Train-to-Test scaling explained: How to optimize your end-to-end AI compute budget for inference

The standard guidelines for building large language models (LLMs) optimize only for training costs and ignore inference costs. This poses a challenge for real-world applications that use inference-time scaling techniques to increase the accuracy of model responses, such as drawing multiple reasoning samples from a model at deployment. To bridge this gap, researchers at University … Read more

Anthropic’s relationship with the Trump administration seems to be thawing

Despite recently being designated a supply-chain risk by the Pentagon, Anthropic is still talking to high-level members of the Trump administration. There were earlier signs of a thawing relationship — or a sense that not every part of the administration wanted to cut off Anthropic — with reports saying that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and … Read more

15 years after ‘Video Games,’ Lana Del Rey has an actual video game song

The James Bond franchise has a long history of getting pop stars to record its theme songs (perhaps most memorably with Live and Let Die), and it looks like that tradition will now extend to video game adaptations about the fictional spy. IO Interactive has announced that Lana Del Rey co-wrote and performed the theme … Read more

InsightFinder raises $15M to help companies figure out where AI agents go wrong

The role of observability tools has evolved once again. While the market for solutions to ensure tech systems’ reliability has grown over the years, the center of gravity has steadily shifted from “track everything” to “control complexity and costs.” Meanwhile, the rapid influx and adoption of AI agents within enterprises have only added a brand … Read more

Anthropic’s Claude Managed Agents gives enterprises a new one-stop shop but raises vendor 'lock-in' risk

Anthropic announced a new platform last week, Claude Managed Agents, aiming to cut out the more complex parts of AI agent deployment for enterprises and competes with existing orchestration frameworks. Claude Managed Agents is also an architectural shift: enterprises, already burdened with orchestrating an increasing number of agents, can now choose to embed the orchestration … Read more

Sony is nerfing its Bravia TVs’ program guide

Sony is removing some features from its TV guide and program guide displays for channels received by an over the air TV antenna on select models of Bravia televisions from 2023-2025. Cord Cutters News reported on the changes, which will take effect in late May. Channel logos and thumbnail images in program descriptions are going … Read more

Financial risk management platform Pillar raises $20M seed in round led by a16z

Pillar, a platform that helps commodity-driven businesses (like those in metals, food, and airline companies) manage financial risk, announced Tuesday a $20 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.  Others in the seed round include Crucible Capital, Gallery Ventures, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The company has raised $23 million to date. Pillar, founded in … Read more

Five signs data drift is already undermining your security models

Data drift happens when the statistical properties of a machine learning (ML) model's input data change over time, eventually rendering its predictions less accurate. Cybersecurity professionals who rely on ML for tasks like malware detection and network threat analysis find that undetected data drift can create vulnerabilities. A model trained on old attack patterns may … Read more

TechCrunch Mobility: Who is poaching all the self-driving vehicle talent?

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Normally, I have an analysis and then a little bird (my insidery bits curated just for you). … Read more

Rockstar Games has confirmed it was hit by third-party data breach

An experienced hacking group has claimed to have infiltrated Rockstar Games‘ cloud servers, while the game publisher has confirmed that there was a “third-party data breach.” ShinyHunters, a hacker group that’s been linked to data breaches targeting Microsoft, Google, Ticketmaster and others, posted a message on its website with a final warning to Rockstar to … Read more