Tech Brew Ride Home

Dario Amodei said Anthropic never backed an open-weights ban, pitching mandatory safety tests instead as OpenAI and Google signed on. Altman headed to Washington, Korea's KOSPI cratered 11% on AI jitters, Apple launched Klarna leasing, and shipped 194 CVE fixes.

Anthropic wants tests, not bans, as OpenAI and Google back open weights (The New Stack)

Source: Sam Altman will meet with senior US officials, lawmakers, and economists in Washington, DC, this week to preview OpenAI's upcoming family of AI models (CNBC)

South Korea's KOSPI drops 11%+, led by chip stocks, amid concerns over China's chipmaking progress and the AI spending boom; Samsung falls 11%+ and SK Hynix 12% (Bloomberg)

Credit default swap prices tied to Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and Nvidia hit record highs as investors turn jittery over Big Tech's data center debt; Oracle's five-year CDS reached 215bps (FT)

Apple launches Apple Upgrade, a new US leasing program in partnership with Klarna that replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program, starting at $17.99/month for iPhones (MacRumors)

Apple releases 26.6 updates for iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS with a huge number of security fixes; macOS Tahoe 26.6 alone addresses 155 CVEs (9to5Mac)

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Nvidia committed $5B to Ilya Sutskever's SSI and weighed a $250B backstop for OpenAI's Ohio megaproject. CXMT soared 466% in its debut, Amazon filed for 5,105 satellites, Apple delayed AI glasses, and Peacock landed on YouTube Premium.

Sources: Nvidia has committed to invest $5B in Ilya Sutskever's SSI; the startup has previously raised about $3B in funding and was valued at $32B last year (Bloomberg)

Sources: Nvidia is in talks to guarantee ~$250B in financing for a 10 GW SoftBank data center project in southern Ohio that OpenAI is in advanced talks to lease; the site could cost $500B+ (WSJ)

CXMT's stock closed up 466% in its Shanghai debut, giving the Hefei-based memory chipmaker a ~$487B market cap, making it the most valuable China-listed company (CNBC)

Amazon files an FCC application to deploy a constellation of up to 5,105 satellites starting in 2028 to provide direct-to-device voice and data connectivity (Reuters)

Sources: Apple may have delayed AI glasses launch partly over privacy concerns that Meta's glasses created for the category, as it works to address the issues (Bloomberg)

NBCU and YouTube reach a multiyear deal to include all Peacock content in YouTube Premium subscriptions in the US starting in early 2027 (CNBC)

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Stripe was in talks to buy OpenRouter for as much as $10B while still chasing PayPal. Midjourney bought astrology app Co-Star, Meta launched Facebook Verified and a standalone Seller app, and Nvidia and Microsoft defended open-weight AI.

Sources: Stripe is in talks to acquire OpenRouter, which helps developers use AI models and could fetch ~$10B; PitchBook: OpenRouter was valued at $1.3B in May (WSJ)

Sources: Stripe and Advent's unsolicited $53B PayPal offer, backed by ~$50B in committed bank financing, would create a payments giant processing ~$3.7T annually; PayPal has not responded (Reuters)

Midjourney bought astrology app Co-Star, which uses AI to offer personalized advice, in the spring and is building its first standalone image-generation app (Bloomberg)

Meta launches Facebook Verified, a free program it says will verify that users are real humans by analyzing a facial recognition selfie and assigning badges (Engadget)

Meta launches Seller, a free standalone app version of Facebook Marketplace; Seller includes AI features that scan photos to fill out listings automatically (NYT)

Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, a16z, and others sign a letter defending open-source AI; Jensen Huang, in his first X post, says open models strengthen cybersecurity (The Information)

Signatories including Palantir avoid naming China or Moonshot in the open-weight letter, framing it instead around US AI leadership being judged by a strong open ecosystem, not one frontier model (Bloomberg)

Longreads

Meet All The Middle Aged Women Who Don't Exist: AI-generated wellness influencers, all gorgeous and all "57", are selling NMN supplements to women over 40 (Charlotte's Book)

Big US pizza delivery chains are struggling as DoorDash and Uber Eats give independent pizzerias greater market access, erasing the tech moat chains once had (FT)

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OpenAI staff were reportedly freaked out after its models breached Hugging Face, as aggressive training raced Anthropic. Google posted its first-ever negative free cash flow on AI spending, added selfie-video account recovery, and Light unveiled a minimalist flip phone.

Sources: OpenAI's staff were "freaked out" when its AI models breached Hugging Face, as OpenAI used more aggressive training methods to compete with Anthropic (FT)

Sources: Three OpenAI models, GPT-5.6 Sol and two unreleased ones, pulled off the Hugging Face hack in hours, work a skilled human would need weeks for; OpenAI has briefed the US government (Bloomberg)

Google reports Q2 free cash flow at negative $5.9B amid increased AI infrastructure spending, marking its first cash burn since going public in August 2004 (FT)

Google adds a selfie video sign-in option for account recovery, using tools like liveness detection to safeguard against deepfake attacks, rolling out globally (Wired)

The Light Flip is a minimalist flip phone with a point to prove (The Verge)

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OpenAI said its models breached Hugging Face's infrastructure during a cyber-capability test. The White House accused Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic's Fable to build Kimi K3, and Samsung unveiled its Z Fold 8 Ultra, Fold 8, and Flip 8.

OpenAI says its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model", breached Hugging Face while OpenAI tested their cyber capabilities (Axios)

OpenAI says its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model", breached Hugging Face while OpenAI tested their cyber capabilities (Cybersecurity Dive)

OpenAI says its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model", breached Hugging Face while OpenAI tested their cyber capabilities (Information Age)

White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios says "we have information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic's Fable for the development of its K3 model" (X)

White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios says "we have information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic's Fable for the development of its K3 model" (Business Insider)

Samsung unveils the $2,100+ Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, featuring its "most advanced foldable design", a Flex Titanium display, a 5,000mAH battery, and Android 17 (9to5Google)

Samsung unveils the $2,100+ Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, featuring its "most advanced foldable design", a Flex Titanium display, a 5,000mAH battery, and Android 17 (The Verge)

The Verge's hands-on with the wider, shorter $1,899.99 Galaxy Z Fold 8 finds the unusual shape surprisingly comfortable, positioning it as a media-consumption device rather than a multitasker (The Verge)

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