Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Anthropic rolls out a fast mode for Claude Opus 4.6 in research preview, saying it offers the same model quality 2.5 times faster but costs six times more  —  Opus is usually $5/million input and $25/million output.  The new fast mode is $30/million input and $150/million output!

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's updated startup framework doubles deep-tech startup eligibility to 20 years and triples the revenue cap for tax, grant, and regulatory benefits to ~$33M  —  Deep tech startups in sectors such as space, semiconductors, and biotech take far longer to mature than conventional ventures.

Naga Avan-Nomayo / The Block:
Chinese regulators reiterate the mainland crypto ban and expand enforcement to cover real-world asset tokenization and offshore yuan-pegged stablecoin issuance  —  Quick Take  — Beijing authorities have explicitly widened the net to target real-world asset tokenization …

Rohit Singh / MediaNama:
X unveils a new pay-per-use pricing model for its API, replacing the earlier pricing model that required developers to pay fixed monthly fees of $200 or $5,000  —  X has launched a new pay-per-use pricing model for its developer application programming interface (API), replacing …

Anna Tong / Forbes:
Sources: Mercor rival micro1 has told investors it is now generating $200M in recurring revenue; Mercor is offering micro1 employees signing bonuses up to $2M  —  Employees at micro1, a human data company, have been offered cash bonuses between $500,000 and $2 million, to join rival Mercor.