Perplexity: the $14 Billion AI Google Killer, TCS denies blame for M&S cyber attack

A new AI darling is making waves in Silicon Valley. It’s called Perplexity, and according to reports, both Meta and Apple have quietly explored acquiring it. Valued at a staggering $14 billion following a May funding round, the startup is being hailed as a revolutionary threat to Google Search’s search dominance. But here’s the thing: it mostly just summarizes web results and sends you links. So why the frenzy? Perplexity billed itself an “answer engine.” You ask a question, and it uses large language models to spit out a human-sounding summary, complete with footnotes. It’s essentially ChatGPT with a bibliography. Gizmodo

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the tech firm at the centre of speculation around the M&S cyber attack, has claimed that none of its systems or users were compromised in the incident. The statement, delivered at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, is the first public comment from the group since M&S was hit by a major cyber attack over the Easter bank holiday weekend. “As no TCS systems or users were compromised, none of our other customers are impacted,” independent director Keki Mistry said, according to Reuters. Retail Gazette

Tesla finally did the damn thing. The company launched its hotly anticipated robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22nd — and we’re now starting to see some of the first reactions roll in. But first, we have to get a few important caveats out of the way. Tellingly, the service is not open to the general public, nor is it completely “unsupervised,” as Elon Musk once promised. The vehicles will include Tesla-employed “safety monitors” in the front passenger seat who can react to a dangerous situation by hitting a kill switch. The Verge

Every baby in the UK will have their DNA tested under a new 10-year plan for the NHS. The whole-genome sequencing will screen for hundreds of diseases and allow people to “leapfrog” killer illnesses, according to the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting. Speaking to the Telegraph, he revealed plans to move the NHS towards a model of sickness prevention rather than treatment. Personalised medicine, made possible through things like DNA testing, will form a big part of that plan, with £650m pledged to genomics research by the government. Sky News

Internet users have been told to change their passwords and upgrade their digital security after researchers claimed to have revealed the scale of sensitive information – 16bn login records – potentially available to cybercriminals. Researchers at Cybernews, an online tech publication, said they had found 30 datasets stuffed with credentials harvested from malicious software known as “infostealers” and leaks. The researchers said the datasets were exposed “only briefly” but amounted to 16bn login records, with an unspecified number of overlapping records. The Guardian

Starting June 20, manufacturers are now required to sell their smartphones and tablets in the European Union (EU) with an energy efficiency label in the box. We don’t know about the boxes, but with the regulation in effect, Apple has started displaying this label on iPhone and iPad’s pages on its website in EU countries. You can check the energy labels for the Apple iPhone 16 Pro and iPad Pro 11″ (M4) below. GSM Arena

iPhone 16 Pro's energy efficiency label iPad Pro 11'' (M4)'s energy efficiency label
iPhone 16 Pro’s energy efficiency label • iPad Pro 11″ (M4)’s energy efficiency label