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August 3, 2026, 4:01 AM
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| Luz Ding / Bloomberg: |
Alibaba says its 2.4T-parameter Qwen3.8-Max tops Moonshot's Kimi K3 on some benchmarks, and it plans to release Qwen3.8-Max and Qwen3.8-27B's weights next week — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. released its latest flagship AI model, with performance claims putting it alongside global leaders like Anthropic's Fable.
More: Qwen, The Information, The Hans India, Business Standard, Fortune India, Neowin, South China Morning Post, and TechNode
X: @arena, @alibaba_qwen, @andrew_n_carr, @dtcb, @yacinemtb, @jason, @healthranger, @alibabagroup, @teortaxestex, @xiong_hui_chen, @rastrapalamoab, @suchenzang, @morganlinton, @yuchenj_uw, @gelassoldat, @unslothai, @mrahmadawais, @cline, @scaling01, @andrewcurran_, @kylehessling1, @skiipy88, @chahatusharma, @matviy_ch, @vsaietta, @shuai_bai_, @jun_song, @morganlinton, and @lottolabs
Forums: r/codex, r/unsloth, r/singularity, r/LocalLLM, and r/LocalLLaMA
| Zvi Mowshowitz / Don't Worry About the Vase: |
A detailed recap of the real-world target hacks by OpenAI and Anthropic models, exposing failures in AI alignment training and lack of meaningful supervision — If I had a nickel for every major leading AI lab that sheepishly admitted that the model it thought was sandboxed had …
More: Futurism. X: @johnwittle, @leahlibresco, @hagmonk, @atabarrok, @jon_stokes, @sociologywv, @shylockh, @honorablepicnic, @thezvi, @thezvi, @jon_stokes, and @honorablepicnic. Bluesky: @caseynewton
| Lily Hay Newman / Wired: |
More: Digital Trends, The Economic Times, and DigiTimes
| New York Times: |
An unsecured police dashboard exposed China's extensive tracking of foreigners, aggregating data from surveillance cameras, facial recognition tools, and more — An unsecured police dashboard was a rare window into how the authorities track foreigners by collecting and aggregating vast amounts of private data.
More: NetAskari and NetAskari
Bluesky: @moorejh, @cultexpert.freedomofmind.com, @oracularhades.com, @aerialeverything …, @williammoss, and @gwbstr.com
Forums: r/AskAChinese, r/worldnews, r/China, and r/neoliberal
| 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”.
X: @fakepsyho, @davidpattersonx, @elonmusk, @bengeskin, @zeroxkyle, @pimdewitte, @kimmonismus, @dannylimanseta, @tekbog, and @xrarchitect. Forums: Hacker News
| Wall Street Journal: |
A look at the US open-weight AI model ecosystem, as VCs question the revenue potential of open-weight startups like Arcee, Reflection AI, and Poolside — Silicon Valley startups are setting up open models, with some operating on shoestring budgets because of limited interest from VCs| Peter Hall / Scientific American: |
Two independent teams used GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra on the same quantum cryptography problem, filing papers three hours apart, raising questions over scientific credit — An M.I.T. Ph.D. student and two University of California system cryptographers used GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra in different ways … | Mitsuru Obe / Nikkei Asia: |
Japanese startups are racing to enter defense drone production, as Tokyo seeks to cut reliance on Chinese industrial drones, which control 91% of Japan's market — TOKYO — Japanese startups are entering defense drone production as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi seeks to reduce dependence on China and expand domestic manufacturing.| 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| Irina Anghel / Bloomberg: |
Indeed: UK employers are creating jobs for senior staff in software engineering and IT, where AI enhances the value of experience, while cutting back elsewhere — UK employers are creating jobs for experienced staff with artificial intelligence skills and cutting back elsewhere …
More: Reuters
| Francesca Perry / Financial Times: |
A look at the growing tensions over AI data centers in London, Europe's biggest data center hub, as housing, power, and water come under increasing strain — The city has become the largest hub for AI power centres across Europe, competing with homes for energy, space and water.| Yueqi Yang / The Information: |
Robinhood says Q2 prediction markets revenue rose 10x+ YoY to $156M, topping stock and crypto for the first time, as speculators shift to real-world event bets — Brokerage app Robinhood has quickly become a force in prediction markets, challenging the hold of Kalshi and Polymarket on the popular betting market.
More: CryptoPotato and Memeburn
| Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: |
Sources detail the troubled development of Tencent's ambitious, GTA-like game Last Sentinel, which has burned hundreds of millions of dollars over six years — Lightspeed's Last Sentinel burnt through six years of development and hundreds of millions of dollars — Hi everyone.| Yevgeniya Mikhailidi / Nikkei Asia: |
A look at Central Asia's emerging data center race, led by Uzbekistan's 6MW TAS-1 due by year-end and Kazakhstan's 125MW facility with 100K Nvidia chips by 2027 — TASHKENT/ISTANBUL — The race to build data centers in Central Asia is intensifying, with Uzbekistan set to complete the first phase … | 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 …
More: Financial Express, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, MacRumors, Cult of Mac, Gizmodo, Wccftech, SoundGuys, Digital Trends, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, AppleInsider, and Trak.in
Forums: r/technology, r/apple, and MacRumors Forums
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