Elon Musk’s xAI sues Apple and OpenAI, alleging anticompetitive collusion | TechCrunch

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Elon Musk’s X and xAI filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI on Monday, alleging that the two companies are colluding to stifle competition. “In a desperate bid to protect its smartphone monopoly, Apple has joined forces with the company that most benefits from inhibiting competition and innovation in AI: OpenAI, a monopolist in the market for generative AI chatbots,” the lawsuit reads, referring to Apple’s partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its systems.

This lawsuit is part of a long series of disputes between Musk and Altman, who continue to throw public jabs at one another. Once a co-founder and co-chair of OpenAI, Musk has sued to block OpenAI’s transition into a for-profit company. He also submitted an unsolicited bid to take over OpenAI for $97.4 billion, which the company rejected.

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Threads has 400 million monthly users — but no cultural footprint | Mashable

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This month, Threads announced that it reached 400 million monthly active users — nearly as many as X (née Twitter). That’s almost half a billion people.

Threads is the Big Bang Theory of social media. Bland, boring, largely unoffensive, and somehow, it was the most popular show on television for years. Game of Thrones got the cultural and critical attention, but Old Sheldon retained a steady audience of nearly the same size. At any given time, “Twitter” and “X” are searched somewhere between 12 and 30 times more than “Threads” on Google, according to the search engine’s Trends data. Threads is a popular platform without much of an identity. And maybe that’s a good thing: X’s cultural relevance is inseparable from the constant churn of Elon Musk drama, just like how Game of Thrones’ cultural legacy is forever tied to its spectacularly bad final season.

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Sleep with the Fear: How Perplexity’s CEO Turns Anxiety into Advantage | Getentrepreneurial.com

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Aravind Srinivas, co-founder, and CEO of Perplexity (now valued at $14 billion), says his secret to success is not launching — but living — with the constant fear that your idea will be copied by Big Tech. This fear becomes fuel for relentless innovation, urgency, and building unique defensibility.

Core Insights & Impact

1. Normalize the Fear of Being Copied

Mindset: Accept that if your product becomes a hit, competitors—especially large, resource-rich incumbents—will copy it.

Impact: Instead of paralysis, this mindset shifts fear into a strategic advantage, prompting continuous iteration and improvement.

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Black Moon in August: What it is, what it isn’t, and how to ‘see’ it | Mashable

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There’s a Black Moon on the rise, but if that phrase conjures a similar Creedence Clearwater Revival lyric in your head, relax: This one isn’t bound to take your life.

A so-called Black Moon isn’t an astronomical term, but it is a mysterious nickname that, confusingly, could refer to a couple of different lunar scenarios.

The buzz right now centers on an event (or non-event, depending on how you think of it) happening Aug. 23. When an astronomical season, which is about three months long, includes four “new moons” rather than three, the third one is sometimes called a Black Moon. This happens about once every 33 months.

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SpaceX slams state broadband funding, wants satellite internet everywhere | Mashable

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SpaceX is again battling states over internet funding, as the company pushes a satellite-first agenda amid a growing need for direct internet connections.

In a filing submitted to the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity on August 15, the company accused the state of wasting taxpayer money and succumbing to pressure from so-called “fiber lobbyists” by dedicating $400 million to state fiber installations and only $$7.7 million to Starlink deployment. SpaceX argues that it can connect “virtually all” in-need households for less than $100 million. Last week, SpaceX levied the same accusations against a Virginia funding proposal, which only gave $3.2 million to the telecom company.

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Pixel 10 launch: Every Made by Google announcement | Mashable

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Maybe to avoid the jargon-heavy format of last year, Google decided to flip the script at its annual Made by Google showcase.

Instead of the usual California stage presentation with slides and specs, this year’s event went full late-night. Hosted in New York, it played out like a special, offbeat episode of The Tonight Show, with Jimmy Fallon chatting alongside celebrities and Google execs about the new Pixel lineup and smart devices. Think less keynote, more variety show — though the hardware news was still the real star of the night.

It wasn’t all hardware either. Google spent just as much time hyping up its Gemini AI integrations, which now thread across every new Pixel device. From smarter camera tools to real-time translation and live call assistance, AI is still at the forefront of Google’s smartphone ambitions.

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Air Canada strike ends after airline and flight attendants reach tentative agreement | CNN Business

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Air Canada and a union representing the airline’s flight attendants have come to a tentative agreement, ending a days-long strike that canceled thousands of flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers.

“Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have reached a tentative agreement, achieving transformational change for our industry after a historic fight to affirm our Charter rights,” said Hugh Pouliot, spokesman for the Canadian Union for Public Employees (CUPE), in a statement Tuesday. “Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”

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Lawyer argues Meta can’t be held liable for gunmaker’s Instagram posts in Uvalde families’ lawsuit | CNN Business

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A lawsuit filed by families of the Uvalde school shooting victims alleging Instagram allowed gun manufacturers to promote firearms to minors should be thrown out, lawyers for Meta, Instagram’s parent company, argued Tuesday.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

The families sued Meta in Los Angeles in May 2024, saying the social media platform failed to enforce its own rules forbidding firearms advertisements aimed at minors.

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FDA issues warning over possible radioactive shrimp | Live Science

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Frozen shrimp imported to the U.S. from an Indonesian-based company may have been exposed to a radioactive substance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned Tuesday (Aug. 19).

The products were processed by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, also referred to as BMS Foods. The FDA launched an investigation after U.S. Customs officials detected cesium-137 (Cs-137) — a radioactive form of cesium — in shipping containers carrying the shrimp that were delivered to Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah, Georgia, and Miami.

Analyses of the containers’ contents confirmed the presence of Cs-137 in one sample of breaded shrimp. The containers that tested positive were not allowed to enter the U.S., and no products that tested positive have entered the food supply.

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Full moons of 2025: When is the next full moon? | Live Science

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September’s full moon, nicknamed the Corn Moon, rises on Sunday, Sept. 7. The moon turns full at precisely 2:09 p.m. EDT on Sunday. It will also appear bright and full on the days before and after the peak.

The September full moon gets its nickname from the corn that is commonly harvested this time of year in North America, according to Almanac. The name originated with native American tribes, but now enjoys widespread popularity.

The full Corn Moon will experience the year’s second and final total lunar eclipse. Beginning at 11:28 a.m. EDT (15:28 UTC), Earth’s shadow will pass over the moon for about five hours, totally blocking the sun’s light for 82 minutes and turning the lunar surface red. The eclipse will be visible from Asia, Australia, and most of Europe and Africa. It will not be visible from North or South America.

Source: Full moons of 2025: When is the next full moon? | Live Science