All the news you need to keep up with the latest developments in the tech world, from product announcements and live events to tariffs, policies, and regulations. Tech touches every aspect of daily news, and our experts are here to keep you informed on what happens and how it all affects you.
Build Mode is out now for subscribers of SpaceXAI’s $300 per month SuperGrok Heavy tier, and it’s accessible on the Grok website and mobile apps. It’s powered by the company’s Grok Build coding agent.
The $169 Smart LED Monitor Stand includes a white front LED light strip with adjustable color temperature and an addressable RGB rear light strip. It’s also Matter-compatible and has 23 built-in mounting points for attaching a mic, a ring light, or other accessories.
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The campus will be located in El Paso, Texas and is already under construction. It will have “1 gigawatt of compute capacity” and “will play an essential role in bringing Meta’s AI technologies to life.” BlackRock will own an 80 percent interest, while Meta will own a 20 percent interest.
The data center is expected to come online in 2028.
The outage, which lasted for nearly a day, blocked people from playing some digital and disc games. You can read Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet’s full explanation on X, but here’s a key part of it:
What happened. Late last night, a licensing service that sits outside of XBOX, but which XBOX depends upon, began failing. This caused some sign-in scenarios to fail, and it caused many scenarios that require an entitlement check to also fail, such as listing out your Full Library and launching games that you own. It also affected several of our publishing and store partners who depend on those same systems which is why some of you saw issues in specific games and not others.
The outage, which started on Monday, seemed to affect people all over the US and even some customers on MVNOs. In a 12:10PM ET post on Tuesday, the company finally said that it had “fully restored service for all customers.”
Ubisoft announced that several of its biggest (and smallest) hits from the past decade are available on the Xbox PC app. Also, those who already own digital console titles listed in the Xbox blog post can play them on PC for no additional cost via the Ubisoft Connect app. Sounds like Ubisoft is positioning itself for Xbox’s PC-like Project Helix.
You can now make and receive calls — including audio, video, one-on-one, and group calls — on your browser without downloading the WhatsApp app. This is launching alongside waiting room and noise suppression features, and the ability to transfer between devices during calls without hanging up.
Instead, Apple says users can either finish making payments on their device or switch to its new Apple Upgrade program, which will allow them to lease an iPhone, Mac, iPad, or Apple Watch. The company notes that customers can also finance a new device with monthly installments on the Apple Card.
The company has signed a voluntary code to comply with obligations under the EU’s AI Act to mark and label AI-generated content that takes effect on August 2nd. Meta unironically said it wants to help prevent “a growing array of different labels and disclosures” from confusing people and regulators, after launching its own bespoke system this month.
World Cup cameo aside, we haven’t heard much since MWC, but Honor is gearing up to release the gimbal-equipped phone in China soon. It’s teasing the camera’s capabilities, including a 200-megapixel, f/1.6, 1/1.2.8-inch-type gimbal camera, and a separate 200-megapixel, f/2.6, 1/1.4-inch-type periscope. The gimbal itself will support automatic subject tracking and six different shooting modes.
[Weibo]
The OpenAI chatbot has started to push back on requests to copy the writing style of authors like Stephen King and Agatha Christie, saying it can spit out something with similar characteristics, but can’t closely imitate distinctive styles. Those disclaimers could be legally important as OpenAI faces down copyright lawsuits filed by authors.
Last week, Uber said it would be cutting 10 percent of its customer service workforce to “embrace” AI. But things are much more dire than that according to Forrester analyst Kate Leggett, who estimates that “almost half of customer service roles will be impacted by 2030.”
A preliminary injunction has been granted to halt the Minnesota law that was due to go into effect on Saturday. Siding with a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration, Kalshi, and Polymarket, federal judge Katherine Menendez said the plaintiffs would be harmed by enforcement and that federal law supersedes the ban.
LG’s Wide Hover Screen concept combines a 20-inch central console display and ultra-short-throw projector to create a large heads-up display on the windshield. It builds upon LG’s UltraView Windshield Display designed to help drivers keep their eyes on the road by minimizing unnecessary eye movement.
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There are few things more Japanese than the kei minicar, which is now under threat from China. Starting today, BYD’s all-electric, five-door Racco is available to buy locally for less than ¥2 million (about $12,200) with a range of 210 kilometers (130 miles).
Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell service continues to evolve beyond basic SMS/messaging to provide light data connectivity in cellular dead zones. Telstra customers in Australia with compatible phones can now use it for apps like Apple Weather, Google Maps, AllTrails, and WhatsApp. T-Mobile users in the US have had similar app support since October.
The company had been igniting widespread criticism as seemingly the only leading AI lab not supporting open-weight models. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently published a public letter in support of them, signed by Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Palantir, Hugging Face, and others — and in the days since, it’s added OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Meta, SpaceX, Cohere, Mistral, CoreWeave, GitHub, OpenClaw, and Perplexity as signatories. Now Anthropic’s CEO has published his own thoughts on the matter, clarifying, “Anthropic has never advocated for a ban on open-weights models.”
[Anthropic]
The outage seems to be affecting many places across the country, as users from areas like New York City, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Berkeley, CA all recently reported problems with their T-Mobile service in a Reddit thread that has more than 6,000 comments and 2,000 upvotes.
The outage also appears to impact customers on MVNOs, too. One NYC-based Verge staffer on Google Fi, which runs on T-Mobile’s network, has no service.
Apple is patching dozens of flaws across iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6, including a vulnerability that could allow apps to access a user’s contacts, as well as a security hole that could allow malicious apps to escape their sandbox in the Game Center. Several fixes are rolling out to macOS Tahoe 26.6 as well.
Project Perception uses a series of AI agents to reason across a company’s data, tools, and workflows to detect potential security holes and patch them before they’re exploited.
Microsoft is powering the tool with its new MAI-Cyber-1-Flash model, which it says “delivers world-class performance at 50% of the cost of leading models.”
[The Official Microsoft Blog]
Previously, you had to chat with Meta AI in the open, but the company heard feedback that “not everyone wants to interact with AI publicly on Threads,” according to Threads boss Connor Hayes. Meta AI’s DM responses will be limited to text “for now.”
Not every gadget is waterproof, so Urban Armor Gear partnered with Dryout for a new collection of bags, pouches, and backpacks featuring pockets with absorbent liners that pull moisture away from drowned devices. They can be dried and reused similar to Bone-Dri’s products and are potentially a better alternative to a bag of rice.
SSI — helmed by Sutskever, who was a co-founder of OpenAI and famously clashed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — announced a “long-term strategic partnership” with Nvidia with a reported investment of $5 billion, which will allow the company “10x our compute in the next 12 months.” The company wrote on X, “We reached the point where our research is worth scaling.”
[X (formerly Twitter)]
The Air Zoom Hyperslide, launching on September 29th for $249, uses a pod from Hyperice to offer three levels of heat and vibration across the top of the foot, running in 15-minute cycles controlled directly on the pod or from its mobile app.
Hyperice CEO Jim Huether says that after the $799 Nike Hyperboot, they were focused on something athletes could wear while they’re on the move.
The Chinese model, the world’s largest open-weight model publicly available, dropped a few minutes shy of the expected 11AM ET. The timing of the release clearly targets the US market and it is already having a major impact on American AI, as shown by the furious debate surrounding open AI (not to be confused with OpenAI) systems.
After a PS5 outage last week, now it’s apparently Xbox’s turn for problems, weeks after a massive wave of layoffs. The Xbox Live status page says an outage was first reported at 11PM last night and is still ongoing, preventing some account sign-ins and stopping people from playing their games, whether from a disc or a digital copy.
On my home Xbox, I could launch many games I own, but trying to load Game Pass titles threw up a “Check back later” message or error code 0x87e107df, indicating the license couldn’t be verified. The last update from @XboxSupport came three hours ago.
[X (formerly Twitter)]
