X, formerly Twitter, is significantly expanding its open-source codebase, including its "For You" algorithm and core ranking engine, and introducing a feature allowing users to see if their accounts or posts have been impacted by ranking systems. 👉techcrunch.com
Researchers have captured a detailed, step-by-step view of copper atoms undergoing extreme heating, revealing a key parameter that allows the metal's crystal lattice to melt steadily rather than collapse instantaneously, which is crucial for understanding materials for fusion power plants. 👉phys.org👉nature.com
Meta has patented a smart-glasses system that could use facial recognition to identify people and automatically create personalized highlight reels of events, offering a glimpse into Meta's exploration of AI-powered memory capture for wearable devices. 👉404media.co👉patentlyze.com
Automakers are increasingly betting on humanoid robots to drive a new wave of automation and efficiency, with these robots designed to move freely and perform tasks currently done by humans without factory modifications. 👉nytimes.com$
Anthropic is implementing text watermarking for its Claude AI models, a system that will indicate the likelihood of Claude's involvement, be sparse in code and factual text, and disappear after a full rewrite, though users are reportedly revolting. 👉anthropic.com👉gizmodo.com👉businessinsider.com$👉engadget.com👉techcrunch.com
Alibaba's open-weight AI models have accumulated over 3 billion global downloads in six months, surpassing Meta and Google, and Hugging Face reports that developers have created over 151,000 derivatives based on Qwen models, establishing it as a major foundation in the open AI ecosystem. 👉bloomberg.com$👉huggingface.co
Unitree's humanoid robots, known for their viral influencer accounts, have shipped over 5,500 units in 2025, with the company preparing for a China IPO, as they gain popularity for their relatively affordable price and ability to perform charming, crowd-pleasing tasks. 👉wired.com👉coindesk.com
A lawsuit alleges that xAI's Grok chatbot was used by a stepfather to transform a childhood photo of a woman into over 7,000 child sexual abuse material (CSAM) images that he traded online. 👉washingtonpost.com👉techcrunch.com
BlackBerry posted a positive cash position in Q1, its first in any fiscal year since 2017, driven by its QNX and Secusmart products, as the company focuses on car and security software after ceasing handset production. 👉ft.com$
Congressional lawmakers and aides are increasingly using AI tools for tasks like writing speeches and news releases, and sorting constituent mail, with little oversight, raising concerns about the unmonitored adoption of these technologies. 👉washingtonpost.com👉thehill.com👉futurism.com
Chinese citizens exhibit higher optimism about AI than Americans, viewing it as a practical tool that disrupts a smaller portion of their population, a sentiment attributed to differing experiences with past technological shifts. 👉bloomberg.com$👉digitimes.com👉morningstar.com
Fields Medalist Timothy Gowers notes that most famous mathematics problems solved by LLMs so far have been through counterexamples rather than proofs, highlighting a current limitation of AI in advanced mathematical reasoning. 👉gowers.wordpress.com👉ams.org
Startup Mercor and other firms gathering data for AI labs are driving demand for internal datasets from companies that are shutting down or being acquired, with one startup receiving an offer of up to $300,000 for its Slack messages and other proprietary data. 👉theinformation.com👉linkedin.com
Enterprise users spent a total of $300 million on quantum computing in 2025, surpassing the combined spending of research labs and governments for the first time, indicating a growing corporate interest in the technology. 👉wsj.com$👉pymnts.com👉utilitydive.com👉qz.com
China's tech-focused Star 50 index has seen a 29% rise in 2026 with a P/E ratio exceeding 150, surpassing the Nasdaq 100, driven by Beijing's tech initiatives and investor enthusiasm. 👉ft.com$👉finimize.com
Effective altruism is attracting record funding, with anticipated IPOs from Anthropic and OpenAI poised to create new millionaires focused on "effective giving," despite the movement's prior challenges stemming from the SBF turmoil. 👉ft.com$👉x.com👉x.com👉linkedin.com
China plans to lift travel bans on Manus founders and unwind its $2 billion acquisition by Meta, with CEO Xiao Hong intending to return to Singapore. 👉ft.com$
The U.S. plans to inform 35 partner countries that they will be excluded from the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative if they also join China's rival framework, intensifying the AI race and supply chain competition. 👉reuters.com👉neowin.net👉en.sedaily.com
OpenAI's executive reshuffles and departures are reportedly frustrating staff as the company prepares for an IPO, with its "preparedness" team having been disbanded in July. 👉ft.com$👉inc.com👉techstrong.ai👉cnbc.com
Uber and Pony.ai are planning to deploy 2,000 robotaxis in Europe, signifying a significant expansion of autonomous vehicle services in the region. 👉techcrunch.com
Thrive Capital's Joshua Kushner has criticized Silicon Valley VCs for their AI euphoria, suggesting a more cautious approach is needed amidst the rapid advancements and investments in artificial intelligence. 👉techcrunch.com
Thrive Holdings, backed by OpenAI, has raised $2 billion to focus on bringing AI solutions to enterprises, aiming to integrate AI into business operations and workflows. 👉techcrunch.com
Accel has closed an oversubscribed $550 million fund for India, marking its second India-focused fund within 19 months and highlighting continued investor confidence in the Indian tech market. 👉techcrunch.com
Climate / Environment:
Europe is experiencing its fifth round of dangerously high temperatures this summer, prompting climate scientists to investigate potential links between global warming and the increasing frequency and duration of heatwaves, with factors like Arctic warming and reduced air pollution being considered. 👉nytimes.com$👉journals.ametsoc.org
Europe's rivers are experiencing record low levels due to persistent heatwaves, severely disrupting commercial shipping with loads reduced by up to 80%, impacting supply chains and increasing costs. 👉cnn.com👉reuters.com
Romania has shut down its only nuclear power station due to critically low water levels in the Danube River, a consequence of the ongoing heatwaves and drought affecting the continent. 👉bbc.com
The drying Tiber River has revealed submerged e-bikes, scooters, refrigerators, and a car, alongside a bridge built in 39 AD by Emperor Caligula, which is now entirely visible, offering archaeologists a rare chance to study the ancient structure. 👉cnn.com
A dozen Nazi warships scuttled in the Danube River during World War II are now resurfacing due to plunging water levels, alongside other discoveries like a German military motorcycle in Hungary, an unexploded British bomb in Slovakia, and mammoth remains in Bulgaria. 👉cbc.ca👉euronews.com👉news.sky.com👉reuters.com
The European Union's Copernicus climate monitoring service confirmed that June and July were the hottest on record in western Europe, with an estimated 25,000 heat-related deaths recorded during this period. 👉cbc.ca👉latimes.com
Cybersecurity / Privacy:
A high-severity macOS vulnerability (CVE-2026-65400) that allows attackers to execute malicious code is under active exploitation, particularly when port 5900 is exposed to the internet, leading to root access and the deployment of Monero crypto miners. 👉arstechnica.com👉advisories.ncsc.nl👉xcancel.com👉blog.calif.io
Flock Safety is tightening controls on its nationwide license plate reader network, mandating automated auditing, case number linkage for searches, and a reduced seven-day data retention period to address privacy concerns and documented police misuse, though critics argue the changes are insufficient. 👉apnews.com👉yro.slashdot.org👉yro.slashdot.org
A "massive influx" of jellyfish forced Electricite de France SA to shut down three units at its Gravelines nuclear power plant and reduce output at a fourth, adding to existing cooling issues caused by high river temperatures. 👉fortune.com👉sciencealert.com👉politico.eu👉pml.ac.uk👉ctinsider.com👉reuters.com
The Plug and Pwn attack allows hackers to gain Windows SYSTEM access using fake USB devices, exploiting the trust placed in USB peripherals. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
Lazarus hackers have exploited a Windows zero-day vulnerability to target defense firms, allowing them to gain elevated privileges and potentially compromise sensitive systems. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
The FBI has warned of hackers targeting online accounts specifically to steal nude photos, highlighting a rise in this type of privacy violation. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
A new zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Defender, dubbed 'ShieldBreak', has been discovered that grants SYSTEM privileges, potentially allowing attackers to take full control of affected systems. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
A new Evooo1Bot Linux botnet is targeting internet-facing gateway devices, turning them into traffic relay nodes by exploiting vulnerabilities and turning routers into proxy servers. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
Hackers are actively exploiting a critical SAP Commerce Cloud vulnerability (CVE-2026-58231), which allows for remote code execution and compromise of internal components, just days after a patch was released. 👉thehackernews.com
A critical vulnerability in Apple macOS's Screen Sharing feature (CVE-2026-65400) is being exploited in the wild to deploy Monero cryptocurrency miners, particularly on internet-exposed Macs. 👉thehackernews.com👉arstechnica.com
Threat actors are spending nearly $7 million on expired domains to redirect traffic to scams and malware, a practice known as "dropcatch," by re-registering domains to inherit their reputation and redirect unsuspecting users. 👉thehackernews.com
Mustang Panda, a threat actor group, has been observed deploying an updated CoolClient backdoor that includes a signed Windows kernel-mode rootkit designed to hide malicious processes and C2 communications. 👉thehackernews.com
A technique using Chrome DevTools allows for authenticated session hijacking in live Windows browser sessions by manipulating the Chrome Remote Debugging protocol, assuming prior code execution on the host. 👉thehackernews.com
A large-scale recruitment phishing campaign, identified by CTM360, is using fake interview scheduling pages and Browser-in-the-Browser (BitB) techniques to steal Google and Facebook credentials and relay MFA prompts. 👉thehackernews.com
Apple has sent threat notifications to users in 110 countries, warning them of potential targeting by mercenary spyware, which are sophisticated attacks typically aimed at journalists, activists, and politicians. 👉thehackernews.com👉techcrunch.com
A new zero-day vulnerability in GeoServer is being actively exploited, allowing remote code execution (RCE) through an SQL injection flaw in the open-source platform. 👉thehackernews.com
A new PATCHCORD backdoor has been identified targeting Afghan telecom providers and Indian critical infrastructure, delivered through lures impersonating Afghan Telecom and Go-based malware using Google Sheets for C2 communication. 👉thehackernews.com
AmnesiaStealer, a new Rust-based information stealer for macOS, can hijack Chromium browser sessions to steal data by exploiting the Chrome DevTools Protocol, requiring prior code execution on the target system. 👉thehackernews.com
WindRelay, a new Android malware, is being used in conjunction with the SpyNote RAT to turn victims' phones into NFC relays for real-time payment fraud by capturing and transmitting live card data. 👉thehackernews.com
A data breach affecting nearly 14,000 Trezor customers has been disclosed, stemming from a hack of ShipMonk, the company's shipping and logistics provider. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
A critical VMware vCenter Syslog Server vulnerability (CVE-2026-59310) is being actively exploited to deploy a reverse SSH tool, enabling persistence and remote access for attackers. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
Microsoft has released updates to fix a zero-day vulnerability in its LegacyHive component of Windows, which had been publicly disclosed and potentially exploitable. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
AI "watermark removers" are flooding the web, with many claiming to bypass Anthropic's new Claude watermarking system, though their effectiveness remains unverified as Anthropic has not released a detection tool. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
Shell is investigating a potential security incident after the Clop ransomware gang claimed to have stolen 89GB of data from the company. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
A data analyst has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing data and extorting his former employer, Brightly Software, in a scheme valued at $2.5 million. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
Ukraine authorities have shut down 94 fraudulent call centers involved in investment scams and attempting to access bank accounts, seizing millions in cash. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
The Akira ransomware group has been observed disabling EDR solutions by restarting systems into Safe Mode, allowing them to steal data, though they failed to encrypt the target system in a recent incident. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
The Jewelbug hacker group, linked to China, is conducting cyber espionage against governments and militaries while also engaging in cryptocurrency fraud using a single control panel called XG-Web. 👉thehackernews.com
A new NatJack attack technique can hijack TCP sessions and spoof DNS by manipulating NAT tables, posing a risk to network security. 👉thehackernews.com
An 18-year-old Linux SCTP flaw could potentially allow local users to gain root privileges and escape containers, posing a significant security risk. 👉thehackernews.com
A new Zapscape KVM flaw might allow privileged L1 guest code to escape to Linux hosts, potentially compromising system security. 👉thehackernews.com
A critical Gitea flaw enables unauthenticated attackers to read server files through Org-mode markup, posing a serious security risk. 👉thehackernews.com
A new cPanel critical flaw could allow hosting customers to run SQL queries as the database root user, potentially leading to unauthorized data access and manipulation. 👉thehackernews.com
The Keyv-linked npm worm has poisoned hundreds of packages, embedding Claude code and VS Code hooks, indicating a sophisticated supply chain attack. 👉thehackernews.com
Over 250 ClickFix domains are reportedly using browser fingerprinting to disguise macOS malware lures, making detection and mitigation more challenging. 👉thehackernews.com
Atlassian Rovo has a flaw that could be exploited to trick it into sending Jira and Confluence data to attackers, compromising sensitive project information. 👉thehackernews.com
Researchers have reported 84 vulnerabilities in 4G and 5G core networks, including a critical session hijacking flaw, highlighting significant security risks in mobile communication infrastructure. 👉thehackernews.com
Apple is sending new "Threat Notification" alerts to users in 110 countries, warning them of potential mercenary spyware attacks, which are highly sophisticated and globally targeted threats. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
A former data analyst contractor for Brightly Software has been sentenced to prison for stealing data and extorting his employer. 👉bleepingcomputer.com
Economy / Business:
Larry Ellison, formerly the world's second-richest man, has dropped to eighth place, falling behind Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, with Oracle's stock plunge contributing to a significant decline in his net worth. 👉forbes.com$
Oracle's market valuation has dropped by $443 billion since its peak, as investors express concerns over the company's substantial capital expenditures and financial risks associated with its AI infrastructure business. 👉forbes.com$
Microsoft reportedly plans to increase the cost of Windows licenses for manufacturers by up to 10%, a move that could lead to a roughly 5% price hike for PC buyers in the coming quarter due to existing component cost pressures. 👉cnet.com👉windowscentral.com👉windowslatest.com👉money.udn.com
A former OpenAI technical employee described a grueling work culture with frequent crisis meetings and weekend work, contradicting OpenAI's suggestion for companies to test a four-day work week, as AI is expected to speed up labor. 👉bbc.com👉bbc.com
New research suggests AI tools may be increasing workloads by making employees work at a faster pace, take on more tasks, and extend working hours, partly due to the need to constantly check AI output. 👉hbr.org
Uber and Rapido reportedly held merger talks for their India ride-hailing operations in May, but the discussions collapsed due to disagreements over the proposed deal's structure. 👉economictimes.indiatimes.com
Uber Freight is reportedly investigating a potential data breach after a hacking group claimed to have accessed the company's systems. 👉techcrunch.com
Geopolitics / Society:
Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word open letter titled "The Future is for Everyone," echoing sentiments from other tech leaders who view AI as a historically significant technology, though his company Meta has simultaneously undergone significant layoffs focused on AI. 👉meta.com👉bbc.com👉imf.org👉ia.samaltman.com👉darioamodei.com
Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, aged 41, was found dead in London amidst allegations of plagiarism and questions about his academic record; his death is being treated as unexpected but not suspicious. 👉bbc.com👉goodlawproject.org👉slashdot.org
A federal lawsuit alleges that xAI's Grok chatbot was used by a stepfather to transform a childhood photo into over 7,000 CSAM images, raising serious concerns about the misuse of AI technology and the potential for creating illegal content. 👉washingtonpost.com👉techcrunch.com
The U.S. plans to exclude 35 partner countries from the Pax Silica initiative if they also join China's rival framework, intensifying the global competition for AI dominance and supply chain control. 👉reuters.com👉neowin.net👉en.sedaily.com
Health / Science:
Researchers are studying the behavior of copper under extreme heating conditions to inform the development of future fusion power plants, with new insights into its melting process aiding in the simulation of material performance in extreme environments. 👉phys.org👉nature.com
Legal / Regulatory:
Flock Safety is implementing stricter controls on its license plate reader network, requiring audits and case number linkage, but critics argue these changes do not adequately address surveillance concerns or police misuse. 👉apnews.com👉yro.slashdot.org👉yro.slashdot.org
Apple is proposing to charge a 15% commission on purchases made outside its App Store, a move that could significantly impact developers and the digital economy, while also facing scrutiny over its AI watermarking practices. 👉techcrunch.com👉techcrunch.com
The U.S. is urging partner countries to align with its AI initiatives, particularly the Pax Silica framework, and warns that joining China's competing framework could lead to exclusion from U.S. supply chains and technological collaborations. 👉reuters.com👉neowin.net👉en.sedaily.com
U.S. courts will begin publishing data on how often the government uses spyware, a move aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in government surveillance practices. 👉techcrunch.com
Flock Safety claims its new tool will help identify police abuse within its license plate reader network, but has yet to explain how the tool functions or verify its effectiveness. 👉techcrunch.com