Techmeme
August 2, 2026, 5:25 PM

Top News

OpenAI:
OpenAI says an internal version of Astra, its next big model, produced results for 10 problems in math, quantum complexity, and theoretical computer science  —  We want to empower scientists and mathematicians with tools that accelerate discovery.  That is why we recently announced ChatGPT …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Thoughts on Apple Upgrade; sources: MacBook Air is now facing shortages too; Apple wants to turn its future glasses and headsets into health and fitness devices  —  Also: MacBook Air runs into major shortages.  —  Apple has finally delivered a hardware subscription program …
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Bitcoin hardware wallet Coldcard shipped a faulty firmware build, and hackers are now draining wallets; Galaxy Research estimates $70M+ stolen  —  More than 1,000 bitcoin, worth about $70 million, was drained from 1,196 wallets in a 41-minute window on July 30, nearly double the amount reported when the theft first surfaced.
Wall Street Journal:
Malaysia shuts down Network School, Balaji Srinivasan's techno-utopian project, over licensing issues; Srinivasan says he is opening a new campus in Kazakhstan  —  Balaji Srinivasan left Silicon Valley and created an incubator for new countries in an Asian ghost city, before the government shut it down
Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of Jacob Tsimerman, who won the Fields Medal last week and is taking a leave from the University of Toronto to join OpenAI and work on AI safety  —  Jacob Tsimerman won the biggest prize in math.  Now he's working on the most important problem of his career.
Mariah Timms / Wall Street Journal:
Researchers used AI-assisted code to undetectably tamper with data from computerized scans of physical DNA evidence produced by widely used crime-lab machines  —  Researchers found that widely used lab machines produced digital DNA files that are vulnerable to tampering
NBC News:
US judge refuses xAI's request to stop a Minnesota law banning “nudify” apps, noting the request came only three days before the law was to take effect  —  The ruling clears the way for the first-in-the-nation law to go into effect on Saturday.  —  A federal judge on Friday denied …
Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy:
LLMs are moving from generating artifacts to creating hyper-custom worlds on demand, but still lack the ability to natively perceive and audit what they create  —  We're starting to leave the territory where you'd test an LLM by e.g. “create an svg of pelican on a bicycle”.
CJ Haddad / CNBC:
Trump Media's new paid data API launches, for “a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform's most market-moving Truths”; Dem. senators asked SEC to probe  —  Trump Media and Technology Group's new paid data service launched on Aug. 1, providing faster access to Truth Social posts …
New York Times:
Officials: the scope of cyberattacks on US water systems now includes at least seven states and may be far wider; MN was just the first to publicly report them  —  Michigan and Minnesota are among at least seven states coping with cyberattacks aimed at disrupting water systems nationwide.
Financial Times:
New York Times:
A look at the deluge of AI computing power set to come online in the coming years; Epoch AI expects the number of AI chips in use to double every nine months  —  The milestones for artificial intelligence keep getting grander.  —  In 2023, an A.I. system passed the bar exam.
X: @benbajarin, @ericbarbas_, and @shanumathew93LinkedIn: William Garrity
Bluesky: @karl-jacoby and @tslychaForums: r/Futurology

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Featured Podcasts

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More News

Reuters:
More: The Block and Tech Times
X: @reuters, @reuters, @reuters, and @hdagresLinkedIn: Gavin Finch
Kim Zetter / Wired:

Earlier Picks

New York Times: