OpenAI launches Astra, its powerful (and controversial) new model
OpenAI claims that Astra represents “a new frontier on computer and browser use,” and that it handles tasks with unmatched “speed, accuracy, and safety.”
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OpenAI’s next big AI model has ‘entered the AGI era’
OpenAI’s next big model is here: GPT-6 Astra. The company calls it a “generational leap in capability” for areas like cybersecurity, professional work, software engineering, science, and computer use. As OpenAI announced earlier this week, it’s also the first model designated as meeting OpenAI’s “critical cybersecurity capability threshold” – but the company promises that won’t … Read more
CFTC Asks Judge to Dismiss CME Lawsuit Over Crypto Perpetual Futures
The regulator argues that CME cannot challenge its approval of Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual contract without showing concrete financial harm.
Bybit Pay integrates with Mesh to expand crypto payments
The integration lets Bybit users spend digital assets directly from their exchange balances across Mesh-powered platforms.
BitMEX co-founder contributed 75% of Reform UK’s donations in Q2 2026
The UK political party and its leader, Nigel Farage, have accepted contributions from figures tied to the crypto industry, raising questions about potential influence on policies.
Qualcomm backs Ultrahuman in $70M round on bet to turn smart rings into computers
Ultrahuman is targeting a $200 million annual revenue run rate by January 2027 as it builds a new Qualcomm-powered smart ring.
Microsoft slashes Xbox Cloud Gaming to just 15 hours a month for Ultimate subscribers
Microsoft is announcing some major changes to Xbox Cloud Gaming today, less than a year after opening up cloud gaming to its Xbox Game Pass Premium and Essential tiers. While all Game Pass plans have included unlimited cloud gaming over the past year, from November this will be limited to just 15 hours on Ultimate, … Read more
Microsoft opens up Xbox Cloud Gaming with new pay-as-you-go option
Microsoft says it will let anyone access Xbox Cloud Gaming in November, without the need to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass. The change to a pay-as-you-go model is part of some sweeping changes to Xbox Cloud Gaming today, and is designed for people who don’t use cloud access enough to warrant a monthly subscription. “Players … Read more
Circular unveils Ring 3 series with contactless payments and on-finger vibration alerts
Smart ring maker Circular on Thursday unveiled its upcoming Ring 3 series, which consists of a Pro model and a Slim option. Both of the smart rings will feature an integrated NFC chip for contactless payments, vibrating alerts for alarms and reminders, and more. The Ring 3 Pro features a slimmer design than its predecessor … Read more
Bitcoin Pumps as Fed Signals Rate Pause, $415 Million in Shorts Get Rekt
Stocks and crypto rallied together after Governor Christopher Waller said he could back holding rates steady, with short sellers absorbing the brunt of the squeeze.
Sony Dismisses PS5 Buyers’ $508M Tariff Refund Claim as ‘Illogical’
The company raised PlayStation prices for a second time in March, five weeks after the tariffs were struck down.
AI-driven development lifecycle using Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
Engineering teams adopting the AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC) with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and coding agents like Kiro often struggle with the gap between conceptual frameworks and working code. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore is a service for building, connecting, and optimizing agents at scale with any framework or model. AI-DLC positions AI as a central collaborator across … Read more
Migrate agentic workloads to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
An agent that works in a notebook isn’t an agent in production. After real users arrive, you own work that has nothing to do with your agent’s reasoning. Keep one user’s session out of another’s, and hold state across turns and days. Auth for every tool the agent calls sits in your code, and the … Read more
Integrating Outlook with Amazon Quick for AI-powered email automation
AI is changing the shape of the workday, and effective implementations quietly remove work, which can lead to meaningful time savings. According to a recent Gartner study, AI saves sellers nearly five hours a week. Email is often where that shift shows up first. As a company grows across teams and time zones, email grows … Read more
Set up OpenAI ChatGPT Codex with LiteLLM on Amazon ECS and Amazon Bedrock
OpenAI ChatGPT Codex with LiteLLM can provide centralized enterprise controls for generative AI coding agents. These agents help developers understand repositories, write code, run tests, and complete multi-step engineering tasks. As organizations move from individual experimentation to managed adoption, teams need a consistent way to control model access and attribute consumption. They must also apply … Read more
Ollie is betting its focus on privacy can help it win the AI assistant race
The family-focused AI assistant wants access to the details of your everyday life, but says it won’t use that data to train AI models or share it with others.
Best practices for building agentic automations with Amazon Quick Automate
Agentic automations are transforming how enterprises run their business processes. Instead of following rigid scripts, AI agents reason about context, adapt to variation, and collaborate with people and other agents to move work forward. Amazon Quick Automate is a multi-agent automation capability within Amazon Quick that helps organizations build, deploy, and maintain these automations at … Read more
Kraken parent Payward partners with SoFi on stablecoin, 24/7 settlement
The deal will bring SoFiUSD to Kraken, connect Payward to SoFi’s 24/7 dollar settlement network and give SoFi access to digital asset liquidity through Kraken Prime.
12 Hours, 100 Rooms, 1 Hotel in Albania: How I Fixed WiFi and IPTV Chaos Without a Controller
The Disaster Scenario Location: 100-room hotel, Albania Problem: Unstable WiFi + IPTV not working in any room Root cause: The WiFi contractor had installed 100 TP-Link wall APs (TL-WXAP1502GI-PoE) in standalone FAT mode — no Omada controller, no VLANs, no plan. Deadline: 12 hours to fix it, or the hotel would open to guests with … Read more
The Moto Watch Ultra is a return to Wear OS
The Moto Watch Ultra comes in one size, two colors, and with Google’s smartwatch software. Just a few months after getting back into the smartwatch game, Motorola is targeting the premium end of the market with the first Moto Watch Ultra. It comes with some upgrades from the recent Moto Watch – most obviously the … Read more
Lenovo’s new MacBook Neo competitor comes in two sizes and seven colors
Tag yourself. I’m spicy gold. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Lenovo is announcing the IdeaPad Vibe, a productivity laptop aimed at taking on the MacBook Neo with a similar starting price and a wider range of colors. The Vibe comes in 14- and 15-inch sizes, with AMD and Qualcomm chip options … Read more
Google launches AI voice features in Gmail, Docs, and Keep
Users can search for emails or draft documents using the new conversational feature.
Circular’s new smart rings add contactless payments and vibrating alerts
Circular announced its new Ring 3 Series today as a follow-up to the Ring 2 that debuted at CES 2025 with upgraded sensors and FDA-cleared atrial fibrillation detection. The new Ring 3 collection consists of both a Pro model that carries forward those same health-tracking features, and a smaller Slim option that offers more limited … Read more
This ultra-thin Lenovo laptop concept uses solid-state cooling
A laptop we’ll hopefully see but never hear. Lenovo is announcing a new concept laptop for IFA 2026 that uses solid-state cooling instead of traditional fans, making it incredibly thin and super light. The 14-inch Project AeroBlade concept laptop is less than 10mm thick and weighs under 1.8 pounds / 830g. For reference, recent ThinkPad … Read more
I held the first truly bezel-free phone
Cast your mind back a decade or so, and smartphone makers were obsessed with shrinking the bezel on phones. Screens got bigger, the black bars around them got smaller, and for a while it looked like truly edge-to-edge displays were imminent. Then, progress just stopped. The bezel shrunk down until it was a millimeter or … Read more
Standard Chartered brings spot crypto trading to Dubai FX platform
The bank is now offering institutional crypto spot trading in the region, bringing BTC and ETH onto the same eFX rails that institutions use to trade dollars and euros.
SoFi Links Banking Network and Stablecoin to Kraken in New Deal
Kraken will list SoFiUSD and gain access to SoFi’s round-the-clock dollar settlement network, while Kraken Prime will execute trades for SoFi’s crypto customers.
How AI Connects to the World: A Beginner’s Guide to APIs and MCP
Every app you use is powered by APIs. Every AI agent you will build needs MCP. This guide teaches you both from scratch: what they are, how they work, why they exist, real-world use cases, and step-by-step how to use and build them yourself. By the end, you should understand the two protocols that power … Read more
