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By Greg Bensinger and Arriana McLymore SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon on Tuesday unveiled a refreshed lineup of devices optimized for home security and its new artificial intelligence-infused Alexa+ voice assistant. At an event in New York, Amazon showed off Echo speakers, Fire TV streaming devices, a new Kindle reader and improved Ring and Blink cameras. Amazon is trying to drive interest in the new Alexa, which it spent years updating with AI for better personalization and a more conversational tone. The effort carries significant weight as Amazon has spent billions on Alexa with the aim of making the money-losing service profitable.  The Seattle firm said its new Echos, including smaller Dots and Show devices with screens that range from $99 to $219, will be enabled to work with Alexa+ and feature new silicon chips for faster processing. Amazon also rolled out improved cameras for its Ring devices for better home security, including facial recognition to help ward off unwanted visitors. The head of Ring, Jamie Siminoff, said blurry images can make it more difficult to survey a scene outside one’s home. The new Ring cameras, available later this year, will also be enabled with Alexa+ allowing the devices, through the use of AI, to help make decisions like whether a visitor is delivering a package or casing someone’s house for intrusion. They will be priced from $60 to $350 depending on their utility and camera quality. "It's about knowing immediately whether your visitor is someone you know or someone you've never seen before," said Siminoff, whom Amazon brought back to the company earlier this year.  There are also new Blink cameras with higher resolution for better monitoring inside and outside one’s home, Amazon said. (Reporting by Greg BensingerEditing by Marguerita Choy)

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By Jeffrey Dastin and Krystal Hu (Reuters) -Meta is acquiring the chip startup Rivos, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, as the social media company looks to bolster its in-house semiconductor efforts. The Santa Clara, California-based startup, which is backed by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, is focused on designing chips based on the RISC-V architecture, an open-source alternative to the architectures made by Arm, Intel and AMD. The terms of the deal were unclear, according to the source. Meta and Rivos did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Meta has been one of Rivos' biggest customers and had been talking to the startup about a deal, a second source familiar with the matter said. The sources declined to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the information. Reuters exclusively reported in March that Meta was testing its first in-house chip for training AI systems as the company seeks to cut infrastructure costs linked to its spending on advanced AI tools. The Instagram and Facebook owner has spent heavily on sought-after AI chips from Nvidia. Rivos was seeking new funding at an over $2 billion valuation, The Information reported in August. Bloomberg News first reported on the potential deal. (Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin and Krystal Hu in San Francisco and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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By Michel Rose and Florence Loeve PARIS (Reuters) -Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML's 1.3 billion euro ($1.5 billion) investment in French startup Mistral AI could be the start of more consolidation in the fragmented European tech ecosystem, former French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said. Le Maire, who left French politics in July last year after President Emmanuel Macron's shock decision to call snap elections, is now a strategic adviser to ASML, which this month became Mistral's top shareholder. "Our ambition is to unite players from this ecosystem to ensure the power of European technology can rival that of Chinese and American technology," Le Maire told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. Le Maire said Europe had "all the industries and the know-how" to become an AI power in the next decades if it overcomes fragmentation. Asked about the valuation gap between Mistral and American AI giants such as OpenAI, now valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, Le Maire said the EU's biggest economies, Germany, France and Italy, needed to move ahead with a capital markets union to create a bigger pool of funds for investment, without waiting for all 27 member states to agree. But he also said he thought a tech bubble had formed in the U.S., which was likely to burst "in the coming months". "There's a bubble, tech players are over-valued in the United States, and that could trigger an economic recession tomorrow," he said. Le Maire said the European Commission was too passive in the face of aggressive Chinese and American competition. "What the technocrats don't understand is that we need massive, fast and efficient decisions to protect our industry," he said. The EU is now lagging behind China in areas such as car batteries and it needs to set conditions such as technology transfers on Chinese companies in return for access to the European market, he added. "For a long time, we were imitated powers. We are going to have to become an imitating power," he said. ($1 = 0.8512 euros) (Reporting by Michel Rose and Florence LoeveEditing by Gareth Jones)

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(Reuters) -OpenAI is launching Sora 2, a text-to-video artificial intelligence model, as a standalone app in the U.S. and Canada, CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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By Greg Bensinger and Arriana McLymore SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon on Tuesday unveiled a refreshed lineup of devices optimized for home security and its new artificial intelligence-infused Alexa+ voice assistant. At an event in New York, Amazon showed off Echo speakers, Fire TV streaming devices, a new Kindle reader and improved Ring and Blink cameras. Amazon is trying to drive interest in the new Alexa, which it spent years updating with AI for better personalization and a more conversational tone. The Seattle firm said its new Echos, including smaller Dots and Show devices with screens that range from $99 to $219, will be enabled to work with Alexa+ and feature new silicon chips for faster processing. Amazon also rolled out improved cameras for its Ring devices for better home security, including facial recognition to help ward off unwanted visitors.  (Reporting by Greg BensingerEditing by Marguerita Choy)

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By Deepa Seetharaman and Dawn Chmielewski (Reuters) -OpenAI is releasing an AI video-generating app called Sora that lets people create and share AI videos that can be spun from copyrighted content and shared to social media-like streams.   Copyright owners, such as television and movie studios, must opt out of having their work appear in the video feed, company officials said, describing it as a continuation of its prior policy toward image generation.   The copyright policy is likely to ruffle feathers throughout Hollywood.  The ChatGPT-maker has been in talks with a variety of copyright holders in recent weeks to discuss the policy, company officials said. At least one major studio, Disney, has already opted out of having their material appear in the app, people familiar with the matter said.  Earlier this year, OpenAI pressed the Trump administration to declare that training AI models on copyrighted material fell under the "fair use" provision in copyright law.  "Applying the fair use doctrine to AI is not only a matter of American competitiveness — it’s a matter of national security," OpenAI argued in March.  Without this step, it said at the time, U.S. AI companies would lose their edge over rivals in China.  OpenAI officials said it put measures in place to block people from creating videos of public figures or other users of the app without permission. Public figures and others’ likeness cannot be used until they upload their own AI-generated video and give their permission. One such step is a "liveness check" where the app prompts a user to move their head in different directions and recite a random string of numbers. Users will be able to see drafts of videos that involve their likeness.  Videos in the Sora app can be up to 10 seconds long. OpenAI built a feature it calls Cameo that will let users create realistic-looking AI versions of themselves and insert themselves into AI-generated scenes.  "Our companies are in the business of competing for time and modifying consumer behavior," Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said in a research note, adding he saw Sora app as a direct competitor to longstanding social media and digital content platforms from Meta, Google, TikTok and others. (Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman in San Francisco and Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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(Reuters) -U.S. quantum computing startup PsiQuantum said on Tuesday it has started the construction of a facility at Chicago's Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP), as it capitalizes on a fresh $1 billion funding round. The site, located at a former U.S. Steel South Works site, will serve as IQMP's anchor tenant and launch with the development of its largest intermediate-scale quantum test system. The system will be evaluated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, a sign that government agencies will be closely watching the progress. PsiQuantum is betting on a photonic approach, using semiconductor manufacturing processes and conventional telecom fiber, a route that offers solutions to some of the technical bottlenecks hindering rivals, the company said. "Today, we break ground on a landmark project that will establish Illinois as the nation's leading hub for quantum innovation while attracting billions in economic investment and creating thousands of jobs," said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. The Silicon Valley-based company said the new facility, if successful, will house the country's first million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum computer. PsiQuantum earlier this month disclosed a Blue Owl Capital-backed Series E funding, which was one of the largest U.S. investments in quantum technology. The latest funding will also support development at a partner site in Australia and further work on its quantum photonic chips, the company said. (Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)

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LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's competition regulator has recommended replacing a legacy EU-era exemption for technology licensing agreements with a UK-specific framework, in a move aimed at modernising post-Brexit competition rules. The Competition and Markets Authority said on Tuesday it had advised the government to scrap the Assimilated Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER), which is due to expire in April next year, and replace it with a new 12-year UK exemption order. The TTBER allows companies to share and license technology, such as patents or software, under certain conditions without breaching competition law. "Technology transfer agreements can often be pro-competitive and can benefit innovation, investment and growth… but certain clauses within such agreements can also have negative effects on competition," the CMA said in its final recommendation to business and trade minister Peter Kyle. Britain retained the TTBER after leaving the European Union, but it was under review as part of the government's efforts to tailor its regulatory regime to boost economic growth. Nokia, patent firm Sisvel International and independent licensing marketplace Avanci were among companies who responded to the CMA's consultation. The CMA said the proposed changes would give businesses greater clarity and flexibility, while ensuring that licensing deals do not harm competition. The watchdog wants to remove outdated references to "utility models" and include newer rights such as database copyrights. Under the proposed framework, agreements could qualify for exemption either by meeting existing market share thresholds or by demonstrating the presence of at least three competing technologies. (Reporting by Sam Tabahriti; editing by Sarah Young)

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(Reuters) -LG Electronics is seeking a valuation of up to 774 billion rupees ($8.71 billion) for its India unit which is launching its initial public offering next week, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The South Korean company is selling up to 101.8 million shares, or a 15% stake, in the India unit for 1,080 rupees to 1,140 rupees per share, the report said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. ($1 = 88.8310 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Chris Thomas in Mexico City; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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By Steven Scheer JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli high-tech companies raised $11.9 billion over the first three quarters of 2025 as the technology sector continues to thrive despite Israel's two-year-old war against Hamas militants in Gaza. Funding was 13% higher than in January to September 2024, the nonprofit Startup Nation Central said on Tuesday. It noted that the volume of funding, which was led by cybersecurity firms, rose despite a 22% decline in the number of deals to 569. At the same time, mergers and acquisitions reached a record $71 billion so far in 2025, nearly five times higher than the same period in 2024, and largely driven by Alphabet's $32 billion acquisition of cyber firm Wiz and Palo Alto Networks' $25 billion purchase of CyberArk. The tech sector is a driver of Israel's economy, accounting for about 20% of GDP, 15% of jobs and more than 50% of exports. In the third quarter, Israeli tech firms raised $2.4 billion, up 9% from the same period in 2024 but down 50% from the second quarter. The number of deals contracted to 141, down 24% from the second quarter and 38% year over year. M&A in the quarter reached nearly $32 billion due to the Palo Alto-CyberArk deal. "The third quarter of 2025 highlighted a market in transition. While funding slowed and investors became more selective, M&A activity reached historic highs," said Avi Hasson, CEO of Startup Nation Central. "We are seeing fewer rounds, but at record sizes, signaling confidence in scale-ready companies. At the same time, global buyers are making some of the boldest bets we’ve ever seen on Israeli tech, especially in cybersecurity."  (Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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