Google has signaled it will scale back certain search functionality for European users rather than fully comply with EU antitrust rules, aiming to sidestep potential fines. The company frames this as a response to regulatory demands it considers overly burdensome or conflicting with its business model.
Longstanding advice to periodically restart a computer remains valid today, with experts recommending Windows PCs be rebooted at least once a week. Linux systems generally require fewer restarts, and laptops should be shut down or put to sleep after use due to their limited cooling capacity.
Meta has introduced Muse, a new AI system that can carry out tasks like drafting emails or hunting for deals after users approve a plan of action. It runs in a private virtual machine and uses a separate 'Sentinel' agent to block unauthorized online actions, with rollout starting on iOS and Android in the US.
A Linux user is publicly arguing that swap files, not swap partitions, should be the default choice during OS installation. They note that swap files have matched swap partitions in performance for over two decades, while being far easier to create, resize, or remove after setup using simple commands like fallocate and mkswap.
Meta rolled out Muse, a new autonomous AI agent that CEO Mark Zuckerberg says learns a user's habits and goals to handle everyday tasks like online shopping, drafting documents, filling out forms, and answering emails. Users must grant Muse permission to access their apps and data, and Meta says a separate 'Sentinel' system monitors its actions to prevent it from acting without oversight. The tool is now live in the US on iOS, Android, and via the muse.ai website.
SpaceX's Starship 40 flew a suborbital test from Starbase, Texas, to the Indian Ocean in about 65 minutes on July 24, deploying and later intentionally destroying 20 Starlink V3 satellites to validate the deployment system. Unlike prior test flights, this upper stage survived splashdown mostly intact, and SpaceX says retrieving and shipping it back to Texas will take several months.
A browser-based project reproduces mid-century mathematical illustration techniques—like those in Francis's 'A Topological Picture Book'—for 3D surfaces, using triangulated meshes, GPU-computed silhouettes, and curvature-based hatching to mimic pen-and-ink drawing. Users can rotate, zoom, and manipulate hand-lettered labels on interactive models, with strokes dynamically redrawn as the view changes.
Jim Cramer said on 'Mad Money' that markets are overly fixated on AI data-center stocks, urging investors to diversify. He cited GE Aerospace's nearly $12 billion acquisition of Consolidated Precision Products as a boon for Boeing's supply chain, and praised fintech names Robinhood and Affirm along with healthcare firms Hinge Health and Medtronic as overlooked opportunities.
NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster alleges OpenAI accelerated its own Navier-Stokes work after learning a rival team using Anthropic's Claude was nearing a solution, and suspects OpenAI's Codex tool may have drawn on his team's draft sessions. Buckmaster says he was offered two credit-sharing arrangements, both of which he rejected, including one that would have excluded his collaborator Levent Alpöge from a paper. OpenAI researcher Sebastien Bubeck and CEO Sam Altman have publicly disputed parts of Buckmaster's account, and OpenAI says it won't seek the $1 million prize tied to the problem.
Android Authority highlighted two standout gadgets from IFA 2026 in Berlin: Blurams' F20C HelioCam Pro, a solar-powered 4K outdoor security camera with no wiring and a free lifetime cloud plan, and Mammotion's LUBA 4 AWD, a robot lawn mower designed to better handle lawn edges. The Blurams camera uses a 12,000mAh battery paired with a detachable solar panel, is IP66-rated for weather resistance, and runs on-device AI detection for people, vehicles, and pets, with footage stored locally or via free cloud playback.
Corning shares jumped 8% after announcing a multibillion-dollar partnership with Verizon to build fiber-optic cables for AI data centers, extending its 2025 gain to 90%. Qualcomm also rose after disclosing it issued Amazon warrants worth up to $4 billion in stock as part of a deal where AWS will buy up to $60 billion in Qualcomm server chips, with revenue starting in the December quarter. The news lifted other AI infrastructure stocks including Intel, AMD, HPE and Coherent.
The NSA, CISA, and FBI issued a joint advisory alleging that Chinese AI companies, including DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, have run large-scale campaigns since 2024 to extract capabilities from leading US models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok. The agencies say these firms used millions of queries routed through multiple accounts, APIs, proxies, and cloud providers to generate synthetic training data and build competing models such as DeepSeek's R1/R3 and Moonshot's Kimi-K2/K3.