Vent de panique et ménage de printemps chez Warner Bros. et DC Studios. Le nouvel univers super-héroïque peine à trouver sa vitesse de croisière et la direction vient de sabrer plusieurs projets de séries très attendus, soulevant au passage de vives interrogations chez les fans.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Anthropic investors expect the AI startup to float at a valuation of $2 trillion or more in October, a dizzying figure that would eclipse SpaceX and make the AI lab's debut the largest-ever initial public offering. Half a dozen of the company's backers told the FT that Anthropic's rapidly rising revenue would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float. A listing at that level could unlock billions of dollars in gains for the five-year-old company's early investors but would also test public markets that are growing more nervous about the AI boom. Anthropic's backers say booming demand for the lab's advanced AI models and tools justifies their lofty expectations. Investors expect the Claude maker's annualized revenue to be between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026 -- using the startup's preferred measure, which infers full-year sales from recent performance -- up by more than 10 times over the course of 2026. "If Anthropic is growing 800 percent a year, you'd think at the incredibly low end they would trade at 30 times [revenue]," said one investor in the group. "That would make them a $3 trillion company." According to Bloomberg (paywalled), Anthropic is currently in talks to acquire Decart AI for roughly $6 billion. "Decart develops world models alongside software designed to lower AI training expenses by improving how efficiently chips are utilized," reports Quartz. "That capability could allow Anthropic to get more out of its current infrastructure as demand grows. If the deal closes, Decart's team would join Anthropic's inference and performance organization."

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Paramount CEO David Ellison is threatening to begin moving the studio out of California on October 1 if state Attorney General Rob Bonta refuses to enter settlement talks over the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The company would reportedly move its Los Angeles headquarters first and shift most studio jobs out of the state over five years, with Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee under consideration. Variety reports: Ellison's threat to relocate Paramount in retaliation for California's Bonta leading the charge to kill the WBD deal -- a move that would include much of its studio operations, over time -- was first reported by industry newsletter Puck. In response, Bonta called Ellison's planned exit from the state an "attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through." "Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose in court," the attorney general wrote in a post on X. "It didn't work the first time -- on the eve of our July lawsuit -- and it won't work this time." Bonta has not publicly said what concessions from Paramount-WBD he would consider acceptable enough to take the lawsuit off the table. But the Democratic attorney general has said any remedies would need to be "structural" (i.e., divestments) rather than "behavioral" (e.g., imposing certain production quotas). Oct. 1 is when Paramount will begin accruing a "ticking fee" payable to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders of $7 million per day. The trial in the state AGs' lawsuit is scheduled to start March 2, 2027, roughly five months after that, so Paramount would be on the hook to pay around $1.2 billion to WBD shareholders by the time the trial is scheduled to conclude. (Paramount's ticking-fee payments to WBD are not due until the deal closes.) At the Aug. 5 meeting on Paramount's lot, Ellison told his 12-member senior executive team he expects Paramount to prevail in the antitrust case against the states. However, he also said that if Bonta balks at talks, Paramount will start packing up and moving out of the Golden State in less than two months.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: On Thursday, AMD said it's entered into an agreement to acquire Taalas, a Toronto-based startup that makes chips for inference. Taalas' accelerators are customized, or hard-wired for a single AI model, rather than being general purpose. In exchange for that loss of flexibility, Taalas' technology promises a less-expensive chip that it says can produce output for specific models thousands of times faster than a traditional GPU. An AMD representative declined to provide a purchase price for the transaction. Taalas has raised a total of $219 million in venture funding since its 2023 founding. Taalas' current chip runs a small version of Meta's Llama 3.1 model, though the company is working on chips for bigger and more advanced models. It's manufactured using an older Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. process, and uses speedy SRAM memory on the chip itself. Taalas CEO Ljubisa Bajic says on the startup's website that the company "developed a platform for transforming any AI model into custom silicon." "From the moment a previously unseen model is received, it can be realized in hardware in only two months," Bajic wrote.

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Après avoir dépassé la barre symbolique du milliard de dollars au box-office mondial, le biopic Michael s'apprête, sans surprise, à faire des petits. Lionsgate prépare activement Michael 2, avec un calendrier de production précisé, de grosses économies de tournage et une gestion des risques bien rodée.

L'entreprise américaine a confirmé la constitution d'une équipe silicium interne, tout en maintenant une approche multi-fournisseurs.

Longtime Slashdot reader neoRUR shares a report from Game Developer: EA Sports FC and Battlefield publisher EA has been taken private by an investor consortium led by Saudi Arabia's sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF). The move means the U.S. juggernaut is no longer a publicly-traded entity and is now majority owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through its PIF investment arm. Other investors include Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, the latter of which was established by U.S. president Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. The $55 billion transaction was financed via a combination of cash from PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners as well as roll-over of PIF's existing stake in EA -- constituting an equity investment of approximately $36 billion. Notably, $20 billion of debt financing was provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank. The deal cleared the necessary regulatory hurdles in July, paving the way for its completion at the close of trading on August 4, 2026. It was approved by regulators in major markets such as the European Union and the United States without incident, despite lawmakers and union leaders in the U.S. calling on the Federal Trade Commission to heavily scrutinize the leveraged buyout over geopolitical and employment concerns.

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Bending Spoons has made its first acquisition since going public last month at an $18 billion valuation, agreeing to buy spreadsheet and database startup Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash. Airtable joins a growing portfolio of notable brands owned by the Italian app developer, including Evernote, WeTransfer, EventBrite, and Vimeo. TechCrunch reports: Founded in 2013, Airtable has so far raised more than $1.4 billion over multiple funding rounds. At its peak, during the boom days of 2021, it was valued at over $11 billion, but earlier this year, its shares were said to be trading on the secondary markets at a valuation of $4 billion. With its current net cash-and-cash-equivalents balance, Airtable is now valued at about $2.25 billion, Bending Spoons said. "Airtable is a pioneering brand reshaping how teams organize data and manage critical workflows. The value being delivered is reflected in annual recurring revenue growing over 20% YoY to approximately $480 million as of June 2026, and joining forces with Bending Spoons will accelerate innovation even further," Bending Spoons' founder Luca Ferrari said in a statement.

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DoorDash has launched DoorDash Air, an in-house drone-delivery program that has just received FAA certification for commercial operations. "This does not mean DoorDash's custom-built drones will be delivering burritos tomorrow, or even next month," notes TechCrunch. "The company didn't provide a detailed timeline for when its aircraft would be used in operations." From the report: [I]t will likely begin with limited pilot programs in which the unmanned aircraft will travel short distances while remaining within the line of sight of the operator. If DoorDash wants its drones to fly autonomously over longer distances, it will need the FAA to approve its Beyond Visual Line of Sight technology, a certification that companies like Amazon, Wing, and Zipline have received in recent years. Despite the new program, the food and grocery delivery company is maintaining its existing partnerships with Wing and Flytrex. DoorDash partnered with Alphabet's Wing in 2022 for a drone delivery program in Australia, and later expanded the partnership to a couple of U.S. cities, including Dallas-Fort Worth, in 2024.

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Après l'échec de son ultime Coupe du monde à 41 ans, Cristiano Ronaldo prépare déjà sa reconversion post-football. Et le quintuple Ballon d'Or ne fait pas les choses à moitié, il s'associe au réalisateur de Kingsman pour produire et jouer dans une série inédite sur la face cachée du football business.

Lâché par Apple au printemps 2026, Varta, le constructeur allemand de piles, ne fabriquera plus les batteries rechargeables des AirPods. Apple a confié cette production à des sous-traitants asiatiques et condamne au passage un acteur historique de l'électronique européen.

En l’absence de succès et après avoir connu des vagues successives de licenciements en l’espace d’un mois (1 et 2) chez OtherSide Entertainment, ce n’était plus qu’une question de temps avant que le couperet tombe pour Thick as Thieves. C’est finalement ce jeudi 23 juillet que le studio s’est fendu d’un billet de blog Steam annonçant que leur équipe ne travaillera plus sur de nouveaux contenus et se focalisera sur le déploiement d’une nouvelle version du jeu utilisant des serveurs peer-to-peer pour maintenir l’aspect coopératif. Par la suite, c’est leur éditeur Megabit Publishing qui reprendra la main pour s’assurer de corriger les bugs et autres problèmes au besoin. Dans cette période où les initiatives du style Stop Killing Games n’arrivent pas vraiment à progresser, il est assez triste de voir que seuls les petits studios s’emparent du problème, même si ce n’est que pour une soixantaine de joueurs. Avec ces annonces successives, difficile d’imaginer un autre destin qu’une prochaine fermeture pour OtherSide Entertainment, à moins que Warren Spector n’ait encore un projet dans sa manche.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PYMNTS.com: Stripe is in talks to buy OpenRouter, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that could sell for roughly $10 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move would mark a significant step outside payments for a company that processes transactions for much of the internet. It also lands while Stripe pursues a far larger target: a bid for PayPal that would value the payments giant at about $53 billion. The Journal reported Thursday (July 23) that a transaction could be announced soon, though the talks could still collapse or another buyer could step in. The exact price under discussion could not be learned. Several other large technology companies had also been weighing deals for OpenRouter. The startup was valued at $1.3 billion in May, according to PitchBook, meaning a sale near $10 billion would represent a steep markup in a matter of months. Its backers include Menlo Ventures and CapitalG, the growth fund of Google parent Alphabet. OpenRouter sells software that lets customers reach AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic, along with open weight alternatives anyone can download and run. The Journal described the company's position this way: "OpenRouter is part of an emerging crop of startups that have found a lucrative niche between AI developers and the companies that want to use them." The platform lists hundreds of large language models and lets developers compare and switch between them.

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Nearly 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Proton and Y Combinator, are urging the Trump administration not to block U.S. access to Chinese open-weight AI models or risk crippling the next generation of U.S. startups. Politico reports: On Wednesday, the newly-formed Little Tech Association sent letters to President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and others in the administration with its appeal, marking the first coordinated effort by Silicon Valley's wider influential startup community to weigh in on one of the Trump administration's most closely watched AI debates. At issue: whether Washington should restrict access to increasingly powerful open-weight -- meaning, AI models whose weights are publicly available -- AI models released by Chinese companies such as Moonshot AI and Alibaba. "American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models and continued access for U.S. builders to open models already available worldwide," the startup founders wrote in the letter (PDF) obtained by POLITICO, also sent to Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. Instead of broad prohibitions, they argue the government should adopt targeted safeguards. And they warn that banning Americans from downloading Chinese open-weight models wouldn't stop their proliferation -- but would weaken U.S. startups. "There'll be hundreds of companies that instantly die," said Suhail Doshi, founder of AI infrastructure startup Particle and a member of the association, which POLITICO first wrote about exclusively, in an interview. "It's great for Anthropic. We're all going to have to spend money on Anthropic." Last week, the Beijing-based AI company "Moonshot" released a massive new model that reset the AI race overnight, immediately vaulting into the top tier of global AI, beating Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol in front-end coding tests. China's Xi Jinping also used his first appearance at China's World AI Conference to promote a vision of low-cost, broadly accessible AI and call for international cooperation rather than technological rivalry.

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Le 20 juillet 2026, une juge américaine a suspendu pour une durée de deux semaines le rachat de Warner Bros. Discovery par Paramount. Cette première victoire pour les opposants à la fusion pourrait surtout retarder durablement l’opération à 111 milliards de dollars.

Le Samsung 990 est un produit entrée de gamme. Un SSD M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe avec des composants basiques. Un équivalent aux produits les plus abordables du secteur en juillet 2025. Je me souviens de promos pour des produits noname de ce type, il y a tout juste un an, à des prix défiant toute concurrence. Et des remarques de certains lecteurs jugeant, à juste titre d’ailleurs, que l’offre était un peu trop « légère » en performances.

Ce que ces lecteurs n’avaient sans doute pas prévu, c’est de regretter un jour cette offre entrée de gamme. Ce nouveau Samsung 990 rejoint ainsi une famille déjà assez vaste composée du 990 EVO, du EVO Plus et du 990 Pro. Le modèle 990 « tout court » est annoncé à 262.99€ en version 1 To et 514.99€ en version 2 To. Des tarifs très élevés par rapport à ce que proposait le marché il y a seulement 12 mois. D’autant plus que ces SSD PCIe 4.0 ne sont clairement pas équipés de la crème des composants. Ils emploient de la mémoire flash QLC avec 4 bits par cellule. Des puces moins fiables et moins rapides que les modèles TLC des 990 Pro.

Le Samsung 990 propose des prestations en nette baisse

Ces nouveaux venus sont également dépourvus de la mémoire DRAM embarquée qui accélérait leurs débits… C’est, exactement, la formule employée par les fabricants noname il y a un an pour casser les prix sur ce marché. On note par ailleurs une baisse d’endurance majeure avec 400 To d’écriture pour le modèle 1 To. Cela se ressent nettement face au Samsung 990 Pro qui propose 600 To pour la même capacité. La gamme baisse sa garantie en conséquence. On passe de 5 années complètes sur les Pro à 3 années seulement sur les Samsung 990. Seul point positif de l’offre ? Une meilleure efficacité énergétique annoncée face au 990 Pro…

Les débits restent évidemment très corrects et loin devant la formule SATA historique. Samsung annonce jusqu’à 7 250 Mo/s en lecture sur du séquentiel et 6 450 Mo/s en écriture pour la version 2 To mesure Tomshardware.

Mais la facture est élevée. Très élevée. Le Samsung 990 Pro 1 To était lancé à 179 $ en 2022 la version « light » 990 de 2026 est proposée à 269.99 $. Le 990 Pro 2 To était proposé à 309 $ il y a quatre ans, le modèle 2026 est à 529.99 $. Ce « Bon Plan » de mars 2026 d’un 990 Pro 1 To à moins de 150€ illustre bien la flambée des tarifs… La crise est bien passée par là.

Je me demande comment le marché va réagir à tout cela dans la durée. A moyen et long terme. Si pour le moment les investissements dans le monde PC autres qu’absolument obligatoires semblent avoir énormément ralenti, les prochains mois vont être très intéressants à analyser. 

La panne d’ordinateur va binetôt provoquer le même stress que la panne de voiture

Mémoire vive, stockage, processeurs et, par voie de conséquence, l’ensemble des autres composants du monde PC ont augmenté. Toute la chaîne semble souffrir de l’écart qui existe encore entre les stocks de « vieilles » machines et les nouvelles. Quand ce stock aura disparu, il restera la mémoire des utilisateurs. Le souvenir des anciens tarifs d’avant la crise des composants. Et beaucoup de constructeurs espèrent que tout le monde oubliera bien vite cet écart énorme entre un ordinateur portable milieu de gamme proposé à 800 € en 2025 et ce que l’on va découvrir à 1200, 1500 voire même à 2000 € à la rentrée de septembre avec des compétences souvent inférieures.

Reste un léger détail par rapport à cet espoir d’un grand reset mémoriel. Si les esprits peuvent éventuellement perdre leurs repères, les portefeuilles des utilisateurs n’ont pas la même propension à se soustraire aux faits. Dans les commentaires, autour de moi et par email, la réaction est quasi unanime.

Les gens ne savent pas comment ils vont pouvoir gérer une panne de PC. En cas d’ordinateur Hors-Service ou de composant qui lâche, la facture s’annonce tellement élevée que les particuliers comme les petites et moyennes entreprises n’ont pas de solution de réparation accessible. Pas possible de lâcher 500€ pour un SSD 2 To de remplacement. Impossible de débourser la somme réclamée pour 16 Go de mémoire vive. Même conclusion évidemment pour acheter un ordinateur neuf à un enfant qui entre au collège ou au lycée. Comme on prie que le petit bruit en provenance du moteur ne soit « rien de grave » en amenant sa voiture chez le garagiste, je fais face à des emails de famille qui ne savent pas « comment faire » face à une panne de composants.

Le secteur va sans doute énormément souffrir pour cette fin d’année 2026 et probablement toute l’année 2027. Et aucune solution ne semble émerger à moyen terme.

Samsung 990 : un tarif de SSD qui résume l’état du marché © MiniMachines.net. 2026

Que retenir de l'actualité tech de la semaine ? Un Français qui a résolu LE problème des climatiseurs mobiles ; le pari fou d'Elon Musk avec SpaceX en Bourse ; le bracelet Google Fitbit Air sauvé par l'application Bevel : ce sont les sujets que vous avez le plus lus sur Numerama.

Trump Media lance Truth API, un service payant qui livrera aux traders de Wall Street les posts de Truth Social en quelques millisecondes. Le président des États-Unis, actionnaire principal du groupe, monétise ainsi ses propres annonces auprès de marchés qu'il fait bouger lui-même.

Anthropic met fin au suspense autour de son modèle frontière Claude Fable 5. À partir du 20 juillet 2026, le modèle sera inclus dans les forfaits Max et Team Premium, mais dans la limite de 50 % du quota d'usage habituel.

TSMC said it will invest another $100 billion in Arizona after reporting a record 77.4% year-over-year jump in second-quarter profit. The expansion would bring its total U.S. investment to $265 billion and include new fabs for 2-nanometer production and advanced packaging to serve major U.S. customers. The Associated Press reports: As AI-related demand continues to jump and needs for computing power from data centers surge, TSMC has been expanding chip fabrication plants in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan. It said it is increasing its annual capital expenditure budget for this year to $60 billion-$64 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $52 billion-$56 billion. TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple. It had previously already committed $165 billion in the U.S. for building plants in Arizona, with six fabrication facilities planned. The extra $100 billion in investments are to "support the strong multiyear demand from our leading U.S. customers," C.C. Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said during the company's quarterly earnings conference Thursday. An additional four fabrication plants in Arizona will likely be built with the new investments, TSMC said. They will focus on making some of the most advanced chips that are 2-nanometer and below.

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