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META ENTERS AI IMAGE MODEL RACE IN BID TO COURT ADVERTISERS AND SUBSCRIBERS

Meta has released a new AI model for creating images, Muse Image. The model will be available for consumers to access for free via the Meta AI app and site, WhatsApp direct messages, and Instagram Stories. Users who hit their free limit can purchase a subscription or wait until the limit resets. Muse Image will be used to power advertiser-specific image-generation tools as part of Meta's AI-powered Advantage Plus service.

BEHIND XBOX'S BIG LAYOFFS, A STREAMING STRATEGY THAT FAILED

Xbox announced on Monday that it would lay off 3,200 employees and let go of five game studios. The company is aiming to reset itself after overspending on studios, staff, and games that people didn't want to play. Xbox plans to take a more streamlined approach to games and studios going forward. It will focus more on franchises like Minecraft, which is considered one of the most successful video games in the world.

SPACEX JUST LAUNCHED THE 1ST-EVER NUCLEAR-POWERED COMMERCIAL SATELLITE

The BOHR (Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability) satellite is a commercially built nuclear-powered cubesat created by Florida-based company City Labs. It was designed to test the company's proprietary NanoTritium betavoltaic micropower source in space for the first time. The NanoTritium device harnesses beta particles emitted from the radioactive decay of tritium and converts them directly into electricity using a semiconductor. It is meant to provide continuous power to spacecraft without a reliance on solar energy.

TESLA CYBERCAB INCLUDES MORE POWERFUL FSD HARDWARE

Production units of the upcoming Cybercab are running a more powerful version of Tesla's Full Self-Driving computer compared to the Model 3 or Model Y. The biggest change is the increased onboard memory, which will allow the computer to run much larger self-driving models. The extra computing muscle enables the Cybercab to be equipped with an SAE Level 4 Autonomous Mode - the Cybercab is designed to operate entirely without human intervention. Tesla started testing Cybercabs without steering wheels or pedals on public roads in Austin last week.

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HOW TECH WORKERS ARE FEELING IN 2026: A WORKFORCE SPLITTING IN TWO

Tech workers are either amplified by AI or shaken by it. The divide is shaping their feeling about work more than any title, tenure, or company. Burnout is surging, and optimism is fading. While productivity is up, the quality is questionable. Many tech workers believe the tech industry is in a state of chaos.

HERDR

herdr is an agent multiplexer that lives in the terminal. It gives users a view of every agent at a glance. Agents keep running even when users are detached, and sessions survive restarts. herdr can be used by agents through a pure socket API. Plugins are available.

THE PEOPLE WHO WILL THRIVE IN THE AI AGE

AI doesn't seem to be taking away jobs and leaving humans with nothing to do. Studies have found that AI adoption has resulted in work becoming more intense, not less. People are using the time they save by using AI to take on new tasks. The people who are going to make a difference are the ones who will seek improvement and actively wrestle with AI to develop their own mental capabilities to accomplish more.

CHINA MAY RESTRICT ACCESS TO ITS MOST POWERFUL AI MODELS

Chinese authorities have held talks with major Chinese AI companies about whether to restrict foreign access to their most advanced models. No decisions have been made yet, but officials are considering options like a bar on public release or a limit to domestic use only. China's AI companies have become popular partly because they are free and open source. Closing access would mean surrendering the lever that drove China's rise.

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SAMSUNG TO GET JUMP ON APPLE'S FIRST FOLDABLE WITH NEW PHONES IN JULY

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 is expected to feature a shorter and wider design that resembles Apple's planned folding iPhone.

MICROSOFT REPLACES OPENAI, ANTHROPIC WITH OWN AI IN SOME APPS

Apps like Excel and Outlook are now using Microsoft's MAI models rather than models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

CHINESE AI MODELS ARE GAINING GROUND WITH US COMPANIES AS OPENAI, ANTHROPIC COSTS SURGE

Recent model releases from Chinese companies are seen by many as highly competitive compared to leading frontier systems from companies in the US.

HOW TO USE AI AGENTS BETTER THAN 99% OF PEOPLE

Agents need a memory system built for how they actually read, write, and coordinate.

ALL CARS SOLD IN THE EU NOW REQUIRE A CAMERA AIMED AT YOUR FACE. IT'S STILL NOT CLEAR WHERE THAT DATA GOES

The camera can never be truly switched off and keeps monitoring the driver at all times to make sure they're paying attention to the road.

WILL SOMEONE FINALLY BLINK IN THE AI SPENDING WAR?

Big tech renting out excess compute is an indicator that the industry has overbuilt.

NVIDIA'S NEXT-GEN AI RACK SYSTEM DELAYED TO 2028 ON MANUFACTURING SNAGS

Nvidia's Kyber rack-scale architecture has been delayed by more than 12 months to 2028. The server cabinet is designed to house 144 of the company's 2027 Rubin Ultra chips so they can work together as one giant computer. The delay is due to difficulties in manufacturing a key circuit board at the heart of the system. It is a sign that Nvidia's breakneck annual release cadence is colliding with manufacturing limits.

APPLE'S IPHONE ULTRA WILL BE DOUBLE THE PRICE OF THE IPHONE 17 PRO MAX

The iPhone Ultra will be announced in September together with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. It will start shipping about a month later. The foldable phone is estimated to be priced at around $2,400. It is likely that the phone will sell out immediately after pre-orders open, and then there will be delays running through December.

THE ROBOTS ARE HERE

Robots decouple capital from human labor. This means production capacity becomes tied to how many robots one can make or afford. Robust robot capacity enables things that were previously impossible. This post features an interview with robotics experts about why robots are the real general-purpose technology, how everyone keeps underestimating Unitree, China's edge, why you can't AI your way out of a hardware or supply chain problem, and what the US should do next.

EGYPT IS BUILDING A NEW NILE

Egypt is attempting to create a new agricultural landscape to relieve mounting pressure on the Nile Delta. The New Delta product is a plan that involves recycling water, moving it across the desert, and bringing it to new land for cultivation. Early satellite images show rapid progress, but questions remain about how sustainable the transformation will be. Much of the water currently used to irrigate the new fields is coming from underground aquifers, which are not easily replenished.

WHAT THE NEW 100X AGENTIC ENGINEER LOOKS LIKE IN THE ERA OF FABLE & GPT 5.6

The 100x software engineer is at least an order of magnitude more productive than normal software engineers due to a combination of tacit knowledge, experience, and technical prowess. Agentic coding doesn't normalize productivity - not everyone is equally productive with agents. Agentic engineering is a skill with a high ceiling. This article looks at the shift in the bottleneck in agentic engineering and how to become a 100x agentic engineer.

YOUR ENVIRONMENTS AT A GLANCE

env.style is a tool that styles environments with colors or custom tabs. Users can preview updates live as they edit. The tool allows developers to set a custom icon for any environment.

ALIBABA'S AI IS A HIT, BUT HARD TO TURN INTO A MONEYMAKER

Alibaba's open-source models can be modified and used freely by anyone. Its technology is much cheaper to use than proprietary systems from US competitors like Anthropic and OpenAI. The company's AI models are popular, but it has become a challenge to turn that global popularity into a profitable business.

BIG TECH HAS SUDDENLY FLIPPED ON THE AI JOBS WIPEOUT SCENARIO

Tech CEOs have started to change their stance on AI wiping out jobs over the past year. The industry appears to have underestimated the value of keeping people at the center of everything. Comments by tech leaders now point to a future where workers keep their jobs, but gain a productivity boost from AI. It is unclear whether these statements are a move to win back customers and the public or whether the role of AI in the workplace is just now better understood.

MICROSOFT IS CUTTING MORE THAN 3,000 JOBS IN XBOX DIVISION

The cuts represent about a fifth of the division's total head count.

HOW TO SEQUENCE YOUR OWN DNA AT HOME

The process involves collecting DNA from a swab, prepping it for sequencing, running it through a sequencer, and then performing analysis on it.

CELLS, CHROMOSOMES, AND GENOMES

Clinicians can develop personalized medical treatments by examining the relationship between physical traits and the genome.

PRICE PER 1M TOKENS IS MEANINGLESS

You need to consider the actual cost per task, otherwise you will be left with inferior performance at a higher price.

FORWARD DEPLOYED ENGINEERING IS ABOUT TO GET DILUTED

The Forward Deployed Engineering role is growing as the role is trying to answer a current market need.

NETFLIX VIEWERS ARE ABANDONING SHOWS AFTER ONE SEASON

Netflix's inability to retain audiences is fueling growing investor concern about engagement.

NVIDIA TAPS AI CLOUD PROVIDERS TO EXPAND COMPUTE ACCESS FOR STARTUPS

Nvidia has started a partnership program that offers firms access to critical computing infrastructure through the company's network of AI cloud service providers. Members of the program will share both product and cloud revenue with Nvidia. AI firms are increasingly entering into revenue and equity-sharing agreements with chip makers to circumvent liquidity issues. Nvidia plans to raise at least $20 billion in debt for general corporate purposes.

AMAZON HAS DEPLOYED ENOUGH SATELLITES TO LAUNCH LEO SERVICE LATER THIS YEAR

Amazon Leo now has enough satellites in orbit to begin serving customers. The constellation now has more than 390 satellites. Amazon began offering an enterprise preview for select businesses last year. Its commercial service will likely initially be limited to users in certain geographic regions.

THE QUEST TO MAKE HUMANOID ROBOTS SAFE ENOUGH FOR HUMANS

One of the biggest challenges for robot makers is ensuring that they don't hurt humans. The machines are getting bigger and heavier, which increases their potential for damage. The International Organization for Standardization is expected to publish a standard for humanoid robot safety by mid-2028, but robot makers are already coming up with their own solutions. This article looks at some of those solutions.

THE AI SUPERFORECASTERS ARE HERE

An AI superforecaster is an AI modified to be good at forecasting. This usually involves a scaffold that handholds the agent through a long research process. There are now several companies that claim to have AI superforecasters with incredible performance and results. They appear to be making crazy profits on prediction markets and beating the stock market by some comfortable amount.

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AGENTIC AUTONOMY LEVELS

Low autonomy limits risk and increases reversibility. Higher autonomy is better for explicit activities, as well as for fleets of parallel agents refactoring massive codebases. The edge of the frontier is the manager agent that delegates to helpers while continuously verifying their output, and only returning with the decisions that must be made by a human. This setup can be used to run hundreds or thousands of agents.

A FIELD GUIDE TO FABLE: FINDING YOUR UNKNOWNS

Users need to spend more time defining unknowns to prevent long-horizon tasks from coming back wrong. Claude can be used to help define these unknowns through explainers, brainstorms, interviews, prototypes, and references. Doing this is a cheap way to fix problems before they get expensive. This post shows readers how to use Claude to help find their unknowns.

THREADS, META'S ‘TWITTER KILLER,' FINDS ITS PEOPLE

Threads now has 500 million monthly users. The app has become especially popular in Asia. Threads is now targeting one billion users. The app started showing ads in January - reaching its user goal could lead to revenue of at least $30 billion a year.

AI HAS TORCHED THE MARKET FOR JUNIOR PROGRAMMERS

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BETTER MODELS: WORSE TOOLS

If the newest models get better at solving the task while getting worse at faithfully emitting an alternative tool schema, then the harness needs stronger guarantees somewhere.

WORDPRESS DROPS TO 41.5% MARKET SHARE, BUT THREE DATASETS TELL DIFFERENT STORIES ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON

WordPress now powers 41.5% of the web, down from a peak of 43.6% in early 2025.

AGENTIC LOOPS

A look at various strategies to run agentic loops.

APPLE PLANS FIVE NEW IPHONES THROUGH 2027, EYES CHINESE-MADE CHIPS AMID FOLDABLE PUSH

Apple has instructed suppliers to prepare to produce about 10 million foldable iPhones this year.