Techmeme
August 12, 2026, 10:36 AM

Top News

Jessica Conditt / Engadget:
Google unveils the $1,899+ Pixel 11 Fold, with a stronger hinge, inner and outer displays that are 20% brighter, a Tensor G6 chip, and an updated 48MP camera  —  Fly like a (Tensor) G6.  —  The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is the ultimate evolution in Google's latest line of mobile devices …
The Shortcut:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Bloomberg:
Tencent reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to ~$30.4B, above ~$30B est., driven by surging WeChat advertising and resilient game spending, and net income of ~$8.3B  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. more than doubled spending on AI projects and computing to about $7.8 billion last quarter …
Will Knight / Wired:
Researchers find that feeding a frontier model's encrypted reasoning traces to a weaker model from the same provider can make it output the traces in plaintext  —  Researchers devised a way to extract “reasoning traces” from Claude, GPT, and Gemini.  What they found, they say …
Tom Wilson / Financial Times:
Researchers say suspected Chinese hackers used open-source AI agents to build an autonomous hacking tool that compromised Taiwanese government websites in July  —  AI agents ran simultaneous reconnaissance and break-ins in display of new phase of cyberwarfare.
Juro Osawa / The Information:
Former Alibaba star researcher Junyang Lin launches Shanghai-based Pragmatik Labs to build digital and physical AI agents; Pragmatik hit a $2B valuation in June  —  Former Alibaba star researcher Junyang Lin announced that he had started a new AI company, confirming The Information's earlier reports.
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
A look at AI news website RuntimeWire, which costs $100/day to run and “beat” human reporters to OpenAI's Black Hat disclosure, favoring quantity over quality  —  Last week, an AI newsroom beat mainstream journalists—including WIRED—to a story about OpenAI and hacking.  It's just the beginning.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
SpaceXAI rolls out AI agent app Grok Bot in beta on macOS, iOS, Windows, and Linux, initially for SuperGrok Heavy, Cursor Ultra, and Cursor Teams Premium users  —  SpaceXAI and Cursor are in the process of becoming a single company, but first, the two firms are releasing an all-new iPhone and Mac app called Grok Bot.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
The US CFTC uses its “emergency authority” to order Kalshi to continue operating in New York after the state filed a lawsuit in July seeking to shutter Kalshi  —  The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced it had ordered prediction market operator Kalshi to continue operating …
Frederic Lardinois / The New Stack:
OpenAI launches a ChatGPT desktop app for Linux in preview, supporting ChatGPT Work, Codex, and more; Computer Use outside the in-app browser is not available  —  On Tuesday, OpenAI launched its ChatGPT desktop for Linux.  —  Now in preview, the app, which combines ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work …
Ben Dummett / Wall Street Journal:
Stockholm-based AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at a $13.3B valuation, up from $6.6B in December 2025, becoming one of Europe's most valuable startups  —  New funding round catapults AI company into the ranks of Europe's most valuable startups  —  Artificial-intelligence startup Lovable …
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
Q&A with Redwood Research Chief Scientist Ryan Greenblatt on AI R&D, RSI, whether human expert data bottlenecks AI progress, token prices, alignment, and more  —  A debate about recursive self-improvement.  —  Had Ryan Greenblatt on to discuss/debate recursive self-improvement.

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Earlier Picks

Natasha Mascarenhas / Bloomberg:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: