• AI inference chip startup Etched raised $700M led by its new server rack customer Jane Street at a $21B valuation, up from $10.3B after raising $300M in July (Robbie Whelan/Wall Street Journal)
• Sources: China orders some state-linked entities to uninstall a government-tailored version of Windows 10, ahead of its February 2027 retirement timeline (Bloomberg)
• Google unveils Operation Blue Skies, a £5M trial to re-route North Atlantic aircraft to reduce contrail-induced warming using Google's AI atmospheric forecasts (Madeleine Cuff/New Scientist)
• Baidu reports Q2 revenue down 2% YoY to ~$4.62B, below ~$4.69B est. and its fifth straight quarterly decline, and net income of ~$341M, as it lags AI rivals (Bloomberg)
• Apple's macOS Tahoe 26.7 RC has references to unreleased products: a Home Hub, home accessories, new Beats, AirPods Pro 4, Apple Intelligence in China, and more (Juli Clover/MacRumors)
• In filings, Apple acknowledges App Store regulatory changes are weighing on its $100B+ services business; US App Store spend fell 6% YoY in Q2, per Sensor Tower (Michael Acton/Financial Times)
• Rogue Studio, which calls itself a "playground for creative ethical mischief", launches Rogue 1.0, an AI video tool to make adult content of Hollywood quality (Jason Parham/Wired)
• Sources: AI-drafted bills are swamping the US House's Legislative Counsel, which now spends more time fixing them than it would spend to draft them from scratch (Owen Dahlkamp/Politico)
• Discord suspends livestreams in Brazil, after the country's data protection authority ordered it last week, saying Discord failed to protect children and teens (Associated Press)
• Sources: Google has told suppliers it plans to move all Pixel phone, smartwatch, and wireless earbud manufacturing out of China in 2027 amid US-China tensions (Lauly Li/Nikkei Asia)
• A short video in Apple's macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate appears to show a man demoing camera-equipped AirPods using Visual Intelligence and Siri (Juli Clover/MacRumors)
• Sources: Situational Awareness offered part of its $5B Anthropic stake at a 20% discount as it scrambled for cash; word of its trouble left it "being hunted" (Wall Street Journal)
• David Sacks says "Dario Amodei believes frontier AI is too powerful to distribute; we believe it is too powerful to centralize" after Amodei shared policy ideas (David Sacks/@davidsacks)
• Pornhub parent company Aylo agrees to pay $120M to settle two 2021 class action lawsuits in California and Alabama alleging it profited from CSAM (Samantha Cole/404 Media)
• Sources: Crusoe is in IPO talks with at least four Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan, which is advising on its $3B pre-IPO fundraise set to value it at $35B (Alan Neuhauser/Axios)
| • The Cop Who Took On Flock
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• Best Merino Wool Clothing (2026): Base Layers, Hoodies, Jackets
• SteelSeries Coupon Codes: 15% Off in August 2026
• Noom Promo Codes: 50% Off Best Deals & Free Trials for August 2026
• Hydrow Discount Code: Save Up to $150 | August 2026
• 1Password Coupon: Score a Free Trial in August 2026
• Womanizer Coupons: Save 15% in August
• Vivid Seats Promo Codes and Deals: Get 10% Off
• Western Digital Promo Code: 15% Off
• Logitech Promo Codes and Deals: Up to $100 Off
• Ring Promo Code: 50% Off
• What Is El Niño, and What Does It Mean for Weather, Water, and the Global Economy?
• This R-Rated Film Studio Wants to Be the HBO of AI
• 7 Best Cheap Laptops to Buy in 2026 (and Some to Avoid)
• CookUnity Prepared Meal Delivery Review (2026): Chef-Centric Meals
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• El Niño and Saharan Dust Silence Atlantic Hurricane Season
• Election Officials Are Preparing for Prediction Markets to Sow Chaos in the Midterms
• There’s a New Link Between Gut Health and Alzheimer’s Disease
• Astronomers Discover the Existence of a Black Hole Star
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra Review: The Right Shape
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• Someone Finally Fixed Installing Apps on a Mac
• TerraMow V1000 Review: Show Your Lawn Some Love
• Inside the Experimental Traps Scientists Set for Ghostly Neutrinos
• The Best Cat Water Fountains of 2026: Petlibro, Petkit, Oneisall
• Retrospec Joe Rev 2 Review (2026): Putting the ‘Joy’ in Joyride
• This Beautifully Weird Necklace Is Secretly a USB Drive
• Instapaper, the Original Read-It-Later App, Just Got a Huge Upgrade
• 6 Best Apple Watch Accessories to Upgrade Your Watch (2026)
• Auk Mini 2 Indoor Smart Garden Review: Better Where It Counts
• Zyzz Was the Original Looksmaxxer. His Rise and Untimely Death Feel More Relevant Than Ever
• 5 Best Apple Watch Bands: Nike, Nomad, and Hermés (2026)
• Puerto Rico Is Rationing Water. It Could’ve Avoided It by Harvesting Rainwater
• Amazon Can Use Your Twitch Content to Train Its AI—Unless You Opt Out
• Google Workspace Promo Codes: 14% Off for August 2026
• New York City Lawmakers Push to ‘Ban the Scan’ at MSG
• The Best Movies to Stream This Month (August 2026)
• The Next Big Influencer Is This 4-Foot-Tall Robot From China
• Tech Visionary Says the Big AI Labs Don’t Get What People Want
• Best Wireless Chargers (2026): My Picks After Testing 100+
• The 4 Best Planners of 2026: Roterunner, Hobonichi, Cloth & Paper
• FTC Strikes Deals to Ignore Unlawful Credit Discrimination
• These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI
• Best Pixel 10 Cases and Accessories (2026): Mous, dbrand, Bellroy
• I Wore an Electrical Muscle Stimulation Body Suit to Zap Myself Into Fitness
• People Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots. These Lawmakers Want to Stop Them
• Inside WIRED’s Brain Week
• Best Computer Monitors (2026): The Home Office Upgrade You Need
| • Google is reportedly planning to move all Pixel production out of China
• Apple appears to have leaked its camera-equipped AirPods
• Why flash drive capacity keeps increasing (and why small drives are rarely sold today)
• What are your retro game consoles worth?
• YouTube public view counts will likely get higher starting next week
• Reddit is experimenting with video and audio versions of posts
• Sonos put speaker controls on your iPhone's lock screen (again)
• Why curved TVs failed but curved gaming monitors thrived
• Apple is forced to stop favoring its own apps in personal data collection prompts
• Why 4K Blu-ray always beats 4K streaming for picture quality
• Apple is reportedly expanding Apple Wallet IDs to four more states
• Samsung might be making a new foldable that's even wider than the Galaxy Z Fold 8
• ByteDance agrees to reel in its AI models to protect Hollywood IPs
• If you're ignoring iPhone focus modes, you're missing out on Apple's best productivity tool
• Uber aims for 1 million daily drone deliveries with Zipline partnership
• Is an iPhone 15 still worth your money in 2026?
• That Apple Screen Sharing bug has now been seen in the wild, so please update macOS
• GitHub was down for most of the day
• How to get the best audio out of your PC
• Meta faces a $1.4 trillion reckoning in latest trial over social media addiction
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