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Daily digest

2026-08-18

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2026-08-18 05:48:19 +0000

2026-08-18

100 items
OpenAI News Aug 17 Score 0.9345003425925926

The Defender’s Window

AI is reshaping cybersecurity for attackers and defenders alike. Learn how OpenAI is strengthening its defenses and what security teams can do now.

AI aiopenaimodels
OpenAI News Aug 17 Score 0.9336670092592594

OpenAI joins PORTS-Pike project

OpenAI joins PORTS-Pike project, expanding community investment and supporting thousands of Southern Ohio jobs

AI aiopenaimodels
OpenAI News Aug 17 Score 0.9307503425925927

New policy ideas for the Intelligence Age

OpenAI funds 14 independent projects exploring new AI policy ideas to expand economic opportunity and strengthen societal resilience in the Intelligence Age.

AI aiopenaimodels
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 17 Score 0.8902844634259258

Qwen 3.8 27B scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index

Qwen 3.8 27B scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index That's the same score as GPT-5.6 Luna (max), and just one point behind GLM-5.2 (max) and DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (max) - that GLM is 753B and that DeepSeek is 1.6B parameters, and Luna is size u

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 17 Score 0.8759302967592592

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility Excellent piece of reporting from 404 Media. For a while now there have been stories of book dealers receiving orders for large volumes of books from apparently price-insensitive a

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Quanta Magazine Aug 17 Score 0.8756474129629629

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century

From the 1800s to the early 2000s, physicists used the same theory to understand the behavior of fluids. Now, using a modern insight, they have redefined fluids from the bottom up. The post Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century first appeared on Quanta Maga

Science sciencemathematicsphysicsbiology
Foreign Policy Aug 17 Score 0.874837387037037

Has Turkey Really Resolved Its Kurdish Question?

Aliza Marcus’s “Resurgence and Revolution” sheds light on the past and future of the Kurdish cause.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Schneier on Security Aug 17 Score 0.8691686699074073

Hacking Public Wi-Fi DNS to Steal Credentials

Criminals are hacking into public Wi-Fi devices—at hotels, conference centers, and so on—around the world and changing their DNS settings. The goal is to redirect users to fake login pages and steal their credentials.

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Foreign Policy Aug 17 Score 0.8646906277777777

The Top 10 Ways Trump Has Made America Weaker

He’s been one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history—in all the wrong ways.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Krebs on Security Aug 14 Score 0.8243501712962964

Who's Tracking You? Use This New Service to Find Out

It can be daunting to determine who's responsible for showing ads on the websites we visit, or who's harvesting data from the mobile apps we use every day. That information is already semi-public, but it is not easily parsed and traditionally much of it has re

Security securitycybercrimebreaches
Foreign Affairs Aug 18 Score 0.8220007939814815

How China Found Its Most Potent Weapon

The real history of Beijing’s rare-earth dominance.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
Foreign Affairs Aug 18 Score 0.8220007939814815

“The Strategy of Terrorism”

A quarter century before 9/11, an upsurge in global terrorism prompted the historian David Fromkin to examine its purpose and method. Terrorism was a strategy of the weak, Fromkin wrote in these pages, but modern technology had enabled it “to enter the politic

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
Foreign Affairs Aug 18 Score 0.8220007939814815

How Alliances Survive

The case against pessimism and the path to a new allied order.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
The Verge Aug 17 Score 0.8149449916666668

Reddit’s AI is turning posts into podcasts and short videos

Reddit is trying out a new way for people to take in content on Reddit: by turning text posts into audio / video content. As part of an experiment, some posts are being adapted into videos that use AI voices to read the text of the main post and some comments.

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 17 Score 0.8103162879629631

ABC's livestreamed news show is powered by trending topics

ABC News has officially introduced Searched, a livestreamed show that highlights stories people are discussing on social media and searching on the web, as reported earlier by Variety. Though the network just announced the show now, Searched began airing on th

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
SANS Internet Storm Center Aug 17 Score 0.8094074782407408

Apple Patches iOS and macOS, (Mon, Aug 17th)

Apple today released updates for iOS/iPadOS (26 and 18) and macOS 26. This update fixes 108 vulnerabilities and comes about two weeks after the much smaller macOS update that addressed the single screen-sharing vulnerability. This vulnerability did not affect

Security securitythreatsiocs
The Verge Aug 17 Score 0.8077727694444445

This compact Glorious mechanical keyboard is just $35

Are you curious about custom mechanical keyboards, but don’t want to spend hundreds just to get started without being sure you’ll enjoy the hobby? You can grab the 65-percent Glorious GMMK 3 mechanical keyboard at Woot for $34.99 (usually $139.99) by entering

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
MIT Technology Review Aug 17 Score 0.8074486828703704

What Flock’s defenders are missing

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Flock, the police-tech giant known for its network of some 120,000 automatic license plate readers around the US, announce

Technology technologyresearchsociety
BleepingComputer Aug 17 Score 0.8073519898148149

Pokémon Center data breach exposes customer info, cancels some orders

Pokémon Center is notifying customers in the United Kingdom and Germany that it suffered a third-party data breach after hackers stole customer personal and order information from third-party logistics provider CEVA Logistics. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
The Verge Aug 17 Score 0.8071023990740741

Wordle meets Clippy in this new word game

Like many of us, Sam Rosenthal plays games like Wordle every day, chasing after good scores and sharing the results with friends and family. But he's also a game designer, the creative director at Blaseball developer The Game Band, and so this regular habit go

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 17 Score 0.804029250925926

YouTube is changing how it counts views to give the numbers a boost

YouTube will soon count a view as soon as a video starts to play, lining up with the system used by Instagram, TikTok, and its Shorts videos. The update will go into effect on August 24th, "which means creators will likely see their total view counts increase

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
Interconnects Aug 17 Score 0.8005506555555556

Teaching Everyone to Fish for Tokens

Nvidia wants you building your own model, not buying from Anthropic/OpenAI.

AI aipost-trainingopen-modelsanalysis
BleepingComputer Aug 17 Score 0.7999765268518519

Microsoft confirms GitHub is down worldwide

GitHub is down for some users as a widespread outage is causing errors across the website, API, Actions, Pull Requests, and several other services. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
SANS Internet Storm Center Aug 17 Score 0.7996107189814815

Apple Screen Sharing Security, (Mon, Aug 17th)

About 20 years ago, with macOS 10.5 (Leopard), Apple introduced screen sharing. Apple did not invent a new protocol for screen sharing. Instead, it used the established VNC protocol. VNC is a pretty simple, unencrypted protocol using TCP port 5900. Historicall

Security securitythreatsiocs
BleepingComputer Aug 17 Score 0.7986718972222223

Certighost and the Privilege Hiding in Your Certificate Authority

CVE-2026-54121 lets a standard domain user turn your Enterprise CA into a Domain Controller. The patch is the easy part. The lesson is standing privilege, implicit trust, and treating PKI as the Tier 0 identity infrastructure it has always been. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
BleepingComputer Aug 17 Score 0.7962556935185185

Windows Server 2022 reaches end of mainstream support in 60 days

Microsoft has reminded IT administrators that Windows Server 2022 is rapidly approaching its mainstream end date of October 2026, when it will switch to extended support. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
MIT Technology Review Aug 17 Score 0.7956111828703705

The Download: dead robot friends 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. What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies? When Xander first met Moxie, she taught him how to calm down when he was

Technology technologyresearchsociety
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Aug 17 Score 0.7953338046296297

CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

CISA has added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog , based on evidence of active exploitation.   CVE-2025-62593 Ray-Project Ray Code Injection Vulnerability This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
MIT Technology Review Aug 17 Score 0.7903334050925926

What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies?

When Xander first met Moxie, she taught him that when he was anxious, he could calm down by exhaling through his lips so that he buzzed like a bee. They practiced breathing like dragons to manage feeling mad and sniffing like bunnies to boost his energy. But i

Technology technologyresearchsociety
MIT Technology Review Aug 17 Score 0.7903334050925926

How much hydrogen awaits us underground?

In the 1990s, Barbara Sherwood Lollar descended into the Kidd Creek mine in northern Ontario, which cuts more than three kilometers into the ancient root of North America. There her team of geochemists found water that had been confined underground for more th

Technology technologyresearchsociety
Google AI Blog Aug 17 Score 0.7886669050925926

Get closer to the game with Gemini and Pixel

Google Gemini and Pixel partner with five global football clubs to elevate the fan matchday experience through AI and Smartphone Technology.

AI aigoogleresearch
Schneier on Security Aug 14 Score 0.765384410648148

Friday Squid Blogging: Searching for the Colossal Squid

Fascinating video about searching for life undersea. The video basically makes the point that our bright white searchlights are scaring everything away, and that red light is more neutral. That, plus bait to attract sea creatures, is teaching us a lot about wh

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Schneier on Security Aug 14 Score 0.7570557069444444

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking, signing books, and participating in panel discussions at LAcon V in Anaheim, California, USA. My full schedule is here . I'm speaking online (via Zoom) at a League of Women Voters

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Quanta Magazine Aug 14 Score 0.7522904685185184

Why Aging May Be a Program, Not a Breakdown

By deciphering the molecular signatures of millions of mouse cells, Junyue Cao has found that aging is not haphazard wear and tear but rather a “remodeling of the cell society.” The post Why Aging May Be a Program, Not a Breakdown first appeared on Quanta Maga

Science sciencemathematicsphysicsbiology
Latent Space Aug 17 Score 0.7390469402777777

[AINews] Stripe buys OpenRouter for $7B

No GPUs, no Agents, just really, really, really good infra and distribution.

AI aiengineeringagentsnewsletter
NASA News Aug 17 Score 0.7389641703703703

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4975-4981: Happy 14th Landing Anniversary

By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 7, 2026 This week was very special for the Curiosity team here on Earth as we celebrated the 14th landing anniversary. I still remember watc

Science sciencenasaspace
NASA News Aug 17 Score 0.7341488925925926

NASA Selects Companies to Provide Payload Processing Services

NASA has selected four companies to provide payload processing facilities under the Spacecraft Processing Operations Contract on‑ramp provision. The provision enables qualified providers to offer commercial payload processing services for agency missions launc

Science sciencenasaspace
MIT News — AI Aug 17 Score 0.7333892157407408

Q&A: Rethinking how innovation happens

In his latest book, Professor Eugene Fitzgerald examines the forces that turn breakthroughs into value — and why innovation resists simple formulas.

AI aimitresearch
NASA News Aug 17 Score 0.7326831518518518

NASA Mission Studies Air Pollution Over Ethiopia

A NASA-funded air pollution monitoring network has provided one of the most detailed long-term views yet of the role of black carbon, or soot produced by fires, diesel vehicles, and other combustion sources, in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The detailed mea

Science sciencenasaspace
InfoQ Aug 17 Score 0.730389250462963

SpaceXAI Launches Grok Bot for Autonomous AI Agents

SpaceXAI has introduced Grok Bot, a system of persistent AI agents that operate on dedicated cloud computers and can interact with websites, applications, inboxes, and other tools. By Daniel Dominguez

IT itengineeringarchitecture
NASA News Aug 17 Score 0.7301313

Next Generation of Planetary Scientists Learn Public Engagement Skills

FORCE is a world-class laboratory that uses high-pressure experimental equipment to recreate the extreme conditions found deep within Earth and other planetary bodies, enabling researchers to better understand how planets form, evolve, and behave under immense

Science sciencenasaspace
Econbrowser Aug 17 Score 0.729089112962963

Fall 2026 Semester: The Financial System (and Its Challenges)

Last year I added cryptocurrencies and private credit to the coverage. What should I add this Fall? The erosion of exorbitant privilege: Insurance non-renewals due to climate change, from NYT:   as costs from climate change rise: Source: ClimateCentral ac

Economy economymacroeconomicsenergyresearch
Econbrowser Aug 17 Score 0.7287830944444444

Are We Safer than We Were 6 Months Ago?

The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, no deal apparent, and we are moving the George Washington CSG away from the Pacific. Source: USNI, accessed 8/17/2026. So much for the pivot to the Pacific. The betting odds for reopening the Strait of Hormuz by year's end

Economy economymacroeconomicsenergyresearch
NASA News Aug 17 Score 0.7270049111111111

Colorful Collage of Tarantula Nebula

Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope combine to reveal a vibrant view of 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula, in this Aug. 11, 2026, image. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a sma

Science sciencenasaspace
GitHub Blog Aug 17 Score 0.7270004611111112

How canvases make agentic workflows visible, steerable, and cost-efficient

Chat is great for intent, but agent work gets lost in the scroll. Here is how I use canvases with my agentic workflows—and why your workflow also deserves a canvas. The post How canvases make agentic workflows visible, steerable, and cost-efficient appeared fi

IT itgithubdevelopment
New Scientist Aug 17 Score 0.7266759921296296

Britain's only desalination plant remains idle during drought

Water flow in the river Thames has dropped low enough to warrant the use of England’s only large-scale desalination plant, but it hasn’t been switched on at all this year

Science scienceresearchsociety
New Scientist Aug 17 Score 0.725333399537037

Why women with ADHD feel overwhelmingly 'controlled' by their hormones

People with ADHD are unusually sensitive to hormone shifts. Psychiatrists have started to pay attention, creating strategies to address the intense emotions and cognitive challenges caused by these changes

Science scienceresearchsociety
Econbrowser Aug 17 Score 0.7243391129629629

Guest Contribution: "Undervaluation of Asian currencies"

Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. An earlier vesion in Project Syndicate. August 17 – Observers of inter

Economy economymacroeconomicsenergyresearch
Ars Technica — Tech Lab Aug 17 Score 0.7243032324074075

Nvidia discloses $21B stake in SpaceX

Filing comes after Elon Musk announced exclusive arrangement to kit out its data centers.

IT itinfrastructureengineering
InfoQ Aug 17 Score 0.7241670282407408

JEP 540 Proposed to Target JDK 28 with a Simple JSON API

JEP 540, Simple JSON API, has progressed to Target status for JDK 28. It introduces a compact API for parsing and generating JSON documents without external dependencies. Focused on core tasks, it provides an immutable value hierarchy. The API allows simple tr

IT itengineeringarchitecture
InfoQ Aug 17 Score 0.723139250462963

Grab Cuts Mechanical Analytics Work From 44% to 30% with AI Agents

Grab is using AI agents to automate analytics workflows, cutting mechanical analyst work from 44% in February to 30% in June. Its approach combines agent autonomy, certified data, context management and human oversight, with self service analytics increasingly

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Econbrowser Aug 17 Score 0.7230585574074074

Whither Real Rates?

The collision of expansionary fiscal policy, slowing growth, and the erosion of policy credibility, particularly since 27 February 2026, suggests … up and high. Figure 1: TIPS 10 year (blue), DKW estimated short real rates next ten years (red), both in %

Economy economymacroeconomicsenergyresearch
FRED Blog Aug 17 Score 0.7220008050925926

State minimum wages and cost of living

The takeaway The federal minimum wage is the lowest hourly rate employers are required to pay workers. It's been $7.25 per hour for a while now. State minimum wages are a different story: Many are higher than the federal minimum, … Continue reading ͛

Economy economydataindicatorsfederal-reserve
InfoQ Aug 17 Score 0.7220003615740741

Cloudflare Turns CI Pipelines into TypeScript Workflows

Cloudflare has released cloudflare/ci, a CI SDK that defines pipelines in TypeScript on top of Cloudflare Workflows, giving each step durable retries and replay, concurrent steps by default and Sandbox snapshot caching. It targets the Workers runtime and depen

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Marginal Revolution Aug 18 Score 0.7116866856481481

Morocco facts of the day, Morocco is not hopeless

For decades, South Africa was the great success story of African industrialization. Last year, Morocco took the lead, emerging as the African Development Bank’s top-ranked industrial economy in Africa. In the Bank’s analysis, published in the latest edition of

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Marginal Revolution Aug 18 Score 0.7110727967592592

How economics is changing

As a proportion of the literature, research about econometric theory, monetary policy and corporate governance has slumped. Meanwhile, papers on development, crime and gender are on the up. This could perhaps be because of changing intellectual interests, or m

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Marginal Revolution Aug 17 Score 0.6925811300925925

Monday assorted links

1. Where do the great American comedians hail from? 2. General thoughts on biosafety. 3. "Violet Hensley Dies at 109; Ozarks Fiddler Made Opry Debut at 99" (NYT). She also handcrafted 73 fiddles, appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies, and considered bluegrass to

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog