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London-based Callosum, whose software matches AI tasks with different models and chips, raised a $100M seed from Atomico, UK Sovereign AI Fund, and others (Bloomberg)

Virginia's Loudoun County hosts more than 250 data centers generating huge tax revenues, as it moves to slow construction in response to pushback from residents (Cecilia Kang/New York Times)

A look at Backstory, an experimental AI image authentication tool from Google DeepMind, offered for testing to journalists, researchers, and other fact checkers (Andrew Deck/Nieman Lab)

China's humanoid robot makers derive much of their revenue from government-backed training centers that sell training data back to them, raising demand concerns (William Langley/Financial Times)

Sources: China is restricting or delaying exports to Taiwan of germanium- and quartz-based materials used in fiber optics, photonics, and chip manufacturing (Nikkei Asia)

How Unitree's Go series, which helped the company dominate the quadruped robot market, drew on openly published US university research funded by the US military (Michael Martina/Reuters)

Pornhub says the UK's new internet age checks have boosted non-compliant porn sites, which occupied seven of the top 10 search results for "free porn" in June (Daniel Thomas/Financial Times)

The EU appears to be shifting from outsized regulatory fines against Big Tech to technical DMA orders that force compliance, such as sharing search data (Jacob Parry/Politico)

President Trump says CFTC Chair Michael Selig is working to bring crypto platform Hyperliquid onshore, lifting shares of HYPE-holder Hyperliquid Strategies ~30% (Bloomberg)

The US Army is phasing out its drone assault battalion, as part of a "back-to-basics" approach; it was created in January to learn from the conflict in Ukraine (Wall Street Journal)

Samsung announces a virtual Galaxy event for August 27 at 8am ET, where the Galaxy S26 FE is expected (Alan Friedman/PhoneArena)

German insurance giant Munich Re agrees to acquire cyber insurance provider At-Bay for $575M; At-Bay has raised $276M and was last valued at $1.35B in 2021 (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Trump urges Congress to pass the Clarity Act at a White House event with execs including the CEOs of Coinbase and Robinhood; the bill has stalled in the Senate (Bloomberg)

Sources: YouTube is offering top creators millions to post videos exclusively on YouTube for a period and will penalize those that post to Netflix concurrently (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg)

Former Meta engineering director Arturo Béjar testifies that Mark Zuckerberg prioritized growth and engagement over child safety on Facebook and Instagram (Reuters)

Google announces new study tools, including a student hub, notebooks, and interactive 3D visualizations in Gemini, plus student offers for Google AI plans (Amanda Caswell/Tom's Guide)

Letter: Stripe told investors January 1 marked the "beginning of the singularity", a major inflection point in long-term trends, and H1 revenue rose 41% YoY (Axios)

Sources: SpaceX approached Cognition about a potential acquisition, but Cognition didn't engage; Cognition CEO Scott Wu says the company is "not for sale" (Bloomberg)

Sources: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands that OpenAI "will be a public company in 2027", or sooner if "our business continues to inflect" (CNBC)

Sources: AI chip startup Fractile is in talks to raise ~$600M at a $6.5B pre-money valuation, up from ~$1B in May, and has an initial ~$250M deal with Anthropic (Bloomberg)

Source: Nvidia has discussed an investment in Mercor as part of a round valuing the startup at $20B; Nvidia paid Mercor tens of millions of dollars last quarter (The Information)

Stripe agrees to acquire New York-based OpenRouter; a source says Stripe is paying $7.5B, with $1.5B going to the startup's founders and $6B to its investors (Erin Griffith/New York Times)

The US FTC says businesses must disclose when they use personalized pricing and it will "deploy enforcement resources" against companies that do not disclose it (Dave Michaels/Wall Street Journal)

Stripe Agrees to Buy AI Firm OpenRouter; No Terms Disclosed (Bloomberg)

Meta launches a Mac app for Meta AI and says Meta AI can now work directly with Instagram and Facebook accounts, Meta ad campaigns, and Google Workspace (Emma Roth/The Verge)

OpenAI is testing Private Safety Processing, a new technique to identify misuse patterns while preserving zero data retention protections, with early customers (Ina Fried/Axios)

The US CFTC bans former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang from trading for five years, as part of a settlement over their roles at FTX (Nicola M White/Bloomberg)

Nielsen rolls out changes to make its ratings more accurate, including using data from smartwatch-like devices worn by its panelists without requiring logins (Loree Seitz/The Wrap)

Google Pixel 11 review: a great design, fantastic camera features, and some Pro phone specs, but few gen-to-gen hardware improvements and it's expensive at $899 (Cameron Faulkner/The Verge)

Pixel 11 Pro review: Magic Capture can be useful, Rambler might be Google's best feature in years, but the gaming performance is subpar and HiLight is useless (Julian Chokkattu/Wired)

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold review: a tougher body, an IP68 rating, and a decent triple rear camera, but an iterative hardware upgrade with a dated-looking design (Dominic Preston/The Verge)

Google Pixel Watch 5 review: improved GPS is good, gesture controls are great, but it's $50 more expensive and the new health features haven't rolled out yet (Victoria Song/The Verge)

Memo: the GOP asks AI companies to stem the public backlash against data centers, saying the issue could kill its chances of holding a vital Senate seat in Ohio (Alex Isenstadt/Axios)

Rivian spinout Also, which is developing autonomous driving tech, raised a $150M Series D led by Prysm Capital, after announcing a $200M round in March 2026 (Kirsten Korosec/TechCrunch)

Network Bio, which is developing an AI foundation model from datasets of patient tissue and blood samples created by pooling access to biobanks, raised $50M (Brian Gormley/Wall Street Journal)

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal's Bengaluru-based fintech Navi raised $100M from Prosus, its first institutional funding, sources say at a ~$1.3B valuation (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Amazon makes its AI-powered Alexa+ free on all compatible Fire TV devices in the US, automatically upgrading users even if they don't subscribe to Prime (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sources: Veeda, which is developing world models and is led by ex-Nvidia VP of AI Research Sanja Fidler, raised a $90M+ seed and is backed by Khosla and Radical (Murad Hemmadi/The Logic)

Sources: Nvidia is working as a matchmaker to connect companies holding its GPUs with Nordic data center operators that have available capacity to deploy them (Kai Nicol-Schwarz/CNBC)

A hacker known as Cyberleek leaks two GTA VI gameplay clips and the full map in protest of Rockstar Games' digital-only release; Rockstar issues DMCA takedowns (Jowi Morales/Tom's Hardware)

Marvell and Google expand their chip development deal, and Marvell grants Google a warrant to buy up to nearly 59M shares at $206.58 each, totaling up to $12.2B (Dana Wollman/Bloomberg)

Cybersecurity data company Prevalent AI raised $22M from Integrity Growth Partners, marking the nine-year-old startup's first-ever outside capital raise (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE)

Amazon appears to have leaked Jason Statham's new film Mutiny, streaming it in full on Prime Video in the US, two days before it is supposed to hit theaters (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Reconstructed code from Flock's login pages reveals OS Investigate, a new AI system that integrates license plate scans, arrest records, case files, and more (Wired)

UK-based automotive dealership software maker Pinewood agrees to a £545M cash takeover by US private equity firm Ridgeview, after an Apax takeover fell through (Financial Times)

Amazon plans to expand Prime Air drone deliveries to cities in at least five more US states in the coming months, including Chicago and Atlanta by 2026's end (Matt Day/Bloomberg)

OpenAI expands its ad pilot program across 31 European markets, including Germany, France, Spain, and Italy; the pilot launched in the US, the UK, and others (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)

SMR startup Oklo is currently building its reactor in Idaho, a step towards supplying Meta with power; there are an estimated 22 active US reactor projects (Jennifer Hiller/Wall Street Journal)

Kuaishou reports Q2 revenue flat at ~$5.2B, meeting est., net income down 36% YoY to ~$467M, the biggest drop since 2021, and Kling AI sales up 200% (Rachel Yeo/Bloomberg)

Google Cloud is deploying context-creating AI agents within its tools to automate tasks handled by forward-deployed engineers; Google is hiring hundreds of FDEs (Kevin McLaughlin/The Information)