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August 20, 2026, 11:20 AM
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| Erin Griffith / New York Times: |
Stripe agrees to acquire NYC-based OpenRouter; a source says Stripe is paying $7.5B, with $1.5B going to the startup's founders and $6B to its investors — The deal is significant for the artificial intelligence industry, uniting Stripe's payments business with OpenRouter's helping businesses direct their spending on A.I. models.
More: Stripe, Financial Times, OpenRouter Blog, CNBC, The Information, SiliconANGLE, Payments Dive, Business Insider, and Bloomberg
X: @quinnypig, @regulatorynerd, @lishali88, @maria_rcks, @gavinsbaker, @skeptrune, @davefontenot, @anshublog, @cclark, @ernietedeschi, @seanmullaney, @matthuang, @a16z, @kentherogers, @patrickc, @shaunmmaguire, @trekedge, @a16z, @officiallogank, @backseatvc, @sternhenri, @mattshumer_, @netcapgirl, @aleximm, @liangsays, @sarahdingwang, @segall_max, @shaunmmaguire, @cryptopunk7213, @stitesclay, @a16z, @moore, @martin_casado, @jeff_weinstein, @zixuanli_, @alexatallah, @pingtoven, @varunsrin, @john_piazzaiv, @levie, @menloventures, @openrouter, @openrouter, and @itsnoahd
LinkedIn: Daniel Rich, Patrick Collison, Laela Sturdy, and William Gaybrick
Forums: Hacker News, r/openrouter, and Slashdot
| Axios: |
More: Business Insider, RuntimeWire, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, The Rundown AI, Menlo Ventures, Stripe, and Forbes
X: @danprimack, @ericnewcomer, @andrewcurran_, @fchollet, @emollick, @kimmonismus, @garymarcus, @bryce, @cjc, @alanadlevin, @jvisserlabs, @ianandrewsdc, @benspringwater, @packym, @levie, @peterberezinbca, @miles_brundage, @ruxandrateslo, and @edzitron. LinkedIn: Brandon Lewis
Bluesky: @carnage4life and @ruoshuiresearch
Forums: r/singularity and r/accelerate
| Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: |
Slack launches Slack Code, adding dedicated, project-specific code channels that let teams collaborate with AI coding agents “like teammates” across all plans — Slack Code provides a dedicated open space for teams to collaborate with AI agents.
More: Gizmodo, WeRSM, Unite.AI, and RuntimeWire
X: @benioff, @scobleizer, @nrmehta, @eltintero, @jordienr, @kimmonismus, and @sawyerhood
| William Langley / Financial Times: |
China's humanoid robot makers derive much of their revenue from government-backed training centers that sell training data back to them, raising demand concerns — Companies are selling machines to government-backed centres that then sell training data back to robot makers.
More: Reuters, Reuters, The Decoder, and Forbes
| Bloomberg: |
More: International Business Times, South China Morning Post, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, ZeroHedge News, Hello China Tech, Crowdfund Insider, Reuters, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and CNBC
X: @mtslive, @kyleichan, @adcock_brett, @sjdedic, @aleabitoreddit, @rewkang, and @johnkoetsier
| Luz Ding / Bloomberg: |
Alibaba reports Q1 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$39.64B, meeting est., and net income down 75% to ~$1.54B due to heavy AI spending and weak domestic retail consumption — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s profit plunged more than 75% after the Chinese company ratcheted up quarterly capital spending …
More: CNBC, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia, Quartz, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, BusinessDay, Blockonomi, and Finimize. LinkedIn: Alibaba Group
| Bloomberg: |
Trump urges Congress to pass the Clarity Act at a White House event with execs, including the CEOs of Coinbase and Robinhood; the bill has stalled in the Senate — President Donald Trump pressed Congress to pass digital asset market structure legislation that is a top priority for the industry …
More: Decrypt, Barron's Online, Hindustan Times, Reuters, Blockonomi, Bitcoin Insider, NewsBTC, Unchained, Quartz, Wall Street Journal, Cointelegraph, crypto.news, The Crypto Times, CryptoNinjas, Coinpedia Fintech News, Barron's Online, Bitcoin News, CoinDesk, Yahoo Finance, CHOSUNBIZ, Washington Post, New York Times, Bitcoin Magazine, CNBC, Cointelegraph, Dow Jones Newswires, Wall Street Journal, Bitcoin Insider, The Crypto Times, Investor's Business Daily, and Investor's Business Daily
X: @whitehouse, @eleanorterrett, @onemorepeter, @patrickjwitt, @senmccormickpa, @billkingtm, @brian_armstrong, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, @rapidresponse47, and @rapidresponse47. LinkedIn: Rob Nichols
| Douglas Gillison / Reuters: |
Study: 150+ Polymarket wallets may have traded on internal US military information, making $8M overall with a 97.2% average win rate and attracting copycat bets — More than 150 wallets on Polymarket International may have traded on inside U.S. military information, attracting copycat bets … | Reuters: |
Former Facebook Director of Engineering Arturo Béjar testifies that Mark Zuckerberg prioritized Facebook and Instagram's growth and engagement over child safety — A former engineering director at Meta Platforms (META.O) testified on Wednesday that CEO Mark Zuckerberg fostered a culture …
More: The Guardian, International Business Times, Breitbart, NPR, Futurism, Associated Press, EasternEye, ANI News, Implicator.ai, KQED, Courthouse News Service, New York Post, The Times, CBS News, NC Newsline, Agence France-Presse, Fox News, Quartz, and News 12 New Jersey
X: @jonhaidt, @awinston, @ncago, @awinston, @tylerkatzen, @pweiser, @marshablackburn, and @jason_kint. Bluesky: @jessefelder.com. Mastodon: @Lazarou@mastodon.social
Forums: Hacker News, r/BetterOffline, r/ABoringDystopia, r/Fauxmoi, r/business, r/technology, r/USNEWS, and Slashdot
| Brody Ford / Bloomberg: |
Source: Meta is spending hundreds of millions per year to use trillions of AI tokens weekly via Azure, quietly becoming one of Microsoft's largest AI customers — Meta Platforms Inc. has become one of Microsoft Corp.'s biggest AI customers, underscoring how demand for the emerging technology remains concentrated in the tech industry.
More: Implicator.ai, Blockonomi, and The Asia Business Daily
| Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg: |
Waymo says it has built an ASIC chip that will improve its robotaxis' reflexes and navigational skills and help it diversify away from third parties like Nvidia — Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo has built a custom chip that the company said will improve the performance of its robotaxis …
More: The Verge, The Crypto Basic, Blockonomi, and Phoenix Business Journal
| Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: |
Sources: YouTube is offering top creators millions to post videos exclusively on YouTube for a period and will penalize those that post to Netflix concurrently — YouTube will pay creators to post their videos to YouTube before any other service. If creators post to YouTube and Netflix at the same time, they will face consequences.
More: Dexerto, Quartz, The Economic Times, The Drum, The Hans India, Punch Newspapers, Newser, Digital Trends, Business Insider, Tubefilter, and Semafor
X: @jacksettleman, @lucas_shaw, @kirbyslastsnack, @knowsworthy, @nickbyt_, @tvgrimreaper, and @shadetv. Bluesky: @counternotions
Forums: r/h3h3productions, r/MediaMergers, and r/technology
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
Binance launches Agent OS, a platform that lets AI agents analyze markets and execute trades on users' behalf; users have to limit AI agents' access and trades — Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange with more than 300 million registered users, on Thursday launched a platform …
More: Binance, PYMNTS, Blockonomi, Futurum, API Evangelist, diginomica, Unite.AI, The Paypers, and Memeburn
| Bloomberg: |
London-based Callosum, whose software matches AI tasks with models and chips, raised a $100M seed led by Atomico; the UK's Sovereign AI Fund also invested — Callosum, a startup that makes software to match specific artificial intelligence tasks with different models and chips … | Christine Chen / Reuters: |
Australia passes the News Bargaining Incentive, which will tax tech giants 2.5% on their Australian ad revenue if they don't strike deals with local news media — Australia passed legislation on Thursday that will force tech giants to pay millions of dollars in levies if they fail … | Daniel Thomas / Financial Times: |
Pornhub says the UK's new internet age checks have boosted non-compliant porn sites, which occupied seven of the top 10 search results for “free porn” in June — Country's most-visited porn website lobbies MPs for changes to flagship Online Safety Act
Forums: Hacker News
| Alexander Gladstone / Wall Street Journal: |
A bankruptcy court delays Google's $10M purchase of Spirit Airlines' data after former flight attendants sought assurances that their info would be removed — The flight attendants want assurance that their confidential information will be removed from the sale of the defunct airline's digital records
More: Fortune and RuntimeWire
| CNBC: |
Sources: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands that OpenAI “will be a public company in 2027”, or sooner if “our business continues to inflect” — OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees during an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence lab …
More: Quartz, Gizmodo, MarketWatch, PYMNTS, The New Stack, and Wall Street Journal
X: @firstadopter, @cpmou2022, @kr00ney, @jun_song, @chrisgpt, @firstadopter, @marcelolima, @firstadopter, @kimmonismus, @downingark, and @edzitron
Forums: r/technology, r/wallstreetbets, and r/BetterOffline
| Andrew Deck / Nieman Lab: |
A look at Backstory, an experimental AI image authentication tool from Google DeepMind, offered for testing to journalists, researchers, and other fact checkers — Every day the fact-checking team for one of India's largest news organizations works to debunk a slew of false and misleading images circulating across social media.| Iain Martin / Forbes: |
Filing: in 2025, TikTok posted its first net profit of $702.5M in Europe, Africa, and Latin America on $9.1B in revenue, up 45.7% YoY — TikTok's operations in Europe, Africa and Latin America saw revenues jump 45.7% to $9.1 billion and turn its first profit but the Chinese-owned social network … | Paul Kiernan / Wall Street Journal: |
PitchBook: California-based startups have raised ~$366B in 2026 so far across 4,000+ companies, more than triple the total of all other 49 states combined — California-based companies have announced a record haul in startup funding, despite billionaire-tax fears
More: Implicator.ai
| Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: |
South Korea media: SK Hynix and its union reach a tentative deal on a 6.3% wage hike and paying out 60% of profit-sharing bonuses in shares and 40% in cash — SK Hynix Inc. and its labor union have reached a tentative wage and collective bargaining agreement, featuring a 6.3% salary increase … | Hugo Lowell / Wired: |
Sources: Trump officials expect Elon Musk to spend $100M to $200M in the November midterm elections, with a focus on voter turnout in key races, including Texas — Sources tell WIRED that Elon Musk is expected to spend up to $200 million in the midterms. It could be a big boost … | Julia Hornstein / The Information: |
Anthropic-backed enterprise AI venture Ode is acquiring four-year-old AI consultancy Casper for an undisclosed fee; Ode has 100+ staff after buying Fractional — A joint venture established by Anthropic and Wall Street firms such as Blackstone has made its first acquisition since its July launch … | Vlad Savov / Bloomberg: |
Circana: US video game hardware spending fell 29% YoY in July to $282M, the lowest since COVID; unit shipments fell 39% as average console prices hit $542 — Nintendo Co.'s Switch 2 sales in the US this July were less than half what they were the same month a year ago, leading an industrywide hardware decline, according to Circana.
More: Game World Observer and Eurogamer.net
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