip LINK

OpenAI released GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, a smaller model that generates code 15 times faster than its predecessor, powered by Cerebras' Wafer Scale Engine 3 chip in the first result of their partnership.

Spark is built for real-time coding with quick, targeted edits rather than long-running tasks, cutting per-roundtrip overhead by 80% and time-to-first-token by 50% through streaming optimizations and persistent WebSocket connections.

The speed comes with trade-offs: Spark scores lower than GPT-5.3-Codex on software engineering benchmarks and falls short of OpenAI's "high capability" threshold for cybersecurity under its Preparedness Framework.

👓 Meta plans facial recognition for its smart glasses LINK

Meta is planning to add a facial recognition feature called "Name Tag" to its Ray-Ban smart glasses, possibly launching as soon as this year, according to a New York Times report.

Name Tag would let wearers identify people and pull up information about them through Meta's AI assistant, though the company is still deciding who should be recognizable through the technology.

An internal document shows Meta discussed releasing the feature since early last year, despite shutting down its Facebook facial recognition system five years ago over privacy and legal concerns.

💰 Anthropic raises $30B at $380B valuation LINK

Anthropic closed a $30 billion funding round at a $380 billion post-money valuation, more than doubling its worth since September and making it the second-largest private tech fundraising round on record.

The round was led by Coatue and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, and includes portions of previously announced investments from Microsoft and Nvidia, which committed up to $5 billion and $10 billion respectively.

Anthropic said its annualized revenue has climbed to $14 billion, up from roughly $10 billion last year, driven by enterprise customers who are increasingly relying on Claude for how businesses work.

🚫 Amazon's Ring cancels Flock partnership amid Super Bowl ad backlash LINK

Amazon's Ring and surveillance company Flock Safety have jointly cancelled their planned integration, which would have made it easier for police to request and receive footage from users' personal cameras.

Ring blamed the cancellation on resource issues, but the partnership had faced significant criticism over privacy concerns, with some users disconnecting or destroying their devices over Flock Safety's ties to ICE.

The cancellation came days after Ring's Super Bowl ad for its AI-powered Search Party feature drew backlash, with viewers noting the pet-tracking technology could easily be used to track humans.

🇺🇸 OpenAI accuses DeepSeek of distilling US AI models LINK

OpenAI told a U.S. House committee that DeepSeek has been distilling its models — training smaller systems on outputs from OpenAI — and accused the Chinese company of bypassing access restrictions.

OpenAI claims it found accounts linked to DeepSeek employees using obfuscated third-party routers to extract outputs from its models, violating rules against building imitation frontier AI models.

A RAND Corporation researcher suggested OpenAI may be escalating now to block DeepSeek and other Chinese companies from acquiring more chips, helping U.S. firms keep their leading position.

🚗 Waymo launches next-gen Ojai robotaxis LINK

Waymo has started running its sixth-generation driverless system on Ojai robotaxis, built on a base vehicle from Chinese automaker Geely, giving rides to employees first.

The company plans to expand Ojai service from San Francisco and Los Angeles to new cities, with a goal to open rides to public passengers later this year.

GOP lawmakers have criticized Waymo for using Chinese electric vehicles, but the company says it will not share its autonomous driving technology, sensor data, or rider information with Zeekr.

Other news you might like

• Google warns attackers are wiring AI directly into live cyberattacksLINK

• YouTube finally launches a dedicated app for Apple Vision ProLINK

• Gemini 3 Deep Think can now turn sketches into 3D models and more: DetailsLINK

• Spotify says its best developers haven’t written a line of code since December, thanks to AILINK

• DoorDashers are getting paid to close Waymo's self-driving car doorsLINK

• Antitrust head overseeing Netflix-Warner merger resignsLINK

• Coinbase Reports Q4 Miss With $667 Million Loss Amid Bitcoin RetreatLINK

• Google targeted by EU over online ad price practices unfair to advertisersLINK

• Trucking and logistics stocks drop on release of AI freight scaling toolLINK

• When Amazon badly needed a ride, Europe's Ariane 6 rocket deliveredLINK

• China's Baidu to integrate OpenClaw AI into search app for 700 million usersLINK

• Rivian was saved by software in 2025LINK

• Microsoft confirms plan to ditch OpenAI — as the ChatGPT firm continues to beg Big Tech for cashLINK

• IBM to triple entry-level US hiring, as roles ‘reimagined’ for AI eraLINK

• Aurora’s driverless trucks can now travel farther distances faster than human driversLINK

• Microsoft AI CEO: "Most" white-collar tasks will be automated in 18 monthsLINK

• Instagram CEO says scrolling social media for 16 hours is not an addictionLINK

• An AI agent got its code rejected so it wrote a hit piece about the developerLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Lovon AI Therapy: voice-based AI therapist offering on-demand mental health support and conversations, designed with PhD psychologists for private, accessible emotional wellness guidance.LINK

Meme Dealer: keyboard extension that uses AI to suggest contextually relevant memes based on conversation mood, eliminating the need to manually search your camera roll.LINK

ZenMux: an enterprise LLM gateway providing unified API access to multiple AI models with intelligent routing and automatic compensation for failed requests.LINK

Code Arena: compare outputs from multiple AI coding models side-by-side by prompting once, then export ready-to-run multi-file projects to GitHub or your IDE.LINK

GPT‑5.3‑Codex‑Spark: a development platform that provides APIs and tools for integrating advanced AI models into applications with scalable infrastructure for production deployment.LINK

Rari: a React framework powered by Rust for building web applications with improved performance and developer experience.LINK

📚 Trending papers & reports

Large language models beat doctors at diagnosing diseases: GPT-4 and Claude correctly identified conditions from patient descriptions more often than physicians, suggesting AI could assist medical decisions.LINK

Authenticated Workflows for Controlling AI Agents: users define step by step rules that AI agents must follow exactly, preventing autonomous systems from taking unexpected actions outside approved boundaries.LINK

Formalizing the 80/20 Rule Mathematically: mathematicians prove the Pareto Principle emerges naturally from probability distributions, explaining why 20% of causes create 80% of effects across systems.LINK

Training tiny AI to reason logically: a 13 parameter model learns basic logical rules, proving that reasoning ability doesn't always require massive neural networks.LINK

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