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Daily digest

2026-08-13

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2026-08-13 06:49:54 +0000

2026-08-13

100 items
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 12 Score 0.8886053027777777

DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (on OpenRouter)

DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (on OpenRouter) The latest DeepSeek Pro model is now available, via API only. I had to link to OpenRouter because DeepSeek don't have any obvious announcement page for their new model. I haven't been able to confirm if they plan to release

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Foreign Policy Aug 12 Score 0.8841900749999999

What Does the Mecca Pact Deliver Pakistan?

The mutual defense agreement gives Islamabad a boost in the Middle East, with mixed results closer to home.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Foreign Policy Aug 12 Score 0.883790075

What to Watch in Zambia’s Elections

The country’s natural resources have put the vote under intense international scrutiny.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 12 Score 0.8817196546296295

alchemy-utils 0.1a0

Release: alchemy-utils 0.1a0 I've long pondered what a database agnostic version of my sqlite-utils Python library and CLI utility might look like. This morning (literally a shower project) I tasked Codex and GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra with building a prototype: Do a r

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 12 Score 0.8738664138888887

Quoting Florian Herrengt

But then users start to report a weird bug. It's the 4th time your team has been trying to fix it. I mean... asking AI to fix it. Unfortunately, it seems like not even Fable can figure it out. You go talk to the person who worked on this feature. "So where doe

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Quanta Magazine Aug 12 Score 0.8723643578703703

Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals

The math, which combines chaos, quantum theory, and infinitely complex fractal structures, has been called a “foundational result.” The post Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Science sciencemathematicsphysicsbiology
Google DeepMind Blog Aug 12 Score 0.8720108643518517

Putting sign language AI into users’ hands

Introducing sign-language-to-text (SL2T), our breakthrough model powering new sign language features for Deaf and hard of hearing users.

AI aideepmindresearch
Schneier on Security Aug 12 Score 0.8651953726851851

Prompt Injections for Defense

This seems to work : Researchers from Tracebit on Monday said they found that placing prompt injections alongside passwords, cryptographic keys, and other secrets stored on Amazon Web Services was often all that was needed to shut down attacks from AI hacking

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 11 Score 0.8483053027777777

There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text

There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text Sophie Alpert shares her "internal policy on acceptable use of AI writing by engineers". It's a short read (supporting its own recommendations) and really good. If you chose to have LLMs help massa

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 11 Score 0.8464210435185184

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs A vanity domain name ( stolen-thoughts.com ) for a neat paper : Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google return encrypted chain-of-thought blocks to clients that can be replayed across sessions, users, and models. We ta

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
The Guardian — World Aug 13 Score 0.820312289351852

Zambia elections haunted by ghost of incumbent president’s arch-rival

Hakainde Hichilema is bidding for second term, but feud between him and family of Edgar Lungu, who died in 2025, continues As Zambians go to the polls, the ghost of the current president’s predecessor hangs over the elections. Hakainde Hichilema, 64, is biddin

Geopolitics geopoliticsworld-newsinvestigative
Foreign Affairs Aug 13 Score 0.8202896097222223

Hot to Broker Peace in Ukraine

Decades of hard-won mediation experience point the way.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
The Verge Aug 12 Score 0.8094556203703704

Pixel 11 event live blog: Let's watch Trevor Noah introduce Google's new phones

It's almost time for the Made by Google keynote, where the company will show off the brand-new Pixel hardware it announced today. Like last year, it'll be a celebrity-packed live show, though Trevor Noah is hosting instead of Jimmy Fallon. If the 2025 show was

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 12 Score 0.809209787037037

This 8BitDo mechanical keyboard has an extra keypad and is 30 percent off

If you’re looking for a mechanical keyboard that can give your desk a touch of retro flair, Amazon has 8BitDo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard with Dual Super Buttons on sale for $69.99, one of the lowest prices we’ve seen for the bundle. The styling on this keyboa

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 12 Score 0.8088246018518519

Cats and dogs are missing meals after a popular smart feeder went down

A Petlibro outage is preventing its smart pet feeders and other devices from performing scheduled tasks, like dispensing food. The outage began on Tuesday, with users across Reddit reporting that their smart feeders, litter boxes, and water fountains have gone

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Aug 12 Score 0.8084833930555556

Hackers exploit critical Adobe Commerce flaw to hijack customer accounts

Attempts to exploit a critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-71362) in Adobe's Commerce and Magento e-commerce platforms have been detected, potentially allowing attackers to hijack customer accounts. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
The Verge Aug 12 Score 0.8061222870370371

The next big indie game publisher is taking some exciting swings

Kinetic Publishing, a new indie publisher from the development team behind the co-op horror game Phasmophobia, just hosted its first games showcase, and it includes five ambitious new titles set to release in 2027 and 2028. Perhaps the most significant announc

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 12 Score 0.806060712962963

It looks like Apple's iPhone 18 really will skip the fall launch this year

According to an Economic Daily News report spotted by MacRumors, executives for Apple supplier Pegatron confirmed during an earnings call that the iPhone 18 Pro series phones will launch this fall, but the base iPhone 18 won't arrive until the first quarter of

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
MIT Technology Review Aug 12 Score 0.8052834138888889

Scientists just created female clones of male mice

Scientists have deliberately turned male mouse embryos into females for the first time. A team based in Japan used a CRISPR-based approach to remove the Y chromosome from male cells and create female clones of male mice.  “No one has done this before,” sa

Technology technologyresearchsociety
BleepingComputer Aug 12 Score 0.8051491337962964

Hundreds of fake Chrome VPN extensions route traffic through a proxy

More than 737 browser extensions published on the Chrome Web Store impersonated well-known VPN and proxy services while routing users' traffic through SOCKS5 proxies operated by a single provider. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
MIT Technology Review Aug 12 Score 0.8017320250000001

Scaling AI agents with trustworthy data

Business and technology leaders need no convincing that the time of agentic AI is here. Organizations are rapidly adopting agents, and few executives doubt the technology’s potential to transform work. But many organizations find that realizing the desired ret

Technology technologyresearchsociety
BleepingComputer Aug 12 Score 0.8004338560185186

Plug and Pwn attack uses fake USB devices for Windows SYSTEM access

Security researchers have disclosed new "Plug and Pwn" attacks that abuse the Windows Plug and Play feature to trigger Windows into installing vulnerable or insecure vendor software and gain SYSTEM privileges. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
Microsoft Research Blog Aug 12 Score 0.8002888166666667

MindTopo reveals VLMs' spatial reasoning abilities

A path, a fence, a knot. MindTopo sets a new benchmark for testing how AI understands topological relationships and highlights new opportunities to strengthen spatial reasoning and planning. The post MindTopo reveals VLMs' spatial reasoning abilities appeared

AI aimicrosoftresearch
SANS Internet Storm Center Aug 12 Score 0.7975439550925927

Linux Kernel Process Accounting, (Wed, Aug 12th)

A couple of days ago, Xavier posted about Atuin to gain more insight into the command history. Atuin does a great job of better organizing what is usually handled by "bash&#;x26;#;x5f;history"&#;x26;#;xc2;

Security securitythreatsiocs
MIT Technology Review Aug 12 Score 0.7939000805555556

The Download: our 35 young innovators and the “censorship-industrial complex”

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. How we picked 35 of the world’s top young scientists and engineers On September 8, MIT Technology Review will reveal its 2

Technology technologyresearchsociety
MIT Technology Review Aug 12 Score 0.7888630435185185

How we picked 35 of the world’s top young scientists and engineers

Next month, on September 8, MIT Technology Review will reveal its 2026 list of Innovators Under 35, recognizing 35 young people from around the world who are doing groundbreaking scientific work and building clever technical fixes for sticky problems.  By

Technology technologyresearchsociety
NBER New Working Papers Aug 13 Score 0.7875000000000001

Balancing Growth in a Warming World -- by Adrien Bilal, Thibault Ingrand, Diego R. Känzig

This paper develops a theory of balanced growth and optimal climate policy in an integrated assessment framework. Balanced growth is possible despite climate change, but at a slower rate. Two distinct policy regimes emerge because emissions permanently raise c

Economy economyresearchworking-papersnber
NBER New Working Papers Aug 13 Score 0.7875000000000001

A Currency Premium Puzzle -- by Tarek Alexander Hassan, Thomas Mertens, Jingye Wang

We show that quantitative asset pricing models, built to address the equity premium and risk-free rate puzzles, systematically fail when applied to open economies: they cannot generate the large and persistent interest rate differentials we observe between ris

Economy economyresearchworking-papersnber
NBER New Working Papers Aug 13 Score 0.7875000000000001

Winning is Contagious: Social Learning and the Dynamics of Union Support -- by Ellora Derenoncourt, Arindrajit Dube, Suresh Naidu, Heather Sarsons, Niharika Singh

Union growth has historically happened in spurts. We combine union election data from 1961–2025 with a large-scale information experiment involving 9,000 low-wage workers to study the role of social learning in union growth. Observationally, close election win

Economy economyresearchworking-papersnber
GamesIndustry.biz Aug 12 Score 0.763709263425926

Witcher multiplayer spin-off Project Sirius hit by fresh layoffs

Update: August 12, 7.15pm: CD Projekt has now confirmed that 18 developers previously working on Project Sirius have either been made redundant or "invited" to apply for redeployment oppportunities. Read more

Gaming gamingindustrybusinessdevelopment
GamesIndustry.biz Aug 12 Score 0.762372689351852

Saber Interactive denies replacing writer with AI

Saber Interactive has denied replacing a writer with ChatGPT on its upcoming driving game Rideshare Stimulator. Read more

Gaming gamingindustrybusinessdevelopment
Liberty Street Economics Aug 12 Score 0.7544560689814815

Does the Equity Term Structure Respond to Monetary Policy Shocks?

A long-standing body of research, inspired by Bernanke and Kuttner (2005), has documented the effects of Fed interest rate surprises on stock markets. While stock markets provide valuable information about the investor risk premium and dividend growth expectat

Economy economymonetary-policybankingresearch
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Aug 11 Score 0.7536226328703705

Mira Hormone Monitor, Mira Android App

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to access unauthorized health profile information, make changes to health information, cause a denial-of-service condition, disclose session token information, and obtai

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Aug 11 Score 0.7536226328703705

CISA Adds Three Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

CISA has added three new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog , based on evidence of active exploitation.   CVE-2026-20349 Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Heap Inspe

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
The Hacker News Aug 13 Score 0.7488949300925926

Attackers Exploit SharePoint Authentication Bypass After Public PoC Release

Threat actors have begun to exploit a newly disclosed Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability following the release of a proof-of-concept (PoC) code. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-55040 (CVSS score: 9.1), which refers to a critical security feature bypa

Security securityhackingvulnerabilities
NASA News Aug 13 Score 0.7454284324074074

APOD: 2026 August 13 – Total Solar Eclipse Over Spain

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 13 – Total… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is fe

Science sciencenasaspace
New Scientist Aug 12 Score 0.7369835569444444

From the mine to the grid

How Komatsu machines help build Atlassian Williams F1 Team’s FW48

Science scienceresearchsociety
TechCrunch Aug 12 Score 0.7359556625

AI nuclear power firm Fermi finally has a new CEO

Lee McIntire, an independent member of Fermi's board, has been hired as CEO, more than three months since the company fired co-founder Toby Neugebauer from the top post.

Technology technologystartupsventure-capital
GitHub Blog Aug 12 Score 0.7357763611111111

GitHub availability report: July 2026

In July, we experienced eight incidents that resulted in degraded performance across GitHub services. The post GitHub availability report: July 2026 appeared first on The GitHub Blog .

IT itgithubdevelopment
NASA News Aug 12 Score 0.7330798208333333

NASA Data Helps Commercial Space Plan Living Off Our Moon

The barren lunar landscape has some important resources, such as water and minerals like iron and titanium, but extracting and processing them will require special equipment. Where those resources can be found will dictate where to land and how to mine them. T

Science sciencenasaspace
NASA News Aug 12 Score 0.7321913949074074

2026 Total Solar Eclipse in Spain

A total solar eclipse is seen from San Millán de los Caballeros, Spain, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. A total solar eclipse – the Moon passing between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun – swept across parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern R

Science sciencenasaspace
GitHub Blog Aug 12 Score 0.7302893240740741

Write your first prompt with the GitHub Copilot app

Learn how to write your first prompt in the GitHub Copilot app, choose the right context and model, and start your first task with confidence. The post Write your first prompt with the GitHub Copilot app appeared first on The GitHub Blog .

IT itgithubdevelopment
GitHub Blog Aug 12 Score 0.7286263611111111

Your contributors are AI-first now. Is your project?

AI contributors are already in your queue. AutoGPT maintainer Nicholas Tindle shares the repo instructions, gates, and boundaries that keep maintainers in control. The post Your contributors are AI-first now. Is your project? appeared first on The GitHub Blog

IT itgithubdevelopment
NASA News Aug 12 Score 0.7285006541666667

NASA Upgrades Vertical Motion Simulator for Modern Mission Needs

Imagine stepping into a machine that can make you feel like you’re flying a spacecraft, piloting a next generation air taxi, or landing on the Moon, all without leaving the ground. NASA’s Vertical Motion Simulator, the largest of its kind in the world, does ex

Science sciencenasaspace
New Scientist Aug 12 Score 0.7269557791666666

We should decide how AI shapes the future, not tech firms

OpenAI and its competitors want to dictate the role that artificial intelligence will play in our society – it's time to take back control of the narrative

Science scienceresearchsociety
NASA News Aug 12 Score 0.7253751912037038

NASA Astronaut Mike Fincke Leaves NASA, Career Includes 4 Spaceflights

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is departing the agency on Wednesday after 30 years of service. Throughout his career, he flew four missions, spent 549 days in space, and completed nine spacewalks in support of the International Space Station. “Few people have had

Science sciencenasaspace
InfoQ Aug 12 Score 0.7226779175925926

Spotify Builds External Index to Enable Low Latency Point Queries on Its Data Lake

Spotify introduced external indexing architecture for Apache Parquet data lakes that enables low-latency point queries without replicating datasets into operational databases. The approach maps lookup keys to Parquet files and row locations, allowing targeted

IT itengineeringarchitecture
InfoQ Aug 12 Score 0.7169556953703704

Article: InfoQ Cloud and DevOps Trends Report - 2026

InfoQ editorial staff and friends of InfoQ are discussing the current trends in the domain of Cloud and DevOps as part of the process of creating our annual 2026 trends report. By Steef-Jan Wiggers, Matt Saunders, Shweta Vohra, Daniel Bryant, Mark Silvester

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Marginal Revolution Aug 13 Score 0.7103371097222221

My very interesting Conversation with Daron Acemoglu

Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary: Daron Acemoglu returns for his second appearance with a new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, which Tyler reads as an attempt to redefine and revitalize liberalism for our times. W

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog