The House Oversight Committee has requested that the CEOs of Discord, Twitch, Reddit, and Steam testify on October 8 regarding their platforms' alleged involvement in online radicalization and incitement to politically motivated acts.

Chairman James Comer referenced the murder of Charlie Kirk and other acts of politically motivated violence as reasons for the investigation.

Discord has stated they look forward to testifying, while Reddit is investigating a potential link between its platform and Kirk's death, emphasizing its policies against hateful content and incitement to violence.

The investigation follows the arrest of Tyler Robinson for Kirk's murder, with reports suggesting Robinson confessed on Discord and used bullets engraved with video game references.

Google is collaborating with the U.K. nonprofit StopNCII to enhance its efforts in combating the spread of nonconsensual intimate images, also known as revenge porn. The search giant will utilize StopNCII’s hashes, digital fingerprints of images and videos, to proactively identify and remove such imagery from Search.

StopNCII assists adults in preventing the sharing of their private images online by creating a unique identifier (hash) for their intimate imagery. These hashes are then provided to partner platforms like Facebook to automatically identify and remove matching content.

Google's partnership follows similar integrations by companies like Microsoft (Bing), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Bumble, Snapchat, OnlyFans, and X. This move is part of Google's ongoing efforts to combat nonconsensual intimate images, including making it easier to remove deepfake images from Search and making them harder to find.

DACLab, a startup emerging from stealth mode, has secured $3 million in seed funding to advance its direct air capture (DAC) technology. The company claims its technology requires only 1,500 kWh of electricity to remove one metric ton of CO2, significantly less than the industry average of 2,000 kWh.

DACLab's technology, adapted from industrial designs, separates the carbon capture and release processes, using a relatively low heat of 70°C for solid sorbents. The company has built units capable of capturing 100 metric tons of CO2 per year and plans to deploy larger units in Washington State and Kenya.

DACLab sells its 100-metric ton unit for under $500,000. Ultimately, the company aims to supply units to oil and gas companies and carbon project developers, with the goal of reducing energy consumption to less than 1,000 kWh per metric ton and capturing CO2 for $250 per metric ton.

The House Oversight Committee has requested the CEOs of Discord, Twitch, Reddit, and Steam to testify on October 8th regarding their platforms' alleged involvement in online radicalization and incitement of politically motivated acts.

Rep. James Comer referenced the murder of Charlie Kirk and other acts of political violence as reasons for the investigation, stating Congress's duty to oversee platforms used to advance political violence.

Discord has expressed its willingness to testify, while Reddit is investigating potential links between its platform and Kirk's death, emphasizing its policies against hateful content and incitement of violence.

The investigation follows the arrest of Tyler Robinson for Kirk's murder, with reports suggesting Robinson confessed on Discord and used bullets engraved with memes and video game references.

AI chip startup Groq has raised $750 million in a new funding round, valuing the company at $6.9 billion. This significantly exceeds earlier estimates. The funding round was led by Disruptive, with participation from BlackRock, Neuberger Berman, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Samsung, Cisco, D1, and Altimeter.

Groq is developing LPUs (language processing units) as an alternative to Nvidia's GPUs for AI applications. Their hardware is designed to efficiently run AI models for developers and enterprises, offered as both a cloud service and on-premises hardware.

The company's founder, Jonathan Ross, previously worked at Google, where he developed the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). Groq now supports over 2 million developers, a substantial increase from 356,000 a year ago.

AI security firm Irregular has raised $80 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures. The company, valued at $450 million, aims to secure AI models against emergent risks and behaviors.

Irregular, formerly Pattern Labs, is known for its work in AI evaluations and its SOLVE framework for scoring model vulnerability-detection ability.

The funding will support Irregular's development of simulated environments for intensive model testing, enabling the company to identify and address security weaknesses before they are exploited.

Irregular's founders emphasize the growing need for AI security as models become more sophisticated, highlighting their commitment to securing these models against evolving threats.