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Daily digest

2026-07-17

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2026-07-17 07:30:10 +0000

2026-07-17

100 items
OpenAI News Jul 16 Score 0.9491633365740741

Why teens deserve access to safe AI

Learn how OpenAI is making ChatGPT safer for teens with age-appropriate protections, learning tools, parental controls, and expert partnerships.

AI aiopenaimodels
Simon Willison's Weblog Jul 17 Score 0.8924461032407407

Spot birds not golf

Suggestion for hyperscalers feeling pressure over data center water use: Buy up a few exclusive country clubs, convert the golf courses into public parks, pay for guides and binoculars to get the previous members into birdwatching - help them embrace a more su

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Jul 16 Score 0.8867836032407407

Firefox in WebAssembly

Firefox in WebAssembly This is absurdly cool: Puter compiled Firefox to WebAssembly such that the whole browser runs in another browser. Here's my blog, running in Firefox, running in WebAssembly, running in Chrome: They chose Firefox/Gecko because it has stro

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Foreign Policy Jul 16 Score 0.8840029217592592

The America First Contradiction

A Pentagon official’s X thread exposes the cognitive dissonance of Trump’s foreign policy.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Jul 16 Score 0.8813734180555555

Kimi K3, and what we can still learn from the pelican benchmark

Chinese AI lab Moonshot AI announced Kimi K3 this morning, describing it as their "most capable model to date, with 2.8 trillion parameters". It's currently available via their website and API, but an open weight release is promised "by July 27, 2026". Moonsho

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Jul 16 Score 0.8771090662037037

Quoting Thibault Sottiaux

On file deletions. We’ve investigated a handful of reports where GPT-5.6 unexpectedly deleted files. What we have found is that this most commonly occurs when: Full access mode is enabled and codex is run without sandboxing protections, including without auto

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Foreign Policy Jul 16 Score 0.8743237550925925

German Military Power Needs to Go It Alone

NATO’s multinational forces are an unwieldy relic of a more peaceful past.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Jul 16 Score 0.8734822143518518

Inkling: Our open-weights model

Inkling: Our open-weights model Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab just released their first open-weights model. Inkling is "a Mixture-of-Experts transformer with 975B total parameters, 41B active" - an Apache-2.0 licensed multimodal model trained on 45 trill

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Schneier on Security Jul 16 Score 0.8717906393518517

Protecting Privacy in an AI Era

Daniel Solove argues in the Wall Street Journal (alternate link ) that giving people control of their personal data is not an effective way to regulate privacy in this era. Instead, we need to hold companies accountable for their actions, similar to what we do

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Google DeepMind Blog Jul 16 Score 0.8633510546296296

Our approach to bioresilience

Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs are sharing our joint approach to bioresilience and AI models.

AI aideepmindresearch
Krebs on Security Jul 13 Score 0.8275947745370371

Lessons Learned from CISA's Recent GitHub Leak

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a postmortem on a data leak in which a contractor published dozens of internal CISA credentials -- including AWS Govcloud keys -- in a public GitHub repository for almost six months before

Security securitycybercrimebreaches
War on the Rocks Jul 17 Score 0.8246032601851853

How Revolutions Break Their Believers

Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club (Vintage International, 2014)The noise, the noise, the unrelenting noise of the world: How is any writer with an interest in the long view supposed to escape it, if only for a couple hours to work, let alone maintain thei

Geopolitics geopoliticsmilitarystrategy
BleepingComputer Jul 17 Score 0.8242638111111111

CISA urges immediate action on actively exploited Fortinet flaws

CISA on Thursday ordered government agencies to prioritize patching two actively exploited vulnerabilities in the Fortinet FortiSandbox threat detection platform. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
BBC News — World Jul 17 Score 0.8218418171296297

School bus crash kills at least 20 pupils in Uganda

Dozens others, including school staff, were injured in the crash, suspected to have been caused by a mechanical fault.

Geopolitics geopoliticsbbcworld-news
Foreign Affairs Jul 17 Score 0.8191649037037038

A Dangerous Game in the Arctic

Trump’s demands could derail progress on allied defense.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
Foreign Affairs Jul 17 Score 0.8191649037037038

America’s Trillion-Dollar Failure

The Pentagon is broken, but Congress can fix it.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
The Guardian — World Jul 16 Score 0.8097519703703704

Air quality plummets in 20 US states as smoke from Canadian wildfires spreads

Millions of Americans face air quality alerts from Minnesota to New York as authorities urge people to stay indoors Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Tell us: have you been affected by the spread of wildfire smoke in the US and Canada? Smoke fr

Geopolitics geopoliticsworld-newsinvestigative
The Verge Jul 16 Score 0.8083479092592594

Fortnite is getting a bunch of AI-powered ‘personas’

Get ready for more AI characters in Fortnite. Developer Epic Games is going to let Fortnite creators publish experiences featuring characters with AI-powered voices starting on July 30th, and ahead of that launch, it's created 36 characters with "consistent vo

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Jul 16 Score 0.8077675148148149

Coca-Cola says Fairlife ransomware attack halts US dairy production

The Coca-Cola Company disclosed today that a ransomware attack impacting its Fairlife dairy subsidiary has disrupted operations, temporarily suspending production of Fairlife products across the United States. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
The Verge Jul 16 Score 0.80715115

Samsung’s 55-inch Frame art TV is $200 cheaper than usual

Samsung’s Frame is different from your average 4K TV. Its biggest selling point involves what it does when you aren’t actively using it. It can display art, turning your living room into a gallery. The Frame has bezels that make it look like — you guessed it —

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Jul 16 Score 0.8066497611111112

Netflix says around 300 titles used generative AI

Netflix says roughly 300 titles on its platform used generative AI, most of which occurred in post-production. The streaming service revealed the news in its second-quarter earnings report released on Thursday, saying it's "increasingly leveraging these tools

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Jul 16 Score 0.8057062425925927

Why are people buying so many CDs?

CD sales are apparently going up, reportedly thanks to fans realizing they're an affordable way to support their favorite artists. According to a new report from research firm Luminate, 16.3 million CDs were sold in the first half of 2026 in the US, a 16 perce

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Jul 16 Score 0.8048906629629631

Claude Chrome extension flaw lets malicious extensions trigger AI actions

A flaw in Anthropic's Claude for Chrome browser extension could allow a malicious extension to trigger predefined AI actions by simulating user clicks, potentially allowing it to abuse Claude's access to connected services such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Ca

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
BleepingComputer Jul 16 Score 0.8044314037037038

New OkoBot framework deploys 20 payloads to steal data, crypto

A new malicious framework called OkoBot is delivering more than 20 payloads in attacks focused on stealing cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases, credentials, and other sensitive data. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
The Verge Jul 16 Score 0.8036992981481482

Kalshi says it caught Trump's teleprompter operator insider trading

Kalshi users betting on what President Donald Trump would say during his speeches were reportedly up against tough competition: the president's teleprompter operator. ABC News reports that federal investigators believe Gabriel Perez - Trump's teleprompter oper

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
Google AI Blog Jul 16 Score 0.7991650453703705

Connect more of your apps to Search

You’ll be able to securely link and interact with your go-to services directly in AI Mode.

AI aigoogleresearch
The Guardian — World Jul 16 Score 0.7980806740740741

UK aid cuts ‘reduce bilateral support to some African countries by 90%’

Critics say Foreign Office figures send ‘global message about the role the country wants to play on international stage’ Labour’s foreign aid cuts mean reductions of as much as 90% in the bilateral support the UK will give to some African countries, Foreign Of

Geopolitics geopoliticsworld-newsinvestigative
MIT Technology Review Jul 16 Score 0.7927761217592593

The Download: OpenAI unveils GPT-Red and heat pumps rise in the US

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Meet GPT-Red: an LLM super-hacker OpenAI built to make its models safer OpenAI has built an LLM super-hacker called GPT-Re

Technology technologyresearchsociety
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Jul 16 Score 0.7924984652777778

Rockwell Automation 1756-EN2, 1756-EN3, and 1756-ENBT

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to cause a denial-of-service condition. The following versions of Rockwell Automation 1756-EN2, 1756-EN3, and 1756-ENBT are affected: 1756-EN3 1756-EN2 1756-ENBT V6.006 (CV

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Jul 16 Score 0.7924984652777778

Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk DataMosaix

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an authenticated attacker to inject malicious scripts on the server. The following versions of Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk DataMosaix are affected: DataMosaix Private Cloud CVSS Ve

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Jul 16 Score 0.7924984652777778

SALTO ProAccess Space

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of this vulnerability allows an authenticated attacker to escalate privileges and access spaces outside their assigned partition, within the same Salto ProAccess Space installation or system. Exploitation requires vali

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Jul 16 Score 0.7924984652777778

Siemens SICAM 8

View CSAF Summary Multiple SICAM 8 products are affected by multiple vulnerabilities that could lead to denial of service, namely: - SICAM A8000 Device firmware - CPCI85 for CP-8031/CP-8050 - SICORE for CP-8010/CP-8012 - SICAM EGS Device firmware - CPCI85 - SI

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Jul 16 Score 0.7924984652777778

Rockwell Automation CompactLogix, ControlLogix, Compact GuardLogix and GuardLogix

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to cause a denial-of-service condition. The following versions of Rockwell Automation CompactLogix, ControlLogix, Compact GuardLogix and GuardLogix are affected: Compact

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
HuggingFace Blog Jul 16 Score 0.7922150527777778

Newer Models, Same Advantage

Latest item from HuggingFace Blog.

AI aihuggingfacemodelsopen-source
The Guardian — World Jul 16 Score 0.7917607666666667

Uganda calls for travel restrictions to be lifted after last Ebola patient discharged

Country begins 42-day countdown to outbreak being declared officially over, as numbers continue to rise in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo Uganda has started lobbying countries to lift Ebola-related travel restrictions after discharging its last

Geopolitics geopoliticsworld-newsinvestigative
MIT Technology Review Jul 16 Score 0.7891650106481483

Why heat pumps are still so hot in the US

It feels as if it should be illegal to even think about heating appliances during the height of summer—seriously, these heat waves in New York have been brutal—but we need to talk about heat pumps. The appliances use electricity for heating, they’re incredibly

Technology technologyresearchsociety
Quanta Magazine Jul 13 Score 0.7514530939814814

Why Am I Left-Handed?

An invisible difference in 10% of humans poses deep mysteries in several fields at once. The post Why Am I Left-Handed? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Science sciencemathematicsphysicsbiology
The Hacker News Jul 17 Score 0.7486757893518519

CISA Adds Exploited SharePoint RCE Zero-Day CVE-2026-58644 to KEV

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a newly patched security flaw impacting Microsoft SharePoint Server to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agen

Security securityhackingvulnerabilities
Schneier on Security Jul 13 Score 0.7458860092592592

AI Data Centers and the Concentration of Wealth

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian . Opposition to AI data centers has emerged as a primary theme in US politics, one that—surprisingly—doesn't fall along party lines. We applaud people coming tog

Security securitycryptographypolicy
NASA News Jul 17 Score 0.7441929703703704

A Tide-Fueled Trove of Biodiversity in Guinea-Bissau

The expansive mudflats, sandy beaches, and mangrove forests of the Bijagós archipelago support an array of migratory shorebirds and large numbers of sea turtles.

Science sciencenasaspace
Platformer Jul 17 Score 0.7386408925925926

China has a new top model

Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 is very good — but the hype may be getting ahead of reality. (For now.)

Technology technologysocial-mediaplatformsnewsletter
Unit 42 (Palo Alto Networks) Jul 16 Score 0.735859162037037

AI, Automation and Attacks: Unpacking the Unit 42 2026 Global Incident Response Report

Explore Unit 42's perspectives on AI's impact on cybersecurity, including key updates since the 2026 Incident Response Report. The post AI, Automation and Attacks: Unpacking the Unit 42 2026 Global Incident Response Report appeared first on Unit 42 .

Security securitythreat-researchmalware
NASA News Jul 16 Score 0.7352017666666667

NASA Welcomes Serbia as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory

The Republic of Serbia signed the Artemis Accords Thursday during a ceremony hosted by NASA at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington, becoming the 69th nation to join a large community of like-minded nations committed to the peaceful, transparent, and respon

Science sciencenasaspace
InfoQ Jul 16 Score 0.7291647884259259

AWS Continuum to Enable Agentic Code Security for Enterprises

Amazon Web Services has recently introduced AWS Continuum, a new integrated security platform to automate the discovery, enforcement, and remediation of security issues across codebases, dependencies, and applications. AWS Continuum launches with four agentic

IT itengineeringarchitecture
NASA News Jul 16 Score 0.7286216740740741

NASA Study Finds Near-Earth Asteroid Is Actually Comet

New research led by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has revealed the identity of a puzzling near-Earth object by precisely tracking its motion through space and using powerful observatories that image faint celestial objec

Science sciencenasaspace
TechCrunch — AI Jul 16 Score 0.7284122708333334

Google Vids now lets you star in your own AI videos

Google is adding personalized AI avatars to Vids that let users create videos starring a digital version of themselves, alongside Gemini Omni-powered tools for generating and editing videos from prompts and reference images.

AI aiindustrystartups
New Scientist Jul 16 Score 0.7274982425925925

Restoring ability to remove zombie cells may keep us sharp as we age

Zombie, or senescent, cells accumulate in our body with age, when we become less able to clear them. But a study in mice suggests that a drug could restore this ability and improve ageing outcomes

Science scienceresearchsociety
NASA News Jul 16 Score 0.7218253777777778

Young Galaxy Cluster

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope takes us 4.4 billion years in the past with this July 3, 2026, image of a young galaxy cluster, MACS J0553.4-3342. The cluster is composed of two actively merging sub-clusters, roughly equal in mass. Each sub-cluster is anchor

Science sciencenasaspace
Martin Fowler Jul 16 Score 0.7198589944444445

The Archaeologist’s Copilot

When people think of legacy modernization, most folks aren't imagining the target environment will be Java 8. But this was the challenge facing Nik Malykhin when he needed to run a Java 1.5 codebase on today's hardware. His early use of LLMs gave plausible ans

IT itarchitecturepatterns
InfoQ Jul 16 Score 0.7147203439814814

Presentation: The Rust High Performance Talk You Did Not Expect

Ruth Linehan explains how migrating high-performance caching services from Kotlin to Rust shattered internal preconceptions around delivery velocity and engineering overhead. She discusses the ergonomics of the Rust borrow checker, shares how compile-time safe

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Rest of World Jul 16 Score 0.7141649958333334

The problem AI content moderation cannot solve

Meta and other big tech companies are increasingly using AI for content moderation, but as the backlash to Muse Image shows, it cannot protect users because it does not account for consent.

Technology technologyglobalsociety
Nautilus Jul 16 Score 0.694998511111111

Some People Are Better at Eavesdropping Than Others

New study shows what happens in our brains as we track multiple conversations The post Some People Are Better at Eavesdropping Than Others appeared first on Nautilus .

Science scienceessaysculturephilosophy
Nautilus Jul 16 Score 0.6933318444444444

When Monkeys Enter the Uncanny Valley

3-D avatars of macaques fool their flesh-and-blood counterparts—up to point The post When Monkeys Enter the Uncanny Valley appeared first on Nautilus .

Science scienceessaysculturephilosophy
Google Cloud Blog Jul 16 Score 0.6866639175925925

Three lessons in accelerating foundation model upgrades

Have you run into problems migrating your products from one model to the next? Upgrading to the latest AI models is rarely simple. For engineering teams, model updates whether migrating to an entirely new model or updating to a newer checkpoint within the same

IT itgcpcloud
Google Cloud Blog Jul 16 Score 0.6866639175925925

What 10 autonomous film crews taught us about agent teamwork

Can teams of AI agents collaborate to create a short film? As part of an internal Google generative media hackathon, we put this question to the test – specifically, to uncover whether AI agents could work collaboratively in a domain less innately familiar tha

IT itgcpcloud
Google Cloud Blog Jul 16 Score 0.6866639175925925

Bridging the gap between SQL and Python with BigQuery and the %%bqsql magic

Data scientists and data engineers often find themselves caught between two worlds: SQL and Python. Some find SQL more intuitive, especially when combined with a powerful engine like BigQuery to process data at scale. Others find it easier to work in Python wi

IT itgcpcloud