• Google says it appreciates the engagement by the Trump administration and US government on the EU's $1B fine; Trump called the fine "illegal" (Rocio Fabbro/Bloomberg Law)
• An OpenAI staffer says the Hugging Face breach is "a big warning shot" externally but internally "related incidents have been happening for a while" (Harry Booth/Time)
• Cognition acquires the makers of Poke, an AI assistant that users can access via messaging services, in a deal valuing Poke's parent in the "low nine figures" (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
• Sources: Waymo is exploring exiting its Uber partnership, with their relationship souring amid an intense lobbying battle over the future of robotaxis (Rafe Rosner-Uddin/Financial Times)
• Paper, which allows designers to connect directly with production code and the AI agents that create it, raised a $34M Series A led by Accel and ICONIQ (Chris Metinko/Axios)
• The DOJ is prosecuting a Cop City protester for allegedly providing CBP with a "duress" passcode that wiped the contents of his GrapheneOS phone (Timothy Pratt/The Guardian)
• Trump says the US will initiate a probe into the EU's practice of "robbing" US tech giants with fines, threatening the bloc with "substantial" tariffs (Kevin Breuninger/CNBC)
• Letter: Qualcomm tells customers it plans to raise prices by double digit percentage points, after exhausting its ability to absorb higher costs from suppliers (Ian King/Bloomberg)
• Anthropic expects Opus 5 "classifiers to intervene around 85% less often than they do for Fable 5"; Opus 5 is not included in its 30-day data retention policy (Igor Bonifacic/Engadget)
• Anthropic says Opus 5 is the company's "most aligned model to date"; it is Anthropic's fourth model release in less than two months (Madison Mills/Axios)
• Meta updates Meta AI with Muse Spark 1.1-powered agentic capabilities, connecting to Gmail and Google Calendar to perform tasks like creating daily updates (Ina Fried/Axios)
• Opus 5 improves coding, reasoning efficiency, and prompt-cache-friendly tool use, and is priced at $5/1M input tokens and $25/1M output, same as Opus 4.8 (David Gewirtz/ZDNET)
• Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5, which it says comes close to Fable 5 performance at half the price; it is the new default model on Claude Max (Anthropic)
• World Foundation, the nonprofit behind the World protocol, raised $52.5M led by Pantera through a strategic sale of its WLD token with a one-year lockup (Yogita Khatri/The Block)
• Facebook plans to test a full-screen "immersive video" player when users open the app, replacing the newsfeed, in select international markets this year (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
| • Chinese Companies Are Selling Vapes With Chemicals Potentially More Potent Than Nicotine
• The 2026 El Niño Is on Track to Be the Strongest on Record
• Did Chinese AI Steal From Anthropic, and OpenAI Loses Control of Two Models
• Silicon Valley Is Completely Divided Over Chinese AI
• Best Window Air Conditioners of 2026: Midea, Zafro, GE
• BenQ TK705STi 4K Projector Review: A Midrange Pick for Gamers
• What Is Entropy, Really?
• Some of Our Favorite Brain-Boosting Toys for Kids of All Ages
• Some Kids Will Never Think AI Is Cool
• Satellite Images Reveal How Suspected Scam Compounds Appear Out of Nowhere
• Kagi Brings Back Old-School Search, One Human-Made Website at a Time
• Trump Endorsed the MyPillow Guy as Minnesota Governor. The State GOP Isn’t Buying It
• European Researchers Say Big Tech Is Blocking Access to Their Data
• An FDA Panel Just Endorsed These Unproven Peptides
• Meta’s New Feel-Good AI Ad Uses a Song About the World Ending
• For Taylor Swift, Madison Square Garden’s Controversial Cameras Briefly Went Dark
• The EU Fines Google $1 Billion for Prioritizing Its Own Services in Search
• 22 Back-to-School College Dorm Room Essentials (2026)
• The Best Vacuum for Pet Hair—We Tested Many to Find Which Ones Work Best (2026)
• The Best MagSafe Wallets for Your Everyday Carry (2026)
• The Trump Administration Wants to Change Public Engagement Rules for Polluters
• America’s Hot Hybrid Summer
• 10 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested by an Ex-Restaurant Critic
• People Are Getting Off to Porn About ICE Raids
• Google Turns a Selfie Video Into Your Account’s Spare Key
• Banning Social Media for Kids Is a Bad Idea
• My Week of Transparent Living With Apple’s ‘More Clear’ Liquid Glass Setting
• Remember Jibo? Its Successor Is a Wearable That Turns Your Life Into AI Slop
• ‘The Child Is Terrified’: Measles Doctors Speak Out
• Why Lettuce Is Always Making People Sick
• The White House Is Trying to Figure Out What to Do About Chinese AI
• Top Red-Light Therapy Deals at Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale (2026)
• ‘The Odyssey’ Is Inspiring Unprecedented Levels of Cope
• China’s Open AI Models Are Challenging Silicon Valley’s Playbook
• Dyson V10 Konical Review (2026): Affordable and Solid
• Which New Samsung Foldable Phone Should You Buy? Fold8 Ultra, Fold8, or Flip8?
• Why Samsung Gave Its Next Folding Phone a New Shape
• The 13 Best Fans for Getting Through Sweaty Days (2026)
• 6 Best Fitbit Models for Beginners, Athletes, and Kids (2026)
• States Want ICE Agents to Show Their Faces. The Trump Administration Is Blocking Them
• A Teen Reporter Searched for His Community in the Epstein Files. Adults Freaked Out
• Flipper Busy Bar Review: An Expensive Focus Tool
• Is the All-New Range Rover GT Stepping on Jaguar’s Tail?
• OpenAI Models Escaped Containment and Hacked Hugging Face
• Shop Best Buy’s Black Friday in July Sale 2026 Before Fall Chaos
• Taylor Farms Spent Big on MAGA and Anti-Regulatory Lobbying Before Diarrhea Outbreak
• This Former Intel CEO Wants to Jumpstart Moore’s Law With Light
• A Sneaky Hacking Tool Targeting AI Infrastructure Is Lurking in Victims’ Blind Spots
• The Light Flip Is the Stylish Dumb Flip Phone of Your Dreams
• Nvidia Wants to Own Every Chip Inside AI Data Centers
| • Paramount agrees to delay Warner Bros. merger into 2027
• Midjourney is buying horoscope app Co-Star, which users will surely be thrilled about
• Prime Video's Blade Runner 2099 now has a trailer and release date of November 25
• IMAX vs IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats
• Boox teases the incredibly tiny Picco ereader
• PlayStation Network is experiencing a massive outage
• Anthropic says Opus 5 can nearly match its top-performing model for half the price
• Avatar: Seven Havens finally has a trailer and a release date of October 9
• Your phone may not be as waterproof as you think — here's why IP68 can be misleading
• The Anbernic RG SP looks like an awesome update to one of the most iconic Game Boys of all time
• The new Lola x Miffy digital camera is extremely cute and ships with a themed wrist charm
• Which of your old cables are actually worth keeping?
• I visited Samsung's foldable-themed pop-up pub and its alcohol-free beers tasted terrible
• Amazon Luna is getting a brand new Batman game next week
• EV batteries could last much longer than experts first predicted
• Alienware 15 review: Perfect timing for a budget gaming laptop
• Meta launches a storefront platform through Facebook Marketplace
• Meta launches new Facebook Verified badge for actual, real humans
• More than 200 companies sign Trump's 'pledge' to protect consumers from data center price rises
• LG promises to stop McAfee spam ads following pressure from Microsoft
|