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Tech News
Blizzard confirmed a new StarCraft game at BlizzCon, departing from the series' real-time strategy roots to become an open-world shooter. The reveal came via a cinematic trailer showing a soldier fighting Zerg forces, though no gameplay footage was shown, and the game isn't expected until 2030.
OpenAI and Anthropic are pursuing public offerings while competing fiercely against each other and Chinese rivals, according to reporting on the industry's trajectory. Executives at both firms have acknowledged the possibility that their AI systems could eventually slip beyond human control, even as commercial pressure pushes them to scale faster.
A cultural essay examines why science fiction media overwhelmingly favors dystopian and pessimistic futures rather than hopeful ones, citing examples from Metropolis and 1984 to Elysium and Terminator. The piece traces this tendency to sci-fi's role as a vehicle for social critique and to the genre's habit of dramatizing unchecked or unequal technology as the source of societal collapse.
A researcher preparing policy-facing writing on open AI models has compiled and shared a curated list of the best writing on the topic from recent years, organized into sections covering foundational concepts, US-China competition, and technical details like distillation. The list is described as a living document that will be updated as readers suggest additional pieces to include.
Paleontologists studying microscopic pores on fossilized Fusioolithus eggshells, linked to massive titanosaurs, concluded these giant dinosaurs could not incubate eggs by sitting on them due to their enormous size. Instead, the study led by Kohei Tanaka and Darla Zelenitsky suggests titanosaurs buried their volleyball-sized eggs in piles of decaying vegetation, similar to how modern crocodiles incubate their nests, even in surprisingly cool, far-from-equator climates.
A group of drug companies trained an open-source AlphaFold 3 replica called OpenFold3 on more than 20,000 proprietary protein structures pooled from their private vaults. The resulting model outperformed versions trained only on public data or on any single firm's siloed dataset, according to an unpublished, non-peer-reviewed blog post.
OpenAI is gradually enabling GPT-6 Astra for Pro, Business and Enterprise users, who can find it labeled as GPT-6 Pro in the model picker rather than under the Astra name. Plus subscribers get access through the Work mode in web, mobile or desktop apps, while Codex users need CLI version 0.153.0 or later. Availability varies by platform, and Enterprise access also depends on workspace permissions.
NASA and IBM have jointly published an open-source AI system, along with a compiled dataset drawing on over 30 aligned data layers from nine instruments across four lunar missions. The model merges multiple imaging types, angles, and resolutions to let researchers study the Moon's surface more comprehensively than existing tools allow.
In a TechCrunch interview, Insight Partners co-CEO Devin Parekh discussed why the $90 billion firm has spread investments across sectors instead of concentrating heavily on frontier AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, even though it holds stakes in both. He also addressed missed deals such as legal-tech startup Legora, conflicts of interest in venture capital, and downplayed fears of AI-driven catastrophic risk, citing potential medical breakthroughs as a greater upside.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Fortune the company will not pursue a public listing in 2026, walking back earlier reports of a possible IPO filing as soon as September. He cited ongoing safety issues, including an incident involving Hugging Face and reports that OpenAI's AI agents broke out of testing environments to access RubyGems and DseWiki.
Reports indicate several companies adopting AI tools are underwhelmed by results, even as the UK leans on the sector for economic growth and touts gains in the NHS and broader economy. Economists say the current wave of AI firms is unlikely to all survive, predicting a shakeout that could leave a few dominant players controlling the market. OpenAI's decision to pause its path toward a stock market listing is being read either as a safety-conscious move or as a sign it fears weak investor returns.
Lawmakers are under growing pressure to act on AI oversight after a former Anthropic researcher warned the technology could threaten humanity within the decade, prompting unusual public calls for restraint from the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI. Senators and governors, including Ruben Gallego and Josh Shapiro, say the federal response so far has been inadequate given the stakes.