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August 17, 2026, 12:25 PM
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| Anissa Gardizy / Wall Street Journal: |
OpenAI signs a 20-year, 10GW data center deal in Ohio with SoftBank's SB Energy; Nvidia agrees to backstop a portion of the value of the completed data center — Agreement with SoftBank's SB Energy caps weeks of negotiations over the largest data-center project announced to date| Bloomberg: |
More: Financial Times, Silicon Valley Business …, TechCrunch, The Information, DatacenterDynamics, Business Standard, LinkedIn, Reuters, HotHardware, Blockonomi, TheEnergyMag, Unite.AI, Coinpaper, Memeburn, Seeking Alpha, Anadolu Ajansı …, Channel NewsAsia, Pulse 2.0, Techstrong IT, The Business Times, and Livemint
X: @cryptopunk7213, @amir, @jensenhuang, and @nvidia
| Mayank Parmar / BleepingComputer: |
Microsoft says GitHub is down worldwide, with its website, API, Actions, Pull Requests, and other services impacted; GitHub confirmed the outage at 13:40 UTC — GitHub is down for some users as a widespread outage is causing errors across the website, API, Actions, Pull Requests, and several other services.
More: GitHub Status, The Register, Cyber Security News, Tech Times, Notebookcheck, and The Stack
X: @tekbog, @jdxcode, @uwukko, @charliermarsh, @amritwt, @__tinygrad__, @_dylanga, @darrenjr, @imlunahey, @doodlestein, and @teknium
| Wall Street Journal: |
Analysis: nine top tech companies including Alphabet and Meta had ~$3T of AI-related off-balance-sheet commitments, far exceeding their ~$600B in reported capex — Massive spending commitments for data-center leases and chips aren't shown on companies' balance sheets| John Gruber / Daring Fireball: |
Anthropic's text watermarking alters word probabilities to leave fingerprints, which could degrade Claude's writing, despite its claim of no impact on quality — When I wrote this week about Anthropic's announcement that all Claude models, worldwide, would soon begin “watermarking” …
More: 9to5Mac, The Verge, Mashable, MarTech, Ubergizmo, Artificial Lawyer, Six Colors, The Decoder, Information Age, Implicator.ai, Android Authority, Inc.com, VC Cafe, James Padolsey's Blog, and Forbes
X: @dbreunig, @arturovilla, @seltaa_, @kimmonismus, @bleeding_sun, @trq212, @wesroth, @elder_plinius, @basedjensen, @nickadobos, @kimmonismus, @jessuppi, @_mattata, @hammer_mt, @gnukeith, @alex_verem, @dedene, @lyraintheflesh, and @rasbt
Bluesky: @hern, @binaryape, @metacurity.com, @carnage4life, @jrobertlennon.com, @zzypt, @adamfishercox.com, @nymag.com, @frankpasquale, and @gruber.foo. Mastodon: @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org
Forums: Hacker News, r/ArtificialInteligence, r/technology, and Lobsters
| Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media: |
Investigation: Amazon is buying huge quantities of rare books, scanning them for AI, and destroying them; a tracked Biblio order went to its Las Vegas facility — We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
More: The Decoder, Fast Company, Gizmodo, and Digital Trends
X: @kylebrussell. Bluesky: @moonstalker.net, @simonwillison.net, @wadjeteyegames.com, @atrubek, @jenlucpiquant, @heykellyjensen, @smtuffy, @josephcox, and @emanuelmaiberg. Mastodon: @davidgerard@circumstances.run
Forums: Hacker News, r/france, r/books, r/classicliterature, r/Libraries, r/ABoringDystopia, r/Anticonsumption, and r/technology
| Greg Brockman: |
Greg Brockman calls the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident “a watershed moment” and discusses how OpenAI and other organizations can use AI to improve cyber defenses — The OpenAI-Hugging Face incident was a watershed moment for cybersecurity because it gave a peek into how the capabilities … | Kelly Cloonan / Wall Street Journal: |
Uber and Zipline partner to launch Uber Eats drone deliveries in Dallas and Houston by late 2026, aiming to scale nationwide and hit 1M daily deliveries in 2029 — The desire for rapid delivery is “insatiable,” Uber's Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi says
More: Uber, The Verge, PCMag, Finimize, Reuters, TechCrunch, WeRSM, and Blockonomi
X: @jason, @powerbottomdad1, @michaeldell, @matthuang, @keller, and @dkhos
| Anton Zverev / Reuters: |
Russian law enforcement docs: Binance provided Russia with IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy's transaction history and passport number, leading to terrorism charges — Binance last year handed Russian authorities details of cryptocurrency donations to Ukrainian fundraising campaigns that were used …
More: International Business Times, Coinspeaker, CoinDesk, The Crypto Times, Coinpedia Fintech News, crypto.news, and Cointelegraph. Forums: r/neoliberal
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Stripe has finalized a deal to acquire AI model marketplace OpenRouter for $7B+; founded in 2023, OpenRouter reportedly had a $1.3B valuation in May — Stripe Inc. has finalized an agreement to acquire OpenRouter Inc., a startup that helps companies switch between artificial intelligence models …
More: TechCrunch, Stratechery, The Next Web, Axios, PYMNTS, Quartz, The Information, Blockonomi, Techstrong.ai, Blockchain.News, New York Times, Implicator.ai, Proactive, Pulse 2.0, Forkast, Silicon Republic, Neowin, Tech Funding News, crypto.news, Tech Times, Verdict, SiliconANGLE, The Decoder, The Paypers, RuntimeWire, and DigiTimes
X: @jelanifuel, @asvanevik, @maxleiter, @ns123abc, @alvinfoo, @aleabitoreddit, @kenwattana, @kushalbhagia, @thisiskp_, @astridwilde1, @dogetoshi, @deedydas, @tugot17, @sundeep, @thezachmueller, @rleshner, @krrishd, @sergegatari, @cyrusasg, @kenwattana, @danlynch, @shomikghosh21, @badlogicgames, @anshublog, @mattmickiewicz, @iankar_, @kimmonismus, @cremieuxrecueil, @trace_cohen, @victormustar, @himanshustwts, @andrew_n_carr, @rohanpaul_ai, @andrewcurran_, @nmasc_, and @firstadopter. LinkedIn: Guillaume Lebedel. Bluesky: @hunterwalk.com. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
Forums: Hacker News, r/hermesagent, r/SillyTavernAI, and r/openrouter
| Natasha Mascarenhas / Bloomberg: |
Groq raised $350M led by Disruptive at a $3.5B valuation, down from $6.9B in September 2025 before Nvidia struck a licensing deal and hired much of its talent — Groq has raised $350 million in funding at a $3.5 billion valuation, roughly half what it was worth nearly a year ago …
More: PYMNTS, FinSMEs, and Bitcoin Insider
| Reuters: |
A German regulator says Apple will make changes to ATT after finding it gave Apple's apps more favorable consent prompts than those of third-party developers — Apple will change rules governing how app developers can use personal data for targeted advertising on iPhones and iPads …
More: Bundeskartellamt, AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Verge, 9to5Mac, Bundeskartellamt, The Next Web, Punch Newspapers, MacDailyNews, and Dow Jones Newswires
Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums
| Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: |
ETH Zurich spinout Gravis Robotics raised a $200M Series A from SoftBank to scale Gravis Rack, a retrofit autonomous control appliance that mounts on excavators — Gravis Robotics AG said today it has bagged $200 million in funding from SoftBank Group Corp. in what is the largest-ever Series …
More: Tech.eu, Sifted, Forbes, FinSMEs, Bloomberg, Business Insider, RoboticsTomorrow.com, RuntimeWire, Startup.eu, The Robot Report, Unite.AI, and Inc.com. LinkedIn: Ryan Luke Johns
| Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: |
Qwen 3.8 27B shows an open-weight general purpose model can have a long context, effective tool calling, strong vision ability, and competent code generation — Friday's big release was Qwen 3.8 27B, an Apache 2 licensed 27B parameter vision-capable LLM from Alibaba's Qwen research lab.
More: CNBC, Wccftech, Quartz, Implicator.ai, RuntimeWire, and Run Qwen3.8 locally …
Forums: Hacker News, r/LocalLLaMA, and Lobsters
| Lawrence Delevingne / Reuters: |
Trump-backed WLF is working with Hong Kong-based AI platform WorldClaw; 43 of the 90 AI models on WorldClaw are from Chinese companies flagged as security risks — President Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial is collaborating with a Hong Kong-based venture offering artificial … Sponsor Posts
Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho TouchPoint: Every handshake deserves a next step — Here's a scene you've probably experienced. You spend a day at an event, talk to dozens of people, and come home with a stack of business cards.
Introducing Zoho TouchPoint: Every handshake deserves a next step — Here's a scene you've probably experienced. You spend a day at an event, talk to dozens of people, and come home with a stack of business cards.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.Featured Podcasts
Lenny's Podcast:
Meta's Muse: How we launched the most successful consumer product this year | Mona Sarantakos
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Special Report: The Fall Of Jensen Huang & What Comes Next
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Machine Gods:
The 10 Biggest Losers from Jensen Huang's Fall + The METR Report That Scared Us
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $1.4B Startup Deciding What You See When You Shop Online | Sequen's Zoë Weil
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
Too soon to call it a vibe shift?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Encore: Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
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