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Europe could soon have its own equivalent of the Delaware C Corp, but its advocates aren’t releasing the pressure on lawmakers. In an open letter released on Thursday, a who’s who of Europe’s startup scene stressed that this new corporate status shouldn’t be watered down. The letter is the latest step of the EU Inc campaign, a movement calling for an EU-wide company statute that would let companies incorporate under a common framework and operate across the bloc.

Austin-based Tern has won a contract from the U.S. Army to deploy the startup’s low-cost GPS alternative tech. The $11.26 million contract will see the Army use Tern’s navigation tech in vehicles, though the startup was tight-lipped on the exact scale of the deployment of what it calls “Google Maps for the battlefield.” Modern vehicles generate all kinds of data while driving, and Tern’s whole tech stack is oriented around using some of that information to navigate without GPS.

Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic, best known as the parent company of WordPress.com, has been put on a leave of absence by his board against his will, according to a Slack message seen by TechCrunch. Earlier Wednesday, Mullenweg posted in a Slack channel visible to all employees that the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Mark Davies, had “conspired” with other board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker to vote to put Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence.

MeshWallet, a gasless USDT wallet serving users of the TRON network, has just announced the successful closing of its’ $10,000,000 private funding round. Led by a core group of private investors and small family offices, the funding will support a roadmap aimed at bringing MeshWallet to the forefront of the dedicated gasless wallet market and bring an ecosystem of benefits for users.

Paul Christiano, an influential AI researcher focused on keeping AI systems aligned with human interests and under human control, is joining the OpenAI Foundation board, the frontier lab said Wednesday. “I now believe there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term,” Christiano wrote in a social media post.

Massachusetts became the latest state to force data centers to bring their own power, but this time there’s a twist. A new state mandate would require developers building data centers larger than 25 megawatts to provide clean power or pay into a ratepayer protection fund. Gov. Maura Healey’s is the latest example of states turning against data centers. Just a few years ago, tech companies and data center developers were showered with incentives to locate facilities in a particular state.

Apple CEO John Ternus wants you to know that the iPhone isn’t going anywhere. Ternus threw his weight behind the venerable device on Wednesday during his first keynote as CEO, placing it firmly at the center of Apple’s product strategy for the AI era. “There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” he said.

Apple is trying to get consumers to accept, and even welcome, a new reality: Your tech is always listening. Does this mean you’re always being recorded if the person you’re interacting with is wearing an Apple Watch? Not exactly — though it may make some people uncomfortable regardless.

We’ve compiled all of the announcements from today’s “Surprise and Sunshine” event. Image Credits:Apple / Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, features a 7.6-inch Retina display when unfolded, while its outer display measures 5.4 inches. The company said that the new device was “Inspired by the versatility of iPad.”  The inner display features an “under-display” camera that gives users an all-screen feel.

Apple on Wednesday unveiled its new iPhone 18 and its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo. But amid all the attention on Apple’s newest and most expensive devices, there’s another change: Apple is raising the price of its existing iPhone models by $100. Starting today, customers will notice a price hike for existing models on Apple’s online store, including starting prices for iPhone 16 at $799, iPhone 17e at $699, iPhone 17 at $899, and iPhone Air at $1,099.