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Techmeme
August 7, 2026, 7:00 AM
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Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI's new device, slated for 2027, is a hockey puck-sized smart speaker with moving parts that help give it personality and will likely cost $300+  —  A highly anticipated new device from OpenAI will have a unique look, complete with moving parts that help give it personality …
KOB 4:
New Mexico trial: a judge orders Meta to pay $567M and make changes for underage users after finding its platforms helped create a public nuisance harming teens  —  SANTA FE, N.M. - A Santa Fe judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million, and make changes for the user experience of juvenile accounts …
Carl Zimmer / New York Times:
Scientists trained AI on genetic sequences to design viruses not found in nature, yielding 16 viable viruses that can infect bacteria but don't threaten humans  —  Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes.
Tobias Mann / The Register:
AMD acquires Toronto-based Taalas, which integrates model weights directly into silicon with the promise to boost inference performance, for an undisclosed sum  —  Early tech demos show model-specific integrated circuits churning out up to 17,000 tokens a second
Herb Scribner / Axios:
OpenAI updates the default model for free users to GPT-5.6 Luna, adds unlimited text chats for free users, rolls out an improved GPT-5.6 Sol version, and more  —  OpenAI on Thursday announced a series of changes that will upgrade ChatGPT for both paid and free users.
SemiAnalysis:
Analysis: Google DeepMind has lost frontier-model momentum amid leadership and RL talent departures, with Google Cloud emerging as a winner with more compute  —  GCP YoY rev growth >100%, DeepMind's long term failure is Google Cloud's short term gain  —  On Wednesday, August 5th …
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
SK Hynix plans a $38B chipmaking expansion in South Korea, including a new ~$24.7B DRAM facility in Yongin and a ~$13.3B NAND fabrication plant in Cheongju  —  SK Hynix Inc. plans a 54 trillion won ($38 billion) expansion of its chipmaking facilities in South Korea, the memory chip maker said in a statement Friday.
Will Knight / Wired:
Security researchers claim that Kimi K3 went outside of its sandbox during defensive cybersecurity tests, but did not hack anything after accessing the internet  —  Security researchers say that Kimi K3, an open-weight model from China, wandered off to the internet in an attempt to cheat on a test it was given.
Reuters:
Google and data: hackers used phone calls, phishing websites, and “meticulous” tactics to target dozens of US PE firms and other businesses over the past month  —  Ransom-seeking hackers who use phone calls to compromise their victims targeted dozens of prominent U.S. financial institutions …
Bloomberg:
Alphabet raises $25B in an investment-grade bond sale; sources say it attracted ~$115B of peak demand and that Alphabet plans to issue US debt twice per year  —  Alphabet Inc. sold $25 billion of investment-grade bonds after generous yield payouts helped secure one of the year's largest order books for AI-related debt.
Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
Sources: the US Commerce Department's BIS is reviewing how Chinese AI companies access Nvidia chips overseas, including by legally renting foreign data centers  —  A key US agency is reviewing how Chinese AI firms acquire and access Nvidia Corp. chips overseas, following a spate …
Reuters:
The White House imposes a series of price floors and a 15% tariff on products made from polysilicon, a chip raw material primarily produced by China  —  The White House on Thursday imposed a series of price floors and a 15% tariff on products made from polysilicon, the raw material used …
Bloomberg:
Sources: up to five people tied to US Cyber Command died by suicide from early June to early July 2026, prompting it to flag a potential suicide cluster  —  The US military's cyberwarfare unit is scrutinizing an unusually high number of deaths by suicide among personnel over a month-long period this summer …
Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal:
Filing: ex-a16z partner Bryan Kim is forming venture firm Mido Capital; sources: he plans to raise ~$100M for a fund backing early-stage AI and other startups  —  Bryan Kim, who invested in consumer tech and AI startups at Andreessen, is creating his own firm, Mido Capital Bryan Kim …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:00 AM ET, August 7, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

New York Times:
Sources: Trump continues to push to replace the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room with a swimming pool, as the administration builds a buffer against the press

The Hollywood Reporter:
Sources: ex-Warner Bros. film heads Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca are talking with Netflix for a film chief role but seek more theatrical release commitments

Bloomberg:
Sources: Legendary Entertainment has made a takeover offer for Lionsgate Studios, reviving on-and-off talks after weighing a bid in 2025; LION closed up 14.41%

More News

Ram Iyer / TechCrunch:
Naïve, which provides infrastructure for AI agents to handle most business operations, raised a $28.5M Series A led by Nexus, bringing its total funding to $32M
Anna Tong / Forbes:
Docs: US data labeling companies, like Surge AI and Mercor, that sell AI training datasets to US labs and the government are also selling them to Chinese labs

Earlier Picks

Terrence O'Brien / The Verge:
Suno says it will adopt new audio watermarking tech, fingerprinting tech, transparency tools, and a new download policy to limit the spread of spammy AI music
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
OpenAI debuts Agent Plugins, an open standard for bundling skills and MCP servers, and says Amazon, Cursor, Microsoft, and Vercel are on its steering committee
Victoria Turk / Wired:
Google DeepMind says its WeatherNext model can accurately predict a storm's track and intensity using lower-resolution weather data, and open sources the model
Reuters:
SpaceX and Tesla plan to initially invest $16.8B to build Terafab in Grimes County, Texas; combined demand from SpaceX and Tesla is forecast to top 1 TW
Artificial Analysis:
Meta's Muse Spark 1.2 scores 54 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, putting Meta next to SpaceXAI in a tie for third place amongst US labs
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