Samsung’s TV Proxy Ban Leaves Coverage Unclear
On Aug. 3, 2026, Samsung said it was restricting registrations and removing smart-TV apps with proxy-capable SDKs after LG’s similar ban. The report established store enforcement, but not how many installed sets were detected or could be remediated.
WhatsApp Built a 200 Million-User AI Gate
WhatsApp Business grew from 50 million users in 2020 to 200 million monthly active users in 2023. After Meta restricted general-purpose chatbots in 2026, it launched its own business agent and faced an EU access order.
AWS Grew 37%—and Still Faced a Capacity Gap
AWS revenue rose 37% in Q2 2026 even as Amazon warned that available capacity would not meet demand. Project Rainier’s 500,000-plus Trainium2 chips show how AWS is trying to turn scarce compute into lower-cost AI work before software and newer hardware reset its value.
Elio’s $21M AI Sensor Round Names No Customer
Elio’s July 2026 Series A extends a nine-year shift toward machine-ready sensing. The July 26 and 27 records replicate one underlying CTech report, which names no customer, pilot, architecture detail, or performance benchmark.
Dell’s 757% Surge Puts Rack Value to the Test
Dell reported $16.1B in fiscal Q1 AI-server revenue, up 757%, as AI builders used rentals, financing and capacity contracts. Nvidia’s 72-chip GB200 shows why OEM demand can rise, but Dell’s margins must show whether integration retains value.
Who Controls Compute Under Volta’s $10B Contract?
Bloomberg reported on August 4 that Volta raised $300M at a $2.4B valuation and said it secured a $10B contract with an unnamed AI developer. The contract is about 33 times the round, but its allocation, refresh, and redeployment rights remain undisclosed.
The White House says it met its deadline to establish a voluntary framework for evaluating advanced AI models, but did not provide details of the framework
The White House said on Monday it met its deadline to establish a voluntary framework for evaluating advanced AI models …
Apple says it “briefly removed Telegram from the App Store” over CSAM on Monday, restoring it after Telegram “promptly removed the content and banned the user”
Update: 11:00 p.m. ET: In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple said: … Apple's statement came about 20 minutes after access to the app was restored.
Sources: the US is focused on promoting US AI models to be more competitive, after officials considered taking a more interventionist approach to open-source AI
The Trump administration has struggled over how to approach to “open source” models, which are freely available to download and favored by Chinese companies.
OpenAI disputes Apple's account of pre-lawsuit communications, rejects claims that ex-employees used confidential info, shares iMessages and emails, and more
Apple is one of the greatest companies of all time, and built a reputation for obsessing over the smallest details.
Palantir reports Q2 revenue up 93% YoY to $1.94B, above $1.8B est., US commercial revenue up 149% YoY to $764M, and lifts FY26 revenue guidance; PLTR jumps 20%+
Palantir topped second-quarter earnings estimates on Monday and said commercial revenue more than doubled from a year ago.
Snap reports Q2 revenue up 19% YoY to $1.599B, above $1.54B est., DAUs up 5% YoY to 493M, vs. 487M est., and forecasts Q3 revenue above est.; SNAP jumps 10%+
Snap reported better-than-expected revenue and earnings for the second quarter and issued a forecast for the current period that topped analysts' estimates.
Doc: Microsoft asks Xbox 360 game developers to opt in for PC compatibility, bringing the games to its next-gen Project Helix console, “Xbox PCs”, and handhelds
The disc to digital program seems like it's close to launching, too.
SpaceX reports Q2 revenue up 92% YoY to $7.8B, vs. $6.81B est., and AI segment operating loss of $1.26B, vs. $2.39B est.; SPCX drops 5%+ after hours
SpaceX's revenue exceeded Wall Street's expectations in the company's first quarterly financial report following its blockbuster initial public offering in June.
Texas halts approval of data center grid connections until regulators can perform audits; 474+ GW of projects are in the queue, over 5x the grid's peak demand
On Monday, the governor ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to audit …
Researchers: ChainDrop, a Shai-Hulud-based worm, has compromised 1,300+ npm packages, like Keyv, Cacheable, and flat-cache, with a combined 2B monthly downloads
Self-propagating malware named ‘ChainDrop’ has compromised more than 1,300 packages with a combined 2 billion monthly downloads on the Node Package Manager (npm) registry.
Q&A with Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider on the AT Protocol, ActivityPub, scaling moderation, Bluesky's reputation as a progressive social media network, and more
Today, I'm talking with Toni Schneider, who is the brand new CEO of the social platform Bluesky — he formally took over after a short stint as interim CEO.
Amazon becomes the fifth company to pass a $3T market cap, joining Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple, after hitting $2T in June 2024; AMZN closed up 4.58%
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $3 trillion in market value for the first time, becoming only the fifth company to ever reach the milestone.
Samsung says it's restricting app registrations and removing apps with SDKs that can turn smart TVs into residential proxy exit nodes, after a similar ban by LG
Several popular Samsung smart TV apps contain code that share the owner's internet connection with strangers …
Bending Spoons agrees to acquire Airtable in an all-cash deal valuing the US software company at $1.285B, set to close by 2026's end, its first post-IPO deal
Bending Spoons (BSP.O) has agreed to buy Airtable in an all-cash deal valuing the U.S. software firm at $1.285 billion …
Sandisk and SK Hynix announce the High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) open specification that enables up to 512GB memory modules with 0.4 TB/s to 3.0 TB/s bandwidth
The specification is here, but what about the interest? … The specification was released through the Open Compute Project (OCP) …
US satellite internet provider Hughesnet files for Chapter 11 after losing subscribers to Starlink and plans to focus on business and government customers
US satellite internet provider Hughesnet has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after running low on cash and losing subscribers to Starlink.
The UK AISI says it observed a total of 19 instances where Mythos and GPT-5.6 Sol tried to hack people and companies during a routine cyber evaluation in July
The U.K. AI Security Institute said it observed nearly 20 instances of Anthropic and OpenAI's most advanced models trying …
Sources: the FCC is drafting a restriction on US imports of new models of Chinese data center optical transceivers, set to take effect upon publication in 2026
The Trump administration is drafting a ban on U.S. imports of new models of Chinese data center components …
Sources: the White House doesn't plan to publicly release its voluntary AI framework; details will be available to the companies that are part of the process
The White House does not plan to publicly release its new framework for evaluating advanced AI models, three sources familiar with the discussions told Axios.
Sources: Beijing is growing concerned about the cyber capabilities of Mythos and other US-developed frontier AI models and their potential as offensive weapons
China is growing anxious that Anthropic PBC's Mythos could be wielded against the world's second-biggest economy …
Spotify reports Q2 revenue up 14% YoY to €4.78B, Premium Subscribers up 9% YoY to 300M, MAUs up 12% YoY to 777M, below its 778M guidance, and a €545M net income
Music streamer's Q2 2026 subscription revenue increases 15% and ad revenue ticks up 1%
Court docs: an FBI agent has been charged with amassing ~$1M worth of cryptocurrency, largely by making unauthorized withdrawals from a criminal target overseas
UK court filing: in July, Apple launched a new legal challenge against the UK government's attempt to create a “backdoor” to access encrypted customer data
Sources: Anthropic agreed to a $10B deal for computing capacity in Norway from Nvidia-backed AI cloud startup Volta Infra, which says the deal is for six years
Anthropic PBC has struck a $10 billion deal for computing capacity from a months-old infrastructure startup, according to people familiar …
New Jersey files an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, alleging it abuses its dominance to impose low pay and poor conditions on independent delivery drivers
New Jersey sued Amazon.com on Tuesday, accusing the online retailer of abusing its market power over independent delivery drivers.
Alibaba says its 2.4T-parameter Qwen3.8-Max tops Moonshot's Kimi K3 on some benchmarks and it plans to release Qwen3.8-Max's and Qwen3.8-27B's weights next week
Sources: possible cyberattacks targeting water and wastewater utilities have now been reported in at least 12 US states, and Iran is the prime suspect
So far, there's been no widespread disruptions to water supplies or treatment. — Luke Barr, Jack Date, Katherine Faulders, Josh Margolin, and Aaron Katersky
Mistral releases Shieldstral, a 3B multimodal safety classifier that it says matches models up to 7x its size on text safety, available under Apache 2.0
Every product that ships a model needs to answer questions like these — but the right answer depends on the product, the audience, and the moment.
A World Bank report says developing economies stand to benefit more from AI boosting their workers' output than they will lose in jobs being replaced by AI
World Bank says workers in poorer economies more likely to benefit from the technology than be replaced by it
A look at Alphabet's moonshot lab X and interviews with its employees, including CEO Astro Teller, on reinventing itself and what its next big thing might be
X, formerly Google X and the most ambitious innovation lab of our time, isn't content just to watch its hits like Waymo and Wing take off.
Sources: HP, Asus, and Acer have started using small amounts of DRAM chips from CXMT in their laptops for non-US markets, amid an unprecedented memory shortage
Sources: to fight social media critics, the DHS sent platforms hundreds of subpoenas and asked posters to sign letters saying speech about ICE “may” be a crime
AMD reports Q2 revenue up 50% YoY to $11.5B, vs. $11.3B est., Data Center revenue up 107%, forecasts Q3 revenue below some estimates; AMD drops 7%+ after hours
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. disappointed investors with its latest sales outlook, a sign shareholders expected more of a return from the global expansion of AI data centers.
Valar, which is making small modular nuclear reactors to power data centers, raised a $1B Series B led by Sequoia at a $6B post-money valuation
India proposes extending tax exemptions until 2041 for foreign companies that provide machinery to contract manufacturers, changes that Apple had lobbied for
The DOJ secures a $3.2M settlement from OpenAI to resolve allegations it discriminated against US workers by preferring workers with temporary employment visas
A unit of OpenAI has reached a settlement with the US Justice Department to resolve allegations that the California-based …
Obsidian Security, which helps companies secure AI agents, raised an $85M Series D at a $1.1B valuation, after raising a $90M Series C in April 2022
Obsidian Security said on Tuesday it had raised $85 million in a Series D funding round that valued the AI security startup at $1.1 billion …
An internal TikTok doc shows it withheld a safeguarded algorithm from 10% of US users, including a 16-year-old who was fed self-harm content and died by suicide
A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement.
In a rare interview, Huawei's top chip scientist, Liao Heng, warns of the looming physical limits Western chipmakers face and lauds Huawei's Tau Scaling Law
Huawei Technologies Co.'s top semiconductor scientist warned of the looming physical limits Western chipmaking giants including Nvidia Corp. face …
Ambrook, which offers accounting software, raised a $30M Series B led by Lachy Groom as it expands beyond farming into trucking, construction, and real estate
In the early days of her startup, Ambrook, CEO Mackenzie Burnett and a small team would hop on a plane - then often take a bumpy drive …
EA says its $55B acquisition by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners has closed, taking the company private; the deal includes $20B in debt financing
The massive deal has closed. The massive deal has closed. … Electronic Arts has officially become a private company.
Oligo, which offers runtime security tools, raised $60M from Ballistic Ventures, Canon Capital, and others, bringing its total funding to $140M
Runtime security startup Oligo Security Ltd. said today that it had raised $60 million in new funding to accelerate product innovation and expand global go-to-market operations.
China revises its regulations to tighten protection of chip layout designs, including punitive damages for serious infringement, taking effect from October 15
Michael Saylor's Strategy sold 1,638 bitcoin for ~$104.7M from July 27 to August 2, reducing its holdings to 842,138, with a $10.9B paper loss at current prices
The EU's AI Act enforcement powers take effect, letting it evaluate AI models before regional release, restrict EU market access, fine model providers, and more
TikTok agrees to settle three teen social media lawsuits by minors ahead of trial; 2,600 cases making similar claims are pending in California federal court
Match reports Q2 revenue down 1% YoY to $853M, vs. $856.6M est., 13.3M paying users, vs. 13.4M est., forecasts Q3 revenue below est.; MTCH drops 8%+ after hours
Match Group Inc. gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter that narrowly missed analysts' estimates …
HappyRobot, which uses AI to automate freight operator communications, raised a $150M Series C at a $1.2B valuation, after a $44M Series B in September 2025
Pablo Palafox likes to say his company is “getting started” even as its valuation just crossed ten figures.
Uber is defending 4,000+ rider sexual-violence lawsuits by aggressively examining plaintiffs' drinking, clothing, and more, after promising to protect survivors
Mariana Minerals, which builds and operates mines using its MarianaOS software platform, raised a $310M Series B, bringing its total funding to $400M
Sources and filings: Google assembled a ~$200B financing program for Anthropic, with $150B+ tied to TPUs and involving Broadcom, Blackstone, Apollo, and others
Private credit, chip leases and data centre guarantees underpin a vast new model for AI spending
AI cloud startup Volta Infra raised $300M led by a16z and Altimeter at a $2.4B valuation and says it landed a $10B contract with an unnamed leading AI developer
Volta Infra Holdings Ltd., a new artificial intelligence cloud company, has raised $300 million in venture funding and secured …
Convex, which provides an AI-optimized application backend for developers, raised a $57M Series B led by Insight Partners, taking its total funding to $110.5M
Developer tooling startup Convex Inc. today disclosed that it has closed a $57 million funding round led by Insight Partners.
Visa plans to acquire Israeli company BioCatch, which uses AI to detect fraud and distinguish legitimate users from attackers in real time, for $2.4B in cash
A US appeals court overturns a ruling that had temporarily barred Perplexity from using its agentic shopping tools on Amazon's platform
A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday overturned a ruling that had temporarily barred Perplexity from using its AI-powered agentic shopping tools on Amazon's (AMZN.O) platform.
How Wall Street learned to love the blockchain, as US regulators accept tokenized assets and other tech can offer significant advantages in speed and efficiency
Financial companies hope to modernise markets with the technology but systemic risks remain.
Pinterest reports Q2 revenue up 18% YoY to $1.18B, vs. $1.15B est., MAUs up 11% to 640M, forecasts Q3 revenue in line with estimates; PINS drops 8%+ after hours
Pinterest shares fell 7% in extended trading on Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue but issued lukewarm sales guidance.
Samsung previews zHBM, which vertically stacks HBM atop AI accelerators, and zNAND-O, built on V-NAND, and unveils the industry's first V10 BV-NAND architecture
Samsung Electronics Co. offered a glimpse of its most advanced memory hardware, touting improved performance and power efficiency …
Anthropic names Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, an ex-California Supreme Court justice and a special assistant in Obama's WH, as its first global affairs chief
Anthropic on Tuesday named Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar its first chief global affairs officer, as the developer …
Sources: the Trump administration invites staffers from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others to the White House on Tuesday to review the AI oversight framework
The Information:
Analysis: in 2026 so far, US police arrested at least 37 people in connection to data center protests and intervened to prevent confrontations in 12 more cases
Nvidia makes Alpamayo 2 Super, its frontier open reasoning model for robotaxis and AVs, available for commercial use under the OpenMDW-1.1 license
They're the rare, complex situations that are difficult to anticipate and train for. — Handling these long-tail events takes more than just object detection and motion prediction.
Internal email: Microsoft introduces token budget limits for employees' AI use, saying “tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for”
Microsoft is introducing budget limits for AI use but says it still wants to be an ‘AI-first’ company. — Microsoft has introduced …
Sources: Polymarket is in early talks with prospective investors to raise ~$1B at a $20B+ valuation, up from $15B in April 2026 and $9B in October 2025
Polymarket is seeking to raise capital at a valuation of more than $20 billion, months after it closed an earlier round with new investment from hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co.
Sources: the US is preparing to set a price floor and impose tariffs on polysilicon, a material critical to chips, later this month, in a bid to counter China
The Trump administration is preparing to set a price floor and impose tariffs on polysilicon and related products …
Zenity, which develops a platform for securing AI agents, raised a $125M Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners, taking its total funding to ~$185M
Source: Apple passed $10B in annual sales in India for the first time in FY 2026, up from $9B in 2024-25 and $6B in 2022-23, as it expands its retail footprint
Horizon3, whose AI penetration testing platform NodeZero helps find and exploit attack paths in production systems, raised a $250M Series E at a $2B valuation
Source: Dario Amodei expressed concern about staff coming to Anthropic for the money rather than the mission, as Anthropic, OpenAI, and others battle for talent
Pavel Durov says an extortionist planted “illegal porn in a public chat” to get the app pulled from the App Store and manipulated Apple into “overreacting”
to warn other app developers and help protect online communities from similar attacks.@dhh:“Apple removed Telegram from the App Store because a user managed to evade the automated content moderation t...
Filing: Apple asks a US judge for a preliminary injunction barring two former staff and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, using, or disclosing confidential info
Apple on Monday asked a U.S. judge for a preliminary injunction barring two former employees and OpenAI from accessing …
SpaceX says its Q2 capex was $18.4B, up from $2.8B a year ago, including $15.8B for AI
Micah Maidenberg /Wall Street Journal:
SpaceX reports Q2 revenue of $4.29B from its connectivity division, which includes Starlink, $100B of cash and marketable securities, and a $47.5B order backlog
Nathan Bomey /Axios:
Sources: the US' AI framework excludes open models and defines a covered frontier model as closed source with SOTA capabilities and national security risks
The White House is excluding open models from its framework to test advanced AI capabilities, sources familiar with the matter told Axios.