Techmeme

• AI power infrastructure company SB Energy, which is backed by SoftBank, OpenAI, and Nvidia, files for an IPO, and says it is "substantially dependent" on OpenAI (CJ Haddad/CNBC)
• Google launches Google Pics, a creative design suite powered by Gemini and Nano Banana to compete with Canva and Adobe Express, available as a Workspace app (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)
• Air Security, which builds a security service for extensions and other tools installed on AI agents, emerges from stealth with $50M led by Sequoia and Greenoaks (Meir Orbach/CTech)
• A consortium of 21 banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs, says it will establish a company and launch its stablecoin venture in H1 2027 (Gina Heeb/Wall Street Journal)
• DataAgent, which is developing AI agents that autonomously fix failures inside companies' own cloud infrastructure, emerges from stealth with a $10M pre-seed (CTech)
• PE firm Epiris agrees to buy European enterprise communications provider Gamma Communications for about £1B, a 53% premium to Gamma's share price on April 7 (Shona Ghosh/Bloomberg)
• Starman Optical agrees to acquire GoPro in an all-cash deal valued at $285M, a premium of 29.5% to GPRO's last close; GoPro hit a market cap of $4B in 2014 (Prathik Jayaprakash/Reuters)
• Perplexity launches Hybrid Compute, which splits workloads between frontier cloud models like Opus 5 and local LLMs, for all users of its Mac app (Igor Bonifacic/Engadget)
• Sonos opens its platform to third-party AI assistants, upgrades Sonos 27voice assistant with an in-house LLM, and plans to let users create their own AI agents (Chris Welch/Bloomberg)
• PSI, which aims to use AI "to industrialize the discovery of new physics" including cracking interstellar travel, emerges from stealth with a $58M seed (Sabrina Ortiz/The Deep View)
• Waymo starts offering driverless rides to customers in San Diego, Tampa, Florida, and Denver; Amazon's Zoox says it will start testing in Houston and San Diego (Lora Kolodny/CNBC)
• Indian edtech startup upGrad closes its acquisition of rival Unacademy in an all-stock deal valuing Unacademy at ~$206M, down from its peak $3.5B valuation (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
• Memo: Savvy Games Group CEO Brian Ward, who oversaw the Saudi Arabian government's $38B investment in the video game industry since 2021, is stepping down (Cecilia D'Anastasio/Bloomberg)
• Mozilla launches built-in ad blocking for Firefox on iOS, using Apple's WebKit Content Blocker and the EasyList filter to block third-party ads and trackers (Tom Warren/The Verge)
• Roku unveils its first self-branded OLED smart TVs starting at $999, in 55" and 65" 120Hz models, and $1,299 for a 144Hz model, sold exclusively via Amazon (Chris Welch/Bloomberg)

Wired

Engadget

• Google brings its Pics image editor to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers
• What is Dolby Atmos for Headphones and is it worth it for gamers?
• Sony's new ULT Tower are party speakers that chain together with Auracast
• GoPro says it's moving into AI data centers as part of a $285 million merger
• Why you should change what apps open on startup for Windows
• Perplexity's Hybrid Compute splits sensitive tasks between cloud and local AI
• 'Sonos 27' brings a refreshed UI to the app and lets AI agents control your system
• Sonos unveils new Beam Ultra soundbar with 'true 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos'
• Sonos' Ace Ultra headphones can swap audio with any Sonos speaker
• How to organize and group your Safari tabs in macOS 27
• Atlas' brain-monitoring wearable tells you how much you're in the moment
• The pros and cons of using a TV as your computer monitor
• NVIDIA's DLSS 5 launches with NBA 2K27 on September 3, but there's little reason for excitement
• Roku is expanding its premium TV lineup with its first OLEDs
• Sonos Open House: Live updates from the Sonos 27 product launch
• You can use your phone as a Roku remote (and it's free)
• Sony Bravia Theater Trio review: The three-piece soundbar alternative
• Poco's F9 Ultra is a midrange phone with a flagship processor and a 185Hz display
• What Android looked like in 2008 vs. today
• United will now let you join standby lists for earlier flights through its mobile app

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Cached on Atlas at September 1st 04:27 PM