Good morning. Have you heard about the hottest new job in tech? No, not vibe coder or AI whisperer…but good ol’ fashioned cable guy.
Amazon is reportedly planning to lay a new subsea fiber optic cable across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean in a bid to add more capacity and redundancy to its network.
If connectivity becomes an issue, crustaceans won’t be to blame. The cable, dubbed “Fastnet” and connecting Maryland with Ireland, will actually be embedded nearly 5 feet (1.5m) in the ground to prevent tampering. (Besides, I’ve seen what they do to crabs in Maryland.)
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Apple is reportedly working on a Chromebook killer
What’s the sweet spot for a laptop these days: $500? $750?
Surely no more than $1,000, right?
You can imagine why that might be a problem for Apple, whose MacBooks start at $999.
In a bid to win more business, the company is reportedly working on a lower-cost laptop to rival the onslaught of Chromebooks and starter Windows PCs on the market.
According to a new Bloomberg report, the device—which targets “students and casual users”—would be powered by an iPhone chip and arrive in the first half of next year.
How low could Apple go? “Well under $1,000” is all the report would say. (It’s worth noting that today’s non-Pro iPads start at $350, $500, and $600.)
Apple previously sold an older version of its MacBook Air for about $700—$600 on sale—at Walmart to no doubt test the market. This new device, reportedly codenamed J700, would have similar aims but with a new design (and presumably narrower profit margins).
Apple controls about 9% of the global PC market, per IDC, but triple that share in the mobile category. If it can convince its iOS customers to trade their PCs for MacBooks? Well, that’s the ticket. —AN
Amazon has a big problem with Perplexity’s AI browser
Is there any tech company left who isn’t simultaneously suing and partnering with an AI startup?
Amazon on Tuesday said it sent a cease-and-desist letter to—then filed a lawsuit against—the Aravind Srinivas-led AI startup Perplexity demanding that it stop allowing its Comet web browser to make purchases on users’ behalf.
In other words: Glad you offer agentic AI tools, Perplexity, but you don’t get to use them in our store without our permission.
“Perplexity is covertly intruding into the Amazon Store through Comet AI in violation of computer fraud and abuse statutes,” the letter reads, adding that the behavior has “caused significant losses” as Amazon sinks resources into tracking and defending against Comet.
Ever the combative company, Perplexity—in which, rather awkwardly, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has invested—fired back with a statement of its own.
Amazon “forgets how it got so big. Users love it. They want good products, at a low price, delivered fast,” the statement reads. “Agentic shopping is the natural evolution of this promise, and people already demand it. Perplexity demands the right to offer it.” —AN
Getty Images loses lawsuit against Stability AI
Stability AI 1, Getty Images 0.
The stock photo and video giant used by media companies ‘round the world on Tuesday “largely lost” its landmark U.K. lawsuit against the London-headquartered artificial intelligence company.
In the suit, Getty had alleged that Stability’s Stable Diffusion system used Getty’s creative assets for AI training and generated images that reproduced those copyrighted assets.
In a ruling, Judge Joanna Smith said Getty was right about Stability’s trademark infringement in the narrow case where its watermarks appeared in generated images—but Getty’s copyright infringement claims didn’t hold water because Stability didn’t store or reproduce copyrighted works as British law requires.
Getty Images filed its U.K. lawsuit in June; it filed a parallel suit against Stability AI in the U.S. The lawsuits are just two of several high-profile legal actions around the globe between intellectual property owners and generative AI companies. —AN
More tech
—Google introduces Project Suncatcher. Two solar-powered satellites to power AI compute.
—AMD’s Q3 revenue jumps 36%. Its data center business grew 22% and remains its largest, but investors were looking for even more growth.
—Live translation comes to EU AirPods. Apple brings the feature to Europe in iOS 26.2.
—IBM plans layoffs. A “low single-digit percentage” of its 270,000-strong global workforce will receive pink slips in Q4.
—Sequoia Capital gets new leadership. Alfred Lin and Pat Grady will succeed Roelof Botha.
—OpenAI’s Sora comes to Android for Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the U.S.
—Spotify now has 281 million paid subscribers. The audio streamer, which beat Q3 revenue expectations, also counts 713 million monthly active users.