Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the lead developer behind VLC, raised $5M for Kyber in a 2026 round led by Lightspeed. Kyber’s SDK syncs video, audio, sensor data, and control inputs with minimal latency and is deployed in defense, telecom, robotics, and AI; the Paris startup has 25 employees with offices in San Francisco and Singapore.
Smartbird, formerly Allbirds, rebranded after pivoting to AI in April 2026 and named Nadia Carlsten (ex-AWS) as its first CEO for AI infrastructure. After a $43M shoe sale and $100M stock-market raise, Carlsten—based in Amsterdam—will earn $700K/year and about $9M in stock.
Barret Zoph has left OpenAI just five months after rejoining the company, The Verge reported on June 19, 2026. Zoph had been serving as OpenAI’s head of enterprise AI sales and posted a goodbye…
Epilogue’s free Flashback app (2026) uses the $50 GB Operator to read from the Game Boy Camera’s Mitsubishi M64282FP sensor, outputting “identical” 128×112, 0.01434‑MP photos with shutter/gain/exposure tweaks and 32 palettes. No hardware? A simulation mode uses the phone camera to mimic the dithered look and saves to Camera Roll.
Snap says it will spin off its generative AI video team into Dotmo in 2026 to build AI models for interactive gaming, citing the high cost of doing AI video work internally. Dotmo launches with current Snap employees; Bobby Murphy will be lead investor, and Snap will license its tech for gaming while taking a large equity stake.
A new screen time app called Mivo Scrolling launched last month with an approach centered on self-reflection rather than strict restrictions, positioning itself as an alternative to conventional app…
Ahead of its IPO, OpenAI hired Google DeepMind researcher Noam Shazeer and ex–White House AI policy official Dean Ball. Shazeer co-authored 2017’s “Attention Is All You Need” and rejoined Google via a $2.7B Character AI deal; Ball starts July 6 to lead Strategic Futures, reporting to Jason Kwon.
Karamo Brown’s June 2026 wellness app Kē (iOS/Android) includes “AI Karamo,” a Delphi-powered clone users can talk to in real time, trained on his interviews, podcast episodes, and recordings. It offers equipment/schedule fitness plans, meal planning from what’s already at home, emotion-targeted meditation, and AI chatbot tweaks; conversations are shared with Delphi.
Firefox is rolling out new home-page widgets (between v151 and v152; spotted in June 2026), including a focus timer that defaults to 25 minutes on/5 minutes off with optional end notifications. You can add/remove or expand widgets like a checklist, sports scores, and time zone display via home-page customization; Mozilla also shared a “Project Nova” redesign roadmap this week.
Spotify launched “Reserved by Spotify” on June 18, 2026, a new system that identifies an artist’s top fans and holds up to two concert tickets for them before the general public sale opens.
The…
Google has significantly expanded the color options available for events in Google Calendar, raising the previous limit of 11 predefined colors to up to 200 custom colors per event.
The update…
After a June 2026 CADE agreement, Apple allows Brazilian iOS developers to distribute via third‑party app stores and take digital-goods payments outside the App Store. Apple adds notarization for those apps, sets a 5% Core Technology Commission fee, and says developers must accept its updated Brazil license by July 6, 2026.
