News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anduril, Kraken Scale Unmanned Vessels For Naval Dominance
Anduril Industries partnered with Kraken Technology Group to bring "small, high-performance, mass-producible" unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to the U.S. Navy. The partnership is designed to pair Kraken's autonomous boats with Anduril's defense stack. "This partnership reflects Kraken's commitment to supporting global maritime challenges with hardened operational capabilities at a critical point in history. Under this agreement, Kraken will deliver low-cost, scalable and modular systems that are both reliable and effective," said Mal Crease, founder and CEO of Kraken Technology Group. Under the agreement, Kraken's K7 SABRE and K5 KRAKEN USVs are slated to be produced and integrated in the U.S. through a licensing arrangement. The companies also plan to offer modular payload options intended to "improve flexibility and compatibility" for U.S. forces and NATO partners. "Kraken is known for its proven, battle-tested platforms. This partnership expands Anduril's family of autonomous surface offerings with small boats carrying mission payloads, adding a complementary capability to larger ASVs and the legacy fleet," said Cory Emmons, general manager of Surface Dominance, Anduril Industries. Photo: Shutterstock This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
How SpaceX preempted a $2B fundraise with a $60B buyout offer - RocketNews
Until a few hours before SpaceX announced its deal, giving it the option to acquire Cursor -- the maker of AI-powered coding software -- for $60 billion, Cursor was on track to close a $2 billion funding round later this week, according to a person familiar with the matter. The round would have valued the company at $50 billion. SpaceX said it would either buy the company at some point later this year or pay $10 billion to Cursor to collaborate on AI development. Cursor was apparently running a parallel process, negotiating a potential acquisition by SpaceX while simultaneously finalizing a private funding round with investors that include Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, Nvidia, and Battery Ventures, details of which were first reported by TechCrunch last week. It is not uncommon for startups to engage in acquisition discussions while simultaneously raising new capital. While many private companies prefer to remain independent, Cursor's $2 billion raise would have fallen short of the capital needed to reach cash-flow breakeven, likely forcing the company to raise substantial funding later, the person said. SpaceX, which recently merged with xAI, has been aiming to beef up its AI capabilities to better compete with leaders like Anthropic and OpenAI. Acquiring Cursor gives Elon Musk's company a better chance of challenging rivals in AI coding, currently the most lucrative application of the technology. However, SpaceX is delaying the potential acquisition of Cursor until after its IPO this summer. This is largely because the company wants to avoid updating its confidential financial filings before the listing, and it will be easier to finance the $60 billion purchase using its new, publicly traded stock. The deal appears to benefit both sides for several reasons. Despite fast revenue growth, Cursor is facing fierce competition from Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex. Given that threat, the startup could face challenges in continuing to raise private capital to finance its massive computing needs. Even if SpaceX d ...
SpaceX satellites half the size of pickup trucks are falling from the sky -- every day · EMSNow
As space junk accumulates, astronomer Sam Lawler explains why we should be concerned about the rapid proliferation of private satellites in low orbit Billions of people watched in awe as the Artemis II mission took an astronaut crew that included Canadian Jeremy Hansen around the moon and back. It was an awe-inspiring moment for space exploration -- but not all the news from space is good for Earth. There are thousands of satellites in low orbit, which means 2,000 kilometres or less above the earth. Many were sent there by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, which launched its first Starlink satellite in 2019 and has come to dominate the sky, representing more than two-thirds of all satellites in orbit. Wherever you are in Canada, when you look up at the increasingly bright night sky, you are seeing more satellites and fewer stars. Starlink is an internet provider used by rural farmers, northern First Nations and airplane passengers criss-crossing Canadian skies. Each of its satellites has a lifespan of roughly five years, after which they re-enter Earth's atmosphere at a rate of one or two satellites per day. At this point, they become what's known as space junk -- burning up entirely or, occasionally, scattering debris. But those occasions will become more common if SpaceX fulfills its ambitions to launch a lot more satellites in the years to come, coinciding with the explosion in data centres and artificial intelligence. That would mean more light pollution in the night sky and more space junk falling back to Earth. Samantha Lawler is a professor of astronomy with the University of Regina and goat farmer -- and she is concerned about space junk. She spoke with us from her farm in Saskatchewan (where she did not use Starlink to connect to Zoom) about why we should be concerned about the growing number of satellites over Canada -- including the potential for satellite collisions that could make low orbit unusable for everyone, a scenario called Kessler syndrome. It's so bad in every possible way. There's no way we can get to a million satellites -- there will be collisions in space and we'll be in full Kessler syndrome before we get there. But if somehow, they managed not to crash, they have five-year lifetimes. That would be one re-entry every three minutes. And those satellites would have to be bigger than Starlink satellites because of the complexity of a data centre versus an internet provider, right? In some of the articles we were writing quickly, we were estimating two tonnes per satellite, but it sounds like from various things SpaceX has released that they'll actually be much bigger than that. So everything that's in low Earth orbit, which is most of the satellites -- including all of the 10,000-plus Starlink satellites -- at the end of their life, they get burned up in Earth's atmosphere, because it's convenient. And so far, it looks like Starlink is actually doing a pretty good job of burning up. There was one piece of a Starlink satellite that was found in a farm in Saskatchewan a couple of years ago, but they seem to be doing a pretty good job. What that means, though, is that all the mass of the satellites -- the solar panels, plastic, metal, batteries -- it's all getting melted and deposited in the upper atmosphere. So, that's not a good thing. There was a period of time, about six months, where Starlink burned up 500 satellites. That's around three per day. In that time period, they exceeded the natural infall rate from meteorites by at least twice as much -- so, adding at least twice as much aluminium as what naturally comes into the atmosphere every day for six months. "We're right on the edge of that already," she said, adding that someone needs to take on the engineering challenge of providing rural internet and other services with fewer satellites. "There is a limit to how many we can safely have in orbit, and I think we've crossed that limit." SpaceX didn't respond to The Narwhal's questions about the environmental or safety impacts of their plan, and the Canadian Space Agency didn't respond when asked if and when an official reporting system might be created. But Lawler had a lot more to say about the current lack of regulations protecting us from their impacts in the sky -- or here on Earth. I study orbital dynamics in the Kuiper belt -- so, looking at small icy rocks in the outer solar system and measuring their orbits. I started my position at the University of Regina and moved to a farm with access to dark skies in 2019, right when the first Starlink satellites launched, so I could watch the change in my night sky that I suddenly had access to and see the change in my research data, too. Increasingly, there were more and more satellite streaks in my data. So, I had this unique perspective of seeing that wow, this was pretty bad, and it's going to get a lot worse. So, at the time, that one in 15 represented 65,000 satellites -- which, when we wrote that paper, I thought was ridiculous. Like, there's no way we'll ever get to that. But here we are at around 15,000 with no signs of slowing down. So we might get there, and now there are proposals for millions of satellites. But at the time, I think very few astronomers -- and almost no one outside the astronomy community -- had any idea how bad this was. There was a small group of astronomers that noticed, "Hey, this is very bad for astronomy. But have you thought about how many of these are going to be burning up, and how many are going to be launched, and how much danger there is in orbit?" I think that's starting to change now -- I'm glad that more people are aware of the issues, but they continue to get worse. So what does that do? We don't actually know. There are a few preliminary studies showing this aluminum can become alumina, which can cause ozone depletion and change temperatures in the upper atmosphere, but we don't know the full effects. And because space is not legally considered an environment, all satellites launched from the U.S. are categorically excluded from any kind of environmental regulations. If they get to their steady state of having 42,000 Starlink satellites alone -- that's only one of many mega-constellations they have planned -- that's something like one satellite being burned up every hour in the atmosphere. These are satellites half the size of a Ford F-150 pickup truck. They're not small. That's a lot of metal being added to the upper atmosphere, and we don't know the full effects of it. SpaceX does all the launching -- all the other mega-constellation companies [such as One Web and Amazon's LEO] are using SpaceX to get to orbit. It has the infrastructure to do all the launches, they have a lot of U.S. government funding to do those launches, so they're doing them very, very quickly. It's very impressive engineering, it just ignores so many of the larger effects. I know in my sky, there's a line where I can always see a Starlink satellite in motion. Just always. So, people might notice that. We are also the highest-risk for satellites that aren't burning up completely, because they're right over our heads. These are all uncontrolled re-entries, so they just re-enter somewhere along their orbit, and we're under the densest part. I think that was demonstrated by the piece that was found in Saskatchewan. Actually, there are two separate things: one was a big debris fall in Ituna, Sask., which was part of the SpaceX Dragon truck. It's part of the capsule that brings astronauts up to the space station. When it doesn't burn up completely, it falls -- so that was a bunch of very large pieces discovered across many farms. I know of six pieces from that, but there are probably more that people haven't reported because there is no way to report them. There's no official reporting system. The second incident was a smaller piece from a Starlink satellite, about the size of a laptop, discovered near Hodgeville, Sask. With the Ituna debris, it was reported to the Canadian government, and there was some kind of interaction between the Canadian and U.S. governments. In Ituna, SpaceX contacted the farmers directly and came to pick up the pieces. With Hodgeville, the farmer got in touch with SpaceX, and they had him FedEx [the debris] back. So no one in the Canadian government knew about it, which is bad. The Ituna debris fall was spectacular because the pieces were so large and there were so many. But the Starlink debris is much scarier to me, because there are 10,000 of these over our heads, and if they're not burning up completely, then that's a lot of pieces that are hitting the ground. Here in Saskatchewan -- I look out my window and it's just bare fields. It's the easiest place to find the pieces. But how many pieces are we not finding? These pieces look like something that fell off a car; if you found one in the city, you wouldn't think it was space junk. Every time there's a re-entry, they just roll the dice, like, "It'll probably burn up." But we don't actually know, there's no data released on that, and the only way we find out if they aren't burning up completely is if we find pieces on the ground. I've been in touch with the Canadian Space Agency and they say they are working on a plan. But I don't know. Aaron Boley at the Outer Space Institute has set up an email address -- [email protected] -- but it's not official. We're astronomers, we're not supposed to be collecting this, but no one else is. After I heard a Starlink piece had fallen in Saskatchewan, I got in touch with the farmer by going on the Evan Bray radio show -- like, the lunchtime farmer call-in show, where I go to talk about astronomy all the time -- and asking who found it. Saskatchewan is a giant small town, so I actually got in touch with the guy by doing that. And he mentioned that his neighbour has some space junk too, and sent me a photo of this big piece of, like, corrugated metal. I was like, "Come on, that's not space junk -- it's a piece of tractor or something." But then he sent me a letter that this guy got from the Canadian government back in 1980, saying, "Thank you for sending us this piece of a Soviet rocket." So, Saskatchewan has been the debris detector for decades. Everything that goes into orbit is covered by the Outer Space Treaty and the Liability Convention, which are these Apollo-era treaties, written at a time when only the U.S. and the Soviet Union were launching stuff into orbit. They're really not written for private companies. It's just not set up for our current situation, where most of the satellites are owned by private corporations -- by one private corporation, mostly. Senator Paula Simons has launched a Senate inquiry into space junk falling on Canada, which is awesome. So there is starting to be some interest. But nothing has really happened substantively.
SpaceX secures option to buy AI startup Cursor
In a post on X on Tuesday, SpaceX announced that the companies were working closely together on coding and AI. (Image: WSJ) By Micah Maidenberg and Angel Au-YeungSpaceX said it secured the right to buy artificial-intelligence coding startup Cursor for US$60 billion (NZ$101.5b). In a post on X on Tuesday, SpaceX announced that the companies were working closely together on coding and AI, and that it had an option to purchase Cursor later this year. If there isn't a purchase, SpaceX could pay US$10b for work in the partnership. 'World's most useful models'"The combination of Cursor's leading product and distributi...
SpaceX reaches deal with AI startup Cursor
LOS ANGELES, April 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. private space company SpaceX has reached an agreement for the right to acquire San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cursor for 60 billion U.S. dollars later this year, or to pay 10 billion dollars related to their collaboration, according to a statement from SpaceX. SpaceX said Tuesday on social media that the combination of Cursor's leading product and distribution to expert software engineers with SpaceX's million H100 equivalent Colossus training supercomputer will allow both sides "to build the world's most useful models." Cursor said it is partnering with SpaceX to accelerate its model training efforts. The company released its first agentic coding model, Composer, less than six months ago and has since continued to improve its performance. "We've wanted to push our training efforts much further, but we've been bottlenecked by compute. With this partnership, our team will leverage xAI's Colossus infrastructure (a SpaceX subsidiary) to dramatically scale up the intelligence of our models," Cursor said in a release. Cursor CEO Michael Truell said on social media that he looks forward to partnering with the SpaceX team to scale up Composer, calling the partnership "a meaningful step" toward building more advanced AI-assisted programming systems. ■
Polymarket Waitlist Tops 1 Million as U.S. App Rolls Out in Beta
The prediction markets company recently launched its U.S.-specific iOS app in a restricted beta, initially allowing only a small group of users to participate. Access remains tightly controlled, with most users placed in a long queue unless they receive an invite code and meet entry requirements. Despite those limitations, interest has surged. The app is currently operating as a "sports-first" experience, focusing on event-based markets tied to major competitions, with broader categories expected to follow later. Industry data suggests Polymarket is already gaining ground against competitors. Journalist Dustin Gouker noted that during a recent market tied to The Masters, Polymarket's U.S. platform generated roughly $255 million in trading volume, more than half of rival Kalshi's $460 million on the same event. Those figures do not include Polymarket's separate decentralized platform, which operates globally. The relaunch marks a significant moment for the company, which re-entered the U.S. market after resolving regulatory issues tied to a 2022 enforcement action. Since then, Polymarket has positioned itself as a fully compliant platform under federal oversight, though its availability remains limited in several states. For now, the app is only accessible via mobile and primarily supports sports-related markets. However, the company has signaled plans to expand into politics, culture, and other categories once the rollout progresses further.
Anthropic Mythos shaping up as nothingburger
And that unauthorized access? 'A nothing burger,' hacking startup CEO tells El Reg Anthropic's Mythos model is purportedly so good at finding vulnerabilities that the Claude-maker is afraid to make it available to the general public for fear that criminals will take advantage. But early analysis shows that Mythos may not be as dangerous as some would have you believe. Anthropic made Mythos available in preview to a select but ever-growing number of organizations under the title of Project Glasswing so they could find and fix vulnerabilities in their environment before criminals got hold of the purported zero-day machine and caused mayhem. That plan didn't quite work as intended. On Wednesday, an Anthropic spokesperson confirmed to The Register that some non-Glasswing partners may have accessed the model - but not through Anthropic's production API. "We're investigating a report claiming unauthorized access to Claude Mythos Preview through one of our third-party vendor environments," the spokesperson told us. The AI biz declined to name the third-party vendor, but said that it's a company Anthropic works with on model development. There's no evidence that unauthorized activity extended beyond the third-party vendor's environment or that Anthropic systems are affected, we're told. Bloomberg, which originally reported the unauthorized access, said that "a handful" of people gained access to Mythos by making "an educated guess about the model's online location" based on Anthropic's previous models, and that these details were revealed in the recent Mercor data breach. Mercor is an AI staffing startup that supplies specialized contractors to major AI labs, including Anthropic. Earlier this month, Mercor said that it was "one of thousands of companies" affected by the LiteLLM supply-chain attack. This group of unauthorized users reportedly belongs to a private Discord channel and gained access to Mythos on the same day that Anthropic announced Project Glasswing. Since then, it's been "playing around" with the bug-hunting machine, and doesn't have any interest in using the model for evil, according to Bloomberg. Regardless of what the group is doing with Mythos, their access illustrates a couple of key points. First: it's really hard to keep code under wraps (as also evidenced by Anthropic's earlier Claude Code source leak), especially when the folks who want to kick the tires on the new model are cybersecurity and engineering types - and they didn't even need to hack into any network or database to do it. Insider and supply-chain threats are the real deal. "The Mythos breach didn't require a sophisticated attack," Ram Varadarajan, CEO at Acalvio, a deception-tech firm, told The Register. "It just required a contractor, a URL pattern, and a day-one guess, which means the 'controlled release' model failed at its weakest link before the model's capabilities were ever the issue." Additionally, considering all the hype Anthropic spun around its new model, we shouldn't be surprised the genie is out of the lamp. Anthropic's marketing message for Mythos was effectively a challenge, not dissimilar to a capture-the-flag exercise "Anthropic's marketing message for Mythos was effectively a challenge, not dissimilar to a capture-the-flag exercise, where success includes claims of unauthorized access to Mythos," Tim Mackey, head of risk strategy at supply chain security shop Black Duck, told The Register. That marketing may have outstripped reality. Early reports from Mythos preview users including AWS and Mozilla indicate that while the model is very good and very fast at finding vulnerabilities, and requires less hands-on guidance from security engineers - making it a welcome time-saver for the human teams - it has yet to eclipse human security researchers. "So far we've found no category or complexity of vulnerability that humans can find that this model can't," Mozilla CTO Bobby Holley said, after revealing that Mythos found 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox 150. Then he added: "We also haven't seen any bugs that couldn't have been found by an elite human researcher." In other words, it's like adding an automated security researcher to your team. Not a zero-day machine that's too dangerous for the world. It's a nothingburger. The adversary doesn't need Mythos to hack you Anthropic, in announcing the new model, claimed Mythos identified "thousands of additional high- and critical-severity vulnerabilities." VulnCheck researcher Patrick Garrity, however, put the count as of last week at maybe 40. Or maybe none at all. Another engineer, Devansh, scoured the Mythos-related CVE advisories and Anthropic's exploit code, 44-prompt transcript, and 244-page system card, along with Glasswing partner agreements, red-team writeups. He also looked at Aisle's replication study, which tested Mythos' showcase vulnerabilities on small, cheap, open-weights models and found they produced much of the same analysis. Devansh ultimately concluded that while the bugs it found are real, the true Mythos story is "one of misinformation and hype." For example, the Anthropic-claimed 181 Firefox exploits ran with the browser sandbox turned off and the FreeBSD exploit transcript "shows substantial human guidance, not autonomy." Additionally, the "'thousands of severe vulnerabilities' extrapolates from 198 manually reviewed reports. The Linux kernel bug was found by Opus 4.6, the public model, not Mythos," Devansh said. Another researcher, Davi Ottenheimer, pointed out that the security section (Section 3, pages 47-53) of Anthropic's 244-page documentation "contains no count of zero-days at all. With no CVE list, no CVSS distribution, no severity bucket, no disclosure timeline, no vendor-confirmed-novel table, no false-positive rate." Ottenheimer likens it to "the ending of the Wizard of Oz, a sorry disappointment about a model weaponizing two bugs that a different model found, in software the vendor had already patched, in a test environment with the browser sandbox and defense-in-depth mitigations stripped out." Snehal Antani, co-founder and CEO of offensive AI hacking company Horizon3.ai, told The Register, "attackers didn't need Mythos to accelerate vulnerability research, 4.6 and open source models have already been accelerating the vulnerability process." When asked if the security community should be concerned about unauthorized Mythos access, Antani said no. "In my honest opinion, it's a nothingburger," he told us. "The adversary doesn't need Mythos to hack you." ®
Blackstone's BCRED Markets $850 Million Bond Amid Private Credit Chaos - Blue Owl Capital (NYSE:OWL)
Blackstone's private credit fund, BCRED, is marketing an $850 million investment-grade bond deal, according to Bloomberg. The move comes as business development companies (BDCs) step up borrowing following a stretch of limited issuance. BCRED was looking to raise $500 million from the investment-grade note sale. The firm has hired Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, and Royal Bank of Canada to work on the deal. The five-year notes are expected to be priced at a yield of 2.3 percentage points over Treasuries, coming in roughly 25 basis points under earlier price guidance, and will be allocated to "general corporate purposes." In January, BCRED raised $700 million in aggregate principal for its private credit fund, a regulatory filing stated. This deal comes amid a market downturn that has driven spreads on comparable fund debt to their highest levels in years. Underwriting Quality In Question The widening has been fueled in part by worries about underwriting quality and the sector's exposure to software firms that could be disrupted by advances in artificial intelligence. A recent report from Morgan Stanley noted that "while certain AI disruption risks are valid in a narrow context, many are overstated, in our view, particularly for mission-critical, enterprise-grade software systems where durability, compliance, proprietary data and integration depth remain paramount." Morgan Stanley believes that rather than signaling a decline, artificial intelligence may act as a "net positive tailwind for well-positioned software incumbents." Earlier this month, Blue Owl Capital (NYSE:OWL) held a similar BDC offering, raising $400 million from bond investors. The bonds were issued by Blue Owl Capital Corp (OBDC) and are investment-grade rated notes. The bonds are yielding 6.4% and are set to mature in September 2028, according to an SEC filing, Photo: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
Andreessen, Thrive Poised for Windfall From SpaceX's Cursor Bid
Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital are poised for a multibillion-dollar windfall from their early investments in Cursor if Elon Musk's SpaceX moves forward with an agreement to acquire the artificial intelligence coding startup for $60 billion. Andreessen Horowitz is the largest outside shareholder in the startup, with a roughly 10% stake that would be worth about $6 billion at the estimated transaction price, according people familiar with the matter. The venture firm backed Cursor multiple times, including leading the startup's Series A funding round at a $400 million valuation and co-leading a follow-up financing at a $2.5 billion valuation. Thrive is the second largest outside shareholder, with a roughly 7% stake in the company, said one of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public. That stake would be worth about $4.2 billion, adding to its potential gains from SpaceX as an early investor in the rocket maker. Andreessen, Thrive and Cursor declined to comment. SpaceX said Tuesday that it has an agreement giving it the right to buy Cursor for $60 billion later this year or to pay $10 billion for the companies' work together, part of the firm's efforts to catch up with rivals in AI coding tools. SpaceX isn't acquiring Cursor immediately because of the rocket company's imminent initial public offering, Bloomberg News has reported. Cursor, which launched an AI assistant in 2023, emerged as one of the fastest-growing startups of all time and a central player in tech's "vibe coding era." The deal, if completed, would offer a significant return for Cursor's backers at a time when many startups are waiting longer to go public, depriving venture firms of more liquidity. "This is a literal rocket ship being bought by an actual, literal rocket ship," said Michael Fertik, a very early investor in Cursor when the company still went by the name Anysphere. "Together, they're going to have the possibility of seeking the brass ring of ruling the Earth on software," said Fertik, who invests in early-stage startups. Cursor's valuation had soared over the past two years, jumping from $9.9 billion last June to $29.3 billion in November. Cursor had been in talks with investors, including Andreessen and Thrive, to raise about $2 billion in a funding round with a valuation of more than $50 billion, not including the investment, Bloomberg reported last week. Those deal talks have been stopped as a result of xAI's new deal. Other investors stand to benefit from Cursor's deal with SpaceX. Accel owns roughly 2.5% of the company, worth about $1.5 billion, the person said. Benchmark owns less than 1% of the startup, or about a $300 million stake, the people said. Despite it being a relatively minor investment for Benchmark, the deal could return a significant portion of Benchmark's funds, which usually hover around $400 million. Accel and Benchmark declined to comment. No firms stands to gain as much from the potential Cursor deal as Andreessen and Thrive, both in terms of the returns and the reputational benefit. When the firms invested, many startups were competing to dethrone AI code-generation pioneer GitHub Copilot. Andreessen's team, in particular, was using Cursor for hobbyist coding projects. As part of their investments, Andreessen general partner Martin Casado and Thrive general partner Miles Grimshaw joined Cursor's board of directors. Miles Clements, an Accel partner who helps lead the firm's growth fund, is also on the board. In a previous interview about Andreessen's AI infrastructure investments, Casado told Bloomberg News the goal is to be early. "We invest much before these crazy numbers typically," Casado said. "Even when you see these big headline numbers or whatever, often we're in earlier."
SpaceX Shuts Down Little-Known, But Precise Starlink Location Function
Starlink customers probably haven't used it, but SpaceX is shutting down a little-known GPS feature that can be used to track and identify a Starlink dish's location. On Tuesday, the company began notifying customers about the demise of an open-source software framework, gRPC, integrated into Starlink hardware. "Effective May 20, dish location will no longer be available via the local device gRPC API," SpaceX said in the email. The company didn't explain why, describing it as an update to Starlink's "Location Data Access." But regular users don't need to worry. You can still see your dish's location through the Starlink Mobile app under the "Subscription" section. The GPS data on the gRPC API isn't leaking your location either. It needs to be manually turned on by the user, which used to be possible by visiting the Debug Data section. Instead, the change is expected to affect third-party software and Starlink resellers, particularly when it comes to managing fleets of Starlink dishes used on the road or at sea, according to Paul Sutherland, a software developer. Sutherland is behind a desktop Starlink monitoring app called Nexus Telemetry. He told PCMag that the gRPC API is "very, very accurate" at enabling a customer to see the real-time location of a Starlink dish. The same API has been a helpful way for third-party tools to manage multiple Starlink dishes, including on RVs or boats, to see their GPS locations. But in a blog post, Sutherland noted the location function came with a security trade-off. "If you'd enabled it, any device on your network, including guest devices, could silently read your precise GPS coordinates," he wrote. "That's a privacy issue in itself: your exact home location, accessible to any device on your LAN without consent. Beyond that, any app with network access could bypass the operating system's location permission prompts entirely by just querying the dish over HTTP instead of asking the OS for location services." It's why Sutherland suspects SpaceX might be clamping down to prevent the function from posing a threat to enterprise or even military customers, like those in Ukraine. "If [hackers] compromise a network with Starlink, they would be able to find the location of that [dish] device," he told PCMag. "If they were broadcasting in a secret location, they would be able to pinpoint where it is. "In a conflict zone or any situation where physical location is sensitive, that's a real risk. Removing unauthenticated access to location data makes sense from that perspective," he added. "That said, the change affects every Starlink user globally, not just those in sensitive locations, so I think the primary driver is the general privacy and security concern rather than any specific military use case." Still, the restriction threatens to block legitimate access to location data for third-party tools, including Nexus Telemetry. Users managing fixed Starlink dishes can simply log where their equipment is based, but not so for dishes on moving vehicles. Sutherland wrote: "For mobile users, RVs, vans, and boats, it's more of a problem. The whole point of polling the dish was that the location updated automatically as you moved. You'll now need an alternative source," which would involve installing a third-party GPS device. In response, Nexus Telemetry plans on adding support for dongle-based USB GPS receivers. One Starlink reseller noted the restriction also means "reduced troubleshooting accuracy, more reactive operations, and diminished ability to automate and enforce SLAs [service level agreements] at an individual site level." Although SpaceX is still offering a "Telemetry API" for enterprise customers, it limits location data to approximate grid cells rather than specific coordinates. "Such a move just brings unnecessary issues for many users who are using gRPC for legitimate reasons," added Jianping Pan, a computer science professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who studies satellite internet systems. SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But despite the looming restriction, it's possible the company will reopen location access through the API, though it'll be protected by authentication. Some users have also speculated that the restriction might block bad actors from equipping drones with Starlink. But Sutherland said: "I'd say the drone angle is unlikely since the local API is only accessible from devices on the dish's own network, and drone operators already have onboard GPS."
Vibe Coding Startups Soar: Lovable, Cursor, Replit Valuations Surge Amid Big Tech Deals and AI Coding Boom - News Directory 3
Stockholm-based Lovable has become one of the fastest-growing entities in the sector. The emergence of AI-assisted coding tools, known as vibe coding, has triggered a surge in venture capital investment and multi-billion dollar valuations for a new class of software startups. These platforms allow users to build complete applications using natural language prompts, leading tech giants to integrate the tools into their workflows while simultaneously causing investors to divest from legacy software stocks over concerns that companies will build their own internal tools rather than purchase existing software. The scale of the market is highlighted by a deal announced on April 15, 2026, in which SpaceX partnered with the AI coding startup Cursor. The agreement provides SpaceX with the option to acquire Cursor for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for the collaboration. As part of the partnership, Cursor receives access to SpaceX resources, including the Colossus supercomputer, to enhance its competitive position against major AI labs. Stockholm-based Lovable has become one of the fastest-growing entities in the sector. Launched in 2024, the company reached a $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) milestone within eight months and surpassed $200 million four months later. By March 2026, Business Insider reported that Lovable's ARR had surged from $300 million to $400 million in a single month. In December 2025, Lovable raised $330 million in a Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures and CapitalG, valuing the company at $6.6 billion. The round included participation from the venture arms of Google and Nvidia, as well as Salesforce Ventures, Databricks Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. This followed a July 2025 Series A round of $200 million that valued the company at $1.8 billion. Lovable currently sees 200,000 new projects created daily on its platform and counts Uber, Zendesk, and Klarna as customers. The company plans to increase its headcount from 146 to 350 employees by the end of 2026. Replit, founded in 2016, has also seen its valuation soar. In March 2026, the company announced a $9 billion valuation following a $400 million Series D round led by Georgian Partners. Other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Craft Ventures, Accenture Ventures, and individuals such as Jared Leto and Shaquille O'Neal. Our mission has always been that every human with an idea and an internet connection should be able to build any app they want Replit has transitioned from a collaborative environment to utilizing the Replit Agent, which converts English descriptions into working applications. Reports indicate the company projects $1 billion in revenue by the end of 2026. Other startups are targeting specific market gaps or enterprise needs. San Francisco-based Poolside AI, co-founded in 2023 by Eiso Kant and former GitHub head of tech Jason Warner, focuses on the public sector and large enterprises. After closing a $500 million Series B in 2024 led by Bain Capital, the company is raising a Series C with a commitment of at least $500 million from Nvidia. Bloomberg previously reported that Poolside was in discussions to raise $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation. Emergent, a 2024 Y Combinator graduate founded by Madhav and Mukund Jha, reported reaching $100 million in ARR within eight months, serving 6 million users by February 2026. The startup raised $70 million in Series B funding in January 2026 from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Khosla Ventures, among other investors. This followed a $23 million Series A round in September 2025. StackBlitz's Bolt platform, launched in 2024, utilizes Anthropic's models to allow users to build software via plain English. According to co-founder Eric Simons, Bolt generated $1 million in ARR in its first week and added an additional $1 million each subsequent week. In January 2025, Bloomberg reported that StackBlitz was in talks to raise $83.5 million at a $700 million valuation. The rapid expansion of vibe coding has led to several acquisitions and failed deals. In July 2025, the AI startup Cognition acquired Windsurf after a proposed $3 billion acquisition by OpenAI fell through. In June 2025, the web design platform Wix acquired the six-month-old startup Base44 for $80 million. These startups are competing against established AI-powered coding tools from Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI. While tech giants are adopting these tools to increase efficiency and listing them as requirements in job descriptions, the shift has created volatility in the broader software market as investors move away from legacy software providers.
XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund Will Host its Q1 2026 Quarterly Webinar on May 5th, 2026
CHICAGO, April 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund (NYSE: MCN) (the "Fund") today announced that it plans to host the Fund's Quarterly Webinar on May 5th, 2026 at 12:00 pm (Eastern Time). Kimberly Flynn, President at XA Investments ("XAI") will moderate the Q&A style webinar with Ray Di Bernardo and Drew Justman, Portfolio Managers at Madison Investments. TO JOIN VIA WEB: Please go to the Knowledge Bank section of xainvestments.com or click here to find the online registration link. TO USE YOUR TELEPHONE: After joining via web, if you prefer to use your phone for audio, you must select that option and call in using a number below, based on your current location. Dial: (312)-626-6799 or (646)-558-8656 or (267)-831-0333 or (720)-928-9299 or (213)-338-8477 Webinar ID: 890 6333 2224 Get the latest news delivered to your inbox Sign up for The Manila Times newsletters By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. REPLAY: A replay of the webinar will be available in the Knowledge Bank section of xainvestments.com. The Fund's primary investment objective is to provide a high level of current income and gains, with a secondary objective of capital appreciation. The Fund pursues its investment objectives by investing in a portfolio consisting primarily of high quality, large and mid-capitalization stocks that are, in the view of the Fund's Investment sub-adviser, selling at a reasonable price in relation to their long-term earnings growth rates. The Fund will, on an ongoing and consistent basis, sell covered call options on its portfolio stocks to seek to generate current earnings from option premiums. There can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objectives. The Fund's common shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MCN. Advertisement About XA Investments XA Investments LLC ("XAI") is a Chicago-based firm founded by XMS Capital Partners in 2016. XAI serves as the investment adviser for two listed closed-end funds and an interval closed-end fund, respectively the XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Trust, the XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund, and the Octagon XAI CLO Income Fund. In addition to investment advisory services, the firm also provides investment fund structuring and consulting services focused on registered closed-end funds to meet institutional client needs. XAI offers custom product build and consulting services, including product development and market research, marketing and fund management. XAI believes that the investing public can benefit from new vehicles to access a broad range of alternative investment strategies and managers. For more information, please visit www.xainvestments.com. About XMS Capital Partners XMS Capital Partners, LLC, established in 2006, is a global, independent, financial services firm providing M&A, corporate advisory and asset management services to clients. It has offices in Chicago, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.xmscapital.com. Advertisement About Madison Investments Madison Investments (Madison) is an independent investment management firm based in Madison, Wisconsin. The firm was founded in 1974, has approximately $28 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2026, and is recognized as one of the nation's top investment firms. The firm has managed covered call strategies for over 20 years through various market cycles. Madison offers domestic fixed income, U.S. and international equity, covered call, multi-asset, insurance, and credit union investment management strategies. For more information, please visit www.madisonfunds.com. XAI does not provide tax advice; please consult a professional tax advisor regarding your specific tax situation. Income may be subject to state and local taxes, as well as the federal alternative minimum tax. Investors should consider the investment objectives and policies, risk considerations, charges and expenses of the Trust carefully before investing. For more information on the Trust, please visit the Trust's webpage at www.xainvestments.com. Advertisement This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the laws of such state or jurisdiction. NOT FDIC INSURED NO BANK GUARANTEE MAY LOSE VALUE Paralel Distributors, LLC - Distributor
Google's AI Coding Chaos: Internal Rivalries Fuel Race Against Claude Code and Cursor
Google's engineers crave better tools. They turn to rivals. Anthropic's Claude Code wins fans inside the search giant, despite bans. Security policies block most staff from external AI coders like Claude or OpenAI's Codex. Exceptions require business cases. DeepMind teams snag approvals anyway. A former employee puts it bluntly: "You want the best people to use the best tool, even inside Google." (Slashdot) Leaders fret. Businesses discover AI coding lets anyone prompt a chatbot into products. Google trails. Its Gemini powers scatter across six branded tools. No unified front. DeepMind pushes control, appointing Koray Kavukcuoglu as chief AI architect. He's rallying efforts under Antigravity, the agent-first IDE launched last fall. Goal: match Claude Code and Codex. (Bloomberg) But politics snag progress. Teams clash -- DeepMind, Cloud, Core, Labs, Android -- all build separately. Researchers chase speed. Senior coders demand quality. AI use ties to reviews, yet internal servers choke on demand. Token leaderboards spark gaming, not gains. Only 40,000 of 180,000 engineers touch agentic coding weekly. That's 22%. (The Information) Rivals surge ahead. Anthropic's Claude Code acts like a senior tech lead, architecting with dependency injection and middleware. It anticipates unvoiced needs, cuts debt. Cursor speeds prototypes but risks monoliths and crashes on backend. Developers shift: Claude for architecture, Cursor for frontends. Google's Antigravity debugs systems well -- Node versions, SQL concurrency -- but lacks vision. (Medium) Cursor fights back. Version 3 spins AI agents for tasks. It multi-models: Claude, GPT, Gemini, even its Composer -- four times faster. Enterprises eye flexibility over single-provider lock-in. Yet costs bite; teams debate Cursor versus hiring. Claude Code claims 4% of public GitHub commits. (Wired) And Google responds. Kavukcuoglu unites tools under Antigravity. A strike team boosts coding models -- Gemini hits 50% internal code gen, Anthropic nears 100%. Public preview supports Claude Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.6 alongside Gemini 3 Pro. Free for Windows, Mac, Linux. Agents plan, execute, verify across editor, terminal, browser. (Techmeme via Bloomberg) Tensions simmer. DeepMind staff dodge Gemini for Claude. Osmani counters critics: 40K weekly users, custom models, skills. Still, switching hurts. Rewriting Claude.md files, configs mid-sprint kills momentum. Inertia favors incumbents. (X post by Chen Avnery) Philosophies collide. Google's review rigor resists high-volume AI output. Trust models over lines written. Culture lags tech. Employees sense history repeating -- pre-ChatGPT politics slowed them. Now, anxiety mounts as Claude and Cursor commoditize code. Cursor pivots to enterprise deals, proprietary data for smaller models. OpenAI's Codex subsidizes subs, pulls devs. Antigravity forks VS Code, adds agentic flows. But caps throttle pros; sessions drop. Reddit gripes: fragile configs, poor for complex TypeScript. (Reddit) So where next? Google bets unification. Kavukcuoglu's push could consolidate. If Antigravity sheds limits, integrates rivals smoothly -- Claude inside Google workspaces -- it flips the script. Fail, and engineers keep sneaking Claude. Businesses pick winners unburdened by politics. The race tightens. Claude leads architecture. Cursor owns speed. Google chases both, hobbled by itself. Internal fixes matter more than models. Engineers vote with keystrokes. Right now, they type Claude.
Anthropic's Mythos and AI may need regulatory rethink: Grant Vingoe
Given the potential of Anthropic's Mythos technology to amp up the speed and precision of cyberattacks by quickly identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities, the San Francisco-based company has restricted the deployment. A handful of large banks and technology companies have been given strictly controlled access to test it before the full launch of the new AI, which has been flagged as a potential risk to financial stability.
SpaceX Shuts Down Little-Known, But Precise Starlink Location Function
Starlink customers probably haven't used it, but SpaceX is shutting down a little-known GPS feature that can be used to track and identify a Starlink dish's location. On Tuesday, the company began notifying customers about the demise of an open-source software framework, gRPC, integrated into Starlink hardware. "Effective May 20, dish location will no longer be available via the local device gRPC API," SpaceX said in the email. The company didn't explain why, describing it as an update to Starlink's "Location Data Access." But regular users don't need to worry. You can still see your dish's location through the Starlink Mobile app under the "Subscription" section. The GPS data on the gRPC API isn't leaking your location either. It needs to be manually turned on by the user, which used to be possible by visiting the Debug Data section. Instead, the change is expected to affect third-party software and Starlink resellers, particularly when it comes to managing fleets of Starlink dishes used on the road or at sea, according to Paul Sutherland, a software developer. Sutherland is behind a desktop Starlink monitoring app called Nexus Telemetry. He told PCMag that the gRPC API is "very, very accurate" at enabling a customer to see the real-time location of a Starlink dish. The same API has been a helpful way for third-party tools to manage multiple Starlink dishes, including on RVs or boats, to see their GPS locations. But in a blog post, Sutherland noted the location function came with a security trade-off. "If you'd enabled it, any device on your network, including guest devices, could silently read your precise GPS coordinates," he wrote. "That's a privacy issue in itself: your exact home location, accessible to any device on your LAN without consent. Beyond that, any app with network access could bypass the operating system's location permission prompts entirely by just querying the dish over HTTP instead of asking the OS for location services." It's why Sutherland suspects SpaceX might be clamping down to prevent the function from posing a threat to enterprise or even military customers, like those in Ukraine. "If [hackers] compromise a network with Starlink, they would be able to find the location of that [dish] device," he told PCMag. "If they were broadcasting in a secret location, they would be able to pinpoint where it is. "In a conflict zone or any situation where physical location is sensitive, that's a real risk. Removing unauthenticated access to location data makes sense from that perspective," he added. "That said, the change affects every Starlink user globally, not just those in sensitive locations, so I think the primary driver is the general privacy and security concern rather than any specific military use case." Still, the restriction threatens to block legitimate access to location data for third-party tools, including Nexus Telemetry. Users managing fixed Starlink dishes can simply log where their equipment is based, but not so for dishes on moving vehicles. Sutherland wrote: "For mobile users, RVs, vans, and boats, it's more of a problem. The whole point of polling the dish was that the location updated automatically as you moved. You'll now need an alternative source," which would involve installing a third-party GPS device. In response, Nexus Telemetry plans on adding support for dongle-based USB GPS receivers. One Starlink reseller noted the restriction also means "reduced troubleshooting accuracy, more reactive operations, and diminished ability to automate and enforce SLAs [service level agreements] at an individual site level." Although SpaceX is still offering a "Telemetry API" for enterprise customers, it limits location data to approximate grid cells rather than specific coordinates. "Such a move just brings unnecessary issues for many users who are using gRPC for legitimate reasons," added Jianping Pan, a computer science professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who studies satellite internet systems. SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But despite the looming restriction, it's possible the company will reopen location access through the API, though it'll be protected by authentication. Some users have also speculated that the restriction might block bad actors from equipping drones with Starlink. But Sutherland said: "I'd say the drone angle is unlikely since the local API is only accessible from devices on the dish's own network, and drone operators already have onboard GPS."
SpaceX Shuts Down Little-Known, But Precise Starlink Location Function
Starlink customers probably haven't used it, but SpaceX is shutting down a little-known GPS feature that can be used to track and identify a Starlink dish's location. On Tuesday, the company began notifying customers about the demise of an open-source software framework, gRPC, integrated into Starlink hardware. "Effective May 20, dish location will no longer be available via the local device gRPC API," SpaceX said in the email. The company didn't explain why, describing it as an update to Starlink's "Location Data Access." But regular users don't need to worry. You can still see your dish's location through the Starlink Mobile app under the "Subscription" section. The GPS data on the gRPC API isn't leaking your location either. It needs to be manually turned on by the user, which used to be possible by visiting the Debug Data section. Instead, the change is expected to affect third-party software and Starlink resellers, particularly when it comes to managing fleets of Starlink dishes used on the road or at sea, according to Paul Sutherland, a software developer. Sutherland is behind a desktop Starlink monitoring app called Nexus Telemetry. He told PCMag that the gRPC API is "very, very accurate" at enabling a customer to see the real-time location of a Starlink dish. The same API has been a helpful way for third-party tools to manage multiple Starlink dishes, including on RVs or boats, to see their GPS locations. But in a blog post, Sutherland noted the location function came with a security trade-off. "If you'd enabled it, any device on your network, including guest devices, could silently read your precise GPS coordinates," he wrote. "That's a privacy issue in itself: your exact home location, accessible to any device on your LAN without consent. Beyond that, any app with network access could bypass the operating system's location permission prompts entirely by just querying the dish over HTTP instead of asking the OS for location services." It's why Sutherland suspects SpaceX might be clamping down to prevent the function from posing a threat to enterprise or even military customers, like those in Ukraine. "If [hackers] compromise a network with Starlink, they would be able to find the location of that [dish] device," he told PCMag. "If they were broadcasting in a secret location, they would be able to pinpoint where it is. "In a conflict zone or any situation where physical location is sensitive, that's a real risk. Removing unauthenticated access to location data makes sense from that perspective," he added. "That said, the change affects every Starlink user globally, not just those in sensitive locations, so I think the primary driver is the general privacy and security concern rather than any specific military use case." Still, the restriction threatens to block legitimate access to location data for third-party tools, including Nexus Telemetry. Users managing fixed Starlink dishes can simply log where their equipment is based, but not so for dishes on moving vehicles. Sutherland wrote: "For mobile users, RVs, vans, and boats, it's more of a problem. The whole point of polling the dish was that the location updated automatically as you moved. You'll now need an alternative source," which would involve installing a third-party GPS device. In response, Nexus Telemetry plans on adding support for dongle-based USB GPS receivers. One Starlink reseller noted the restriction also means "reduced troubleshooting accuracy, more reactive operations, and diminished ability to automate and enforce SLAs [service level agreements] at an individual site level." Although SpaceX is still offering a "Telemetry API" for enterprise customers, it limits location data to approximate grid cells rather than specific coordinates. "Such a move just brings unnecessary issues for many users who are using gRPC for legitimate reasons," added Jianping Pan, a computer science professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who studies satellite internet systems. SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But despite the looming restriction, it's possible the company will reopen location access through the API, though it'll be protected by authentication. Some users have also speculated that the restriction might block bad actors from equipping drones with Starlink. But Sutherland said: "I'd say the drone angle is unlikely since the local API is only accessible from devices on the dish's own network, and drone operators already have onboard GPS."
SpaceX Shuts Down Little-Known, But Precise Starlink Location Function
Starlink customers probably haven't used it, but SpaceX is shutting down a little-known GPS feature that can be used to track and identify a Starlink dish's location. On Tuesday, the company began notifying customers about the demise of an open-source software framework, gRPC, integrated into Starlink hardware. "Effective May 20, dish location will no longer be available via the local device gRPC API," SpaceX said in the email. The company didn't explain why, describing it as an update to Starlink's "Location Data Access." But regular users don't need to worry. You can still see your dish's location through the Starlink Mobile app under the "Subscription" section. The GPS data on the gRPC API isn't leaking your location either. It needs to be manually turned on by the user, which used to be possible by visiting the Debug Data section. Instead, the change is expected to affect third-party software and Starlink resellers, particularly when it comes to managing fleets of Starlink dishes used on the road or at sea, according to Paul Sutherland, a software developer. Sutherland is behind a desktop Starlink monitoring app called Nexus Telemetry. He told PCMag that the gRPC API is "very, very accurate" at enabling a customer to see the real-time location of a Starlink dish. The same API has been a helpful way for third-party tools to manage multiple Starlink dishes, including on RVs or boats, to see their GPS locations. But in a blog post, Sutherland noted the location function came with a security trade-off. "If you'd enabled it, any device on your network, including guest devices, could silently read your precise GPS coordinates," he wrote. "That's a privacy issue in itself: your exact home location, accessible to any device on your LAN without consent. Beyond that, any app with network access could bypass the operating system's location permission prompts entirely by just querying the dish over HTTP instead of asking the OS for location services." It's why Sutherland suspects SpaceX might be clamping down to prevent the function from posing a threat to enterprise or even military customers, like those in Ukraine. "If [hackers] compromise a network with Starlink, they would be able to find the location of that [dish] device," he told PCMag. "If they were broadcasting in a secret location, they would be able to pinpoint where it is. "In a conflict zone or any situation where physical location is sensitive, that's a real risk. Removing unauthenticated access to location data makes sense from that perspective," he added. "That said, the change affects every Starlink user globally, not just those in sensitive locations, so I think the primary driver is the general privacy and security concern rather than any specific military use case." Still, the restriction threatens to block legitimate access to location data for third-party tools, including Nexus Telemetry. Users managing fixed Starlink dishes can simply log where their equipment is based, but not so for dishes on moving vehicles. Sutherland wrote: "For mobile users, RVs, vans, and boats, it's more of a problem. The whole point of polling the dish was that the location updated automatically as you moved. You'll now need an alternative source," which would involve installing a third-party GPS device. In response, Nexus Telemetry plans on adding support for dongle-based USB GPS receivers. One Starlink reseller noted the restriction also means "reduced troubleshooting accuracy, more reactive operations, and diminished ability to automate and enforce SLAs [service level agreements] at an individual site level." Although SpaceX is still offering a "Telemetry API" for enterprise customers, it limits location data to approximate grid cells rather than specific coordinates. "Such a move just brings unnecessary issues for many users who are using gRPC for legitimate reasons," added Jianping Pan, a computer science professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who studies satellite internet systems. SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But despite the looming restriction, it's possible the company will reopen location access through the API, though it'll be protected by authentication. Some users have also speculated that the restriction might block bad actors from equipping drones with Starlink. But Sutherland said: "I'd say the drone angle is unlikely since the local API is only accessible from devices on the dish's own network, and drone operators already have onboard GPS."
XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund Will Host its Q1 2026 Quarterly Webinar on May 5th, 2026
TO JOIN VIA WEB: Please go to the Knowledge Bank section of xainvestments.com or click here to find the online registration link. TO USE YOUR TELEPHONE: After joining via web, if you prefer to use your phone for audio, you must select that option and call in using a number below, based on your current location. Dial: (312)-626-6799 or (646)-558-8656 or (267)-831-0333 or (720)-928-9299 or (213)-338-8477 Webinar ID: 890 6333 2224 REPLAY: A replay of the webinar will be available in the Knowledge Bank section of xainvestments.com. The Fund's primary investment objective is to provide a high level of current income and gains, with a secondary objective of capital appreciation. The Fund pursues its investment objectives by investing in a portfolio consisting primarily of high quality, large and mid-capitalization stocks that are, in the view of the Fund's Investment sub-adviser, selling at a reasonable price in relation to their long-term earnings growth rates. The Fund will, on an ongoing and consistent basis, sell covered call options on its portfolio stocks to seek to generate current earnings from option premiums. There can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objectives. The Fund's common shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MCN. About XA Investments XA Investments LLC ("XAI") is a Chicago-based firm founded by XMS Capital Partners in 2016. XAI serves as the investment adviser for two listed closed-end funds and an interval closed-end fund, respectively the XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Trust, the XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund, and the Octagon XAI CLO Income Fund. In addition to investment advisory services, the firm also provides investment fund structuring and consulting services focused on registered closed-end funds to meet institutional client needs. XAI offers custom product build and consulting services, including product development and market research, marketing and fund management. XAI believes that the investing public can benefit from new vehicles to access a broad range of alternative investment strategies and managers. For more information, please visit www.xainvestments.com. About XMS Capital Partners XMS Capital Partners, LLC, established in 2006, is a global, independent, financial services firm providing M&A, corporate advisory and asset management services to clients. It has offices in Chicago, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.xmscapital.com. About Madison Investments Madison Investments (Madison) is an independent investment management firm based in Madison, Wisconsin. The firm was founded in 1974, has approximately $28 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2026, and is recognized as one of the nation's top investment firms. The firm has managed covered call strategies for over 20 years through various market cycles. Madison offers domestic fixed income, U.S. and international equity, covered call, multi-asset, insurance, and credit union investment management strategies. For more information, please visit www.madisonfunds.com. XAI does not provide tax advice; please consult a professional tax advisor regarding your specific tax situation. Income may be subject to state and local taxes, as well as the federal alternative minimum tax. Investors should consider the investment objectives and policies, risk considerations, charges and expenses of the Trust carefully before investing. For more information on the Trust, please visit the Trust's webpage at www.xainvestments.com. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the laws of such state or jurisdiction. Paralel Distributors, LLC - Distributor Media Contact: Kimberly Flynn, President XA Investments LLC Phone: 312-374-6931 Email: [email protected] www.xainvestments.com
XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund Will Host its Q1 2026 Quarterly Webinar on May 5th, 2026 | Taiwan News | Apr. 23, 2026 05:00
CHICAGO, April 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund (NYSE: MCN) (the "Fund") today announced that it plans to host the Fund's Quarterly Webinar on May 5th, 2026 at 12:00 pm (Eastern Time). Kimberly Flynn, President at XA Investments ("XAI") will moderate the Q&A style webinar with Ray Di Bernardo and Drew Justman, Portfolio Managers at Madison Investments. TO JOIN VIA WEB: Please go to the Knowledge Bank section of xainvestments.com or click here to find the online registration link. TO USE YOUR TELEPHONE: After joining via web, if you prefer to use your phone for audio, you must select that option and call in using a number below, based on your current location. Dial: (312)-626-6799 or (646)-558-8656 or (267)-831-0333 or (720)-928-9299 or (213)-338-8477 Webinar ID: 890 6333 2224 REPLAY: A replay of the webinar will be available in the Knowledge Bank section of xainvestments.com. The Fund's primary investment objective is to provide a high level of current income and gains, with a secondary objective of capital appreciation. The Fund pursues its investment objectives by investing in a portfolio consisting primarily of high quality, large and mid-capitalization stocks that are, in the view of the Fund's Investment sub-adviser, selling at a reasonable price in relation to their long-term earnings growth rates. The Fund will, on an ongoing and consistent basis, sell covered call options on its portfolio stocks to seek to generate current earnings from option premiums. There can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objectives. The Fund's common shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MCN. About XA Investments XA Investments LLC ("XAI") is a Chicago-based firm founded by XMS Capital Partners in 2016. XAI serves as the investment adviser for two listed closed-end funds and an interval closed-end fund, respectively the XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Trust, the XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund, and the Octagon XAI CLO Income Fund. In addition to investment advisory services, the firm also provides investment fund structuring and consulting services focused on registered closed-end funds to meet institutional client needs. XAI offers custom product build and consulting services, including product development and market research, marketing and fund management. XAI believes that the investing public can benefit from new vehicles to access a broad range of alternative investment strategies and managers. For more information, please visit www.xainvestments.com. About XMS Capital Partners XMS Capital Partners, LLC, established in 2006, is a global, independent, financial services firm providing M&A, corporate advisory and asset management services to clients. It has offices in Chicago, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.xmscapital.com. About Madison Investments Madison Investments (Madison) is an independent investment management firm based in Madison, Wisconsin. The firm was founded in 1974, has approximately $28 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2026, and is recognized as one of the nation's top investment firms. The firm has managed covered call strategies for over 20 years through various market cycles. Madison offers domestic fixed income, U.S. and international equity, covered call, multi-asset, insurance, and credit union investment management strategies. For more information, please visit www.madisonfunds.com. XAI does not provide tax advice; please consult a professional tax advisor regarding your specific tax situation. Income may be subject to state and local taxes, as well as the federal alternative minimum tax. Investors should consider the investment objectives and policies, risk considerations, charges and expenses of the Trust carefully before investing. For more information on the Trust, please visit the Trust's webpage at www.xainvestments.com. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the laws of such state or jurisdiction. NOT FDIC INSURED NO BANK GUARANTEE MAY LOSE VALUE Paralel Distributors, LLC - Distributor Media Contact: Kimberly Flynn, President XA Investments LLC Phone: 312-374-6931 Email: [email protected] www.xainvestments.com
Anthropic's AI security tool designed to find hacks reportedly gets hacked
Mythos is an advanced system for identifying software vulnerabilities In an ironic development, software developed to detect vulnerabilities in other software has itself been breached. Anthropic is investigating a report of an unauthorized access to its software, Mythos, that it rolled out for a small number of companies to detect their software security. Bloomberg first reported about the investigation on Tuesday, and the AI company behind chatbot Claude confirmed the report on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. According to an Anthropic spokesperson, the breach came from one of its third-party vendors, ruling out the possibility of any outside breach of the systems. Mythos was part of the AI technology company's new Project Glasswing and it was rolled out to a limited number of companies, including Amazon, Apple, Cisco, JPMorgan Chase and Nvidia. Anthropic marketed the software as an advanced system for identifying software vulnerabilities. Though Mythos was developed to protect companies from cyber assaults, experts have warned that such a software in the wrong hands could prove catastrophic. They explained that it can be used to exploit IT infrastructure of government systems, banks, hospitals and several other organisations. CEO of cybersecurity AI company Assail, Alissa Valentina Knight, told CBS News that cybersecurity systems cannot compete with "bad guys" who use AI because it is devastatingly faster and more capable of inflicting the damage.
