Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Google agrees to buy 100% of the initial output from the Steel River Energy Center's 1.6GW solar project in Arkansas when it becomes operational in 2029 (Martha Muir/Financial Times)

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Researchers detail "context bombing", where defenders use prompt injections to trigger guardrails of attackers' LLMs, cutting AI hacking success rates by ~90% (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

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Sources: Nvidia intensified due diligence and cut its authorized AI chip customers in Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan by 50%+ to prevent China diversions (Zijing Wu/Financial Times)

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In the wake of China's "embodied AI" push, there's an urgency among China's 100+ humanoid startups to launch IPOs; LimX Dynamics raises $200M in a pre-IPO round (Evelyn Cheng/CNBC)

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Singapore-based and Alibaba-backed video generation startup PixVerse says it closed a Series C extension to raise $439M total for the round, valuing it at $2B+ (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

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Anthropic research based on ~310K anonymized Claude conversations shows how Claude's expressed values and behaviors vary across models and languages (Jason Nelson/Decrypt)

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Sources: Nous Research, the startup behind Hermes, an open-source agent and OpenClaw rival, is raising $75M+ at a $1.5B valuation led by Robot Ventures (TechCrunch)

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Sources: the Trump admin and industry groups discuss streamlining the releases of US open models of equal or lesser capability than leading Chinese open models (Benjamin Guggenheim/Washington Post)

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Apple releases the first public betas of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, and tvOS 27, marking the new Siri AI's first public launch (Will Shanklin/Engadget)

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Microsoft announces a Windows 11 search overhaul that prioritizes local results, removes promotional web content, and more, rolling out to Windows Insiders (Zac Bowden/Windows Central)

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Q&A with Xinzhou Wu, head of automotive at Nvidia, on Nvidia's chips and AI models for autonomous driving, lidar's usefulness for Level 4 autonomy, and more (Nilay Patel/The Verge)

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Doc: DHS analysts twice dismissed signs of intruders inside the DHS' network, first detected in May, as harmless activity before confirming a breach in June (David DiMolfetta/Nextgov/FCW)

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A coalition of 12 US states led by California files an antitrust lawsuit to block Paramount's WBD merger, alleging it lessens competition in three markets (Gene Maddaus/Variety)

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London-based Valarian, which allows companies to use US cloud providers for AI workloads but retain control of their data, raised a $50M Series A led by NEA (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)

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Seattle-based Augmodo, whose AI-powered "Smartbadges" worn by employees track shelf inventory, raised $21M led by TQ Ventures at a $350M valuation (Kurt Schlosser/GeekWire)

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Gauntlet, which helps institutions and crypto companies allocate their digital assets, raised a $125M Series C from Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings (Ben Weiss/Fortune)

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Global smartphone shipments fell 11% YoY in Q2 to the lowest Q2 levels since 2013 amid the DRAM and NAND shortage; Samsung returns to #1 with a 24% market share (Shilpi Jain/Counterpoint Research)

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Apple's stock is up 16% since June 25, adding ~$650B in market value and pushing shares back to record territory, as investors flee an AI stock selloff to Apple (Ryan Vlastelica/Bloomberg)

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Sources: US officials estimate unauthorized distillation costs US AI labs up to $6B/year; US AI labs told the White House it could become an existential threat (Maggie Eastland/Bloomberg)

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Source: OpenAI still believes it is on track to unveil its first device in 2026 and release it in 2027; Apple's lawsuit may complicate hiring and supply chains (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

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