If Alphabet’s record-breaking $85 billion stock sale signals investor appetite for AI-related offerings — and it does — we can safely say that investors are voracious.

Google’s parent company had initially intended to sell a first tranche of $40 billion worth of various equity instruments — two different classes of shares, plus smaller “depositary shares” priced to be accessible to a broader range of investors. But the offering was so oversubscribed that it raised $45 billion instead, CEO Sundar Pichai said in a post on X on Monday. Among the buyers: Berkshire Hathaway, still known for its love of value investing, picked up $10 billion worth.

Alphabet plans to sell another $40 billion worth next quarter, for $85 billion total.

Even $80 billion would have topped the record for equity offerings previously set by Brazilian oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, which raised $70 billion in 2010, Bloomberg reports.

Now, it’s true that these investors are buying shares of Alphabet, not shares in a younger, possibly debt-riddled AI startup. Alphabet is a very healthy business: $110 billion in revenue (with high profit margins) in Q1 alone, up 22% year-over-year.

Still, the money from this stock sale is earmarked for AI. “Part of our multi-year investment strategy to meet the AI opportunity ahead and support the demand we’re seeing from enterprises and consumers,” as Pichai described it. At Google I/O last month, he said the company expects to spend between $180 billion and $190 billion on capital expenditures — largely on AI infrastructure and data centers — before the year is out.

The timing matters beyond Alphabet itself. As Anthropic gets ready to go public, this enormously successful stock sale is a very good sign for the broader AI IPO pipeline. It indicates that public investors, particularly the deep-pocketed institutional ones, are ready to pony up.

The upcoming SpaceX IPO is expected to smash records for cash raised and valuation, and Anthropic’s deal is expected to do the same, possibly surpassing SpaceX. OpenAI is also waiting in the wings.

But all of this rests on public investors’ appetite — not just private VCs — remaining strong, and then staying that way. An unprecedented nearly $8 trillion in AI spending has been committed over the next five years. That money has to come from somewhere — and that somewhere includes individual company revenues, loans, and capital raised through stock sales. Whether public markets have the stomach to absorb that much, for that long, is the question that every AI company eyeing an IPO should be thinking about right now.

Uber revealed on Wednesday a prototype car that it plans to use to scoop up real-world driving data for its growing roster of autonomous vehicle partners, including Avride, Waymo, and WeRide.

The vehicle is not some radical design. Rather, it’s a Hyundai Ioniq 5 fitted with an incredible number of sensors on the top and sides, as the company first told TechCrunch back in January. The sensor-laden vehicle may not look particularly groundbreaking, but it does mark a few milestones for the company.

This is the first vehicle Uber has assembled itself (with help from a partner) since the company sold its autonomous vehicle division to Aurora in 2020. It also represents progress on Uber’s new AV Labs division, which launched earlier this year to use sensor-equipped Uber cars to collect and then share data with its 30-and-counting autonomous vehicle technology partners.

Uber said Wednesday that it plans to roll out 500 of these kitted-out Hyundai EVs globally this year. That fleet will be able to collect “2 million miles per month of high-fidelity data” for robotaxis. Uber expects 50 of these vehicles to be on the road by the summer.

The Ioniqs are fitted with 14 cameras, eight solid-state lidar sensors, and nine radars through a partnership with Roush Performance, which will handle the vehicle retrofits. All of that data will be routed through Nvidia’s Dual Drive Thor autonomous vehicle computer. Uber appears open to changing that sensor suite, noting that it will continue to update it as its partners’ needs evolve.

This isn’t just a transfer of raw data, however. Uber said its aim is to develop the world’s most geographically diverse set of training data specifically geared towards autonomous driving. If successful, this dataset will give its AV partners a 360-degree, time synchronized stitched view that can be used to train self-driving software.

The company already has a head start. Uber told TechCrunch it has collected data from thousands of vehicles equipped with outward-facing cameras in dozens of cities that are operated by its fleet partners. Uber has also captured data from hundreds of Lucid Air vehicles used by its fleet partners in the U.S. and Europe over the past two years.

Uber’s AV Labs division is analyzing these two tranches of data and is preparing to collect even more with its modified Ioniq 5 vehicles, which will be used by its fleet partners.

The AV Labs division is one component of Uber’s broader ambitions for autonomous vehicles. The company launched in February a division called Uber Autonomous Solutions that is designed to handle the day-to-day operations at a robotaxi, self-driving truck, or sidewalk delivery robot business.

The new app was designed to showcase the upcoming Galaxy Watches’ capabilities.

NVIDIA has introduced RTX Spark, a new computing platform designed to bring AI features to modern laptops. Major laptop brands have already revealed RTX Spark-powered models that combine strong performance with sleek designs and high-quality displays. The technology integrates multiple key features into a single system, including AI processing and graphics performance. Such factors help increase responsiveness when working with various creativity and productivity software. The laptops are designed to contribute to the next generation of AI-enabled Windows devices.

RTX Spark is based on computing technology primarily driven by AI. It offers AI-based functionality that will become common for Windows devices. At the same time, it offers strong graphics capabilities for creators and professionals. It also uses unified memory to improve communication between different system components. These advantages could make future Windows laptops more powerful and responsive than ever before.

Every NVIDIA RTX Spark Laptop Announced So Far

1. Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft launched the Surface Laptop Ultra, its newest and most powerful Surface laptop yet. This device comes with a massive 15-inch PixelSense Ultra touchscreen that’s amazing for tackling tough jobs and creative tasks. Microsoft claims it’s the brightest display on any Surface laptop and the first to use mini-LED tech. With more screen real estate, users can easily multitask, create content, and follow complex professional processes.

The laptop’s equipped with an NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU to ace graphically demanding tasks. Paired with this is up to 128GB of unified memory, which shares resources across different tasks seamlessly. The redesigned chassis also accommodates powerful hardware while maintaining a premium and portable design.

2. Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition

The XPS 16 Creator Edition from Dell is amazing for creative pros. It comes with a stunning 16-inch OLED screen. The True Black HDR 600 tech really boosts that display, showing off dark shadows and vivid colors perfectly. So whether you’re into photo editing, videos, or graphic design, this laptop will suit your needs.

This laptop runs on NVIDIA RTX Spark tech with up to 128GB of unified memory, handling heavy tasks smoothly. It also includes handy features: an HDMI port and an SD card reader. So, you can effortlessly connect extra displays and move media files around. Combined with its fancy design, it should give pros serious power and keep the battery running for a long time throughout the day.

3. Asus ProArt P14 and P16

ASUS added the RTX Spark to its lineup of ProArt P14 and ProArt P16 creator notebooks. These machines boast high-def OLED displays, up to 128GB of memory, and up to 2TB of storage. The ProArt P14 is really portable with its 14-inch screen, while the ProArt P16 has a larger 16-inch display, perfect for extra workspace. Both remain slim and light, making them great to carry around.

Their screens cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and go up to 120Hz refresh rates. Plus, these ASUS laptops include RTX Spark tech, up to 128GB of unified memory, and even 2TB of storage. They’ve also swapped out the old DialPad for haptic controls, which makes the user experience way more modern and responsive. On top of that, these devices have USB-C, USB-A, HDMI 2.1, and SD card readers. Plus, they support Wi-Fi 7 and sport large batteries for heavy-duty creative work.

4. HP OmniBook Lineup

HP released the OmniBook X 14 and Ultra 16 as part of their new RTX Spark line. The X 14 is super portable yet packs powerful specs for creatives and workers alike. The Ultra 16 is all about handling lots of tasks smoothly. HP highlights both models as the world’s thinnest RTX Spark devices.

HP made sure to include plenty of handy connectivity options, like HDMI and USB-C ports, for easy display and accessory use. The OmniBook X 14 is super slim at 0.53 inches, and the OmniBook Ultra 16 comes at 0.62 inches. These compact designs help creators and professionals carry powerful hardware without sacrificing portability.

Expected Price and Availability

The RTX Spark laptops are launching later this year. Although official prices aren’t out yet, they’ll probably be really high because of their top-notch design, great displays, and specs. They’re meant for artists and AI pros. So, companies will likely share those final price tags, and when you can get them once everything’s set.

Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured a stunning composite image of galaxy M88, which shows a massive spiral system twisted at an angle, stretching its appearance and displaying an orderly set of arms looping inward with exceptional symmetry. Pink knots represent the formation of new stars, blue clusters outline younger stellar populations, and darker red lanes highlight the disk’s dust. The galaxy’s nucleus is surrounded by older stars that emit a warm light.

Charles Messier cataloged this object in 1781 while looking for any comet-like bodies in our skies. Later generations attempted to locate it in the Virgo Cluster, a huge collection of over a thousand galaxies crammed into a relatively large region of space that is roughly oriented toward the Coma Berenices constellation. M88 is just about 60 million light-years from the Milky Way. The galaxy spans around 130,000 light-years and contains several hundred billion stars. Its disk is slightly tilted, approximately 64 degrees, resulting in an elongated form rather than a perfect circle. Surprisingly, the elongation does not appear to impair the exceedingly regular spiral arms. Even the core region appears to be accurate, with no obvious disruptions or distortions to report.

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This supergalaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a mass of 80 to 100 million suns. Gas and dust conduct a cosmic dance as they spiral towards this behemoth, releasing energy that flows everywhere. This frantic activity has classified M88 as a Seyfert 2 galaxy, which is not the most common sort of galaxy, but don’t expect much star-birth here. M88 is not cruising through a vacuum, as one might expect, but rather a member of the Virgo Cluster, where the only thing that separates member galaxies is scorching hot gas. As it rushes ahead, this hot gas generates a slight headwind, causing the galaxy’s gas disk to feel squashed. Especially in the front, where material is squeezed and gas is drawn from outside areas, this is enough to significantly decrease the flow of gas to new star formation, particularly in the outer disk.

Hubble program 18103 investigated a few spirals within one of these tight clusters to see how much the environment controls them. The image of M88 illustrates where stars may still be seen despite the pressure, as well as how the dust lanes have reacted to the overall movement. Guess what? The outer regions of the disk are already showing less activity than one would expect from a galaxy of this size and type. The most accurate measurement places M88 about a couple of million light-years from the cluster’s center point. In addition, it will collide with the massive elliptical galaxy M87 in around 200-300 million years. This will result in M88 being completely mauled by tidal pressures and subsequent interactions with the hot cluster medium.

Dubai’s skyline is constantly changing, and the Burj Azizi, currently rising along Sheikh Zayed Road, is one of the most magnificent additions to date. This project repurposes an older, delayed site into a new landmark that will shortly become the world’s second highest tower. Standing 725 meters from base to architectural top, the tower will claim that global ranking once complete. The measurement puts it comfortably above of most recent supertall challengers, although being approximately 103 meters shorter than the adjacent Burj Khalifa.

Azizi Developments takes the lead on a project that has been stalled for years after purchasing the dormant Entisar Tower site. Meanwhile, construction crews are working long hours, day and night, to lay the groundwork for this massive skyscraper, which they want to finish by 2028. This behemoth will be a sight to behold, towering over 130 floors and packing an unexpected mix of functions into a sleek body. The top floor houses a 7-star all-suite hotel with a design influenced by seven different cultural themes, while the lower floors are filled with ultra-luxurious flats, penthouses, and holiday homes. Then there’s the vertical retail space, a sprawling shopping mall that rises level by floor across the building.

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What sets this skyscraper apart from others is not just its sheer height, but what they do with it. Try standing in the hotel lobby at 498 meters, which is the world’s highest position (for a hotel lobby). Then proceed to the highest-occupied hotel room, Dubai’s highest restaurant (544 meters), a theater (310 meters), a club (567 meters), a spa (415 meters), or the observation deck (649 meters). Residents will have access to a range of amenities, including health clubs, pools, gyms, saunas, cafes, a children’s play area, a ballroom, and, to top it all off, an adrenaline junkie zone for thrill seekers. This all adds up to a self-contained vertical neighborhood where you may work, play, interact, and dine all under one roof, without having to leave at any time.

You can expect to pay a significant fortune to live here, with prices ranging from around 10,000 Dirhams ($2,723) per square foot to ultra-high-end options. By mid-2026, the tower is beginning to block views along that strip, and workers are still hard at work on the building’s foundations and skeleton, under the close supervision of Azizi, who had no misgivings about investing the money. They have already spent over 6 billion Dirhams to get this project off the ground.
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Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I admit, 1-Across really threw me, but now I think it’s a pretty smart clue. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: It takes you from E to F (and starts with G!)
Answer: GAS

4A clue: Animal that has a symbiotic relationship with green algae, which grows in its fur
Answer: SLOTH

6A clue: Societal no-no
Answer: TABOO

7A clue: “Sorry, unavailable then”
Answer: ICANT

8A clue: Color associated with passion
Answer: RED

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Turn in the fridge, maybe
Answer: GOBAD

2D clue: Lots and lots
Answer: ATON

3D clue: Something a bartender or basketball player might make
Answer: SHOT

4D clue: Mix, as a sauce
Answer: STIR

5D clue: Frilly material
Answer: LACE

CISA, the FBI, the NSA, the Department of Energy, and other US government partners are warning that hackers are targeting internet-exposed automatic tank gauge (ATG) systems used to monitor fuel and liquid storage tanks across various critical infrastructure sectors.

The cybersecurity agency says that ATG systems are commonly used in the Energy, Chemical, Food and Agriculture, and Transportation Systems sectors to remotely monitor storage tank levels, temperatures, and potential leaks.

The US government says threat actors are targeting exposed devices and modifying system settings through command execution.

“The recent malicious cyber activity observed by the authoring organizations—which the U.S. government has not yet attributed to a nation-state or threat actor group—involves cyber threat actors compromising internet-exposed ATG systems and subsequently modifying them through command execution,” the advisory states.

According to the agencies, attackers are gaining access through authentication bypass vulnerabilities, hardcoded credentials, operating system command-execution flaws, SQL injection vulnerabilities, and privilege-escalation weaknesses.

If the system is successfully compromised, the attackers can alter network settings, product identifiers, tank volumes, and pump controls. They could also turn off alerts and create conditions that prevent operators from properly monitoring tank fill levels, potentially increasing the risk of leaks or equipment failures.

The agencies urged organizations to block ATG systems from the internet, restrict remote access through firewalls, VPNs, or access control lists, replace default passwords, utilize strong credentials and multifactor authentication, apply security updates, and actively monitor systems for unauthorized changes.

Iranian hackers previously linked to similar activity

While the advisory does not attribute the activity to any specific threat actor, it follows CNN reporting in May that Iranian hackers were behind a series of breaches involving ATG systems at gas stations in multiple states.

According to CNN, the attackers exploited ATG systems that were connected to the internet and protected by weak or nonexistent passwords, allowing them to access and manipulate display readings. However, the attackers did not alter the actual fuel levels.

The incidents reportedly did not cause physical damage, but raised concerns that attackers could potentially interfere with leak detection and other safety-related functions.

CNN reported that Iran was the primary suspect because of its history of targeting fuel management systems and other industrial control technologies.

However, CNN reports that multiple sources briefed on the investigation said it may not be possible to attribute the activity to a specific attacker, as there was limited forensic evidence left behind in the attacks.

CISA and its partners said organizations operating ATG systems should review their exposure and implement recommended mitigations immediately to reduce the risk of compromise.

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