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As Anthropic suspends access to new models, India debates its AI future

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Anthropic’s sudden move to suspend access to its newest AI models following a U.S. government directive has raised fresh questions across the global technology industry. In India, the decision has reignited a long-running debate over whether one of the world’s largest AI markets can afford to rely on technologies built and controlled elsewhere.

The announcement came late Friday, when Anthropic said it had received the U.S. government directive requiring it to suspend access to its recently launched Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all foreign nationals, including its own foreign national employees. The move came shortly after the company announced a partnership with Indian IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services to expand enterprise AI adoption in India, underlining how closely the country’s AI ambitions have become tied to technologies developed and governed in the U.S.

While the broader implications remain unclear, some reports said the initial security concerns were first reported to the government by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. And The Information said the White House is unlikely to extend similar restrictions to other AI companies and is privately blaming Anthropic’s handling of alleged jailbreak vulnerabilities. Anthropic has disputed the government’s characterization and argued the action should not have been taken.

Regardless, the development has triggered debate among Indian founders, investors, and policy experts over whether the country should accelerate efforts to build domestic AI capabilities, deepen investment in open-source alternatives, or continue relying on a handful of U.S. frontier model providers. For some, the episode is a wake-up call on technological dependence. For others, it is a reminder that access to increasingly critical AI systems can be shaped by geopolitical decisions beyond India’s control.

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India has become one of the most important markets for frontier AI companies. Anthropic and OpenAI have both described the South Asian nation as their second-largest market after the U.S., reflecting its growing importance in the global AI race. The companies have already set up their offices in India, expanded local hiring, partnerships, and enterprise initiatives in recent months, betting on India’s vast base of developers, startups, and businesses to accelerate adoption of their latest technologies.

For many in India’s technology sector, Anthropic’s Friday announcement was about more than just one AI company. It reopened questions about the country’s long-term AI strategy and whether India could afford to remain dependent on a small number of foreign frontier AI providers.

“It completely changes things,” said Aakrit Vaish, founder of Indian AI venture platform Activate, referring to Anthropic’s decision. “I think this materially changes the way all of us should be thinking about sovereign AI in India.”

Vaish told TechCrunch that he woke up on Saturday morning “shocked and confused” by the announcement and said it strengthened the case for developing domestic AI capabilities. He expects startups to increasingly turn to open-source models and plans to encourage companies in his portfolio to reduce their dependence on a small number of frontier AI providers.

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For some founders, the bigger concern was what restrictions on frontier AI access could mean for competitiveness. Vijay Rayapati, co-founder and CEO of Atomicwork, told TechCrunch that the episode highlighted the risks facing startups whose teams span multiple countries if access to advanced AI systems increasingly becomes subject to geopolitical restrictions.

Atomicwork has around 25 employees in the U.S., though much of its product engineering team is based in Bengaluru, India.

“If your AI team is not made up entirely of U.S. citizens, you are at a competitive disadvantage,” Rayapati said, arguing that unequal access to frontier AI models could give some companies a significant edge over rivals.

The concern comes as parts of India’s tech sector are already grappling with questions about how AI could reshape the economics of global talent. This week, U.S. real estate technology company Opendoor shut its India office less than two years after expanding in the country, with CEO Kaz Nejatian citing a push to bring operational work closer to customers in the U.S. and a shift toward smaller AI-native teams.

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While Opendoor did not specify how much of the decision was driven by AI-related efficiencies, the move added to a broader debate about how advances in AI could affect the future of global technology work and what that might mean for India’s position as an engineering talent hub.

Beyond Anthropic

In addition to startups and AI builders, the Anthropic episode also prompted a broader debate among India’s technology leaders about dependence on foreign AI infrastructure.

Sridhar Vembu, founder of Indian SaaS company Zoho, said the move showed that “technology is the ultimate weapon” and urged Indian organizations to increasingly embrace smaller and open-source models.

“What can our government do right now? Ensure that orgs in India embrace smaller models, both Indian and Chinese open source ones,” Vembu wrote on X.

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Investor and former Infosys executive Mohandas Pai responded to Vembu on X, arguing that the development highlighted the need for a far more ambitious national AI strategy and calling on the government to substantially increase investments in AI, computing infrastructure, and deep technology.

“We are way behind and need a national mission to get going quickly,” Pai wrote, urging the government to create an annual ₹500 billion (about $5 billion) fund for AI and deep tech, alongside a ₹2 trillion (around $21 billion) credit guarantee program to support cloud infrastructure, hardware, and semiconductor development.

Pai’s proposal would dwarf India’s existing AI efforts. In 2024, New Delhi approved the IndiaAI Mission with an outlay of ₹103.72 billion (about $1.2 billion) over five years, aimed at expanding compute infrastructure, supporting startups, and developing indigenous AI capabilities.

Despite growing interest in AI and New Delhi’s push to develop domestic capabilities, India remains a relatively small player in frontier model development. Only a handful of startups are pursuing foundational AI models, including Sarvam, which released open-source models earlier this year. However, another high-profile AI startup, Krutrim, pivoted toward cloud and AI infrastructure services after initially positioning itself around foundational model development.

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Much of India’s AI ecosystem has instead concentrated on applications and specialized models built on top of existing foundation models. Recent examples include Avataar AI, which launched a video-generation model earlier this week aimed at providing a lower-cost alternative to offerings from rivals including Google’s Veo, Kling, Luma, and Runway.

Not everyone agrees that the primary challenge is a lack of capital. Responding to Pai’s comments, Lightspeed partner Hemant Mohapatra argued that the biggest constraints to building globally competitive AI companies are talent, access to computing resources, and execution, rather than simply the size of investment commitments.

Mohapatra estimated that training a frontier AI model could cost anywhere from hundreds of millions to several billion dollars, depending on the approach, but said successful AI companies have historically scaled their capital requirements over time as adoption grew.

Yet for some policy observers, the implications extend well beyond AI startups or model providers.

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Prasanto Roy, a New Delhi-based technology policy expert who advises multinational companies, said the episode would likely reinforce concerns within the Indian government about strategic autonomy, comparing it to the lesson many countries drew from Russia’s loss of access to SWIFT and other parts of the global financial system following its invasion of Ukraine.

He told TechCrunch that the move was likely to provoke a significant nationalist backlash in India and described it as a poorly considered decision by Washington, with consequences extending far beyond Anthropic itself.

“Even if this is corrected or reversed, the Anthropic episode shows there’s no such thing as a geopolitically neutral foreign LLM,” Roy said. “American AI models are bound to American geopolitics.”

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The Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite is a clever, affordable Matter lock with no subscription fee, but a few rough edges

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Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite: two-minute review

Smart locks in Britain have always been the awkward cousin of the smart home. American buyers get deadbolts and endless choice; we get multipoint mechanisms, lift-to-lock handles and a nagging sense that retrofitting anything to the front door will either void the insurance or fall off.

Yale’s answer with the Linus L2 Lite is to keep things small, cheap and reversible — and, crucially, to build in Matter over Thread so the lock works with whatever smart home system you already rock.

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The L2 Lite is a compact, round-knob unit that mounts on the inside of your door over the existing thumb-turn. Your key still works from the outside, which matters both for emergencies and for landlords.

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The Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite is easy to install. fitting over your existing lock cylinder (Image credit: Future)

Inside the Yale Home app, you get the modern smart-lock toolkit: digital keys and PIN codes you can share and revoke, an activity feed of who came and went, Auto-Unlock that opens the door as you approach with your phone in your pocket, and KeySense — a button on the knob for a quick press-to-lock or a long-press delayed lock as you leave.

Because it supports Matter over Thread alongside Bluetooth 5.4, the L2 Lite joins Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa or Samsung SmartThings locally and responds fast, no Yale-specific bridge required — provided you already own a device that acts as a Thread border router, such as a recent Apple HomePod or Amazon Echo.

Yale Linus Smart Lock L2 Lite components on table before installation

The lock uses three CR123A batteries, which aren’t a type you’ll typically have to hand (Image credit: Future)

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When will Apple stop supporting Intel?

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Apple’s forthcoming macOS 27 doesn’t run on Intel Macs at all, and that’s just the beginning of a timeline that will complete a years-long transition to Apple Silicon. Here’s what to expect, and when.

When Apple unveiled macOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 opening keynote, it put into motion its previously announced plan for the end of Intel Macs. Not only will the update not support any Intel Macs, but it also removes the Rosetta 2 translation layer that allows Intel apps to run on other Macs, too.

Apple announced the transition away from Intel chips in 2020, choosing to use its own in-house silicon instead. Now, six years later, it’s getting ready to complete that transition, and app developers are on notice.

Apple has long warned that support for apps designed for Intel would need to be updated. With macOS 26.4, it also started to warn Mac users when they launched an Intel app.

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Now, time is almost up. Here’s how Mac support for Intel will finally end.

Fall 2026: macOS 27 releases, uninstalling Rosetta 2

Apple’s macOS 27 is in developer beta testing right now, but it will be released to the public this fall. It will only be available for Macs running Apple’s M1 chip or newer, removing support for Intel Macs entirely.

During the installation process, macOS 27 will also remove Rosetta 2 if it was previously installed. This will prevent any app designed for Intel chips from launching.

The removal of Rosetta 2 will also affect apps that use any Intel-only frameworks. This will most likely affect older games and specialist apps or plugins.

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If required, macOS 27 will allow Rosetta 2 to be reinstalled. But users and developers alike should take this as a last warning for what will come next.

Fall 2027: macOS 28 releases, ending Intel support

Fall 2027 will see the release of macOS 28, Apple’s next big Mac software update. Apple warned developers as far back as June 2025 that macOS 28 would not support Rosetta 2 for most apps.

Apple M4 chip logo in white on a dark background with a colorful gradient overlay.

Apple Silicon will soon see the end of Intel support

With macOS 28 installed, apps built for Intel Macs will no longer function. Users will need to update the software to a new, Apple Silicon version, if one is available. Otherwise, they’ll have to find an alternative app or some kind of bottle like Crossover or Parallels to use instead.

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There will be some concessions made, however. Apple has confirmed that Rosetta 2 functionality will remain available, but only for specific older and unmaintained games. These games rely on Intel-based frameworks and cannot be updated to support Apple Silicon.

Fall 2029: Apple no longer offers security updates for Intel

Prior to the release of macOS 26 Tahoe in the fall of 2025, Apple confirmed that Intel apps would not be supported by macOS 28. But it did say that Intel Macs running macOS 26 Tahoe would receive security updates for three years.

The macOS 26 Tahoe update was released in September 2025. With that in mind, we can expect Apple to cease security updates for Intel Macs in or around September 2029.

We’re in the Apple Silicon endgame

Six years after Apple began to move away from Intel Macs, the transition is almost complete. Seven years after release, it will be done. Apple has made it very clear that it’s ready to move on.

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For now, Intel Macs and Intel apps will continue to work. Even after Apple stops offering security updates for Intel Macs, they’ll continue to function just fine, albeit with increasingly degraded security.

The bigger issue may be the lack of Intel app support starting in late 2027, though. If you rely on an app that still hasn’t been updated for Apple Silicon, it’s time to bug its developer. If it hasn’t been updated by now, there’s a good chance it never will be.

With all of this being said, Apple’s message is now loud and clear. If you still own an Intel Mac and haven’t updated to a newer model running Apple Silicon, now is the time to do so.

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How to watch Copenhagen Sprint cycling 2026 for FREE: stream online from anywhere

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The 2nd edition of the newest race on the World Tour will see the World’s best sprinters take centre stage again in their bid for victory and bragging rights within the peloton.

It’s rare that so many big names line up in one place out side of the Tour de France to show who really is the best, so we will likely be treated to one of the sprints of the year at the end of the 228 kilometres into the heart of Copenhagen.

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What Is The 70/30 Brake Rule For Motorcycles?

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When you hit the brakes on your motorcycle, do you do so using the 70/30 rule? It’s a guideline that helps you know how much stopping power should be distributed between your motorcycle’s front and rear brakes. Under normal riding conditions, roughly 70% of your braking force should come from the front brake while the remaining 30% should come from the rear. Otherwise, you might just lose control of the bike.

As a rider puts on the brakes, the motorcycle’s weight naturally shifts forward. That increases the load and available traction on the front tire while reducing the load on the rear. But because the front tire gains more grip during deceleration, it’s able to generate much more stopping force than the rear tire. To account for all this, the best thing is to use both brakes rather than relying on one alone. That’s where the 70/30 rule comes from. Using the front brakes alone can upset the chassis, giving you less stability and making the motorcycle harder to control. Proper rear-brake use helps stabilize the motorcycle and keeps the chassis balanced.

Applying your brakes properly is all about feel. The bike isn’t designed to apply exactly 70% or 30% — you control manually that by how much pressure you apply to the brakes. It’s a good idea to practice braking in non-traffic situations to learn how your bike is going to react to various amounts of pressure.

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Exceptions to the 70/30 rule

While 70/30 is the standard for normal riding conditions, that ratio can change depending on your circumstances. During emergency stops, for example, your braking force may need to be even more front-focused. Some guidance suggests as much as 90% of stopping power coming from the front brake and only 10% from the rear. Even then, riders probably shouldn’t use 100% of both brakes simultaneously and risk losing control. Anti-lock braking systems can only do so much. Other factors like wet pavement, dirty roads, worn tires, passengers on back, and bad brakes can also affect how much you stick to the 70/30 guideline.

Basically, the 70/30 rule should be treated as a training guideline rather than an absolute rule you have to stick to every time. Each rider’s motorcycle has its own unique characteristics, and braking performance will ultimately depend on more than just a braking ratio. The front brake is nothing to fear, but it should always be balanced out in some capacity with the back brakes.

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A Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI Overviews

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A local court in Germany has issued a ruling that could reshape the operation of search engines and artificial-intelligence-based chatbots worldwide. The Munich Regional Court preliminarily ruled that Google is liable for a series of false statements generated by its AI Overviews feature, requiring the company to prevent the dissemination of erroneous or inaccurate claims through its search engine.

The ruling stems from a case first reported by the Decoder, in which two publishers discovered that Google’s AI-generated summaries linked them, in certain searches, to questionable business practices, scams, and subscription-related frauds, without any basis for doing so.

Earlier this year, the affected companies sent the tech giant a cease-and-desist letter, according to the report. Google denied liability, arguing that its automatic summary feature warns users that the information may contain errors and should be independently verified.

The court’s analysis concluded that Google’s AI combined information corresponding to other companies that had been flagged for possible illicit practices with data from the plaintiffs, generating associations that did not appear in any of the sources linked by the search engine.

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The authorities found that, unlike traditional search engines, which merely display lists of links with statements made by third parties, Google’s tool produced “independent, new, and substantial statements” based on a misinterpretation of information available on the internet.

According to the court, correcting misinformation is not the responsibility of third parties. Google is the only entity with the ability to modify the technology underpinning its AI-generated summaries and, therefore, “must be held accountable.” Furthermore, the court found that Google’s line of defense lacked merit, since the challenged summary “contains statements that do not appear at all in the search results.

A New (and Forceful) Interpretation of AI on the Web

The court’s interpretation of AI’s role in presenting search results could make this case a historic precedent. It finds a large tech company responsible for the influence of its most advanced developments on widely used platforms.

Until now, in most legal systems, search engines have been considered tools that merely facilitate access to content created by third parties and available on the web. This status has afforded them a certain level of protection when the published information is false, inaccurate, misleading, or even defamatory.

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However, the German court held that this safeguard no longer applies when search engines incorporate generative AI systems. According to its reasoning, this technology is capable of producing nonexistent claims based on multiple sources and, consequently, the companies responsible for operating it must assume liability for the resulting content.

The judges also concluded that while Google encourages users to verify information due to the potential for hallucinations inherent in AI models, this warning does not absolve the content distributor of liability. Otherwise, they argued, victims of false statements would be virtually defenseless, since the original sources never made those statements and, therefore, could not be subject to legal action.

Likewise, the court held that results generated by an AI system cannot be protected under the principles of free speech, as they are the product of an algorithm designed, trained, and managed by a company, and not the expression of an individual opinion.

As a precautionary measure to prevent possible recurrence, the ruling required Google to remove a large portion of the statements deemed defamatory in this case, and to cover 80 percent of the legal costs arising from the proceedings.

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A company spokesperson, quoted by Ars Technica, suggested that the decision could be appealed. “We invest deeply in the quality of AI Overviews to ensure that the overwhelming majority of responses provide accurate information, and they are designed to reflect the information that exists on the web,” the statement says. “We’re carefully reviewing this decision, which is not yet final.”

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Spotify’s awful disco ball icon is finally gone

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Spotify users can finally stop staring at that disco ball.

The music streaming service has quietly reverted its app icon back to the familiar green-and-black design, ending a month-long experiment that proved surprisingly unpopular with users.

The sparkly icon first appeared in May as part of Spotify’s 20th anniversary celebrations, replacing the standard logo with a shimmering disco ball effect. While Spotify likely intended it as a fun tribute to two decades of music streaming, many users weren’t exactly thrilled by the change.

In fact, the temporary redesign attracted a fair amount of criticism online. Some users complained that the icon looked messy on their home screens. Others said the reflective effect made it harder to spot among other apps. And, what was meant to resemble a disco ball reportedly looked more like a small dark blob on certain displays.

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The return to normal comes slightly later than expected. Spotify had previously suggested the anniversary icon would disappear before the end of May, though it lingered into June before finally being removed in the latest iOS update.

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The change appears to be rolling out automatically. Still, users who are still seeing the disco ball can try updating the app manually.

Not everyone wanted to see it go, though. While much of the reaction was negative, some Spotify users had suggested keeping the anniversary icon as an optional feature for Premium subscribers.

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Either way, the debate is now largely over. Spotify’s classic logo is back where it belongs, and the disco ball has officially spun its last track.

The icon change arrives just as Spotify continues rolling out several new music-focused features like improved playlist organisation tools that make it easier to manage large collections of songs.

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KPMG pulled its AI report after UBS, the NHS, and others said its claims about them were made up

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TL;DR

KPMG pulled a report on agentic AI after UBS, the NHS, and others said its claims were untrue. GPTZero identified the errors as AI hallucinations.

KPMG has pulled a report titled “Redefining excellence in the age of agentic AI after multiple organisations said the claims it made about their AI usage were either untrue or misleading. UBS, the UK’s National Health Service, Swiss Federal Railways, and Transport for London all told the Financial Times that the report’s descriptions of their AI deployments were wrong.

GPTZero, the AI detection firm, identified the inaccuracies and told the FT they stemmed from AI hallucinations. In other words, a professional services firm used AI to help write a report about AI, and the AI made things up about the companies it was supposedly analysing.

The report was published in October 2025 and has now been removed from KPMG’s websites. A spokesperson said the firm is conducting its own investigation. “We expect all our people to follow our guidelines on the responsible use of AI, including human oversight to validate content and verify independent sources,” the spokesperson said.

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KPMG is not the first professional services firm to get caught. Last month, EY withdrew a report on loyalty rewards programmes that appeared to include fake footnotes and AI hallucinations. South Africa withdrew its entire national AI policy after at least six of its 67 academic citations were found to be AI-generated fabrications.

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The pattern is consistent: organisations use AI to produce authoritative-looking content, skip the verification step, and publish claims that turn out to be fictional. The KPMG case is particularly embarrassing because the report was specifically about AI adoption, meaning the subject matter should have made the authors more careful about AI-generated errors, not less.

For KPMG’s clients, the incident raises a harder question. If the firm’s public-facing thought leadership uses AI without adequate human review, what level of oversight applies to the work it delivers under contract? KPMG partnered with Anthropic earlier this year to deploy Claude across all 276,000 staff. The partnership is designed to embed AI into advisory, audit, and tax work. The pulled report is a preview of what happens when that embedding outpaces the verification.

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Rivian’s CEO on Tesla’s Cybertruck, Ferrari’s Luce, and What Happens If the R2 Fails

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RJ Scaringe got his PhD from MIT studying internal combustion engines. Then he founded a company to make them obsolete. In 2009, fresh out of grad school, he launched what would become Rivian. The company spent nearly a decade in stealth mode before arriving at the 2018 LA Auto Show with two electric rides nobody had seen coming.

The road, however, hasn’t been easy. Rivian lost $3.6 billion in 2025, and has burned through nearly $25 billion in the past eight years. It has spent more money over the same period than almost every other pure EV maker. Rivian’s IPO was the largest worldwide in 2021, and one of the largest in US history, within days valuing the company at over $100 billion. Its stock has dropped from a high of $130 to around $16. Since the R1 went on sale in 2021, Rivian has sold 175,000 cars. In the same time, Tesla has sold 8 million.

But in 2024, Volkswagen Group committed up to $5.8 billion to co-develop software and electrical architecture technology with Rivian in a huge joint venture. This year, Uber announced it will invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian to build and deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis.

Regardless, the company needs its new R2 SUV to work. Not just sell, but sell in large numbers.

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I sat down with Scaringe for a candid, wide-ranging discussion on what happens if the R2 fails, why the R1 launched with dead-end tech, how to compete with China, the Cybertruck’s failure, and the virtue of buttons inside cars. But we started on easier ground: his thoughts on the most polarizing EV of 2026. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

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RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian Automotive, apparently hoping to be better off-road than an R2.

Courtesy of Rivian

JEREMY WHITE: What do you think about Ferrari’s Luce?

RJ SCARINGE: The way Jony [Ive] and Marc [Newson] approach design is incredibly intentional, so there’s not a decision on that car that’s unintentional. Through that lens, you have to like look at it in a different light. It’s definitely different than what people were expecting.

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Do you like the Luce, though?

Would I buy it? I don’t own a Ferrari. There are things about it I really like. Parts of the interior are just phenomenal, like how beautifully well executed the haptics, the switches, the buttons are. You can see Jony’s fingerprints all over it.

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MacBook Neo vs Dell XPS 13: $599 budget battle, compared

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Dell has rebuilt the XPS 13 to directly take on Apple’s MacBook Neo on price. Here’s how the entry-level models compare on specs and value.

Two open laptops on a bluegreen gradient background, left showing abstract yellow and green shapes, right displaying colorful waves with a video call window of a woman on the screen
MacBook Neo [left] vs Dell XPS 13 [right]

Apple’s MacBook Neo arrived as the company’s most accessible laptop, pairing the A18 Pro chip with a $599 price. Dell has now answered directly with a new XPS 13.
Dell is open about the target. Its announcement names the MacBook Neo and frames the XPS 13 as the more feature-rich option at a similar price.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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NBA Streetball, Crafting With Renewable Energy And Other New Indie Games Worth Checking Out

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NBA The Run

Developer and publisher: Play by Play Studios
Platforms: Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Price: $30

Basketball fever has taken hold for many as the New York Knicks are just one game away from their first NBA title since 1973. If you’re a Knicks (or San Antonio Spurs) fan looking for a way to kill some time until tonight’s Game 5, NBA The Run might have you covered.

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This is a 3v3 streetball game and a spiritual successor to NBA The Street from a team including some developers who worked on that series. It features more than 30 real NBA players — including LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Luka Dončić and Kevin Durant — and it leans more into arcade action rather than taking the simulated approach of the NBA 2K series. I’m not quite as into basketball as I was as a kid, but NBA Jam has a permanent place in my heart, so I’m definitely interested in trying NBA The Run.

Solarpunk

Developer: Cyberwave
Publisher: Rokaplay
Platforms: Steam, Epic Games Store, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2

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Price: $23 (available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass)

Solarpunk is a game I’ve had on my radar for a little while. It’s a relaxing crafting game set on a group of floating islands that you can travel between using airships. The two-person team at Cyberwave have baked in some “light survival mechanics,” though this is said to be an uplifting game that you can play with friends.

Given the title, it may not be too surprising that sustainability is a key focus of Solarpunk. You’ll build devices that can draw power from renewable energy sources and use that to automate systems across your farm and home.

It looks lovely, and lots of other folks are interested in this one. Solarpunk saw more than 500,000 demo downloads during a previous edition of Steam Next Fest. More than a million people wishlisted it too.

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Crushed in Time

Developer and publisher: Draw Me A Pixel
Platform: Steam (coming to Switch and mobile later this year)
Price: Usually $25, with a 20 percent discount until June 24

As a fan of LucasArts point-and-click adventures, Crushed in Time is a game that speaks to my soul. This is a spin-off from There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson make their return as they travel through time and space in search of a character that has gone missing from their own video game. You’ll be exploring the game’s development pipeline to track down this missing NPC.

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Aside from the highly meta concept, what helps Crushed in Time stand out is that it takes place in an elastic universe. You’ll be tugging on objects and environments to help you solve puzzles (so it’s really more of a click-and-drag game). This looks very much up my alley. Ironically, I haven’t had time to jump in yet, but I plan on playing Crushed in Time as soon as my schedule lets up.

Voidling Bound

Developer and publisher: Hatchery Games
Platforms: Steam, Epic Games Store (coming to consoles later)
Price: $25, with a 10 percent discount until June 23

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Voidling Bound is from a studio that includes former Skylanders developers, so maybe it’s not too much of a shock that this is a creature feature. It’s fundamentally a creature taming game in which you’ll breed, nurture and evolve critters using skill trees and the like.

You’ll then take control of said creatures in combat as this is also a third-person shooter. It looks like an interesting spin on the creature taming format.

33 Immortals

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Developer: Thunder Lotus
Publishers: Thunder Lotus, Kepler Ghost
Platforms: Steam (previously on Xbox Series X/S and Epic Games Store)

Price: $10 until June 17 on Steam. It’s also on sale on Epic Games Store and Xbox. It’s available on Game Pass Ultimate and Premium, as well as PC Game Pass

33 Immortals is a neat game that I’m looking forward to diving back into. I played a chunk of it in early access and now Thunder Lotus has released the full version, which is also making its debut on Steam.

33 Immortals 1.0 features three playable worlds, other fresh content, more customization options and a new final boss encounter to properly conclude a run. It’s a co-op action roguelite that brings 33 players together to battle hordes of enemies and hulking bosses. There are miniboss rooms that you can conquer with a few of your teammates (after you call for help with emotes) and earn upgrades for the crew. It’s a good time!

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