The Brutalist Report - tech
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- Amazon shutters its AGI Lab as part of layoffs in its AGI unit earlier this week; the lab's former head David Luan left in February (The Information) [2d]
- Sources: AI robotics startup Genesis AI is in talks to raise around $500M in a new funding round at a $3B pre-money valuation (Bloomberg) [2d]
- AMD is working with Cerebras to combine AMD Helios and Cerebras wafer-scale chips for an AI inference solution to make workloads faster; CBRS closed up 4.86% (Phoebe Liu/The Information) [2d]
- Nvidia signs a $1.5B accord with Amkor, involving a prepayment by Nvidia to help bolster Amkor's chip packaging facility in Arizona; AMKR jumps 16%+ after hours (Bloomberg) [2d]
- Sierra acquires Takeoff, which develops "long-horizon" agents, for an undisclosed sum; founded in 2025, Takeoff neared $10M in annualized revenue in early July (The Information) [2d]
- Sources: Stripe is in talks to acquire OpenRouter in a deal potentially worth around $10B; PitchBook: OpenRouter was valued at $1.3B in May (Wall Street Journal) [2d]
- SAP reports Q2 cloud revenue up 22% YoY to €6.28B, vs. €6.26B est., total revenue up 9.4% to €9.88B, and lowers its 2026 non-IFRS operating profit guidance (Grace Yoon/Wall Street Journal) [2d]
- The Pentagon signs an up-to-10-year contract with Oracle worth up to $7B to consolidate department's on-premises software licenses into a single contract (Mike Stone/Reuters) [2d]
- Oracle wins a 10-year software contract with the Pentagon worth up to $7B; the contract covers the use of Oracle software in on-premises data centers (Jordan Novet/CNBC) [2d]
- Trump says 200 additional stakeholders, including major utilities, joined a voluntary pledge to protect consumers from high energy bills from AI data centers (Josh Boak/Associated Press) [2d]
- Filing: the value of Alphabet's investments in unidentified private companies was ~$124.3B as of June 30, source says driven primarily by its Anthropic stake (Davey Alba/Bloomberg) [2d]
- Intel reports Q2 revenue up 25% YoY to $16.1B, vs. $14.42B est., its fastest sales growth in ~15 years on "unprecedented" demand; INTC jumps 10%+ after hours (Kif Leswing/CNBC) [2d]
- Tesla stock closed down 14.52% and Alphabet closed down 6.89% after they signaled increased AI spending, amid worries about the mounting costs of the AI boom (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC) [2d]
- Germany's Black Forest Labs launches Flux 3 and Flux-mimic, its first models for robotics, as it expands from generative AI into physical AI (Yazhou Sun/Bloomberg) [2d]
- Microsoft replaces OpenAI's image-generating models with its MAI models in its products; Mustafa Suleyman says MAI models are ~85% cheaper to run in PowerPoint (Brody Ford/Bloomberg) [2d]
- Patreon lays off 20% of its employees, or 93 people, citing a "painful" restructuring due to "profound" changes in the creator economy (Corbin Bolies/Variety) [2d]
- Anthropic makes its Opus and Sonnet models available in voice mode, and says voice mode can now tap into some connected apps like Gmail, Slack, and Notion (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [2d]
- Foundation Future Industries, backed by Eric Trump, partners with AMD to develop autonomous humanoid robots using the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded X100 Series chips (Aishwarya Jain/Reuters) [2d]
- AegisAI, which uses AI agents to detect AI-driven spear-phishing attacks, raised a $36M Series A led by Battery Ventures, bringing its total funding to $49M (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch) [2d]
- AMD unveils the Venice-X CPU, with 1152 MB of 3D V-Cache, 96 cores, and up to 5.15 GHz clock speeds, available in H2 2027 (Jake Roach/Tom's Hardware) [2d]
- OpenAI expands ChatGPT Health, which helps users with health-related queries and connects to services like Apple Health, to all logged-in US users over 18 (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [2d]
- Primate Labs releases Geekbench 7, featuring larger, more demanding datasets for CPUs and GPUs, along with new video and audio encoding/decoding tests, and more (Antonio G. Di Benedetto/The Verge) [2d]
- Runway launches Runway Media Router, which it says is the first built specifically for generative media, as it expands from AI video to AI infrastructure (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch) [2d]
- The US Department of Commerce's BIS is formally investigating whether Chinese companies like Moonshot are accessing advanced US AI chips to train their models (Leo Schwartz/The Information) [2d]
- GitHub plans a two-tier bug bounty system, cutting rewards for public reports and boosting payouts for an invite-only group, amid an AI-powered submission surge (Carly Page/The Register) [2d]
- Adam Mosseri says Instagram will take down "pickup line" and other videos shot on Meta glasses that feature harassment of strangers in public places (Katie Notopoulos/Business Insider) [2d]
- Sources: India has ordered telecom companies to disable mobile data services in central Delhi, amid youth protests seeking the education minister's resignation (Reuters) [2d]
- Microsoft is testing free, ad-supported cloud gaming for Xbox Insiders, limited to one-hour sessions for the games users already own (Stevie Bonifield/The Verge) [2d]
- Abstract Security, which offers an in-stream threat detection platform, raised a $25M extension to its $15M Series A, bringing its total funding to $48.5M (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE) [2d]
- Yelp signs a deal with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT users real-time local recommendations, and will soon let them contact local businesses for quotes via ChatGPT (Madison Mills/Axios) [2d]
- AI inference chip startup Etched raised a $300M Series C led by Sequoia, with a16z, SK Hynix, others participating, at a $10.3B valuation, up from $5B in Dec. (Julie Bort/TechCrunch) [2d]
- The European Commission approves the $55B acquisition of EA by a group of investors including Saudi Arabia's PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters) [2d]
- IBM acquires HRL Laboratories from Boeing and General Motors, seeking to integrate HRL's electron spin quantum circuits into its quantum computers (Stephen Nellis/Reuters) [2d]
- Amazon is integrating its Luna cloud gaming service into Prime Video via a new Games tab, starting with games like Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC for Fire TV (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter) [3d]
- Ford says Apple's software will be available in its new EVs, helping determine autonomous driving via Apple Maps, and they are working to improve self-driving (Jack Ewing/New York Times) [3d]
- Sources: Jeff Bezos pushed Prime Video head Mike Hopkins to highlight AI in an overhaul of the service, leading to an internal effort called Project Lighthouse (Reuters) [3d]
- Filing: Alphabet holds $94.1B in SpaceX equity post-IPO; $80B are under short-term sale restrictions, while $14.1B remain long-term restricted until Q3 2027 (Sarah Frier/Bloomberg) [3d]
- Nvidia's latest trick for cooling its data center hardware is... hot water? 'Hot liquid cooling' is warmer than a hot tub, but apparently does the job pretty well [2d]
- NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, July 24 (game #1139) [2d]
- NYT Strands hints and answers for Friday, July 24 (game #873) [2d]
- Quordle hints and answers for Friday, July 24 (game #1642) [2d]
- My favorite music streaming site just got a big update that makes me even happier I quit Spotify six months ago [2d]
- Quote of the day by former Intel CEO Andy Grove: 'Success breeds complacency' — accidental foreshadowing of his company's own decline [2d]
- Cutting through the noise — researchers may have cracked a key issue with developing next-gen 6G networks [2d]
- Temu Tomahawk shows Ukraine is rapidly turning into China for the US Military, and that's a good thing [2d]
- 'Subprime data center crisis' could threaten the global economy in a way similar to the 2008 subprime mortgage debacle [2d]
- Adata boss says DRAM shortage to last another decade with no AI bubble bursting before 2030 [2d]
- Experts have found a trojan able to rig online live betting platforms [2d]
- I was impressed by the spec of this budget gaming keyboard — but there’s one feature it desperately needs [2d]
- I asked a disaster survival psychologist if AI usage should be the same level of 'emergency' as Pompeii — but instead she's worried about a technology catastrophe that I didn't even consider [2d]
- Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro data reveals how Josh Kerr just shattered the 27-year-old mile world record —and his split stats explain the historic run [2d]
- Goodbye SMS or phone calls — Microsoft is making passkeys the default authentication process for businesses [2d]
- LG's latest OLED TVs will have a 'Creator Original' mode that works with Prime Video: it seems to take some of Dolby Vision 2's best features, but may arrive sooner — and unlike DV2, will be supported on LG's TVs… [2d]
- Zach Cregger's Resident Evil just got a new trailer and eagle-eyed fans have already spotted some video game easter eggs [2d]
- Duda expands its AI stack to bridge the gap between fast website generation and enterprise-grade security [2d]
- Ring has upgraded two of its cameras and the new peephole model looks like it'll be perfect for apartment-dwellers —its no-drill installation won't damage your door, so it's ideal for renters [2d]
- Samsung just fixed the foldable phone — now Apple can make it cool [2d]
- Amazon Luna boss thinks rising hardware prices could push more hardcore gamers to cloud gaming — 'You're going to see more people that are priced out of the market' [2d]
- ‘Our nation depends on our men and women who fight on the front lines’: Nvidia donates DGX GB300 AI supercomputer to US Naval Postgraduate School to train AI leaders, run high-fidelity simulations, and create naval digital twin environments [2d]
- The RAM crisis just forced Framework into a nasty price hike — and Apple's rumored solution to the memory crunch is renting Macs to cash-strapped consumers [2d]
- Valve launches two big Steam updates, and one of them arrives at a perfect time [2d]
- Flock cameras spotted hiding inside speed signs from a growing backlash — as Wisconsin officials resort to covering ALPRs with trash bags after company refuses to take them down [2d]
- NordVPN starts a network-wide server overhaul — most users won't notice a thing [2d]
- OpenAI is spending $30 billion on a new mega 3.2 GW data center in Georgia — and it's trying really hard to quell local opposition [2d]
- Campaign Evolved proves that the first Halo adventure is still fun to play 25 years later [2d]
- 'I’m more excited about what’s to come than what we have achieved': Samsung executive on why they built the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Apple's iPhone Ultra threat, and what comes next for foldables [2d]
- A new dawn for digital rights? What Burnham’s 'do better' promise could mean for your privacy [2d]
- ‘Imagine an automated torture chamber’: I visited Samsung's South Korea factory to see how its Galaxy foldables are tested — and these robots don't miss a beat [2d]
- Reinventing hiring for the AI-driven labor market [2d]
- 'Apple is entering 'the touchbar phase' again': MacBook OLED could be on track to launch in a few months, but skeptics still hate that rumored touchscreen [2d]
- 'Two lasers, one box, zero compromise for pro-grade engraving': The xTool F2 Ultra is $1,000 off at Amazon with deep engraving and AI-powered precision [2d]
- SpaceXAI has built a Microsoft Excel Grok plug-in, for some reason [2d]
- 'Excellent' and 'exceptionally flexible': Geekom IT13 mini PC for small business users running office applications and video conferencing tools gets a welcome 10% price cut [3d]
- Planning a NAS upgrade? Check out these Seagate IronWolf and BarraCuda hard drive deals at Newegg [3d]
- Lenovo's premium Yoga Slim 7x Copilot+ laptop with a 'phenomenal OLED display' is over $420 off at Best Buy [3d]
- I've picked the 10 best back-to-school laptop deals — how to choose between the Dell XPS 13, MacBook Neo, HP OmniBook, and more to get the best value for money [3d]
- Humans in the loop: how software teams are learning to trust AI [3d]
- Star Wars Zero Company takes 30-40 hours to beat 'depending on your difficulty level and experience with the strategy genre' but won't have a New Game Plus mode [3d]
- This devious malware scans over 300 apps to build an AI profile telling hackers which victims to target [3d]
- Garmin backtracks on Cirqa subscription after outcry from fans and makes a crucial feature available for free [3d]
- Dutton Ranch season 2 has all-but confirmed a release window after Ed Harris revealed filming complaints — and there's a huge change to the Yellowstone spinoff that nobody is talking about [3d]
- 'We carefully verified the silicon-carbon battery so that our users can trust it and use it with competence': Samsung execs on how it tuned the latest battery technology — and why that matters [3d]
- A malicious Chrome extension for Adobe Acrobat could let hackers access private WhatsApp chats [3d]
- Prime Video just got a massive free upgrade that lets you instantly play games like Fallout on your TV — 'Not enough people know about it' says Amazon gaming head [3d]
- 'We have a kill switch that stops AI agents that go rogue': ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott says his company can help firms go "from AI chaos to AI discipline" [3d]
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra vs. Z Fold 7: Improved Battery, Screen and a Higher Price [2d]
- A Study Found Asthma Improves After Switching From a Gas Stove to Electric [2d]
- You Can Now Use a Selfie Video If You’re Locked Out on Google [2d]
- Get a Samsung Galaxy A37 When You Switch to Metro by T-Mobile [2d]
- Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 24, #669 [2d]
- Bamboozled by Samsung’s Many Z Fold and Z Flip Phones? Start Here [2d]
- Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 23, #668 [2d]
- OpenAI Agent Escaped Testing and Launched an Autonomous Hack [2d]
- My FanCam Is My Favorite New AI Feature – Because It Doesn’t Generate Anything [2d]
- My FanCam Is My Favorite New AI Feature – Because It Doesn’t Generate Anything [2d]
- Man Sues OpenAI, Alleging ChatGPT Gave Him ‘Dangerous Medical Advice’ [2d]
- Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 24, #1861 [2d]
- Xbox Testing Ad-Supported Streaming With Xbox Insiders [2d]
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 vs. Z Fold 8 Ultra: The Big Differences After Trying Out Both Foldable Phones [2d]
- Today’s NYT Connections Hints and Answers for July 24, #1139 [2d]
- Get 30% Off Dreame’s New Aero Ultra Steam Wet Dry Vacuum Mop [2d]
- EU Slaps Google With $1 Billion Fine Over Search and Play Store [2d]
- SDCC 2026: ‘Avatar: Seven Havens’ Trailer, Release Date Revealed [2d]
- Lenovo’s Powerful Yoga Tab Is $200 Off Just in Time for Back-to-School Season [2d]
- Google Cites Record-Breaking World Cup Views, but Traps YouTube Between Two Futures [2d]
- Claude Voice Mode Gets an Upgrade, Now Powered by New Models [2d]
- AI Guinea Pigs Really Made Me Question the Rest of Samsung Unpacked [2d]
- Comic-Con 2026: All the Biggest New Trailers So Far [2d]
- Comic-Con 2026: ‘Blade Runner 2099,’ ‘The Rings of Power’ and More Exciting New Trailers You Need to See [2d]
- Comic-Con 2026 Trailers: HBO Max’s ‘Lanterns,’ ‘The Rings of Power’ and More Releases You Need to See [2d]
- Comic-Con 2026: ‘Blade Runner 2099,’ ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ and More Exciting New Trailers You Need to See [2d]
- This Pixel-Prioritizing Google Charger Just Hit an All-Time Low Price at Amazon [2d]
- Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, July 23 [2d]
- Cavalcade of New Macs Is Coming, Report Says, Starting With M6 MacBook Pro This Fall [2d]
- ChatGPT Health Will See You Now, and It’s a Big Step Forward for Medical Queries [2d]
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2: Whole Health Tracking [2d]
- Samsung Galaxy Unpacked: Everything Revealed in 13 Minutes [2d]
- Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra vs. Fold 8 vs. Flip 8: Full Specs and Decision Guide [2d]
- Hands-On With Samsung’s Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Flip 8: What Your Extra $100 Buys [2d]
- Why the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Is the Foldable I’ve Been Waiting For [2d]
- Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Watch 9: Should You Upgrade? My First Week of Testing [2d]
- I Tried Samsung’s Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, Z Flip 8 and Watch Ultra 2: Come Along [2d]
- Save Over $300 on This Eskute E-Trike for an Easy and Affordable Way to Zip Around Town [2d]
- This Instant Pot Air Fryer Makes Weeknight Dinners a Breeze, and It’s $40 Off at Amazon [2d]
- My Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ongoing Review Living With the Samsung’s Passport Foldable [2d]
- Clean Up and Save $290 With This Dyson V8 Absolute Vac Deal [2d]
- Amazon Deals of the Day: Keep the Kids Entertained with the Amazon Fire 7 Kids Tab Under $100 [2d]
- 45 of the Best Movies on Netflix You Should Stream Now [2d]
- Save Up to $1,200 Off Samsung’s Brand-New Galaxy Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, Flip 8 Phones [2d]
- Walmart Deals of the Day: 50% Off a 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum to Shorten Your Summer To-Do List [2d]
- The Real Winner at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked? Qualcomm and Its Snapdragon Chips [2d]
- These College Towns Have the Best (and Worst) Drinking Water [3d]
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