Google announced during its Q2 2026 earnings call that its AI assistant Gemini now has over 950 million monthly active users, putting it on the verge of joining the company’s roster of billion-user…
Imagi, an edtech platform focused on coding and AI literacy for K-12 students, announced a $4.5 million seed round on July 23, 2026. The round was backed by Brighteye Ventures, Day One Capital, and…
Apple announced in July 2026 a new software development kit called MapKit for Automotive, which allows automakers to embed Apple Maps navigation and mapping directly into vehicle infotainment…
On July 23, 2026, the EU hit Alphabet with a €890M ($1B) DMA fine for self-preferencing in Search (€460M) and Play Store payment restrictions (€430M). Google gets 60 days to comply or face periodic penalties, including fair third‑party treatment.
Michael Kratsios alleged in July 2026 that Moonshot used export-banned chips to distill Anthropic’s Fable into Kimi K3, the largest available open-weight LLM. Researchers counter that Fable only went public July 1, so the two-week distillation timeline doesn’t add up.
Lingverse says its iKairos wearable/desk device continuously monitors surroundings and turns daily moments into AI images using camera snapshots (no continuous video), voice-detected audio, and on-device processing or encrypted transit, with a physical shutter and no training use. It plans presales later in 2026 after Wednesday, July 23, 2026 funding, generating a daily “reflection” with a quality check cross-referencing visual scenes and audio context before saving to a personal journal.
In 2026, Google added “selfie video” account recovery for locked-out users who can’t access their phone, computer, or two-factor authentication apps. Users record a face video matched to an encrypted cloud reference (setup like Face ID, no infrared), then sign in with a live video to resist photos/deepfakes; the reference can be deleted anytime.
ServiceNow invested $40M in Noida banking software startup BusinessNext, valuing it at $700M for an ~5% stake, to expand a 2026 AI partnership and leverage its U.S. sales network. BusinessNext (2002, formerly CRMNext) serves 70+ banks (RBI, SBI, HDFC), with ~$32M revenue and 1,300+ employees, and will co-sell with ServiceNow automation.
Google reported record quarterly profits in July 2026, as surging enterprise adoption of its AI products and cloud infrastructure pushed financial results well beyond analyst expectations.
Google…
Meta dodged a bellwether trial scheduled for late July 2026 in Los Angeles after Florida teen R.K.C. dropped his claims against Meta without payment. The suit also targeted TikTok, YouTube, and Snap over allegedly addictive features like infinite scroll and persistent notifications.
Yope’s July 2026 $12.3M seed round supports a private, ad-free network built without algorithmic feeds, ads, or public content. CEO Bahram Ismailau says 100,000+ (AI-assisted) interviews found ~30% already use “photo dump” private accounts; Northzone led the round, bringing total funding to $20M, with AI mini-games expected in about a month.
SoundCloud acquired Nina Protocol on July 22, 2026, taking over its editorial archive and “genre map” for artist discovery; terms weren’t disclosed. Nina launched in 2021 on Solana with Arweave storage, kept 100% revenue, and shut down May 28, 2026.
