Alvaro Lopez Ortega / 2026-09-02 Briefing

Created Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:16:33 +0000 Modified Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:11:25 +0000
6666 Words

Security researchers listed 10 Downing Street on Booking.com, exposing flaws and taking real bookings. Milo Yiannopoulos said ICE detention left him ’terrified’ and regretting support for Trump. NATO fears France’s next president could undermine the alliance as hardline support grows. Chemogenetics reached early human trials in China for pain and Parkinson’s. AI coding harness evaluations showed costs varying 17x.

🤖 AI & Machine Learning

Mushroom hunting with LLMs: what can go wrong?

The article evaluates AI mushroom identification using smartphone photos and the expert-verified FungiTastic dataset, testing species from Polish edible lists against deadly mushroom species. It highlights 55 species with reliable labels, including Tricholoma equestre, which appears on both lists and illustrates contradictions in edibility classifications.

FrontierHarness Eval – 9 harness, same model, cost per pass varies 17x

An evaluation of nine AI coding harnesses found that cost per successful task varies by up to 17x, with excluding failed attempts inflating cost figures and cache hits not guaranteeing efficiency. Claude Code passed many tasks but at a high cost per task, while tools such as Codex, DeepSeek, and OpenCode were also tested. The results are based on the Runta evaluation environment for software engineering and terminal-based tasks.

Google launches Gemini 3.8 Flash

Google released Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash update in three months, with enhanced software engineering, agentic, and multi-step reasoning abilities, priced at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens until December 31. The company also introduced Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber for trusted testers, specializing in autonomous vulnerability discovery, with technical details and safety documentation available in official model cards.

Three sites made 215,128 “best software” pages for AI. Perplexity cites them

A test of two Perplexity models across 380 software categories found that 59.8% of 7,534 citations came from domains outside the 100,000 most-visited sites, and 23.4% from outside the top million. Several highly cited sources were machine-generated “best software” pages—three sites under common control published 215,128 such pages, none existing before December 2023—including guideflow.com, a demo vendor’s blog that was the third-most-cited domain.

A third of Perplexity’s citations don’t contain the number they’re cited for

An audit of 310 factual questions found that 34.7% of Perplexity’s citations attached to sentences containing figures pointed to pages that were inaccessible or did not contain any of those numbers; scored per claim, 14.4% of 872 claims failed. The failures were mostly due to paywalled or bot-blocked pages rather than dead links, with only 1.3% of cited URLs dead.

LLMs: Intelligence vs. Cost

The author criticizes ArtificialAnalysis’s Intelligence vs. cost plot for using a logarithmic cost axis, official API pricing that overstates costs for open-weights models, and datacenter pricing for local models. They present corrected plots using a linear cost scale, competitive OpenRouter pricing for open-weights models, and electricity costs for small local models to better reflect real-world value.

B200 Attention Kernel from Scratch to Near-SOTA in 60 Diagrams

A visual, beginner-friendly blog walks through building a dense B200 attention kernel from scratch in CUDA/PTX, using 60 diagrams across a 14-kernel progression to reach 94.4% of FlashAttention-4 performance on 4K, 8K, and 16K sequence lengths. It adds one optimization at a time with full code available, and culminates by integrating the final kernel into a video-generation model.

Check if a file was made with Claude

This tool detects whether a file such as a PNG, JPG, or SVG contains a C2PA content credential indicating it was made or processed with Claude. It only reads embedded metadata, never uploads or stores the file, and does not detect text watermarks. The credential follows an open industry standard and contains no user-identifying information.

LLM Judges Verify Presence, Not Absence: Omission Blindness in AI Clinical Notes

LLM judges evaluating AI-generated clinical notes reliably detect added or altered content but largely fail to flag omitted information, performing near chance on omissions. Restructuring the evaluation—listing transcript facts and checking each against the note—markedly improves omission detection, though omissions whose facts appear elsewhere still evade detection. The authors release their benchmark, prompts, and judgments.

When Claude Code went rogue, years of Bengaluru heritage work disappeared

A rogue AI tool called Claude Code erased years of Bengaluru heritage documentation, prompting the Mythic Society to spend Rs 15 lakh on stronger backup systems for the project it began in 2021.

Qwen3.8-Max

Qwen3.8-Max-0902 is an upgraded version of Qwen3.8-Max, delivering improved coding for complex engineering projects, stronger multi-tool agent orchestration, and more reliable native vision understanding. It retains the 1M context window, thinking mode, and full tool ecosystem while operating at a higher level of intelligence.

The Emergent Symbolic Structure of Artificial Neural Networks

The paper proposes that neural networks implicitly encode symbolic structure, despite using continuous vector representations. The authors show that vector representations across various networks, including LLMs in arithmetic, logic, code, and language, can be closely approximated by closed-form symbolic equations. This approximation enables targeted interventions on LLM behavior, indicating the networks rely on the identified symbolic structures.

Bye Bye Perspective API: Lessons for Measurement Infrastructure in NLP, CSS and LLM Evaluation

The impending closure of the Perspective API exposes how heavily NLP research has relied on external toxicity tools they did not control, resulting in overclaimed findings, unstable results from silent model updates, and unexplained disparities across 241 surveyed papers. The authors argue the field must build and govern its own measurement infrastructure, releasing 5.9 million Perspective scores from 77 datasets and proposing ten requirements to guide such efforts.

Microsoft will stop finishing your sentences in Word and Outlook

Microsoft is ending automatic sentence completion in Word and Outlook, but predictive text will still be available if users manually invoke it. The change moves the feature from an always-on suggestion to an opt-in action.

🔐 Security & Privacy

White hat hackers list UK PM’s residence on Booking.com; people try to book it

White hat researchers from Which? listed 10 Downing Street on Booking.com to demonstrate security flaws, drawing at least 14 booking inquiries within 20 minutes and having a real payment processed. A fake 10/10 review appeared immediately, and the listing remained live for six weeks despite notifications. Booking.com disputed the test’s relevance, citing its existing checks and fraud controls.

GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

GrapheneOS has reversed its earlier stance, confirming that the Pixel 11 does include Memory Tagging Extensions (MTE) support. The clarification indicates the hardware security feature is present on the device. This corrects previous misinformation about the Pixel 11 lacking MTE.

Mistral now trains on user input by default, except on enterprise tier

Mistral includes user input and output data in model training by default, except for Vibe Enterprise customers, who are opted out unless admins enable it. Users can opt out through service-specific controls: disable the training toggle in Vibe’s Admin panel or mobile app settings, and disable the separate “Anonymous improvement data” toggle for Studio and API services. These opt-out toggles are independent, so each service must be configured individually.

Swiss E-ID: Justice Minister Jans prevents secret Amazon deal

Justice Minister Beat Jans blocked a last-minute plan by Swiss authorities to outsource core e-ID trust infrastructure to Amazon Web Services, citing digital sovereignty and legal risks under US laws like the Cloud Act. The secret proposal drew sharp political criticism, and the e-ID launch has been postponed to the first half of 2027.

Firefox’s AI Switch Is Off. Telemetry Isn’t

Firefox’s AI kill switch disables generative features but leaves telemetry and advertising untouched, drawing criticism that Mozilla should broaden it or add a separate switch. Mozilla’s CEO later acknowledged the backlash, calling the ability to turn AI off “the most important AI feature,” while noting that few users actually disabled it. The article defends its earlier testing and describes Mozilla’s response as self-critical but strategically savvy.

SonicWall’s SMA1000 boxes under active attack again

SonicWall’s SMA1000 appliances are under active attack again, with miscreants exploiting chained zero-day vulnerabilities. According to third-party security operations centers, further attacks are “almost certain.”

🛠️ Software & Developer Tools

Tangle – Visual ML Pipeline Editor

Tangle is an open-source, platform-agnostic visual editor for building ML pipelines using drag-and-drop, with support for any language or framework via containers. It enables collaboration through cloning and editing pipelines, and features content-based caching to cut compute costs by reusing intermediate results. The platform is available on GitHub with example pipelines and documentation.

How to debloat your Xiaomi 15 Ultra without root access

This guide explains how to debloat a Xiaomi 15 Ultra without rooting by locking the device to Android 16, performing a factory reset, and disabling privacy-invasive options during setup. It also instructs updating to HyperOS version 3.0.309.0 for camera fixes and removing Chinese bloatware via force stopping, data clearing, and network restrictions. The guide warns that it is intended for experienced users and disclaims responsibility for any damage.

Aura – a Rust agent that investigates and fixes production incidents

A team has open-sourced AURA, a Rust-based incident-response agent designed to handle large telemetry volumes and multi-domain investigations. It uses scoped worker agents, deterministic tool permission enforcement, and human-in-the-loop remediation to avoid context overflow and hallucinations, and reportedly achieves good root-cause accuracy even on open-weights models. The Apache 2.0 project is available as native packages or from GitHub.

Poisson Disk Sampling

A short news piece highlights Robert Bridson’s 2007 one-page Poisson disk sampling algorithm as a simple, widely cited contrast to a massive 2024 geometric Langlands proof. It explains how Bridson’s grid-based method efficiently places random points with a minimum separation, avoiding rejection-rate problems, then notes improvements that reduce iterations by using parent-child geometry to skip angle ranges in two dimensions.

HomeOS – A self-hosted family dashboard for a kitchen touchscreen

HomeOS is a self-hosted family operating system designed for a kitchen touchscreen, handling tasks, shopping lists, notes, prayer times, and birthdays on one shared display. It pairs a React/TypeScript frontend with a Python FastAPI and SQLite backend, runs via Docker, and targets a Linux Mini PC with a touchscreen.

Using jq to format JSON on the clipboard

The article shares a tip for using jq to pretty-print JSON from the system clipboard via shell aliases on macOS and Linux. It identifies a flaw where invalid JSON causes jq to fail and the pipeline erases the clipboard, then offers a fix that adds error handling to restore the original content if parsing fails.

It’s OK to hardcode feature flags (2025)

Hardcoded feature flags—like a JSON file read at startup—are simpler, safer, and sufficient for most teams, while feature flag management software adds unnecessary complexity, risk, and non-deterministic behavior. Advanced runtime-change systems should only be considered when genuinely needed at scale.

Mac App Store Apps Can Now Drop Support for Intel Macs

Apple now lets Mac App Store apps that require macOS 13 or later drop support for Intel Macs, simplifying development and reducing app size. Intel Mac users will keep the last compatible version but receive no further updates, and the change comes as macOS Tahoe becomes the final Intel-compatible release and Apple phases out Rosetta 2.

Adobe launches Adobe for Slack, providing 70+ creative and productivity tools via Slackbot prompts

Adobe has launched an integration with Slack, making over 70 creative and productivity tools—including Firefly, Photoshop, and Express—available through Slackbot prompts, which can use conversation context to generate PDFs, images, and videos. The integration is initially available for Slack Business+ and Enterprise+ teams, following Adobe’s similar partnership with ChatGPT to bring creative capabilities into conversational workplace platforms.

Static Allocation, Constant Work

Type-segregated object pools prevent type confusion from use-after-free by keeping memory aliasing within the same type, though logical errors remain deterministic. The article advocates static allocation with a fixed maximum capacity at startup, rejecting surplus requests to avoid catastrophic failures under overload and ensure graceful service degradation.

Dependent if expressions without dependent types

The article presents a trick for simulating dependent if expressions—where the then and else branches can have different types—without requiring dependent types. Using Church-encoded booleans and Haskell’s RebindableSyntax extension, the author shows how ordinary if/then/else code like example bool = if bool then 5 else "hi!" can type-check and return either an Int or String depending on the condition.

Revisiting Joel’s Test - exe.dev blog

The article updates Joel Spolsky’s classic “Joel Test” for modern software teams, introducing a new “Shelley Test” with nine questions tailored to AI coding agents. It highlights practices such as agentic code review, LLM-supervised continuous deployment, reliable integration tests, observable systems, and easy access to tools and models for both developers and agents.

Implementing FMA and finding bugs in C and Rust standard libraries

The author implemented a vectorized software emulation of fused multiply-add (FMA) for SIMD, motivated by Intel CPUs lacking hardware FMA. Their initial translation of a formally verified algorithm mishandled subnormal values, which was discovered through a community test case. After fixing that, tests still failed on older systems, indicating additional compatibility issues.

TinyGo 0.42 - Recover Is Real

TinyGo 0.42 adds Go 1.27 and LLVM 22 support, and closes a long-standing gap by making runtime panics recoverable via defer/recover. It also introduces a minimal UEFI target, expands ESP32 and STM32 support, and improves USB and testing functionality.

New things for regular expressions in PostgreSQL (pg_tre and pg_re2)

In a test on a 1.6-million-row PostgreSQL table, a sequential regex search took about 41 seconds, while a pg_trgm GIN index cut query time to roughly 1.6 seconds but required about 17 minutes and 1.7 GB to build. The newer pg_tre index was far heavier, taking over 7 hours and 21 GB to build.

Read your own writes, off the primary

PostgreSQL 19 introduces a WAIT FOR LSN command that lets standby databases block until a specified WAL position is replayed, ensuring reads reflect recent writes. This directly addresses replica lag, which causes newly saved changes to briefly disappear in fast frontend apps, and offers an alternative to workarounds like primary pinning or Redis flags. The article also examines what causes replay lag and measures the command’s effectiveness against older strategies.

Bluefin is a capability system

Tom Ellis announced that he will now describe his Haskell library Bluefin primarily as a “capability system” rather than an “effect system,” although it can still provide traditional effect system benefits. Unlike effectful, Bluefin indicates effects via value-level arguments instead of type-level constraints, which Ellis says aligns with the capability model of handles granting access authority. He argues that effect systems can be viewed as capability systems and that capabilities are not limited to security contexts.

Firefox and Thunderbird hit the fortnightly release treadmill

Firefox and Thunderbird are moving to a faster release cadence, with updates now coming more frequently. Mozilla advises users who find the pace overwhelming to switch to the Extended Support Release (ESR) channel rather than disabling automatic updates.

Offshoots of cancelled TrueNAS Core upgrade to FreeBSD 15

The cancelled TrueNAS Core upgrade to FreeBSD 15 has spawned offshoot projects, with zVault bowing out while FreeCORE and BSDnas step in to carry the torch forward.

💻 Hardware & Infrastructure

How Railroad Crossings Work

Railroad crossings rely on extensive safety infrastructure because trains have stopping distances over a mile, so they always have the right-of-way at grade crossings. Warning systems combine passive devices like crossbucks and active signals such as flashing lights, bells, and gates, which use track circuits to detect approaching trains. These technologies give motorists enough warning to clear the tracks before a train arrives.

ZSvirt – A lightweight, scalable open source virtualization platform

ZSvirt is an open-source virtualization platform built on ZStack’s ZSphere engine, offering lightweight and scalable management of VMs, clusters, storage, and networks through a web UI, API, or CLI. It includes built-in VMware migration tools and can be tested without physical hardware by booting its provided qcow2 or OVA images in a VM.

The Cables That Connect the World

The internet depends on about 1.5 million kilometers of privately owned submarine fiber-optic cables, not satellites, which land at unremarkable coastal sites like a Spanish beach. These cables are heavily armored—roughly the thickness of a garden hose with layers of steel and a copper conductor—to survive harsh ocean conditions.

Why humanoid robots won’t catch up to human workers any time soon

Despite flashy humanoid robot demonstrations—serving drinks, dancing, and outrunning humans—robotics experts caution that these feats are misleading. Picking up a simple object like a can, achieving broad generalization, and ensuring long-term reliability and safety remain major unsolved challenges. Consequently, it will likely take many years or decades before robots can replace humans in most jobs.

9000 RPM is faster than your screen refreshes

An engine spinning at 9000 RPM makes 150 revolutions per second, outpacing a laptop screen’s refresh rate, so the author created an interactive animation of four engine layouts with realistic piston motion. Users can rev it to redline or slow time to 1/50x to observe each piston individually. The piece celebrates combustion engines as remarkable technology.

Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

The Commodore 64 launched on September 1, 1982, as the first computer with 64 kilobytes of memory priced under $600. It became the best-selling computer of its era, with total sales around 10.6 to 12.3 million units, sustained by its blend of color graphics, sprite support, and three-voice sound. Despite initial production issues and slow disk drives, strong demand kept it selling into the early 1990s.

WebFPGA (2019)

WebFPGA is a 2019 project that offers FPGA boards programmable through its Web IDE, with purchasing details provided on its Kickstarter page and support available via email.

Acer unveils Swift Blade 14 (1.76 lbs, Intel Wildcat Lake) and Swift Air 16, out in December

Acer announced the Swift Blade 14, an ultralight laptop weighing 1.76 pounds and measuring 0.51 inches thin, featuring Intel Wildcat Lake processors and carbon fiber construction. The company also unveiled the larger Swift Air 16, offering similar chips, OLED options, and up to 16GB of RAM; both laptops are slated for release starting in December.

Acer unveils 4th-gen Vero 16: user-replaceable batteries/SSDs, removable bottom covers and hinges

At IFA 2026, Acer unveiled the fourth-generation Vero 16, a repairable budget laptop with removable bottom cover, hinges, and I/O port covers, plus user-swappable batteries and SSDs, and support for future processor upgrades. The laptop features OLED screens at 2.8K or 2K resolutions, with an optional touchscreen on the lower-res model, and an engraved repair guide to help owners. Acer also announced that two new lightweight Swift laptops are debuting at the show.

Acer unveils Predator Atlas 7 (7" handheld, Arc G3, Nov) and Project DualPlay Mini (8" concept)

Acer announced the Predator Atlas 7, a 7-inch handheld gaming device with flagship specs like an Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor, a 120Hz display, and up to an 80Wh battery, designed for better ergonomics. No price was revealed, but it launches in EMEA starting in November and in North America in Q4 2026. Acer also showcased the 8-inch Project DualPlay Mini concept at IFA.

Dell unveils student-focused 14S with Intel Wildcat Lake, 8GB RAM, 256GB, to rival MacBook Neo

Dell announced the student-focused Dell 14S laptop at IFA 2026, featuring an aluminum build, Intel Wildcat Lake chips, and up to 23 hours of battery life. It comes in four colors with a starting configuration of 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, positioning it as a more affordable alternative to the XPS 13. Pricing has not been announced yet, but Dell says it will be close to the XPS 13’s $700 starting price.

Next-gen AI networks may hinge on the telephone switchboard’s return

Photonics startups like iPronics are attracting hundreds of millions in funding to develop optical circuit switches that are faster, denser, and cheaper. These advances could play a key role in next-generation AI networks, reviving the concept of the telephone switchboard.

A cloud engineer walked into a bar and – no joke – ended up having to migrate a datacenter

A cloud engineer’s casual trip to a bar unexpectedly turned into a full datacenter migration. The effort was hampered by a minimal budget, shipping delays from FedEx, and the inevitable DNS problems.

London Tube closes the 5G gap with streets above

London’s Tube network now provides better mobile connectivity than the streets above, with underground 5G signal speeds surpassing the citywide average, according to Ookla. The achievement marks a significant step in closing the digital gap for commuters.

Arm in the enterprise is at least three years away, says Broadcom software boss

Broadcom’s software chief said Arm adoption in the enterprise is still at least three years off. The executive also downplayed RISC-V, saying it is “absolutely nowhere” in the market.

Tape still isn’t dead, but shipments slipped by 16 exabytes in 2025

Tape storage shipments fell by 16 exabytes in 2025, a notable decline for the medium. The LTO program maintains this is a temporary glitch rather than a sign that tape technology is terminal.

🔬 Science, Health & Space

The race to engineer new knobs for the human brain

Chemogenetics, which uses engineered receptors to let inert drugs remotely control specific neurons, has moved into early human clinical trials in China, with seven trials targeting pain, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy. The technique offers a potentially more targeted approach than current treatments for conditions like refractory epilepsy, though the trials are still preliminary.

It turns out that Orion’s much-maligned heat shield performed well

The Artemis II heat shield performed well during reentry, showing only about nine char loss sites compared to over 100 on Artemis I. NASA’s safety panel reviewed the extensive data and described the heat shield’s condition as “highly satisfying,” boosting confidence for future lunar missions.

Aging Brains Blend Memories Together Instead of Just Forgetting Them

A brain-imaging study found that older adults’ memory errors involve blending distinct memories, not just forgetting: while younger adults’ hippocampal activity predicted accurate recall, in older adults the same overlap predicted cross-category mistakes like confusing a scene with an object. This suggests aging brains retrieve too broadly, stitching unrelated experiences into false connections, rather than simply holding memories more weakly.

Why are there no flow batteries with symmetric ferrocyanide electrolytes?

Ferrocyanide/ferricyanide is common in asymmetric flow batteries due to its stability and kinetics, but it cannot be used in symmetric systems because it decomposes under strong reducing potentials, releasing free cyanide and iron that form precipitates. It also forms insoluble Prussian blue with heavy metal cations, and even chelating strategies fail because the decomposition is irreversible and damaging. This instability outside its narrow redox range makes symmetric ferrocyanide flow batteries economically unviable and unsafe.

NASA’s Swift shortens orbital lifetime for the sake of science

NASA’s Swift satellite will shorten its orbital lifetime to enable more scientific observations, with its instruments reactivated for a final campaign before reentry. The mission is deliberately lowering its orbit to gather additional data as it ends.

🏛️ Business, Policy & Society

Milo Yiannopoulos was ’terrified’ by the ‘brutality’ of his ICE deportation

Milo Yiannopoulos told Piers Morgan he was “really, really terrified” and physically degraded during his ICE detention and deportation to the UK after overstaying his visa. The far-right provocateur said he was ashamed of supporting Trump and expressed newfound compassion for those affected by ICE operations.

NATO’s next nightmare: The French presidential election

NATO is concerned that France’s next president could undermine the alliance, as recent polls indicate about half of French voters back hardline candidates opposed to it. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen proposes leaving NATO’s integrated command, while far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon advocates for a full withdrawal from the alliance.

Solar Power Is Booming in Emerging Markets

Solar power is expanding rapidly but unevenly, with Europe lagging due to grid congestion and insufficient storage while Romania and poorer countries such as Pakistan, Brazil, Kenya, and Namibia lead by adopting solar-plus-battery systems early. These systems provide cheap, reliable power and are driven by economics and energy security rather than climate policy alone. Solar is now the cheapest energy source, offering a clear path to energy autonomy.

Exit the Cave

The article argues that excessive private “grinding” in isolation creates a comfortable bubble that fosters delusions about guaranteed success, while shielding people from reality. Using his own wrestling failures, the author illustrates that intense effort and controlled inputs do not ensure outcomes. Real progress, he contends, requires stepping outside the Cave to face the unpredictable, external world.

LWN Adjusts Subscription Prices

LWN is raising subscription prices by about 20% due to inflation since its last increase in 2022, with new monthly rates ranging from $6 to $55. The increase is driven by stalled subscriber growth and rising costs, as the publication relies on reader support. Existing subscriptions remain valid, and active monthly subscribers will keep the old rate for six more months.

Dutch central bank moves share of gold from U.S., Canada to London

The Dutch central bank relocated 86,000 kilograms of gold worth over €10 billion from the U.S. and Canada to London, citing geopolitical instability and a need to improve crisis readiness. The move shifts reserves to the Bank of England for easier liquidation in emergencies, while also selling some New York-held gold and purchasing an equivalent amount in London to adjust the reserve’s distribution.

Uber cuts jobs, exits Nigeria, Uganda

Uber is cutting about 10% of its global workforce (~3,300 jobs) to flatten management and refocus on ride-sharing, delivery, and robotaxis. Additionally, the company will cease operations in Nigeria and Uganda on September 2, though it remains committed to other sub-Saharan African markets.

Banca Etica Suspends A/I’s Account While Condemning the Sanctions Behind It

Banca Etica has suspended the account of A/I due to sanctions, which the bank simultaneously condemned. The bank criticized the measures that forced its hand while proceeding with the suspension.

Sweden pauses Denmark power cable over EU grid rules

Sweden has paused the planned Konti-Skan Connect electricity cable to Denmark amid an EU dispute over rules limiting how Sweden can use congestion revenues from grid bottlenecks. Stockholm wants flexibility to spend these funds on domestic power production and consumer support, not only cross-border grid investments. The move marks a sharper phase in Sweden’s confrontation with the EU over electricity market rules.

Mayor says ’large chunks’ of Wellington council Deloitte report written by AI

Wellington mayor Andrew Little said large portions of a $435,000 Deloitte report on council staffing were written by AI, further undermining its credibility. The report, which claimed 330 excess staff, contained errors including double-counting employees and using outdated data, though Deloitte has defended its findings.

Enough! Open Letter from Jewish Pros in Defense of Mark Ruffalo [on Ellison]

Jewish artists and thinkers signed an open letter defending Mark Ruffalo against accusations of antisemitism, calling the charge a “false and dangerous weaponization.” The letter condemns the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger, linking its backers, Larry Ellison and his son, to support for Israel’s actions in Gaza and AI-driven surveillance. It asserts that criticizing Israel and highlighting these corporate connections is not antisemitic.

Emily Wilson to retranslate the Odyssey from scratch

Emily Wilson is retranslating Homer’s Odyssey from scratch, less than a decade after her acclaimed 2017 version, and is about halfway through using an approach closer to her Iliad translation with more lines and quadrupled endnotes. The announcement follows her controversial criticism of Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation, which she called “abysmal.”

Aviation Herald sued; editor forced to sell home of 40y and move into his office

The Aviation Herald and editor Simon Hradecky were sued by Slovak airline Go2Sky for defamation after initially reporting an engine problem on a June 2025 flight, which they corrected to a stab trim issue within a day. Go2Sky sought €15,000 in damages and an injunction, while Hradecky apologized for the inaccurate headline and noted it was the outlet’s first lawsuit since 2008.

True Rate of Unemployment

The True Rate of Unemployment is a metric using federal data that measures the percentage of U.S. workers who are jobless, lack full-time work, or earn below a living wage of about $26,000 annually. It was created by LISEP to provide policymakers with a more accurate measure of Americans’ financial well-being than standard economic indicators.

‘Idiocracy’ Predicted All of This

The article argues that Mike Judge’s 2006 film “Idiocracy” has proven eerily prescient, with its satirical depiction of corporate greed, environmental collapse, and societal stupidity now mirroring real-life 2026 concerns. It highlights the film’s plot and its initial poor marketing, which later became a cult hit, and notes how current events have made viewers see it as less comedy and more documentary.

X: US payouts for Original Content Rewards and Subscriptions now via X Money

X announced that all U.S. creator payouts, including those from its Original Content Rewards program and subscriptions, will now be processed through its X Money payments service. The new system offers instant payments with no minimum threshold, but creators are required to use X Money instead of the previous Stripe-based method, while non-U.S. creators remain on Stripe.

Cancer care navigation platform Thyme Care raises $125M Series E at $2B+ valuation, up from $1B+

Thyme Care, a virtual oncology navigation platform, raised $125 million in Series E funding at a valuation exceeding $2 billion, nearly double its prior valuation. The company is forming a new parent entity, Thyme Companies, to address broader cancer care gaps, initially focusing on lowering drug costs through biosimilars and improving clinical trial access.

Lutnick: We trust Anthropic, they’re back on right side, did what we asked

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expressed confidence in Anthropic, stating the company is “back on the right side” with the administration and has complied with its requests. His remarks signal a thaw in relations between the AI firm and the current administration.

US Army awards $192M to Palantir, Anduril for 8 TITAN AI mobile ground stations in 18 months

The US Army awarded Palantir ($127M) and Anduril ($65M) contracts totaling $192M to produce eight TITAN AI-powered mobile ground stations—four Advanced and four Basic variants—over the next 18 months. TITAN is an AI-enabled sensor-fusion and targeting hub for long-range precision fires, and these production units will expand the Army’s initial operational fleet to at least 17. The program reached production just five years after design began, with more orders expected in fiscal year 2027.

MrBeast, 500M YouTube subs, to put Google’s Gemini, Health, Fitbit Air in videos in multiyear deal

MrBeast will feature Google’s Gemini, Google Health, and the Fitbit Air in his videos as part of a new multiyear partnership with Google. The deal kicks off on September 5 with a video where he and his crew use Gemini to survive extreme wilderness environments. This comes after his YouTube channel became the first to reach 500 million subscribers.

US judge rules Google needn’t sell ad exchange, must make ad tech work with rivals

A federal judge ruled that Google does not have to sell its ad exchange but must make its ad tech tools interoperable with rivals, rejecting the Justice Department’s breakup bid. The decision, issued under seal, orders unspecified behavioral changes, with a redacted version to be released later this month.

Wonderful, an AI deployment firm, raised $550M Series C at $5B led by Insight; $170M for employees.

Wonderful, an AI deployment startup for large enterprises, raised $550 million in a Series C led by Insight Partners at a $5 billion valuation, with Salesforce joining as the only new investor. The funding will support a worldwide hiring expansion, while investors also paid $170 million to buy shares from employees.

Pew: 53% of US adults spend too much smartphone time; 70% of ages 18-29 say same

According to a Pew Research Center survey, 53% of U.S. adults say they spend too much time on their smartphones, with 70% of adults under 30 feeling this way. While 45% have tried to cut back in the past year, only a quarter of those were very successful, and about one-in-four adults use their phones almost constantly.

Kioxia’s Kitakami expansion stalls demographic decline, tests Japan’s $640B AI/chips plan

Japan is investing $640 billion in AI and chips, with Kioxia’s chip plant expansion in Kitakami helping slow the city’s demographic decline. However, the development has been a slow burn rather than a boom, highlighting the limits of the national investment plan in struggling rural areas.

I Don’t Have a Smartphone…

The author uses the statement “I don’t have a smartphone” to resist demands for app installations and QR code scans, noting they argued against 18 such installations in a year. They argue that requiring an app makes ten unrealistic assumptions about a person’s device, connectivity, and data-sharing willingness, and find that many workers agree with them while salespeople insist the app is necessary.

What will you do after tech?

Most technology professionals do not remain in the industry until retirement, as leaving for other careers is far more common than retiring from tech. According to the perspective shared, people tend to burn out and then move on to do something else.

Northern Ireland adds £15M to Fujitsu education deal without competition

Northern Ireland has extended its education contract with Fujitsu by an additional £15 million without opening a competitive tender, keeping the Japanese supplier in place despite ongoing scrutiny over its role in the Horizon IT scandal. The no-competition deal follows continued criticism of Fujitsu’s involvement in public contracts.

UK digital ID may be dead, but its legacy IT problem lives on

The UK’s digital ID initiative may be shelved, but its unresolved IT challenges persist. A spending watchdog warns that fragmented data and inconsistent standards would hamper any future attempt to revive the scheme.