It has been a busy Thursday for the tech and AI industry, with mega announcements from consumer hardware, frontier AI development, and software platforms sectors. From Google introducing video selfie authentication to Apple reportedly planning a mid-cycle price surge on the iPhone 17 lineup in India, a lot of developments have occurred across the board.
Hence, for July 23, here are today’s top stories in tech and AI.
Google debuts ‘Selfie Video’ sign-in for account recovery
Google officially launched its Selfie Video sign-in, offering an opt-in fallback method for users who lose access to their primary device, passkeys, or recovery numbers. The system relies on guided real-time head movements during setup and login to verify “liveness,” preventing spoofing attempts with static photos or pre-recorded deepfakes. Stored baseline clips are encrypted at rest and can be removed by the user at any time. The feature remains unavailable for enterprise Workspace and child accounts.
WhatsApp allows PDF editing after Adobe partnership
Meta announced a major feature update integrating Adobe Acrobat tools natively into WhatsApp Web and Desktop. Users can now preview, scroll, highlight, and annotate PDF documents directly inside chat threads without downloading the files first. The integration also adds an “Edit in Acrobat” toggle to access e-signatures and AI-powered document summaries, all while maintaining WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption.
iPhone 17 mid-cycle price hike leaks in India
In a rare move for Apple, industry leaks from authorised retail channels indicate an upcoming mid-cycle price hike for the iPhone 17 series in India starting in August. Driven by rising global memory costs and supply constraints, the base 256GB iPhone 17 is tipped to jump by Rs 12,000 (rising from Rs 82,900 to Rs 94,990), with proportional increases expected across the Pro and Pro Max variants. The move follows similar mid-cycle price adjustments recently made by Apple in Japan.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Flip 8, and Watch 9 series launch in India
Following its global Unpacked showcase, Samsung revealed the official India pricing for its new hardware suite:
Galaxy Z Fold 8: Starts at Rs 1,79,999 (12GB/256GB), featuring a wider 4:3 aspect ratio display, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, and a dual 50MP camera layout. The flagship Fold 8 Ultra tops out at Rs 2,59,999 for the 16GB/1TB model.
Galaxy Z Flip 8: Priced at Rs 1,24,999 (256GB) and Rs 1,44,999 (512GB), bringing a larger 4.1-inch outer FlexWindow cover display.
Galaxy Watch 9 & Watch Ultra 2: The Galaxy Watch 9 starts at Rs 37,999 (40mm Bluetooth), while the rugged Titanium-built Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is priced at Rs 64,999.
White House accuses Moonshot AI of model distillation
In a major geopolitical development, US officials alleged that Beijing-backed startup Moonshot AI used Anthropic’s Claude to “distill” and train its newly released 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3 model. Technical evaluations published alongside the statement showed the model disproportionately self-identifying as Claude under specific prompt parameters, marking a high-profile escalation in AI intellectual property disputes between the US and China.
AMD signs multi-gigawatt AI infrastructure deal with Anthropic
AMD announced a major partnership to supply up to 2 gigawatts of its upcoming Instinct MI450 AI accelerators to Anthropic. The hardware deal is tied to a conditional $5 billion investment by AMD into the AI research lab, strengthening non-NVIDIA supply chains for frontier model training and inference.