Tech & Science

Coinbase defaults to Chinese AI models as US export controls limit alternatives

Z.ai, the Beijing-based AI lab formerly known as Zhipu AI, released GLM-5.2 on June 13 — one day after the Trump administration ordered Anthropic to disable its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models globally under a sweeping export control directive.…

Retailers warn of console shortages ahead of GTA 6 launch

Retailers are sounding the alarm about potential PlayStation 5 and Xbox console shortages heading into the 2026 holiday season, as Grand Theft Auto 6's November 19 release date approaches amid an industry-wide memory chip crisis that has forced both Sony…

Mars harbored vast Earth-like magma systems, study finds

A study published in Nature Astronomy on June 26 reveals that Mars once harbored vast, interconnected magmatic systems comparable to those found beneath Earth's surface — despite the Red Planet lacking the tectonic plates long considered a prerequisite for such…

Musk calls AI chip price surge ‘biggest’ he’s ever seen

Elon Musk called the current AI-driven component price surge "the biggest price jump in anything I've ever seen," warning that the production shortfall relative to demand is "insane" and calling for much higher output from chipmakers. The remarks, made in…

North Atlantic ‘cold blob’ linked to Europe’s record heat dome

As a historic heat dome continues to shatter temperature records across Europe, scientists are pointing to an unlikely accomplice: a persistent patch of cold ocean water in the North Atlantic that may be amplifying the continent's extreme heat.

Russian hackers linked to $2.5B Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack

Russian hackers carried out last year's cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover that shut down production for nearly six weeks and inflicted an estimated $2.5 billion in damage on the British economy, according to a New York Times investigation published on…

Tata breach extends to TSMC and Qualcomm files, Reuters reports

A data breach at Tata Electronics is wider than initially reported, with leaked files extending beyond Apple and Tesla to include purported documents from chip giants TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited and Qualcomm, according to Reuters reporting published on…

Apple Vision Pro chief Paul Meade leaves to lead OpenAI’s hardware division

Paul Meade, the vice president who led hardware engineering for Apple's Vision Pro headset and its forthcoming smart glasses, is leaving the company to join OpenAI's hardware division, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Meade is expected to exit Apple by next week…

Anthropic’s Mythos preview spurred DeepSeek’s $7.4B raise

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek closed a $7.4 billion fundraising round — its first ever external capital raise — after Anthropic's Mythos model preview alarmed its leadership about a growing capability gap between U.S. and Chinese frontier AI, according to The…

AWS to raise GPU cloud prices 20% on July 1

Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. Web Services will increase prices on its EC2 Capacity Block reservations for machine learning GPU instances by approximately 20% effective July 1, 2026, according to an update posted to the company's official pricing documentation page. The increase…

OpenAI launches GPT-5.6 but limits access at U.S. request

OpenAI on Friday unveiled GPT-5.6, its next-generation model family organized into three capability tiers — Sol, Terra, and Luna — but said it is limiting initial access to a small group of vetted partners at the request of the U.S.…

Apple’s touchscreen MacBook to use M5 chips, not M6

Apple is set to launch its long-anticipated touchscreen MacBook with existing M5 Pro and M5 Max chips rather than next-generation silicon, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, as the company reshapes its chip roadmap to prioritize on-device artificial intelligence.

Leaker says Apple is developing ‘iRing’ smart ring

A brief post on X from Apple hardware tipster Kosutami has reignited speculation that Apple is developing a smart ring, potentially called the "iRing," setting the stage for a new front in the wearable technology market.

Pope Leo XIV says AI cannot be ‘morally neutral’

Pope Leo XIV posted on X on Thursday that artificial intelligence cannot be considered "morally neutral," extending his campaign to position the Catholic Church as a leading ethical voice in the global AI debate.

Google ties publisher payments to AI training rights

Google Alphabet Inc. is pushing news publishers to grant broad rights over their content — including the use of articles for training AI models — as a condition of joining its "AI-powered article overviews" pilot program, according to reporting by…

Bundibugyo Ebola tops 1,100 cases as clinical trials near

Scientists trying to develop vaccines and treatments for the fast-growing Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in Central Africa are running into a basic problem: too little is known about the strain, and the response is being shaped by delayed detection, limited diagnostics…

Z.ai tops $128B valuation as Chinese AI model rivals Anthropic’s shuttered systems

Days after the U.S. government forced Anthropic to pull its most advanced AI models from the market, Chinese startup Z.ai has released an open-source model that rivals the best closed-source systems from Western labs, narrowing what analysts say is the…

Jefferies analyst calls Z.ai’s GLM-5.2 model ‘another DeepSeek moment’

Beijing-based Zhipu AI has rattled Silicon Valley with the release of GLM-5.2, a 744-billion-parameter open-weight model that rivals Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 on coding benchmarks at a fraction of the cost. Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood described the past week as…

US assures allies on Anthropic AI access at Pax Silica Summit

The European Union and India have both opened diplomatic channels with the Trump administration over access to Anthropic's most advanced AI models, after a U.S. export control directive forced the company to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all…

Five Eyes warns China’s open-source AI model poses cyber threat

A frontier-class AI model released by Chinese lab Z.ai (formerly Zhipu AI) is raising fresh cybersecurity concerns among intelligence officials and security researchers, who warn that open-source systems nearly as capable as the most advanced commercial models are already being…

Reddit trolls trick AI search into reporting fake Trump death

A Reddit community of roughly 45,000 members has successfully duped AI-powered search engines into repeating a fabricated story claiming President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance died of rabies, exposing the fragility of AI systems that rely on user-generated…

Australia to tighten teen social media ban as study shows 85% still online

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament on Thursday that his government would strengthen enforcement of Australia's world-first ban on social media for children under 16, pledging digital duty of care legislation and backing regulatory action against major platforms that have…

NEJM study finds hemorrhagic symptoms rare in Bundibugyo Ebola patients

A correspondence published in The New England Journal of Medicine on June 24 presents clinical data from 405 confirmed Bundibugyo virus disease patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, finding that hemorrhagic symptoms — long considered a hallmark of Ebola…

Second hacker group demands ransom from Klue breach victims

Market intelligence platform Klue is now caught in a double extortion scenario after the original hackers behind its June 12 breach claim to be deleting stolen data while a second criminal group has surfaced demanding ransom from affected customers.

CERN study finds plankton produce far more cloud seeds than models predicted

For nearly 50 years, scientists have suspected that microscopic marine plankton play a role in cloud formation over Earth's oceans. Now, a new experiment has confirmed their influence is far greater than anyone anticipated — potentially reshaping how climate models…

Italy’s Domyn plans open-source frontier AI model within a year

Italian AI company Domyn will release a fully open-source frontier AI model within a year, CEO Uljan Sharka announced on Thursday, in a bid to reduce Europe's dependence on American and Chinese artificial intelligence technology.

ISO adopts quantum-resistant encryption standard

The International Organization for Standardization has formally adopted Classic McEliece, a quantum-resistant encryption standard co-designed by an international team that includes Dr Varun Maram from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science. The adoption, announced this month, marks the…

Penn researchers use AI to find new CAR T therapy targets

Researchers at Penn Medicine have developed an artificial intelligence framework that combines large language models with human scientific expertise to systematically discover new targets for CAR T cell therapy, publishing their findings Wednesday in the journal Cell.

‘Botanical Pompeii’ rewrites origin of flowering plants

A trove of fossilized fruits and seeds buried under volcanic ash nearly 75 million years ago has upended a long-held assumption in paleobotany: that flowering plants rose to dominance only after the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs.

OpenAI leans toward delaying IPO until 2027, NYT reports

OpenAI is leaning toward postponing its initial public offering until 2027, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing three people involved in the company's internal deliberations. The delay marks a reversal for the artificial intelligence company, which had positioned…