Techmeme
August 3, 2026, 12:45 AM

Top News

Luz Ding / Bloomberg:
Alibaba says its 2.4T-parameter Qwen3.8-Max tops Kimi K3 on some benchmarks, and says it plans to release the weights of Qwen3.8-Max and Qwen3.8-27B next week  —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. released its latest flagship AI model, with performance claims putting it alongside global leaders like Anthropic's Fable.
Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy:
LLMs are moving from generating artifacts to creating hyper-custom worlds on demand, but still lack the ability to natively perceive and audit what they create  —  We're starting to leave the territory where you'd test an LLM by e.g. “create an svg of pelican on a bicycle”.
Mariah Timms / Wall Street Journal:
Researchers used AI-assisted code to undetectably tamper with data from computerized scans of physical DNA evidence produced by widely used crime-lab machines  —  Researchers found that widely used lab machines produced digital DNA files that are vulnerable to tampering
Peter Hall / Scientific American:
Two independent teams used GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra on the same quantum cryptography problem, filing papers 3 hours apart, raising questions about scientific credit  —  An M.I.T. Ph.D. student and two University of California system cryptographers used GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra in different ways …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Thoughts on Apple Upgrade; sources: MacBook Air is now facing shortages too; Apple wants to turn its future glasses and headsets into health and fitness devices  —  Also: MacBook Air runs into major shortages.  —  Apple has finally delivered a hardware subscription program …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Experts say US law is unprepared for rogue AI agents and models, as recent OpenAI and Anthropic incidents raise questions over legal liability and repercussions  —  Both major AI labs' models broke containment, escaped onto the internet, and hacked other companies.
Yevgeniya Mikhailidi / Nikkei Asia:
A look at Central Asia's emerging data center race, led by Uzbekistan's 6MW TAS-1 due by year-end and Kazakhstan's 125MW facility with 100K Nvidia chips by 2027  —  TASHKENT/ISTANBUL — The race to build data centers in Central Asia is intensifying, with Uzbekistan set to complete the first phase …
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Bitcoin hardware wallet Coldcard shipped a faulty firmware build, and hackers are now draining wallets; Galaxy Research estimates $70M+ stolen  —  More than 1,000 bitcoin, worth about $70 million, was drained from 1,196 wallets in a 41-minute window on July 30, nearly double the amount reported when the theft first surfaced.
Ann Davis Vaughan / The Information:
Four US states rolled back or paused data center tax incentives, and nine others are weighing repeal measures, potentially adding 7% or more to equipment costs  —  Governors and legislatures in U.S. states that previously welcomed data centers are suddenly moving to rip away sales tax breaks …
Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of Jacob Tsimerman, who won the Fields Medal last week and is taking a leave from the University of Toronto to join OpenAI and work on AI safety  —  Jacob Tsimerman won the biggest prize in math.  Now he's working on the most important problem of his career.

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Earlier Picks

Reuters:
More: The BlockX: @reuters, @reuters, @reuters, and @hdagresLinkedIn: Gavin Finch
NBC News:
CJ Haddad / CNBC:
New York Times: