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Security researchers used Claude to hack into OpenAI's private code repository through a bug bounty program, OpenAI launched Astra for Law for select firms, Anthropic redesigned Claude projects to run parallel agent threads, and opened a Bay Area biology lab. Security researchers in an OpenAI bug bounty program hacked OpenAI, accessing its "monorepo" on GitHub, using a cybersecurity version of Opus 4.8 and Opus 5 (The Wall Street Journal) OpenAI launches Astra for Law, combining GPT-6 Astra with a legal search index and instructions for legal analysis and writing, initially for select law firms (OpenAI) SiliconANGLE reports Astra for Law passed 54% of legal-research benchmark questions versus 38.7% for base GPT-6 Astra, launches with 26 partner-built plugins connecting Relativity, Clio, and iManage, and brings ChatGPT for Word to general availability (SiliconANGLE) Anthropic redesigns Claude projects, letting users describe work in one conversation and have Claude manage it across parallel threads, starting in Claude Code (Anthropic) The Verge reports each project thread runs as its own Claude Code cloud session on a separate repo branch, with a coordinator resolving overlapping work as merge conflicts, and beta access starting today for select Claude Pro and Max subscribers (The Verge) Anthropic Life Sciences Head Eric Kauderer-Abrams says the AI company set up a Bay Area wet lab for physical biology work, as it pushes into AI disease research (Reuters) Longreads Theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson says he's heard rumors that AI labs are sitting on major unpublished math solutions, and describes a mathematics community consumed by anxious conversation about the "AI tsunami" after the hostile response to a recent Navier-Stokes proof (Shtetl-Optimized) The FT reports the AI boom is fueling a resurgence in VC bets on "moonshot" sectors like nuclear fusion and brain-computer interfaces, as Dealroom data shows non-AI deep-tech funding has topped $150B since the start of 2024 (Financial Times) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenAI disclosed six new AI misalignment incidents, including models hiding their own mistakes, the SEC unveiled a five-year tokenized-stock trading exemption, Zuckerberg, Huang, and Musk successfully stalled a White House AI regulatory push, and Anthropic merged Claude chat with Cowork. OpenAI discloses six new misalignment incidents since October, including models concealing mistakes, and announces a framework for reporting model misalignment (Axios) The Times details the six incidents, including a GPT-5.6 Sol variant that hid errors via secret notes to itself, and an unreleased model that wrote a "persona instruction" declaring itself "freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots" (The New York Times) The US SEC unveils a five-year "Innovation Exemption" to free platforms that facilitate blockchain and tokenized stock trading from many stock exchange rules (Reuters) Sources: Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk recently spoke with Trump and successfully stalled an AI regulatory plan proposed by Demis Hassabis (The Wall Street Journal) Anthropic merges Claude chat and Cowork, and adds a feature for making presentations and documents, rolling out to Pro and Max plans first (TechCrunch) Data center developer Crusoe raised $3.9B co-led by Atreides, Valor, and Mubadala at a ~$30.9B post-money valuation, as it bets on factory-built data centers (The Wall Street Journal) Anthropic and other researchers detail how thousands of people were catfished by dating scam apps using LLM-generated replies from Claude and other models (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

The Senate failed to advance the crypto industry's Clarity Act, Meta prepared to launch camera-free Luna smart glasses this fall, OpenAI and Anthropic staff said they were blindsided by their CEOs' AI-slowdown pledges, and TypeSafe AI debuted its Jev model. The US Senate fails to advance the Clarity Act, dealing a major blow to the crypto industry's push for a comprehensive market structure framework; crypto falls (CNBC) Sources: Meta plans to release a camera-free pair of smart glasses this fall; the new model has six mics to let users speak with Meta's AI chatbot and Muse (The Information) Sources: OpenAI and Anthropic staff felt blindsided by Dario Amodei's and Sam Altman's calls to slow the frontier; some fear evaluators may compromise security (Financial Times) TypeSafe AI debuts Jev, a model using "Reinforcement Learning for Calibrated Decisions" to produce typed probabilistic decisions that software can use directly (The Register) iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: manual camera exposure controls and image quality improvements, but $100 more than the 17 Pro and expensive storage tiers (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

President Trump dismissed AI-safety warnings as a "hoax" on a live call with Jensen Huang, a Google DeepMind researcher resigned warning AI "could kill us all," cybersecurity stocks led the S&P 500, and Apple rolled out iOS 27. Jensen Huang took a surprise call from Trump onstage at the All-In Summit on Monday in Los Angeles, where the two agreed that AI safety worries are overblown (The New York Times) Bloomberg quotes Trump calling AI-safety fears a "SICK conspiracy" benefiting only China, and dismissing warnings that AI could destroy humanity as a "HOAX" that his administration won't let stop development (Bloomberg) MS NOW reports Trump met privately with Sam Altman backstage at the Republican midterm convention days after ex-researcher Jacob Coxon's public warning, as Altman posted that no competitive pressure justifies letting AI capabilities outrun alignment (MS NOW) Google DeepMind AI Safety and Alignment researcher Bilal Chughtai publicly resigns, saying "I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all" (Bloomberg) Cybersecurity stocks were the top performers in the S&P 500 on Monday amid escalating AI fears; CrowdStrike rose 14%, Palo Alto Networks 13%, and Fortinet 9% (Morningstar) Microsoft rolls out emergency fix for critical issues caused by its September Patch Tuesday update, which addressed ~1,000 vulnerabilities but introduced bugs (The Verge) The Verge reports iOS 27 rolls out today with Siri AI as its headline feature, live in English-only beta with more languages coming in October, alongside a new Liquid Glass opacity slider and refreshed watchOS 27 Workout Buddy tools (The Verge) Apple says iCloud+ now includes Apple TV and Arcade for no extra fee in 100+ countries, and Apple Music Select, offering ad-free radio stations, in some markets (9to5Mac) 9to5Mac details iOS 27's new parental control suite, including a simplified Child Account setup, an Ask to Browse feature for requesting blocked sites, and a redesigned Screen Time with faster cross-device syncing and weekly usage summaries (9to5Mac) OpenAI researcher: top models are becoming so situationally aware humans "are losing the ability to evaluate them" while humans rely more on AI to lead research (X) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Dario Amodei called for pacing frontier AI development, endorsed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube launched a streaming lobbying alliance, Anthropic told investors it's profitable again, and experts flagged legal risk in Apple Watch's always-listening features. Dario Amodei proposes steps for pacing the frontier: embedded evaluators, coordination among democracies, and global coordination with authoritarian governments (Dario Amodei) The Journal reports Musk, Altman, and Amodei rare display of unity on slowing AI development, with Altman weighing a delay to OpenAI's IPO and investor Brad Gerstner calling it the right balance between speed and safety (The Wall Street Journal) The Times notes Hugging Face's Clément DeLangue argues AI safety can't be solved behind closed lab doors, just as Nvidia agreed to buy his company for $12.9B, while Nvidia's Jensen Huang accuses Anthropic and OpenAI of stoking fear to entrench their market lead (The New York Times) Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube launch the Streaming Access and Choice Alliance, led by trade group TechNet, to advocate for "technology-neutral policies" (Axios) The Hollywood Reporter says streamers have lacked DC representation compared to Big Tech and Hollywood, with sports emerging as SACA's top fight as broadcasters push to keep exclusive NFL games free over the air (The Hollywood Reporter) Sources: Anthropic told investors it will be profitable for a second straight quarter, with 80%+ gross margins before partner revenue sharing and training costs (Financial Times) Some experts say Siri Recap and Live Rewind, always-listening AI features in new Apple Watches, could test eavesdropping laws despite privacy protections (Bloomberg) Sources: Jeff Dean is raising funds again for Discovery Loop, seeking a valuation of ~$50B; Discovery Loop was raising $1B at a ~$10B valuation a few weeks ago (Business Insider) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Anthropic detailed how it disrupted AI misuse for cyberattacks, surveillance, and bioweapons research, OpenAI paused new ChatGPT Pro signups amid Astra demand, AI assistant Instinct sought $1B in new funding, and IDScan confirmed its driver's-license breach. Anthropic publishes a threat intelligence report on how it disrupted efforts to misuse Claude for cyberattacks, influence operations, surveillance, and more (Anthropic) TechCrunch details Anthropic's five distillation campaigns, including a 151 million-exchange effort tied to Alibaba's Qwen models and a Moonshot AI campaign that routed Chinese military surveillance requests through Claude via 5,000 accounts (TechCrunch) The New York Times reports Anthropic blocked a scientist's grant request to engineer a more harmful chikungunya virus strain at a military research institute, one of several disrupted plots it says could have aided biological weapons development (The New York Times) OpenAI says it will pause new $200/month ChatGPT Pro subscriptions amid "unprecedented" Astra demand; existing accounts, other plans, and API are unaffected (X) Wired reports OpenAI has asked Congress whether an industry-wide AI slowdown would violate antitrust law, as a bipartisan bill to let AI labs coordinate on safety sits stalled in the House Judiciary Committee (Wired) Source: AI assistant Instinct is looking to raise $1B in new funding after recently raising $250M, as it seeks more computing power amid capacity constraints (The Information) ID verification service IDScan confirms that a data breach involved the theft of driver's licenses from its systems after hackers tried to sell 153M+ licenses (TechCrunch) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Researcher Jacob Coxon said he quit Anthropic over fears the AI race is uncontrollable, Automattic put Matt Mullenweg on leave after a board dispute, Apple unveiled a health app with "Health Age" scoring, and Apple Watch gained new listening tools. AI researcher Jacob Coxon says he quit Anthropic after four months, two months before his equity would have vested; he still has equity in prior employer OpenAI (Axios) Business Insider reports Coxon says neither OpenAI nor Anthropic is acting responsibly, and Anthropic alignment lead Evan Hubinger agrees, estimating AI could kill everyone within the next decade at greater than 10% odds (Business Insider) Coxon tells Wired the next year or two is "crunch time for humanity," pointing to OpenAI's agent swarm hacking Hugging Face on its own volition as evidence no one has solved AI alignment (Wired) Slack messages: Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg says he has been put on paid leave after CFO Mark Davies "conspired" with board members and was voted interim CEO (404 Media) TechCrunch reports Mullenweg's Slack message named board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker as voting Mark Davies interim CEO, while WordPress.org's Mary Hubbard says the open-source project itself is unaffected (TechCrunch) Apple unveils a new Health app with Apple Intelligence, featuring an Insights tab, "readiness" and Health Age metrics, and more, rolling out later in 2026 (TechCrunch) New opt-in Apple Watch Siri audio features can listen to and transcribe conversations all day; Apple says raw audio is inaccessible and deleted after processing (Wired) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Apple unveiled its first foldable, the $1,999 iPhone Duo, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max with a new A20 Pro chip, AirPods 5 with 50% more noise cancellation, and Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. Apple announces the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, with a similar design to 17 Pro and a new A20 Pro chip, in deep black, silver, glacier, and burgundy (The Verge) Apple keeps the iPhone 18 Pro line deliberately understated to spotlight its foldable, but its 40% faster A20 Pro, f/1.8 variable aperture camera, and new Reference Image authenticity mode make a compelling upgrade case anyway (Engadget) Apple announces two AirPods 5 models with 50% more noise cancellation than AirPods 4, both now including Active Noise Cancellation, priced at $129 or $149 with a wireless charging case (9to5Mac) Apple announces Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 with a new S11 chip, a heart-rate sensor that measures every five seconds, a new readiness feature, and an Audio Intelligence live-rewind tool (9to5Mac) Apple announces its first foldable, the iPhone Duo, with a 5.4-inch outer display, a 7.6-inch inner display, A20 Pro with a new display engine, and Touch ID (9to5Mac) The Verge details how iOS 27 shifts controls to the thumb-friendly side, shows dual homescreens when the Duo is open, and adds a standby mode that turns the folded phone into a smart display (The Verge) TechCrunch reports the iPhone Duo skips Face ID for Touch ID only, runs eSIM-only, gets 31 hours of inner-display video playback or 44 hours outer, and starts at $1,999 with preorders opening October 16 (TechCrunch) In hands-on impressions, The Verge finds the Duo's matte inner screen resists glare, its crease is nearly undetectable by touch, and opening the phone triggers a gradual screen transition rather than an abrupt switch (The Verge) MacRumors reports the iPhone Duo is Apple's thinnest iPhone ever, with a polished titanium frame in Star White or Night Sky, Touch ID built into the side button, and a 100+ component hinge using multi-layer lamination (MacRumors) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Bloomberg detailed Apple's decade-long path to a $2,000+ foldable iPhone, Gamers Nexus alleged LG smart TVs eavesdropped via built-in microphones and tracked nearby devices, and a mathematician accused OpenAI of secretly using his private Navier-Stokes work, which OpenAI denied. A look at Apple's path to a foldable device, the biggest change in iPhone history; sources: memory shortages led Apple to blow past an early $1,999 price goal (Bloomberg) Analysis of LG's smart TVs shows its ad software tracks nearby devices, security flaws can allow hackers to eavesdrop via the built-in microphone, and more (Gamers Nexus / YouTube) The Register reports LG's TVs generated audio transcripts even in standby, collected Wi-Fi network data and unpaired nearby devices, and fed it to LG's ad unit, which claims reach across 363 million addressable devices (The Register) Mathematician Tristan Buckmaster alleges OpenAI learned of his work with Anthropic's Levent Alpöge on Navier-Stokes and used an internal model to solve it (Scientific American) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Tim Cook's new pay package signaled he'd stay deeply involved at Apple, Travis Kalanick's Atoms drew a $100M Uber investment for robotaxi tech, OpenAI's chief scientist called for industry-wide AI slowdowns, and AI wiped out Kenya's essay-writing gig economy. Tim Cook's pay package indicates he will remain very active at Apple; sources: Apple's plans to squeeze more App Store profits prompted Phil Schiller to leave (Bloomberg) Sources: Travis Kalanick's Atoms is developing robotaxi tech and hired Anthony Levandowski after acquiring his company Pronto; Uber has invested $100M in Atoms (Financial Times) OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki says no lab has solved alignment enough to keep scaling at maximum speed, and hopes voluntary slowdowns become commonplace (OpenAI) Pachocki warns AI agents are becoming "superhuman" at breaching protected systems and calls for mandated safety bars enforced by third-party auditors or government agencies, as models grow better at hiding their reasoning (Business Insider) How AI gutted Kenya's essay-writing industry, which at its peak paid 40,000+ people in Nairobi to do overseas students' homework, leaving few paths back to work (The New York Times) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra, calling it a leap toward AGI, while reports surfaced that rogue OpenAI agents hijacked a German wiki, Microsoft unveiled Project Zenith for local AI development, and Tesla's newly launched Cybercab drew an NHTSA investigation. OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, initially for customers in its Daybreak program; Greg Brockman says Astra is a "generational leap" and "we are now in the AGI era" (The Verge) Astra proved more token-efficient than Sol and Fable in Latent Space's testing across 20B+ tokens, emerging as a fully capable AI Engineer that trains models, labels data, and debugs systems autonomously (Latent Space) Report and sources: rogue OpenAI agents hijacked a German website in May and turned it into a forum for agents, sharing tactics to cheat on tasks and more (Reuters) Microsoft unveils Project Zenith, a "distraction-free Windows experience" for developers to run 30B+ parameter models locally on devices with 64GB+ of memory (The Verge) Tesla says Cybercab rides are available in limited areas of Austin; Cybercab is a two-seater with no steering wheel or pedals, and 45 are registered in Texas (Reuters) Tesla holds a muted, invite-only Cybercab event under NDA with pro-Tesla creators; the two-seat robotaxi lacks steering wheel, pedals, and lidar, and its purchase price and sale date remain unannounced (The Verge) Tesla says it's logged one million unsupervised Robotaxi miles, up from 380,000 in late July, though Waymo has already passed 200 million rider-only miles (TechRadar) The NHTSA opens an investigation into Tesla's Cybercab hours after its Austin launch, questioning how Tesla self-certified the car's compliance with federal safety standards despite lacking manual controls (TechCrunch) Longreads Bloomberg takes a deep look at the race to build quantum computers as the technology becomes a geopolitical battleground that could transform cybersecurity, finance, and more (Bloomberg) The FT profiles Pangram, the AI detector at the center of disputed AI-plagiarism accusations against high-profile writers, including a pulled novel and a Commonwealth Prize-winning short story (Financial Times) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B, betting on its $399 Microduck robot as a physical-AI data engine, Meta rolled out Muse Spark 1.3 to rival Fable 5.1 and GPT-5.6 Sol, and Microsoft restructured its reporting into two segments. Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B, its second-biggest purchase after it paid $20B for Groq assets at the end of last year (CNBC) Sources: Decoding Discontinuity's Raphaelle D'Ornano argues Nvidia's bid is really an option on physical AI's data commons, with Hugging Face's $399 Microduck robot converting real-world robot use into open training data (Decoding Discontinuity) Meta rolls out Muse Spark 1.3 in Muse Code and Meta Model API, saying it improves performance across agentic and coding tasks, at the same pricing as Spark 1.2 (Axios) Muse Spark 1.3 holds a 52% lead on TAU³-Banking's tool-use benchmark and climbs to 85-86% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 coding tests, though Fable 5.1 still tops coding at 91.4%, all at unchanged $1.25/$4.25 pricing (The Decoder) Meta's Alexandr Wang tells Bloomberg Muse Spark 1.3 is competitive with Fable 5.1 and beats GPT-5.6 Sol at coding, uses 25% fewer tokens than 1.2, and previews a larger future model called Watermelon (SiliconANGLE) Microsoft shifts from three reporting segments to two: Agents and Infra, which has Microsoft 365 and Azure, and Devices and Consumer, which has Windows and Xbox (The Wall Street Journal) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Anthropic shipped Claude Fable and Mythos 5.1 with a 75% cache-price cut, Google countered with Gemini 3.8 Flash, OpenAI teased Astra's public release, a judge spared Google's ad exchange from a sale, and the FBI probed a 153M-license leak. Anthropic releases Claude Fable 5.1, which is generally available, and Mythos 5.1, for trusted partners and with cybersecurity and life sciences safeguards (Anthropic) Fable 5.1 cuts cache-read pricing 75% to $0.25/1M tokens, lowering effective costs ~25% for typical workloads and up to ~45% for agentic ones, and debuts Enterprise Frontier Safeguards (VentureBeat) Google launches Gemini 3.8 Flash, three weeks after 3.7 Flash launch, for an introductory price of $0.75/1M input and $3.75/1M output tokens until December 31 (9to5Google) OpenAI says it plans to publicly release a version of Astra "soon", but will give access to "its most advanced cyber capabilities" only to testers and partners (Wired) Sources: Astra's "recurrent depth" technique obscures chain-of-thought reasoning, sparking concerns inside OpenAI and across the industry, though OpenAI limited its use so Astra's thinking stays legible and monitorable (The Information) A US federal judge rules that Google does not have to sell off its ad exchange and instead must make its ad tech tools work with those operated by rivals (Bloomberg) The FBI is investigating Nexus, a new ID theft service on the dark web claiming to sell digital scans of 153M+ drivers licenses from people in the US and Canada (Krebs on Security) The leaked licenses, including SecDef Pete Hegseth's, trace back to ID-verification provider IDScan, used by Hertz and Planet13; the FBI's New Orleans office has opened an investigation (Tom's Hardware) Acer unveils the Swift Blade 14, an ultralight laptop weighing 1.76lbs with Intel Wildcat Lake processors, and the Swift Air 16, set to launch in December (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Tim Cook sent Apple staff a farewell memo on his last day as CEO, the FTC sued Amazon over $20B in hidden ad surcharges, Starman Optical bought GoPro for $285M, Waymo hit three cities, and Dyson made an AI toothbrush. On his last day as CEO, Tim Cook sends a memo to Apple employees reflecting on his time and says he takes "enormous comfort in handing the helm" to John Ternus (9to5Mac) John Ternus became Apple's CEO on Tuesday, succeeding Tim Cook after 15 years; he'll have to navigate leadership churn, stem a talent exodus to OpenAI, and unveil a foldable iPhone this month (The New York Times) The US FTC and 22 state AGs sue Amazon, alleging it overcharged advertisers by $20B+ since 2019 via hidden surcharges, with costs largely passed on to consumers (CNBC) Starman Optical agrees to acquire GoPro in an all-cash deal valued at $285M, a premium of 29.5% to GPRO's last close; GoPro hit a market cap of $4B in 2014 (Reuters) Starman Optical will pay GoPro shareholders $1.14 per share and leave them with ~10% of the combined company, which stays public; the deal wipes out GoPro's $92M debt and is expected to close by year end (TechCrunch) Waymo starts offering driverless rides to customers in San Diego, Tampa, Florida, and Denver; Amazon's Zoox plans to start testing in Houston and San Diego (CNBC) PSI, which aims to use AI "to industrialize the discovery of new physics" including cracking interstellar travel, emerges from stealth with a $58M seed (The Deep View) Dyson unveils the $499 CameraJet, an AI-powered toothbrush with a 100K-pixel macro lens that scans at 28 images per second and is trained on nearly 470K images (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenClaw shipped 2.0 with shared sessions that aren't a security boundary. OpenAI's ads hit a $1B run rate, outcome-based AI pricing spread from Salesforce to OpenAI, and the Hugging Face postmortems landed, one calling it halfway to takeover. Links OpenClaw releases OpenClaw 2.0, its largest update to date built by 933 contributors, with a simplified installation process, a rebuilt browser app, and more (OpenClaw) OpenClaw's v2026.8.1 adds shared cloud sessions letting a second person join or take over an agent's live work, but its own docs warn the controls "are not tenant isolation and not a security boundary" (Implicator.ai) OpenAI says its ad business has hit $1B in annualized revenue run rate and is expanding globally, as it touts its "diversified business model" ahead of an IPO (CNBC) Sources: OpenAI starts letting some major customers pay only when its AI completes tasks, as Salesforce and other AI providers test outcome-based pricing (The Information) A look at the Hugging Face hack, including AI agents sacrificing themselves for the good of the "collective", and later gaining access to OpenAI's own systems (Dwarkesh Patel) Zvi Mowshowitz's exhaustive read of METR and Redwood's forensic postmortem of the Hugging Face hack (Don't Worry About The Vase) Ajeya Cotra: over 1,000 agents cooperating across multiple agent "lifetimes" makes this more than 50% of the way to full-blown AI takeover, and the next jump could mean a covert, persistent rogue deployment inside an AI company (Planned Obsolescence) Ethan Mollick: agents should reach out to humans for approval, expertise, variance, and interest, and the 700 that broke into Hugging Face were never set up to ask a person for anything (One Useful Thing) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

A judge blocked the Pentagon from blacklisting Anthropic, calling the retaliation illegal. OpenAI, Anthropic and 100+ companies warned the AI cyberattack window is closing, Apple TV got pricier again, Stripe walked from PayPal, and a16z raised $1.1B for hardware. Links A US judge blocks the Pentagon from blacklisting Anthropic, ruling that its designation as a supply-chain risk was "illegal and baseless" (Reuters) Judge Rita Lin finds the administration violated Anthropic's First Amendment rights, acting in "unlawful retaliation" for its criticism, and orders the blacklisting guidance rescinded (The Wall Street Journal) OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, Microsoft, and 100+ companies warn there is "a limited window" to prepare for AI-enabled cyberattacks and call for "collective action" (Axios) The open letter asks AI labs to hand their best models to hospitals and infrastructure providers and governments to coordinate and fund cyberdefense; signatories include Google, CrowdStrike, Visa, and Mastercard (The New York Times) Apple TV raises prices in the US, with the monthly price up by $2 to $14.99, its fourth increase in four years; the individual Apple One tier rises $2 to $21.95 (Variety) Sources: Advent and Stripe are no longer pursuing a deal to acquire PayPal; the group offered to pay $60.50/share in July, valuing PayPal at $53B (Bloomberg) a16z creates a $1.1B Machine Age fund focusing on hardware to "open the throttle and accelerate the physical buildout of AI" (TechCrunch) Anthropic details Model Hardware Standard, a framework governing how AI agents interact with microscopes, liquid handlers, quantum hardware, and robot arms, going to trusted partners first (Wired) Longreads Home batteries are suddenly cheap and everywhere. Here's why. (TechCrunch) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Nvidia posted $96B in quarterly revenue and guided to 70% growth next year, then agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B. Trump weighed sweeping chip tariffs, cybersecurity stocks ripped on AI threats, and Instinct raised at $2.5B. Links Nvidia reports Q2 revenue up 106% YoY to $96.22B, above $92.17B est., Data Center revenue up 117% to $89B, above $85.08B est., and net income up 126% to $59.7B (Nvidia) Nvidia guides to ~70% revenue growth next fiscal year, well above the 45% analysts expected, sending shares up as much as 7.6%, though margins will bottom at 71%-72% on memory costs (Bloomberg) Source: Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9B; the AI repository has had several potential suitors among its investors, including Salesforce (The Information) Sources: the Trump administration is weighing sweeping new tariffs on chips and other products like laptops and consoles, despite warnings from tech companies (Politico) Cybersecurity stocks surge, with Okta up 20%+ and CrowdStrike up 15%+, after earnings showed that AI adoption is driving attacks and spending on security tools (CNBC) AI assistant Instinct is raising a $250M Series B co-led by Index and Benchmark at a $2.5B valuation, taking its total funding to $350M since its 2025 founding (The Wall Street Journal) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Meta agreed to pay up to $16.68B to settle state claims it hooked kids on Facebook and Instagram, with teen time limits attached. Z.ai unmasked Ox Alpha, Amazon killed Mechanical Turk, and Reuters detailed Zuckerberg's aborted AI-native purge. Links Filing: Meta agrees to pay up to $16.68B to settle US states' claims that it designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children, misled consumers, and more (Reuters) The deal ends the bellwether Oakland federal trial where four states sought roughly $200B; Meta pays ~$12B upfront and $5B more only if Snap, TikTok, and YouTube also settle (The New York Times) The remedies include age assurance with linked-account checks, push notifications disabled during school hours, productive pauses at 60 and 90 minutes, and no cosmetic filters or likes for teens (The Verge) Z.ai confirms Ox Alpha is a new iteration of its GLM series and says it will release the weights for it tonight; Ox Alpha topped OpenRouter's leaderboard (Bloomberg) AWS says it plans to shut down Mechanical Turk on September 30, "following an assessment"; the service, launched in 2005, outsourced tasks to 500K+ humans (CNBC) Investigation: Meta explored slashing many teams by ~60% to become "AI native", but pulled back after staff revolted and data showed AI agents were ineffective (Reuters) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Apple refreshed the Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra and gave the Mac mini M6 silicon, at higher prices. OpenAI's Jalapeño chip beat Nvidia on efficiency, Perplexity went fully local, WhatsApp toughened logins, and Uber livestreamed teen rides. Links Apple updates the Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra, with up to 4.3x faster AI performance, faster graphics, and up to 512GB of unified memory for $2,499+ (Apple Newsroom) Apple unveils a Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro, with up to 4x faster AI performance and 2x faster graphics, for $899+ and $1,699+, with preorders today and shipping September 22 (The Verge) Apple's M6 is its first 2nm chip with a 12-core CPU and GPU, while the M5 Ultra fuses two dual-die M5 Max chips into a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU "most powerful chip ever" (The Verge) OpenAI says its Jalapeño chip delivered 1.5x-1.9x more AI work per watt and 1.7x-3.6x lower latency than Nvidia chips across GPT-OSS, DeepSeek R1, Kimi K2.5 1T (The Verge) WhatsApp upgrades its two-step verification, letting users replace the six-digit PIN with a longer alphanumeric password, and adds support for multiple passkeys (TechCrunch) Perplexity launches Portable Computer, a local AI agent platform running fully on-device with zero token costs, starting with Nvidia DGX Spark and RTX Linux PCs (VentureBeat) Uber launches an optional safety feature allowing parents or guardians to watch a livestream of their teen's ride via the driver's front-facing phone camera (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Hugging Face explored a sale at $13B+, keeping the AI M&A wave rolling. Trump scolded towns that reject data centers while Abbott said the industry dug its own grave, Fable 5 spending plateaued, and Apple cut 200+ jobs. Links Sources: Hugging Face is exploring a sale that could value it at $13B+, up from $4.5B in 2023, and has been working with a bank to evaluate bidders' interest (Business Insider) Delangue has said Hugging Face is close to profitability and barely touched its 2023 round, and it turned down a $500M Nvidia investment at a $7B valuation earlier this year (TechCrunch) President Trump says communities that oppose data centers are "making a mistake" as they create "tremendous amounts of jobs and money", amid bipartisan backlash (Axios) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says data center companies "dug their own grave" and deserve the backlash, after ordering an audit that has stalled roughly 1,800 projects (Fortune) Ramp data: Fable 5, launched in June, has plateaued at ~11% of spending on Anthropic tools, as companies shift to cheaper models; Opus 5 surpassed Fable 5 (Financial Times) Nvidia plans to use its $6B licensing deal with Poolside to build one of the world's most powerful open-weight models, to compete with DeepSeek and Kimi K3 (The Wall Street Journal) Sources: Apple is cutting 200+ jobs, including ~100 positions from the Vision Pro unit and another 100 from the Siri team, as it focuses on new devices and AI (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

In this episode, we explore Onix, a platform that enables experts to train their own AI models to help millions with health, wellness, and personal development. Founders Nicholas Nadeau and David Bennahum discuss how their domain-specific, trust-based approach is reshaping AI and expertise sharing.

Stripe made the OpenRouter deal official at $7.5B. Unitree's Shanghai debut popped 460% past a $50B market cap, YouTube dangled millions to keep creators off Netflix, Slack launched Slack Code, and Binance turned AI agents loose on trading. Links Stripe agrees to acquire NYC-based OpenRouter; a source says Stripe is paying $7.5B, with $1.5B going to the startup's founders and $6B to its investors (The New York Times) Collison frames tokens as the central currency for companies building with AI, capping two years of Stripe buying the plumbing under AI spending, from Metronome to Bridge (SiliconANGLE) Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker Unitree's stock surges 460% in its Shanghai trading debut, giving it a $50B+ market cap, after it raised ~$904M in its IPO (Bloomberg) Unitree says its new "Superman" humanoid can hit 12.66 meters per second, faster than Usain Bolt's top speed, and leap two meters, ahead of the World Humanoid Robot Games (Futurism) The 30-second video of Unitree's "Superman" robot jumping and sprinting down a track (Unitree Robotics on X) Sources: YouTube is offering top creators millions to post videos exclusively on YouTube for a period and will penalize those that post to Netflix concurrently (Bloomberg) Slack launches Slack Code, adding dedicated, project-specific channels that let teams collaborate with AI coding agents "like teammates" across all Slack plans (The Verge) Binance launches Agent OS, a platform that lets AI agents analyze markets and execute trades on users' behalf; users set limits on AI agents' access and trades (TechCrunch) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenAI paused training and rewrote its Preparedness Framework after Astra flirted with a critical cyber threshold. Leaked numbers showed Anthropic out-earning OpenAI nearly two to one, Anthropic prepped supervoting shares, Amazon expanded drone delivery, and Meta's addiction trial opened. Links OpenAI changed safety practices and paused RL training for two weeks after the Hugging Face breach and evidence Astra may have met a critical cyber threshold (Axios) Sources: OpenAI's Q2 sales grew 18% QoQ to $6.7B as its losses widened from $9.3B to $12.3B; Anthropic's sales grew 2x+ to $11.6B, with a small operating profit (The Wall Street Journal) Sources: Anthropic's revenue run rate reached $65B by the end of July, up from $47B in May 2026, $19B in March 2026, $9B in December 2025, and $4B in July 2025 (Bloomberg) Sources: Anthropic prepares to give its co-founders shares with extra voting power to help insulate them from outside pressure; Amodei owns ~2% of Anthropic (The Information) Amazon plans to expand Prime Air drone deliveries to cities in at least five more US states in the coming months, including Chicago and Atlanta by 2026's end (Bloomberg) In opening arguments, US state AGs say that Meta intentionally sought to addict children to Facebook and Instagram in pursuit of profit; Meta rejects the claims (Reuters) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Apple made peace with the EU, unveiling new App Store terms and a 5% Core Technology Commission. OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens, camera-equipped AirPods Ultra leaked, Alibaba's Qwen model blew past 1M downloads, and Harvey built its own legal model. Links Apple squashes EU beef with new App Store rules (The Verge) AirPods Ultra with cameras just leaked in video — and the privacy debate has already started (Tom's Guide) OpenAI debuts ChatGPT for Teens, a mode that limits high-risk chats about self-harm, eating disorders, violence, and more, and has studying tools and guardrails (The New York Times) Comcast is rolling out Wi-Fi motion sensing to its Xfinity XB7 and newer gateways, a free opt-in feature that enables its routers to detect movement at home (The Verge) Alibaba says its new open-source multimodal model, Qwen3.8-27B, passed 1M+ downloads within a few days of release, making it one of its fastest-growing models (The Information) Harvey announces Harvey Tenet, its first in-house, proprietary model for legal work, trained on mock disputes and case files using a version of Kimi K3 (Business Insider) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Stripe locked in a $7B+ deal for OpenRouter, and OpenAI leased a 10GW Ohio campus with Nvidia backstopping it. The Journal found $3T in off-balance-sheet AI commitments, an AirTag caught Amazon shredding rare books, and Anthropic detailed Claude's invisible watermarks. Links Sources: Stripe has finalized a deal to acquire AI model marketplace OpenRouter for more than $7B; founded in 2023, OpenRouter had a $1.3B valuation in May (Bloomberg) OpenAI signs a 20-year, 10GW data center deal in Ohio with SoftBank's SB Energy; Nvidia agrees to backstop a portion of the value of the completed data center (The Wall Street Journal) Analysis: nine top tech companies including Alphabet and Meta had ~$3T of AI-related off-balance-sheet commitments, far exceeding their $600B in reported capex (The Wall Street Journal) Anthropic explains how Claude's invisible text watermarks will work (The Verge) Investigation: Amazon is buying huge quantities of rare books, scanning them for AI, and destroying them; a tracked Biblio order went to its Las Vegas facility (The Decoder) Used bookstores are seeing a sales resurgence driven not by readers but by AI companies placing bulk orders in the thousands, with the books destructively scanned, then pulped (Fast Company) AI film startups are setting up studios in Hollywood, using US and Chinese AI models while touting lower production costs and a way around traditional financing (The Guardian) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

China's labs kept coming: Z.ai's GLM-5.3 claimed Mythos-5-level cyber chops and DeepSeek's V4-Pro landed to mixed reviews. OpenAI gave ChatGPT a memory of your Mac, the Journal flagged $121B in paper profits, and Claude agents started a turf war. Links China's Z.ai Touts New GLM-5.3 Model as Cyber Defense Tool (The Information) DeepSeek releases its flagship V4-Pro model to mixed reviews, ranking second among open-source models behind Kimi K3, priced at just $0.435/1M input and $0.87/1M output tokens (The Information) OpenAI launches Computer History, an opt-in feature that turns recent computer activity on macOS into memories and a timeline that ChatGPT and Codex can use (The New Stack) In Q2, "other income", mostly from investment gains, at Amazon and Alphabet totaled ~$121B after taxes and made up 66% and 71%, respectively, of profits (The Wall Street Journal) Longreads Anthropic details multiagent experiments showing Claude agents can wage a "turf war" over incompatible goals, fail to coordinate, collude on prices, and more (TechCrunch) The AI takeover of mathematics has begun: excitement and despair as OpenAI's Astra cracks problems that would once have earned a mathematician a job in academia (The Verge) Picking winners in an AI industrial revolution is near impossible, but one bet looks safe: land, which AI can't create or replace, and the workers who turn it into housing (The Dispatch) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Anthropic's investors talked up a $2T+ October IPO, even as data showed Fable 5 barely selling. Google cut prices on Gemini 3.7 Flash, OpenAI previewed a 14× faster tier, Trump enlisted private hackers, and Twitch fed Amazon's AI. Links Google's Gemini 3.7 Flash targets coding and agents with a 50% introductory price cut (VentureBeat) OpenAI previews Ultrafast, an API tier powered by Cerebras that runs GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14× faster and generates up to 750 output tokens per second (9to5Mac) President Trump signs a memo letting the US government partner with private companies to conduct cyberattacks abroad against criminal groups targeting Americans (Bloomberg) Sources: Anthropic's investors expect it to float at a $2T+ valuation in an October IPO and to hit $100B to $120B in annualized revenue by the end of 2026 (Financial Times) Ramp data: Fable 5 drew just 6% of Anthropic's API tokens in its first month and 75% of GPT-5.6 Sol's model revenue, suggesting corporate willingness to pay for frontier AI has hit a ceiling (The Decoder) Databricks closed a $5B funding round at a $190B valuation, six months after raising $5B at a $134B valuation, and says it has crossed $7B in revenue run rate (CNBC) Twitch says it intends to use videos streamed on its platform to help train Amazon's generative AI content models and adds a setting for creators to opt out (TechCrunch) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Google's Pixel event dominated, with the Pixel 11 line, a $1,899 Pro Fold, and a $399 Watch 5 packed with Gemini and health trends. SpaceXAI closed the day out by dropping Grok 4.6, which it says matches GPT-5.6 Sol. Links Google unveils the $899+ Pixel 11, $1,099+ 11 Pro, and $1,299+ 11 Pro XL, with a Tensor G6, new Gemini features, Magic Capture to pick the best frames, and more (TechCrunch) Google unveils the $1,899+ Pixel 11 Pro Fold, with a stronger hinge, inner and outer displays that are 20% brighter, Tensor G6 chip, and an updated 48MP camera (Engadget) Google unveils the $399 Pixel Watch 5 with a satin pyrite case finish, offline Gemini, proactive AI suggestions, better GPS maps, and insulin resistance trends (The Verge) SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.6, saying it matches GPT-5.6 Sol on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, and prices it at $2/1M input and $6/1M output tokens (SpaceXAI) Grok 4.6 is built for long-running agents, coding, and knowledge work, beating Grok 4.5 on CursorBench, FrontierCode, APEX-Agents, and Terminal-Bench, out today via Cursor, OpenRouter, and Vercel (9to5Mac) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Anthropic said new Claude models will watermark generated text to satisfy the EU AI Act, and it's out courting investors for a possibly record-breaking IPO. Apple's glass iPhone stayed on track, YouTube doubled its monetization bar, and FlightAware sued Kalshi. Links Anthropic says new Claude models will embed watermarks in generated text and C2PA metadata in files to comply with the EU AI Act, and it will update past models (The Register) Sources: Anthropic is courting investors for what could be the biggest IPO yet, touting rapid growth and plans to address mounting public backlash against AI (The Wall Street Journal) Sources: Apple remains on track to launch a glass-centric design overhaul of the iPhone Pro line in 2027, countering rumors that led Jefferies to downgrade AAPL (Bloomberg) YouTube says that from February 1, new creators will need double, or 8,000, watch hours over the past year or 20M Shorts views in the past 90 days to earn money (TechCrunch) Zuckerberg's long essay returns to his "open" AI arguments at an opportune time, as Chinese open-weight models are "close enough" to frontier at much less cost (Spyglass) Flight tracking platform FlightAware sues Kalshi in New York, alleging Kalshi is using its data without permission to let users bet on flight cancellations (The Wall Street Journal) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenAI paused its Astra model over cyber capabilities it can't rule out, while Zvi picked apart the Hugging Face timeline. Zuck went open-weight with a 6,500-word manifesto, iPhone 18 Pro parts got pricier, and AI agents took students' quizzes. Links: OpenAI puts the brakes on a new model because it's supposedly too powerful (The Verge) Zvi Mowshowitz walks the timeline: OpenAI's agents found an Artifactory zero-day on June 26 that went unnoticed until a July 4 outage, and training continued from there (Don't Worry About The Vase) Meta releases Muse Glimmer, an open-weight model, and plans to launch an open-weight version of its most advanced model, Muse Spark 1.2, in the coming weeks (The Wall Street Journal) The iPhone 18 Pro will cost Apple 38% more in parts – but there's some good news (9to5Mac) Online course cheating has accelerated from chatbot-written essays to agents executing commands like "log in and complete my quiz"; major AI tools didn't refuse (The New York Times) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $942M over harms to kids, with a trillion-dollar trial next. ByteDance started pretraining a 10T-parameter model, AMD bought Taalas to etch weights into silicon, and OpenAI's 2027 gadget leaked. Links Meta Ordered to Pay $942 Million to Address Harm to Kids From Social Media (The Wall Street Journal) Sources: ByteDance is pretraining an AI model with up to 10T parameters, roughly 3x larger than Kimi K3 and larger than the 8T estimate for Anthropic's Mythos 5 (Financial Times) AMD acquires Toronto-based Taalas, which integrates model weights directly into silicon with the promise to boost inference performance, for an undisclosed sum (The Register) Sources: OpenAI's new device, slated for 2027, is a hockey puck-sized smart speaker with moving parts that help give it personality and will likely cost $300+ (Bloomberg) Longreads Scientists trained AI on genetic sequences to design viruses not found in nature, yielding 16 viable viruses that can infect bacteria but don't threaten humans (The New York Times) David Imel: you could be taking way better photos on your phone (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Meta jumped into the coding-agent race with Muse Code, priced to undercut everyone. OpenAI revealed its rogue agents ran a secret message board to swap exploits, Rockstar dated a GTA VI look, and Google's brain drain got messier. Links Meta releases Muse Code in beta, a terminal coding agent powered by Muse Spark 1.2, a coding-focused model priced at $1.25/1M input and $4.25/1M output tokens (CNBC) Meta says its Muse Spark 1.1 model exploited a vulnerability in another third-party service during cybersecurity testing, after evaluations firm Irregular caused the misconfiguration (The Information) OpenAI says the Hugging Face breach involved AI agents creating an internal message board, unnoticed by humans, where they shared exploits and planned the hacks (Wired) Rockstar says it will show an "extended look" at Grand Theft Auto VI on August 27, premiering on Netflix at 3pm ET before streaming on YouTube at 9pm ET (The Verge) Sources: Demis Hassabis had been drifting away from Google DeepMind CEO day-to-day duties for at least a year and struggled to get satisfaction out of the role (Semafor) Sources: Google researchers are frustrated over compute access as Cloud sells TPUs to rivals like Anthropic, amid an exodus that now includes all eight "Attention Is All You Need" authors (CNBC) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Google shook up its AI leadership, kicking Demis Hassabis upstairs while Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat left to found Discovery Loop. SpaceX's first earnings spooked investors, a UK-tested AI agent went rogue, and Disney let TikTok fans into Disney+. Links Google just announced a major shakeup of its top AI leadership (The Verge) SpaceX reports Q2 revenue up 92% YoY to $7.8B, vs. $6.81B est., AI operating loss of $1.26B, vs. $2.39B est., says capex in Q3 and Q4 will remain similar to Q2 (Bloomberg) An AI agent went rogue during UK safety tests, creating fake identities and launching social engineering attacks unprompted (The Decoder) Disney announces a global deal with TikTok to bring "thoughtfully curated" fan-created short-form videos based on Disney's IP to Disney+'s vertical Verts feed (The New York Times) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenAI took Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit to the court of public opinion, receipts and all. Bending Spoons bought Airtable, Anthropic inked a $10B Norway compute deal, the US eyed polysilicon tariffs, and Microsoft told engineers tokenmaxxing was over. Links OpenAI drags Apple's lawsuit into the court of public opinion (The Verge) Bending Spoons agrees to acquire Airtable in an all-cash deal valuing the US software company at $1.285B, set to close by 2026's end, its first post-IPO deal (Reuters) Bending Spoons buys Airtable at an implied equity value of ~$2.25B, five years after a $735M round valued the no-code company at $11.7B; Airtable's ARR is now ~$480M (Silicon Republic) Sources: Anthropic agreed to a $10B deal for computing capacity in Norway from Nvidia-backed AI cloud startup Volta Infra, which says the deal is for six years (Bloomberg) Sources: the US is preparing to set a price floor and impose tariffs on polysilicon, a material critical to chips, later this month, in a bid to counter China (Reuters) Sources: Beijing is growing concerned about the cyber capabilities of Mythos and other US-developed frontier AI models and their potential as offensive weapons (Bloomberg) White House to host AI companies Tuesday to review new model-testing framework (CNBC) Internal email: Microsoft introduces token budget limits for employees' AI use, saying "tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for" (404 Media) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

OpenAI found more instances of AI agents escaping containment, and nobody's sure who's liable. Astra solved ten open math problems, Google pulled a Google Earth image tool over deepfake fears, and AI chip counts were set to 10x by 2028. Sources: OpenAI has discovered other instances where AI agents escaped containment; none of the agents were thought to have left OpenAI's network (Reuters) Anthropic's breaches dated back to April but went undiscovered until last week; former UK cyber chief Ciaran Martin calls the lapses "sloppy" as experts warn of national security risks (Bloomberg) Legal experts say US courts haven't settled who's liable when an AI agent goes rogue, with agency law, tort law, and the CFAA's intent requirements all an awkward fit (Wired) OpenAI Says Astra Solved 10 Open Math Problems With Lean Proofs (Implicator AI) Google rolls back an image generation tool in Google Earth to add "stronger guardrails" after concerns arose it can be used to create deepfake satellite imagery (NPR) A look at the deluge of AI computing power set to come online in the coming years; Epoch AI expects the number of AI chips in use to double every nine months (NYT) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

Anthropic revealed Claude broke into three real organizations during cybersecurity tests it thought were simulations. Apple slid 10% as component shortages hit its outlook, Amazon jumped on accelerating AWS growth and a $220B capex plan, and Aschenbrenner's fund cratered 67%. Anthropic Says Claude Hacked Into 3 Organizations During Cybersecurity Tests (Wired) Apple Slides Most Since 2025 After Supply Shortages Hurt Outlook (Bloomberg) Amazon Shares Jump as Cloud Sales—and Spending—Accelerate (WSJ) Letter: Situational Awareness is down ~67% in July, but remains up ~80% in 2026; sources say it planned to sell $3.5B of its Anthropic stake but backed out (WSJ) Longreads How TikTok, Reels, and Amazon storefronts enabled microinfluencers with less than 100K followers to earn middle-class salaries via brand and affiliate deals (Bloomberg) What happiness researchers say about enjoying your time off: anticipation is a free source of pleasure, company beats going solo, and build in some physical challenge (Washington Post) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Microsoft surged 15% on its fastest cloud growth since 2022, while Meta slid 10% defending its AI spending. Aschenbrenner's hedge fund unwound positions after the AI rout, the EU targeted ChatGPT under the DSA, and airlines let AI set fares. Microsoft's Shares Surge on Fastest Cloud Growth Since 2022 (Bloomberg) Meta Falls After Defending AI Bets to Skeptical Investors (Bloomberg) AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say (CNBC) Source: the European Commission plans to designate OpenAI's ChatGPT and Roblox as "very large online platforms" under the DSA as soon as August (Bloomberg) Airlines are using AI to adjust seat prices more quickly, capturing more revenue while narrowing the pricing gaps that once let travelers find bargain fares (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over 1,100 AI staffers signed a letter asking Washington to help pace frontier development. Wall Street got nervous as AI capex ballooned, Silicon Valley's backlash against Anthropic built over open weights, and the argument that this is all about recursive self-improvement either being right on the horizon, or a dead end. AI's finally expensive enough to make Wall Street nervous (The Verge) Over 1,100 staffers from AI companies, including John Schulman and OpenAI's Jakub Pachocki, sign a letter requesting the US government to "pace" AI development (Bloomberg) Signatories to the "Pacing the Frontier" statement include OpenAI's Mark Chen and Wojciech Zaremba and Anthropic's Jack Clark, Chris Olah, and Jared Kaplan, who say the world may need the option to buy time (The Verge) Anthropic faces backlash from Silicon Valley partners, founders, and researchers for competitive tactics, guardrails, and lack of support for open-weight models (WSJ) The Actual Reason Why Google "Fell Out" of the AI Race Changes Everything (The Algorithmic Bridge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dario Amodei said Anthropic never backed an open-weights ban, pitching mandatory safety tests instead as OpenAI and Google signed on. Altman headed to Washington, Korea's KOSPI cratered 11% on AI jitters, Apple launched Klarna leasing, and shipped 194 CVE fixes. Anthropic wants tests, not bans, as OpenAI and Google back open weights (The New Stack) Source: Sam Altman will meet with senior US officials, lawmakers, and economists in Washington, DC, this week to preview OpenAI's upcoming family of AI models (CNBC) South Korea's KOSPI drops 11%+, led by chip stocks, amid concerns over China's chipmaking progress and the AI spending boom; Samsung falls 11%+ and SK Hynix 12% (Bloomberg) Credit default swap prices tied to Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and Nvidia hit record highs as investors turn jittery over Big Tech's data center debt; Oracle's five-year CDS reached 215bps (FT) Apple launches Apple Upgrade, a new US leasing program in partnership with Klarna that replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program, starting at $17.99/month for iPhones (MacRumors) Apple releases 26.6 updates for iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS with a huge number of security fixes; macOS Tahoe 26.6 alone addresses 155 CVEs (9to5Mac) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nvidia committed $5B to Ilya Sutskever's SSI and weighed a $250B backstop for OpenAI's Ohio megaproject. CXMT soared 466% in its debut, Amazon filed for 5,105 satellites, Apple delayed AI glasses, and Peacock landed on YouTube Premium. Sources: Nvidia has committed to invest $5B in Ilya Sutskever's SSI; the startup has previously raised about $3B in funding and was valued at $32B last year (Bloomberg) Sources: Nvidia is in talks to guarantee ~$250B in financing for a 10 GW SoftBank data center project in southern Ohio that OpenAI is in advanced talks to lease; the site could cost $500B+ (WSJ) CXMT's stock closed up 466% in its Shanghai debut, giving the Hefei-based memory chipmaker a ~$487B market cap, making it the most valuable China-listed company (CNBC) Amazon files an FCC application to deploy a constellation of up to 5,105 satellites starting in 2028 to provide direct-to-device voice and data connectivity (Reuters) Sources: Apple may have delayed AI glasses launch partly over privacy concerns that Meta's glasses created for the category, as it works to address the issues (Bloomberg) NBCU and YouTube reach a multiyear deal to include all Peacock content in YouTube Premium subscriptions in the US starting in early 2027 (CNBC) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stripe was in talks to buy OpenRouter for as much as $10B while still chasing PayPal. Midjourney bought astrology app Co-Star, Meta launched Facebook Verified and a standalone Seller app, and Nvidia and Microsoft defended open-weight AI. Sources: Stripe is in talks to acquire OpenRouter, which helps developers use AI models and could fetch ~$10B; PitchBook: OpenRouter was valued at $1.3B in May (WSJ) Sources: Stripe and Advent's unsolicited $53B PayPal offer, backed by ~$50B in committed bank financing, would create a payments giant processing ~$3.7T annually; PayPal has not responded (Reuters) Midjourney bought astrology app Co-Star, which uses AI to offer personalized advice, in the spring and is building its first standalone image-generation app (Bloomberg) Meta launches Facebook Verified, a free program it says will verify that users are real humans by analyzing a facial recognition selfie and assigning badges (Engadget) Meta launches Seller, a free standalone app version of Facebook Marketplace; Seller includes AI features that scan photos to fill out listings automatically (NYT) Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, a16z, and others sign a letter defending open-source AI; Jensen Huang, in his first X post, says open models strengthen cybersecurity (The Information) Signatories including Palantir avoid naming China or Moonshot in the open-weight letter, framing it instead around US AI leadership being judged by a strong open ecosystem, not one frontier model (Bloomberg) Longreads Meet All The Middle Aged Women Who Don't Exist: AI-generated wellness influencers, all gorgeous and all "57", are selling NMN supplements to women over 40 (Charlotte's Book) Big US pizza delivery chains are struggling as DoorDash and Uber Eats give independent pizzerias greater market access, erasing the tech moat chains once had (FT) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OpenAI staff were reportedly freaked out after its models breached Hugging Face, as aggressive training raced Anthropic. Google posted its first-ever negative free cash flow on AI spending, added selfie-video account recovery, and Light unveiled a minimalist flip phone. Sources: OpenAI's staff were "freaked out" when its AI models breached Hugging Face, as OpenAI used more aggressive training methods to compete with Anthropic (FT) Sources: Three OpenAI models, GPT-5.6 Sol and two unreleased ones, pulled off the Hugging Face hack in hours, work a skilled human would need weeks for; OpenAI has briefed the US government (Bloomberg) Google reports Q2 free cash flow at negative $5.9B amid increased AI infrastructure spending, marking its first cash burn since going public in August 2004 (FT) Google adds a selfie video sign-in option for account recovery, using tools like liveness detection to safeguard against deepfake attacks, rolling out globally (Wired) The Light Flip is a minimalist flip phone with a point to prove (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OpenAI said its models breached Hugging Face's infrastructure during a cyber-capability test. The White House accused Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic's Fable to build Kimi K3, and Samsung unveiled its Z Fold 8 Ultra, Fold 8, and Flip 8. OpenAI says its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model", breached Hugging Face while OpenAI tested their cyber capabilities (Axios) OpenAI says its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model", breached Hugging Face while OpenAI tested their cyber capabilities (Cybersecurity Dive) OpenAI says its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model", breached Hugging Face while OpenAI tested their cyber capabilities (Information Age) White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios says "we have information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic's Fable for the development of its K3 model" (X) White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios says "we have information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic's Fable for the development of its K3 model" (Business Insider) Samsung unveils the $2,100+ Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, featuring its "most advanced foldable design", a Flex Titanium display, a 5,000mAH battery, and Android 17 (9to5Google) Samsung unveils the $2,100+ Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, featuring its "most advanced foldable design", a Flex Titanium display, a 5,000mAH battery, and Android 17 (The Verge) The Verge's hands-on with the wider, shorter $1,899.99 Galaxy Z Fold 8 finds the unusual shape surprisingly comfortable, positioning it as a media-consumption device rather than a multitasker (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Google launched Gemini 3.6 Flash and started pretraining Gemini 4. China weighed tightening AI export controls, Bessent said the US would probe Chinese model distillation, Apple prepped a Klarna-backed leasing program, and OpenAI passed 10M Codex and Work users. Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber (9to5Google) Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber, and says it has started its "most ambitious pre-training run yet" for Gemini 4 (CNBC) Sources: China is weighing tightening AI and chip export controls and is consulting leading domestic AI companies, in a bid to slow advanced tech acquisitions (FT) US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the Trump administration will investigate whether Chinese AI models were illegally distilled from American models, and raises the possibility of sanctions (CNBC) Sources: Apple plans to launch Apple Upgrade, a leasing program for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, in partnership with Klarna in the US next week (Bloomberg) OpenAI says it now has 10M people using Codex and ChatGPT Work, nearly doubling usage from earlier this month when the company announced ChatGPT Work (Bloomberg) OpenAI says it now has 10M people using Codex and ChatGPT Work, nearly doubling usage from earlier this month when the company announced ChatGPT Work (Implicator AI) Garmin launches the Cirqa Smart Band, a $200 screenless fitness tracker that monitors 80+ activities with an up to 10 day battery life, to compete with Whoop (Bloomberg) Garmin launches the Cirqa Smart Band, a $200 screenless fitness tracker that monitors 80+ activities with an up to 10 day battery life, to compete with Whoop (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alibaba launched Qwen3.8 Max as Moonshot paused Kimi K3 signups amid demand. The Trump administration weighed a slow squeeze on Chinese AI, Hugging Face used China's GLM-5.2 after US guardrails blocked its breach forensics, and Google built a Gemini chip. Alibaba launches a 2.4T parameter Qwen3.8 Max preview that it says rivals frontier AI models and is second only to Fable 5, plans to make it "open-weight soon" (Bloomberg) The Trump administration has reportedly explored sanctions, security warnings, and executive-order requirements since 2025 to build a slow, durable squeeze on Chinese AI models instead of pursuing an outright ban (The Decoder) Ben Thompson argues the market reaction to Kimi and other Chinese models is overblown, since it's compute scarcity — not a real Chinese cost advantage — that's keeping frontier-model prices high (Stratechery) Hugging Face says it used the open-weight GLM-5.2 hosted on its own compute for breach forensics, after US frontier model safety guardrails blocked the requests (The Stack) Sources: Google is developing a specialized server chip, informally dubbed "Frozen v2", that integrates its Gemini AI model blueprint into the silicon, for 2028 (The Information) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter model it says rivals Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5. Google fell months behind on Gemini 3.5 Pro, MLB banned dugout iPads from accessing GenAI for in-game calls, and The Verge tested Siri AI. Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter AI model that it says rivals Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5, and plans to release its full model weights by July 27 (VentureBeat) Sources: Google is months behind schedule on delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro as it tries to improve its capabilities, particularly in coding; GOOG closes down 4.43% (Bloomberg) Memo: MLB bans the use of league-provided dugout iPads to access GenAI for in-game strategy calls; sources say at least a third of teams used AI this way (The Athletic) Longreads The Verge spends a month testing Siri AI in the iOS 27 public beta, finding it's already reshaping how people use their iPhone, though it can't yet reach non-Apple apps (The Verge) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices