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Ring to let police request user videos again

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Ring, the Amazon-owned home surveillance company, is partnering with taser-maker Axon to once again help law enforcement request footage from users’ doorbell cameras.

The move reverses Ring’s 2024 decision to kill its "Request for Assistance" feature, which let police ask users for video via the Neighbors app. At the time, Ring framed the change as a shift toward becoming a more community-focused brand, one less reliant on law enforcement integrations. That ethos now appears to be on pause.

The about-face coincides with the return of Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, who rejoined Amazon in April. Under his renewed leadership, Ring is doubling down on AI and rekindling its relationship with law enforcement. As first reported by Business Insider, the new partnership with Axon will allow police to request video from Ring users via Axon’s evidence management system. Ring is also reportedly exploring an option that would let users consent to live streaming their doorbell feeds directly to law enforcement.

In a public statement, Siminoff called the Axon partnership a way to "foster a vital connection between our neighbors and public safety agencies," positioning it as a tool for safer neighborhoods.

The Axon deal is just one part of Siminoff’s broader return strategy. He now oversees not just Ring, but also Amazon’s Blink camera line, its Key in-home delivery system, and the Sidewalk wireless mesh network. Since his return, Siminoff has pushed a hyper-AI agenda, including internal mandates to "do more with less" by using AI to streamline operations. Per Insider, even promotions now require proof of AI-driven impact on efficiency or customer experience.

Internally, the shift has raised eyebrows. Current Ring employees told Insider they’re unsure how the collected footage will be used — and raised flags about privacy and data concerns that have long haunted the brand.

In 2023, Amazon reached a $5.8 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for spying on Ring and Alexa users, though the company denied any wrongdoing.

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Stop your AI subscriptions and get an all-in-one tool for life

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TL;DR: Access dozens of top AI tools in one platform — 1min.AI bundles content, chat, design, audio, video, PDF, and more under a single lifetime license for just $79.97.



1min.AI Advanced Business Plan Lifetime Subscription

Credit: 1minAI

One of the bigger annoyances of the digital age is the subscription model. Juggling a half-dozen AI tools, each with its own login credentials, pricing tiers, and learning curve, is exhausting. That’s why 1min.AI can be a helpful alternative to the usual chaos.

It’s like your favorite productivity cheat code — an all-in-one platform that brings together top-tier AI features for writing, design, video, audio, and more under a single dashboard. And you can get a lifetime subscription to the Advanced Business Plan for just $79.97 (down from the MSRP of $540) — with no recurring fees, ever.

Need blog posts written in your brand voice? Check. Want to generate YouTube thumbnails, edit PDFs with AI, or even clean up audio? Covered. From chatting with advanced models like GPT-4o and Claude 3 to turning PDFs into summaries, translating audio, or batch-generating marketing copy, 1min.AI does it fast — like, one-minute fast. That’s the whole point.

Whether you’re a solo creator or running a small team, 1min.AI simplifies your stack. You’ll have access to multiple flagship models like GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama, plus unlimited brand voice slots, unlimited prompt storage, and 4,000,000 credits/month to spend on whatever you want to make.

If you’re tired of managing a spreadsheet of AI tools (we’ve been there), this is your chance to condense it all into one slick, ever-evolving platform — without the subscription guilt of drain.

Get lifetime access to the 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan for just $79.97 while you can and streamline your digital tools forever.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Anthropic reportedly cut OpenAI access to Claude

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It seems OpenAI has been caught with its hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Anthropic has reportedly cut off OpenAI’s access to Anthropic’s APIs over what Anthropic is calling a terms of service breach.

As reported by Wired, multiple sources claim that OpenAI has been cut off from Anthropic’s APIs. Allegedly, OpenAI was using Anthropic’s Claude Code to assist in creating and testing OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5, which is due to release in August.

According to these sources, OpenAI was plugging into Claude’s internal tools instead of using the chat interface. From there, they used the API to run tests against GPT-5 to check things like coding and creative writing against Claude to compare performance. OpenAI allegedly also tested safety prompts related to things like CSAM, self-harm, and defamation. This would give OpenAI data that it could then use to fine-tune GPT-5 to make it more competitive against Claude.

Unfortunately for OpenAI, this violates Anthropic’s commercial terms of service, which ban companies from using Anthropic’s tools to build competitor AI products.

“Customer may not and must not attempt to access the Services to build a competing product or service, including to train competing AI models or resell the Services except as expressly approved by Anthropic,” the terms read.

OpenAI responded by saying that what the company was doing was an industry standard, as all the AI companies test their models against the competing models. The company then went on to say that it respected Anthropic’s decision but expressed disappointment in having its API access shut off, especially considering that Anthropic’s access to OpenAI’s API remains open.

A spokesperson told Wired that OpenAI’s access would be reinstated for “benchmarking and safety evaluations.”

It’s not the first time this year that Anthropic has cut off API access. In June, the company cut off Windsurf’s API access after rumors that it was being sold to OpenAI. That deal ultimately fell through, but Anthropic’s cofounder, Jared Kaplan, told TechCrunch at the time that “it would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI.”

Anthropic has also tweaked its rate limits for Claude, which will take effect in late August, with one of the reasons being that a small number of users are violating the company’s policy by sharing and reselling accounts.


Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

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Amazon is toying around with putting ads in Alexa+

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It’s the end of another quarter, which means it’s time for yet another earnings call with concerning ideas for generating more revenue. This time around, it's Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who told shareholders on Thursday that there’s “significant financial opportunity” in delivering ads through Alexa+, the company’s new AI-powered voice assistant.

“I think over time, there will be opportunities, you know, as people are engaging in more multi-turn conversations to have advertising play a role — to help people find discovery and also as a lever to drive revenue,” Jassy said, per the investor call transcript.

Since launching earlier this year, Alexa+ has reportedly reached millions of users. Unlike the original Alexa, which mostly turns off lights and sets timers, Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational, context-aware, and AI-driven. It can help you plan your date night, entertain your kids, and even dabble in basic image and video generation — all under the banner of your $14.99/month Prime subscription.

But so far, Amazon Alexa has been an ad-free experience. It's also more than 10 years old, and it doesn't make money; thus, it's been deemed a "colossal failure" by those within the company.

Of course, Amazon isn’t alone in trying to figure out how to make AI pay for itself. Both Google and OpenAI have explored ad integration in their AI products as a way to generate revenue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in particular, has made a notable pivot: once firmly against advertising in his chatbot, he’s since reversed course, possibly opening the door for ads in future versions of ChatGPT.

Whatever the motivation, injecting ads into Alexa+ would mark a major shift in both user experience and Amazon’s strategy, especially given the assistant’s long history of being expensive to maintain and hard to monetize. Ad-supported Alexa+ could be Amazon’s attempt to finally turn its once-money-burning smart assistant into a revenue machine, without hiking the subscription fee (at least for now).

Alexa+ is still new, and what an ad-supported experience would actually look like remains unclear. According to Jassy, the idea is to frame ads as helpful, something to assist customers in discovering products they might be interested in buying.

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