AI News: EU Designates ChatGPT a VLOSE; Nvidia Invests in MediaTek
Intel's Q2 revenue rose 25% to $16.1bn on booming data-centre demand, but a $12.5bn charge tied to its CHIPS Act deal drove an $11bn GAAP loss.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Technology
AI, gadgets, space, science and the digital world.
Broadcom Is Lining Up as Much as $100 Billion for AI Chips. Who Carries the Risk?
Intel's Q2 revenue rose 25% to $16.1bn on booming data-centre demand, but a $12.5bn charge tied to its CHIPS Act deal drove an $11bn GAAP loss.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Did a Humanoid Robot Really Beat Usain Bolt? Lightning's 9.32 Seconds Needs Context
Honor's Lightning robot ran a 9.32-second 100m test before Beijing's robot games, a machine benchmark that does not replace Usain Bolt's athletics record.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Brazil Splits a R$2.3 Billion AI Compute Push Across Chinese and US Technology
Brazil is committing about R$2.3bn to AI compute in Rio and Rio Grande do Norte, deliberately sourcing technology across Chinese and US ecosystems.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
San Andreas Fault May Be Slipping Faster Than Assumed, but the New Finding Is Not an Earthquake Countdown
Unpublished San Jose State research suggests the Santa Cruz Mountains San Andreas segment slips faster than estimates, without predicting a specific quake.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
ChatGPT Can Now Read and Send Apple Messages on Macs - but the Permission Model Is the Real Story
OpenAI’s Apple Messages plugin can read, draft and send Mac messages, putting Full Disk Access and send approvals at the centre of its privacy model.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Nvidia Pays Poolside $6 Billion to License Its Model Factory and Hire 109 Engineers
The third such deal in eight months hands Nvidia a rival's core technology and staff without a purchase, and without the antitrust review a takeover draws.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Anthropic's IPO Prospectus Will Name Public Backlash Against AI as a Risk Factor
Polling now puts opposition to AI data centres at 75 per cent, and the filing is expected to tell investors that hostility could slow the company's growth.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Tesla Quietly Discontinues the Solar Roof, a Decade After Elon Musk Unveiled It
The tile product has been pulled from Tesla's website and from installer supply, with the company concluding it was not financially viable.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Walmart Will Accept Apple Pay and Google Pay From 24 August, Ending a Decade of Resistance
Tap to Pay reaches every US Walmart and Sam's Club by the end of 2026, retiring one of the last major holdouts against contactless wallets.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Nevada Clears Tesla, Waymo and Uber to Put Up to 8,000 Robotaxis on Clark County Roads
The state transportation authority voted unanimously for three commercial permits, weeks after capping Tesla's Las Vegas fleet at ten vehicles.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Marvell Hands Google an Option on $12.2 Billion of Its Own Shares in an Expanded Custom-Chip Deal
The warrant vests against purchasing milestones running to fiscal 2033 and could be worth around $120 billion in chip orders to Marvell.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Apple Is Negotiating Nine-Figure News Deals to Feed Its Gemini-Powered Siri
The company has proposed paying publishers each time their reporting is used, a departure from the fixed licence fees that have defined AI content deals.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
NBA 2K HQ Launches as 2K's New Companion App, Retiring MyNBA2K and Opening the MyPLAYER Builder Early
The free app arrives five days before NBA 2K27's early access, letting players build and upload their MyPLAYER from a phone for the first time.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Meta Goes on Trial in Oakland Over Claims It Designed Facebook and Instagram to Hook Children
Four attorneys general are leading a case built on infinite scroll, the like button and recommendation algorithms, with Mark Zuckerberg expected to testify.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
A Bankruptcy Court Delays Google's $10 Million Purchase of Spirit Airlines Data After the Flight Attendants Object
The approval hearing has moved to 9 September after the cabin crew union sought restrictions on the sale of employee emails and chat logs.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Google Pays $10 Million for Spirit Airlines' Corporate Data to Train Its AI Models
A court-supervised auction has sent a defunct airline's emails, chats and source code to Google for $10 million.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Anthropic Signs a $9.1 Billion Compute Deal, Forms a Data-Centre Venture and Courts IPO Investors
The Claude maker locked in 191 megawatts of Texas computing capacity for 20 years, launched the Theseus infrastructure venture with Macquarie and GIC, and is meeting investors ahead of a possible autumn listing.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Google Unveils the Pixel 11 Lineup, Pixel Watch 5 and a Surprise Pixel Tag in New York
The Made by Google event introduced four Pixel 11 phones with a slimmer camera bar and a new HiLight notification LED, alongside the Pixel Watch 5 and a tracker called Pixel Tag, with Trevor Noah hosting the show.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
OpenAI Launches GPT-5.6-Cyber and Puts Its Daybreak Security Models on Amazon Bedrock
The company released a cybersecurity-focused model and made its Daybreak Blue and Red variants available through AWS, splitting authorised defence work from vulnerability research as AI enters the security trenches.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Phoebe Gates's Shopping App Phia Faces Deepening 'Cookie Stuffing' Scandal After Bloomberg Report
Bloomberg reporting alleges the AI shopping startup's founders knew for months that Phia claimed affiliate credit for sales it did not drive, contradicting earlier statements that called the behaviour a bug discovered within 24 hours.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Intel Posts Fastest Revenue Growth in 15 Years, Yet Reports an $11bn Loss
Intel's Q2 revenue rose 25% to $16.1bn on booming data-centre demand, but a $12.5bn charge tied to its CHIPS Act deal drove an $11bn GAAP loss.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Ernst & Young Discloses Breach After Hackers Raid a Third-Party Support System
EY has begun notifying clients that attackers accessed a third-party IT support platform for two weeks and downloaded documents holding tax and financial data.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Alphabet Beats on Revenue but Shares Slip as AI Capex Guidance Climbs to $205bn
Alphabet grew revenue 24% to $119.8bn and cloud sales 82% in Q2, yet shares fell after it raised 2026 capital spending guidance to as much as $205bn.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
TSMC posts fifth straight record profit and pledges another $100 billion for Arizona
The world's largest chipmaker beat forecasts with a 77% profit surge, booked its first 2nm revenue and raised its 2026 outlook as AI orders keep flooding in.
Arjun Nair 4 min read
Starship Flight 13 set to deploy the first Starlink V3 satellites in orbit-critical test
SpaceX targets 16 July for Starship's thirteenth test flight, the first to carry real Starlink V3 satellites and a fresh trial of booster recovery over the Gulf.
Arjun Nair 3 min read
NASA astronaut Anil Menon reaches the ISS aboard Soyuz as US-Russia seat swaps endure
Soyuz MS-29 carried NASA's Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina from Baikonur to the ISS in just over three hours on 14 July.
Arjun Nair 3 min read
Russian hackers turned ordinary security cameras into spies on NATO supply routes
Dutch intelligence says Russia-linked hackers hijacked internet-connected cameras to watch military shipments bound for Ukraine, part of a wider European campaign.
Arjun Nair 3 min read
ASML beats forecasts and lifts 2026 outlook as AI keeps chip equipment orders rolling
The Dutch lithography giant posted €9.3bn in sales and €2.9bn profit, raised full-year guidance sharply and will expand EUV capacity 30% to feed the AI boom.
Arjun Nair 3 min read
Apple Intelligence cleared for China launch as regulator approves Alibaba-powered AI
China's cyberspace regulator has registered Apple's generative AI service, ending a 22-month wait and clearing iPhone AI features built on Alibaba's Qwen models.
Arjun Nair 3 min read
Microsoft Patch Tuesday July 2026: Record 570 Flaws, 3 Zero-Days
Microsoft's July 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes a record 570 flaws, including exploited zero-days in AD FS and SharePoint. Indian IT teams face an emergency patching week.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
NPCI's Unified Agent Protocol: AI Agents May Soon Pay via UPI
NPCI is building a Unified Agent Protocol to let trusted AI agents pay over UPI, as the network clears 22.72 billion monthly transactions and biometrics surge.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
NYT, Publishers Seek Sanctions on OpenAI Over Hidden Evidence
Seventeen news organisations have asked a US court to sanction OpenAI, alleging it concealed tools and datasets that reveal how ChatGPT reproduces their journalism.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Samsung Unpacked July 22: Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Flip 8 Expected
Samsung has set Galaxy Unpacked for 22 July in London, with the Z Fold 8, a new Fold 8 Ultra and Flip 8 expected. Leaks point to a 200MP camera and $2,099 pricing.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Airtel Leads Nifty as Jio IPO Nears: Telecom's Duopoly Test
Bharti Airtel led Nifty gainers on 14 July as Jio's Rs 30,000-52,000 crore IPO heads for an August-October window. Analysts see a listed duopoly reshaping telecom.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
CERT-In AI War Room: India Tests Frontier AI Models for Threats
MeitY says CERT-In has built an AI war room that stress-tests near-frontier models in sandboxes, hunting vulnerabilities before Indian firms adopt them at scale.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Gemini 3.5 Pro Launch: Google Targets July 17 After Full Rebuild
Reports say Google will launch Gemini 3.5 Pro on 17 July after rebuilding its base model, with a rumoured 2-million-token context. Google has confirmed nothing yet.
Arjun Nair 5 min read
Smartphone Shipments Fall 6.7% in Q2 2026 as Memory Crisis Bites
IDC says Q2 2026 smartphone shipments fell 6.7% to 277.5 million units as memory prices tripled. India faces its sharpest market contraction since the pandemic.
Arjun Nair 5 min read