Apple and Meta in Bidding War for AI Startups as Talent Scramble Heats Up

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Here’s the latest from this week in AI:

• OpenAI Pulls 'io' Launch After Trademark Dispute

• Reddit Eyes Iris Scans to Fight AI Bots

• Apple and Meta Battle for AI Startups and Talent

• Meta and Oakley Launch AI Glasses for Athletes

OpenAI Pulls 'io' Launch After Trademark Dispute

OpenAI has taken down all content promoting its $6.5B acquisition of Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup io after a trademark complaint from iyO, a Google X spinout. The filing claims that Altman and Ive’s team met with iyO before the io launch and that the two companies’ products and names are strikingly similar.

Despite removing a blog post and video, OpenAI says the deal is still on and calls the lawsuit “baseless.” Still, the timing and allegations raise questions about originality in the AI giant’s leap into consumer tech.

Reddit Eyes Iris Scans to Fight AI Bots

Reddit is in talks with Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity to integrate World ID’s iris-scanning tech, offering users a way to prove they’re human, without giving up anonymity. The system uses encrypted, globally fragmented iris data to assign each user a unique World ID.

If finalized, Reddit would become the first major U.S. platform to test biometric verification at scale. While the Orb system once drew backlash, the rise of AI-generated accounts has made human verification a growing priority online.

Apple and Meta Battle for AI Startups and Talent

Apple and Meta are aggressively courting top AI startups like Perplexity and poaching elite talent to stay competitive in the AI race. Apple reportedly explored acquiring Perplexity to build a search engine rival to Google, while Meta held talks with Perplexity, SSI, and Thinking Machines before pouring $14.3B into Scale AI.

Meta is also wooing high-profile investors like Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross for its superintelligence division. With reports of $100M offers to OpenAI staff, the scramble highlights just how fierce the race for AI dominance has become.

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Meta and Oakley Launch AI Glasses for Athletes

Meta has teamed up with Oakley to launch the Meta HSTN smart glasses, a $399 AI-powered wearable aimed at athletes. With features like real-time answers, 3K video, Bluetooth calls, and improved battery life, the new line builds on Meta’s successful Ray-Ban collaboration.

Backed by stars like Mbappe and Mahomes, the glasses are designed for active use in sports like surfing and golf. Pre-orders for a limited gold edition start July 11, with a global rollout in 15 countries this summer.

In Other News

Stocks Surge as Ceasefire Calms Markets, Oil Plunges

Markets rallied Tuesday as investors bet on a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran holding steady. The Dow jumped 507 points, the S&P 500 rose 1.1%, and the Nasdaq gained 1.4%, with the Nasdaq 100 closing at a record high. Falling oil prices fueled the momentum. U.S. crude dropped another 6%, adding to Monday’s 7% slide, boosting airline and tech stocks like United, Delta, Broadcom, and Nvidia.

The rally followed reassurances from President Trump that Israel would not strike Iran again, despite mutual ceasefire violations. Investors also took comfort in the Fed’s cautious stance on rate cuts, with Chair Jerome Powell signaling a wait-and-see approach amid ongoing tariff uncertainty.

Cool Tools For This Week From insidersedge.io 

Vocaloid - Create amazing music with this AI tool

Dora - Create stunning websites without coding

Godmode - Get a GUI to chat with ChatGPT

Vossle - Create AR experiences for your customers

Jobs To Check Out This Week On insidersedge.io

AI Backend Engineer - Harmony

Business Development Associate - Wintermute 

ML Egineer Intern - OP3N

Risk Product Manager Director Machine Learning - Okcoin

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