Quratulain Rehbar / Nikkei Asia:
Indian government data: India's smartphone exports rose 55% YoY to $11B in H1 FY 2026; analysts warn the Iran war may trigger a 22%-25% drop in the coming weeks  —  NEW DELHI — India's fast-growing smartphone export sector is facing its first geopolitical test, as tensions …

Financial Times:
Sources: London-based chip startup Fractile is in talks to raise over $200M from Accel and others at a $1B valuation; Fractile raised a $15M seed round in 2024  —  Company is part of growing cohort of UK groups developing faster AI processors  —  London-based start-up Fractile is in talks …

Issie Lapowsky / Bloomberg:
A look at Babel Audio, which pairs anonymous strangers to record their conversations, starting at $17/hour, and bundles those recordings into AI training data  —  They vent, confess and role-play with strangers, all to help machines learn how to sound human.

Disney's new Olaf animatronic made its debut at Disneyland Paris, but suffered a hilarious malfunction when it stopped working and collapsed.

Thomas H. Ptacek / sockpuppet.org:
AI coding agents will drastically alter both the practice and the economics of exploit development, automating the discovery of zero-day vulnerabilities  —  For the last two years, technologists have ominously predicted that AI coding agents will be responsible for a deluge of security vulnerabilities.