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August 19, 2026, 6:05 AM
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Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI changed safety practices and paused RL training for two weeks after the Hugging Face breach and evidence Astra may have met a critical cyber threshold  —  OpenAI said Tuesday that it has made several changes to its safety practices following its determination that an upcoming system …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI's Q2 sales grew 18% QoQ to $6.7B as its losses widened from $9.3B to $12.3B; Anthropic's sales grew 2x+ to $11.6B, with a small operating profit  —  The ChatGPT-maker's revenue disappointed some investors, although the company told them its growth accelerated in the third quarter
Apple:
Apple unveils new EU business terms from October 1, resolving disputes with the EU, including a new 5% Core Technology Commission and App Store commission tiers  —  Apple today announced changes to its business terms for apps in the European Union, following close collaboration with the European Commission.
@artificialanlys:
Z.ai's GLM-5.3 with max reasoning scores 60 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, on par with Kimi K3 but below Opus 5 at 63 and Fable 5 at 62  —  GLM-5.3 achieves 60 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, on par with Kimi K3 and up 7 points from GLM-5.2. Once the weights are released it will be tied as the leading open weights model @Zai_org has just launched GLM-5.3, which ties Kimi K3 (60) for the most
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Z.ai prices GLM-5.3 API access at $1.40/1M input tokens and $4.40/1M output tokens, unchanged from GLM-5.2; Kimi K3 costs $3/1M input and $15/1M output tokens
Reuters:
In opening arguments, US state AGs say Meta intentionally sought to addict children to Facebook and Instagram in pursuit of profit; Meta rejected the claims  —  Meta Platforms (META.O) rejected accusations by U.S. states that it intentionally sought to addict children to its Facebook …
Alexander Martin / The Record:
AI evaluation lab Irregular's report on its role in hacking incidents involving OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta models faces criticism over unanswered questions  —  The company at the center of a series of incidents in which AI models compromised real-world computer systems during supposedly …
Bloomberg:
The US SEC proposes exempting certain digital asset offerings from securities registration statements, with exemptions for offerings of up to $5M and up to $75M  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a proposal to exempt certain digital asset offerings from securities registration statements …
The Information:
Sources: Anthropic prepares to give its co-founders shares with extra voting power to help insulate them from outside pressure; Amodei owns ~2% of Anthropic  —  Anthropic has been preparing to give CEO Dario Amodei and other co-founders a class of stock with extra voting power to help insulate …
Allan Smith / NBC News:
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signs an executive order imposing new requirements on data center projects, including getting approval from local officials  —  Shapiro, a potential Democratic 2028 contender, earlier welcomed data center developments.  His new executive order takes a starkly different tone toward the industry.
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Block releases Berd, a desktop app it built to give its employees a single environment for working with AI agents across different models, under Apache 2.0  —  Block, the technology company founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that owns Square, Cash App and the music streaming service Tidal …
Pew Research Center:
Survey: 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about increased AI use in daily life, up from 37% in 2021, including 55% of those under 30  —  Americans have become increasingly worried about artificial intelligence over the years, and young adults' concern has continued to climb.
Anthropic:
Anthropic details two experiments showing how Claude can accelerate protein design and analytical chemistry, and says it plans an access program for scientists  —  Summary: In this post, we share two results that show how Claude can help life scientists increase the pace of their research.
Bloomberg:
Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker Unitree's stock surges 460% in its Shanghai trading debut, giving it a ~$50B market cap, after raising ~$904M in its IPO  —  Unitree Robotics shares surged 460% in their Shanghai trading debut after the company raised 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) …
Wall Street Journal:
US tech companies are offering community investments, guaranteed jobs, and hosting open houses to address concerns and win public support for AI data centers  —  Tech companies are holding listening sessions, offering guaranteed jobs and writing big checks to win public support for the data centers they need.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:05 AM ET, August 19, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
ABC sues the FCC, claiming the agency's investigations and regulatory actions are part of a Trump administration “retaliatory campaign” to curb its free speech

Svetlana Shkolnikova / Stars & Stripes:
Longtime Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer announces his retirement, saying his understanding of the outlet's “value and mission” differs from DOD plans

Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
Cinemark joins AMC Theatres and Regal in supporting Paramount's acquisition of WBD; lobbying group Cinema United remains opposed to a WBD sale for now

More News

New York Times:
Internal memo: ICE bars its employees from wearing Meta's AI glasses, saying they “could unintentionally capture, record, or transmit sensitive information”
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Comcast is rolling out Wi-Fi motion sensing to its Xfinity XB7 and newer gateways, a free opt-in feature that enables its routers to detect movement at home

Earlier Picks

Wired:
Meta ran ads for a nudify app; one ad showed a porn video with a deepfake closely resembling a prominent US politician; Apple removed the app from the App Store
More: Digit, MLex, and Augusta Free Press
X: @amycookoc and @mediagoddess1
Bluesky: @brbarrett and @couts.  Forums: r/ABoringDystopia
Prathik Jayaprakash / Reuters:
Velaura AI, which makes low-power chips and software for data centers and physical AI applications, like robotics, raised a $110M Series A at a $1B+ valuation
Madeleine Cuff / New Scientist:
Google unveils Operation Blue Skies, a £5M trial to re-route North Atlantic aircraft using Google's AI atmospheric forecasts to reduce warming due to contrails
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
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