ZAFI / Section 01

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Every transmission, in chronological order. No algorithmic detours.

Apple’s new Siri is finally leaving the demo room

The iOS 27 public beta puts Apple’s rebuilt assistant in ordinary hands. The real test is whether it can be useful without becoming intrusive.

By Jon Bell

Technology

OpenAI’s hardware bet sounds stranger - and smarter - without a screen

Frontier AI needs a referee before the next crisis chooses one

Technology

The browser wars are back, and the tab is no longer the point

Business

New York’s data-centre pause turns AI’s appetite into a public question

Culture · 5 min

Spotify’s AI assistant wants to replace the blank search box

The playlist is becoming a conversation, but good curation still needs friction.

Security · 6 min

The phishing email now writes back

Defenders are building agents because attackers already are.

Business · 7 min

A $10.3 billion chip bet says specialised AI will beat flexibility

The fastest route forward may be a chip willing to do fewer things.

Close view of an electronic circuit board

AI · 5 min

Runway’s model router admits there may never be one best creative AI

Creative AI is becoming a routing problem.

Creative work displayed across a laptop and phone

Design · 5 min

Google Images is becoming a place to linger, not leave

The image result page is turning into a destination.

A computer display filled with digital work

Business · 6 min

AI agents can book the trip. Paying for it is the hard part

Agentic commerce needs boring financial controls before it needs more intelligence.

A payment card and computer used for online transactions

AI · 7 min

DeepSeek’s reported funding talks show open models still need closed capital

Technical efficiency does not remove the cost of competing at global scale.

Dense electronic circuitry representing AI compute

Business · 5 min

Lucid’s bankruptcy denial cannot quiet the bigger EV financing problem

A rumour was wrong. The pressure behind it is real.

Culture · 5 min

A friendlier algorithm is still an algorithm choosing the mood

Tuning a feed for kindness does not make its power neutral.

From the company

Crooli Newsroom

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Labs30 Oct

Introducing Crooli Flash

Crooli Flash is a free USB tool for Mac and Windows. Flash an ISO, check every byte, or format a drive, then install it with a single pasted command.

Read article

Crooli OS29 Oct

Crooli OS is live

Crooli OS is live and free at os.crooli.com: a calm, fast, open-source desktop for people who have never used Linux, for Intel, AMD and Apple silicon, and for older laptops that deserve a longer life.

Read article

Crooli News29 Oct

A New Look for Crooli

A dark, quieter site set in our own typeface, artwork made of dots for every story, a newsroom you can scan, and a few places worth exploring. Here is what changed and why.

Read article