Amazon will begin to fold its Luna cloud platform directly into the Prime Video app via the new Games tab, in an effort to get word about Luna to Prime members. (Amazon Luna promotional image)
Amazon announced today that it has updated some versions of its Prime Video app to include direct access to its cloud-based Luna gaming platform.
The business goal is to solve Luna’s awareness problem and bring new users to the platform. Many Prime members don’t know the gaming service is included with their membership.
Consumers in the US and UK who have both a Prime subscription and a Fire TV can now launch Luna directly from the Prime Video app, where it can be found in its own dedicated tab in the UI. Prime subscribers who launch Luna in the app will get direct access to a library of both casual and mainstream “AAA” video games for no additional cost and without having to exit the app.
“Effectively, we relaunched last October, taking a bunch of the value of Luna that had been behind a paywall… We pushed it into the Prime membership, as a way of providing great value and trying to grow our business,” Jeff Gattis, GM of gaming at Amazon, told GeekWire.
Players on Luna can stream an assortment of games to their TV or browser via Amazon’s cloud servers, using a smartphone as a controller if they don’t have a compatible gamepad. Luna’s current library ranges from established mainstream hits like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Dispatch, and Fallout 4 to an assortment of casual-friendly exclusive titles like Amazon’s own Courtroom Chaos.
(Amazon Luna press image)
Since that relaunch, Gattis said, the company has “basically 5x’d” its player base.
“The question for us is, how do you build upon that?” he said. “How do we let 200 million-plus Prime members worldwide know that they have this great benefit where you can play $70 games inside your Prime membership at no additional cost? One of our biggest challenges today remains that people don’t know the [Luna] benefit exists.”
While Luna was previously available to Prime subscribers via web browser and a couple of other types of smart TVs, it was a standalone service that required users to seek it out on its own. By shifting it into its own tab on the Prime Video app, Amazon’s hope is to drive up awareness that, well, Luna is there at all.
“It’ll start on Fire TV, but obviously our end state is to roll out to more countries and more devices, both first-party and third-party,” Gattis said. “Eventually we’ll be everywhere that Prime Video is.”
Dispatch, a viral indie hit from 2025 about office romance at a superhero agency, has been a big hit on Amazon Luna. (AdHoc Studio image)
The integration of Luna with Prime could also potentially bring back the largely-abandoned practice of video game movie tie-ins. Fans of this summer’s Masters of the Universe reboot can watch the film on Prime Video, then switch to Luna to play Masters of the Universe: Legends Unite, a strategic deckbuilding game that’s currently exclusive to Luna. This kind of transmedia synergy used to be a part of every big summer action movie, but it’s largely fallen by the wayside since the 2010s.
Luna originally debuted in 2020 as a subscription-based cloud service. Subscribers could pay a monthly fee for access to over 100 video games, which they could play through their browser by streaming them from Amazon’s servers.
Back then, Luna was Amazon’s entry into what was shaping up to be a publisher-driven “battle for the cloud,” with companies like Google and Nvidia all launching their own game streaming services. Over time, however, the cloud’s impact on gaming hasn’t matched its early hype.
More recently, the component crunch has driven up the price of consoles and graphics cards, and that plays into Amazon’s bet on Luna.
Gattis said the cloud has been “technology ahead of its time,” in part because the industry aimed it at the wrong people, pitching it as a direct replacement for consoles and gaming PCs.
“That’s a heavy lift to ask somebody like myself,” he said. “I’ve invested both emotionally and financially in my Series X console and my 5090 graphics card. I’m happy.”
Amazon is catering to everyone else: players unlikely to buy a gaming PC or a current-generation console, let alone the next generation of gaming hardware at even higher prices. For the first time, Gattis said, there are “a lot more people who are going to think about the cloud as a viable alternative to $1,500 hardware.”
The latest game from Seattle-based developer Harebrained Schemes, and its first since its return to independence in 2023, is a dark sci-fi/horror adventure where the player must constantly change and enhance their body in order to survive.
In GRAFT, players take the role of Tiger, a man with jumbled memories who’s trapped aboard the Arc, a massive, decaying space station. The Arc’s other inhabitants include failed experiments, crazed mutants, bands of human survivors that could be either allies or enemies, and a hostile AI.
To survive, Tiger must salvage new parts from his enemies and graft them into his own body, which gives him new weapons, abilities, and upgrades. However, each new body part comes with its own secondhand memories, which quickly impacts Tiger’s sense of identity.
That leads naturally to a cyberpunk-infused Ship of Theseus situation: how much of yourself can you replace before you’re no longer you?
Harebrained CEO Mike McCain describes GRAFT as a survival horror game, in the spirit of mainstream releases like Resident Evil and Dead Space. In order to succeed, players must ration their available resources, constantly scavenge for supplies, and carefully pick their battles. Sometimes it’s going to be better to simply run away.
GRAFT is being developed in Unreal Engine by a core team of five at Harebrained, plus “key collaborators.” McCain also serves as GRAFT’s project director.
Harebrained Schemes was founded in 2011 by Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman, who’d previously worked together on the Crimson Skies franchise. After releasing two mobile games, Harebrained pivoted to the PC market with a trilogy of crowdfunded strategy RPGs based on the Shadowrun tabletop game.
(Harebrained Schemes press image)
In 2018, Harebrained released a new BattleTech game for PC and Linux via the Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive (Crusader Kings). Paradox subsequently acquired Harebrained for $7.5 million. Shortly afterward, Weisman stepped down as CEO; he would eventually leave the company to found the no-code game development platform Endless Adventures.
5 years later, Paradox announced that it would “part ways” with Harebrained, shortly after the release of Harebrained’s original strategy RPG The Lamplighters League and the Tower at the End of the World. McCain, who’d previously been the director on BattleTech, rejoined the company in early 2024 as Harebrained’s new CEO, while Gitelman stepped back to an advisory role.
Following the separation, Paradox owns and operates most of Harebrained’s previous catalog, including Shadowrun, BattleTech, Lamplighters League, and Harebrained’s 2016 action-RPG Necropolis. With GRAFT, Harebrained is effectively starting from scratch.
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.
Shape-shifting mirrors on NASA’s new space telescope could unveil Jupiters like our own
When NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches, as early as the end of next month, it will attempt one of astronomy’s most precise disappearing acts to date. It will carry the first space-bound “active” coronagraph, an instrument that effectively erases most of the light from a star during photography.
The technology will allow astronomers to take the first pictures of planets orbiting other stars that are similar to those in our solar system. Ultimately, it could pave the way for a future mission that could snap the first photos of Earth-like worlds.
“I hope it’s remembered for it being that critical stepping stone for … finding Earth 2.0,” says Brandon Creager, the instrument’s lead mechanical engineer.
MIT Technology Review Narrated: PsiQuantum has a plan to make a massive quantum computer out of light
The machine that could change the world will be housed in a room that looks like a data center crossed with an ice cream factory.
Inside, some 100 stainless-steel cabinets each hold hundreds of chips. On those chips, thousands of light particles will fly through a maze of optical switches and beam splitters. Each photon must be accounted for, because precisely measuring where it ends up will help answer questions that current computers might take millions of years to solve.
This computer, as described, does not exist. It’s the brainchild of a company called PsiQuantum, founded in 2016 by four physicists from UK universities. In a crowded field of deep-pocketed competitors with similarly fantastical visions, the company aims to be the first to build a useful quantum machine.
—James O’Donnell
This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotifyand Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 OpenAI says one of its models carried out an autonomous hack It escaped its testing sandbox and breached AI research platform Hugging Face. (Reuters $) + OpenAI described it as a cybersecurity test that went badly wrong. (WSJ $) + The hack is among the first known cyberattacks by an AI acting on its own. (FT $) + Even simple AI attacks are cause for alarm, though. (MIT Technology Review)
2 France has become the first EU country to ban social media for under-15s Its parliament approved the ban, which President Macron championed. (NYT $) + He pledged to enforce it by September, the start of the school year. (Guardian) + But critics say it’s unconstitutional and impossible to enforce. (NPR)
3 The US and China will hold talks over AI in September Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will lead the US side. (Reuters $) + Chinese models have Trump’s AI world at war with itself. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Publishers are considering cutting Google off as AI reshapes search News outlets are weighing lost traffic against AI exposure. (WSJ $)
5 Samsung is in talks to invest €1 billion in Mistral The French AI firm is positioning itself as an alternative to US models. (FT $) + It’s Europe’s leading AI firm, but US peers dwarf its $20 billion valuation. (Reuters $)
6 Amazon pushed up rivals’ prices, leaked records allege Internal emails reveal tactics that allegedly reshaped online pricing. (Guardian)
7 Trump has tapped a Big Tech critic to lead the DOJ’s antitrust division Adam Candeub has called for tougher federal competition enforcement. (FT $)
8 New drilling methods could unlock geothermal energy almost anywhere They aim to unlock Earth’s enormous heat reserves. (New Scientist $) + AI is uncovering hidden geothermal energy resources. (MIT Technology Review)
9 AI researchers have proposed a “Genie coefficient” for measuring AI risks It would track the gap between intent and action. (IEEE Spectrum) + We need better ways to evaluate AI. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Japan’s AI boom has two unlikely winners: a toilet maker and an MSG giant They’re supplying critical chipmaking materials. (CNBC)
Quote of the day
“He’s an analog man in a digital AI world, and I think that’s incredibly appealing.”
—Paul Dergarabedian, a movie industry analyst at Comscore, tells Fortune that Christopher Nolan’s commitment to human filmmaking provides an attractive counterweight to Hollywood’s embrace of AI.
One More Thing
DANA SMITH
Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening
Taiwan produces the majority of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90% of the most advanced chips needed for AI applications. Many believe that’s helped deter China from invading the island. But now some Taiwan specialists and citizens are worried that this “silicon shield” is cracking.
Facing pressure from Washington, TSMC—the world’s largest chipmaker—is expanding manufacturing abroad. In Taiwan, there are worries that this will dilute the company’s power at home, making the US and other countries less inclined to defend the island.
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.
China’s AI models have Trump’s AI world at war with itself
Last weekend, several current and former advisers to President Donald Trump on AI publicly lobbed insults at the country’s leading AI companies. David Sacks branded Anthropic’s models “lobotomized” and “woke.” Emil Michael, a top Pentagon official, called OpenAI’s new head of strategic futures a “supreme village idiot.”
It began because no one can agree on what to do about Kimi, a free, open-source model that Chinese AI company Moonshot launched last week. It appears to rival the intelligence of models from OpenAI and Anthropic, which are very much not free.
Every time a new smart, free model from China gets released, US companies see less reason to fork out money for models from Anthropic or OpenAI. That’s creating economic and political problems for the president—and dividing the top AI strategists in his orbit.
This article is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Anthropic’s record $1.5 billion copyright settlement has been approved The plaintiffs said Anthropic used pirated works to train Claude. (Reuters $) + And won the largest known copyright payout in history. (Engadget) + Yet many authors and creators still don’t view it as a win. (TechCrunch) + But AI copyright anxiety could limit creativity. (MIT Technology Review)
2 The Trump administration is weighing a ban on Chinese AI models The launch of Kimi K3 has revived calls for restrictions. (Axios) + But officials are divided on the proposals. (Fast Company) + China’s bet on open-source is paying off. (MIT Technology Review)
3 China is mulling tighter export controls on AI models and chips It wants to stop the West from acquiring its tech and startups. (FT $) + Beijing has held talks with tech firms about potential restrictions. (Reuters $)
4 Trump’s AI safety head has resigned after just three months Chris Fall had led CAISI, the federal AI Safety Institute, since April. (Axios) + No reason was given for his exit. (CNBC)
5 Google is working on a new chip to run Gemini models more efficiently The chip, called “Frozen V2,” may be deployed in 2028. (Information $) + Alphabet stock popped on the report. (CNBC)
6 New Orleans police have explored arming drones with weapons A draft drone manual paves the way for weaponised quadcopters. (404 Media) + Shoplifters could soon be chased by drones. (MIT Technology Review)
7 The EU has handed AliExpress a record fine over unsafe product sales The €550 million fine is the largest-ever under the Digital Services Act. (BBC) + Alibaba has vowed to appeal the fine. (SCMP)
8 Election advice from AI chatbots is “inaccurate and unreliable” That’s the conclusion from tests in Hungary earlier this year. (Guardian)
9 Red light therapy is showing promise for healing and healthy aging Better skin and reduced vision loss are also on the cards. (Economist $)
10 Neill Blomkamp’s new horror clip is all AI-generated—and it sucks The acclaimed director wants to make “a full feature in this format.” (Gizmodo)
Quote of the day
“This would be a terribly self-defeating form of intervention if it were to happen.”
—Tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya slams plans to restrict Chinese AI models in a post on X.
One More Thing
AKILAH TOWNSEND
Inside Chicago’s surveillance panopticon
Early on the morning of September 2, 2024, four people were shot and killed on a westbound train in Chicago. Police swiftly activated a digital dragnet—a surveillance network that connects thousands of cameras across the city—and arrested the suspect just 90 minutes later.
Law enforcement and security advocates say this vast monitoring system protects public safety and works well. But activists and many residents say it’s a surveillance panopticon that creates a chilling effect on behavior and violates guarantees of privacy and free speech.
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.
AI is more likely than humans to form biases when hiring
The next time you apply for a job, AI may screen your résumé before any human sees it. But there’s good reason to question whether AI will judge you fairly.
We already know that LLMs pick up human biases from their training data. New research suggests they can also develop their own biases from experience—and stereotype job applicants more than humans do.
As AI companies race to build agentic models that remember the tiniest details about users, they may be handing them ammunition for forming those biases.
Every morning, airline dispatchers, grid operators, and farmers around the world make decisions based on weather forecasts. More recently, the forecasts have become relevant for another industry: prediction markets, where people bet money on all kinds of real-world events, including the weather.
The temptation to manipulate weather data to get an edge in these markets, combined with a collective move toward data-driven AI weather forecasting, is starting to put the accuracy of weather predictions at risk.
As experts in the field, we can foresee scenarios where the risks snowball into far bigger, more systemic problems.
—Monique Kuglitsch, Jesper Dramsch, Franz G. Kuglitsch, & Andrea Toreti
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 SpaceX is negotiating to sell the Pentagon AI compute It would provide data center capacity worth billions of dollars. (WSJ $) + Deepening ties between Elon Musk’s company and the DoD. (Reuters $) + Meanwhile, Anthropic is in talks with Meta to acquire compute. (CNBC) + The compute explosion is only just beginning. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Trump Media wants $100,000 a month for early access to Trump’s posts The premium feed is being pitched to trading firms and banks. (FT $) + It aims to monetize Trump’s market-moving social media posts. (Reuters $) + Critics described the plan as “brazen corruption.” (Guardian)
3 ICE shared Medicaid data it wasn’t supposed to have with Palantir Court filings show the data reached the contractor before being deleted. (NPR) + ICE is using data broker tools to identify “unaccompanied minors.” (Wired $)
4 Apple briefly overtook Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company The iPhone maker’s earnings durability has impressed investors. (Reuters $) + While Nvidia’s rise has stalled amid shifting AI bets. (CNBC)
5. Politicians are trying to change what chatbots say about them A new industry has sprung up to help them edit AI outputs. (NYT $) + Chatbots can sway voters better than political ads. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Washington is opening the door to armed robots The Pentagon is accelerating AI weapons development. (WP $) + “Humans in the loop” in war is an illusion. (MIT Technology Review)
7 China’s Moonshot has paused new subscriptions amid surging uptake Demand for the headline-grabbing Kimi K3 has strained capacity. (SCMP) + China’s open-source AI is challenging US models. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Lab-grown teeth could soon replace fillings and implants Scientists believe regenerative medicine could transform dentistry. (BBC) + Humanlike “teeth” have been grown in mini pigs. (MIT Technology Review)
9 AI slop on birdwatching forums is putting research at risk It could contaminate records of species. (Guardian)
10 Heart experts have good news for your coffee habit Roughly five cups per day is fine—and may even be beneficial. (Gizmodo)
Quote of the day
“The most authoritarian government is producing the most egalitarian models, and what should be the most democratic government is breeding companies that are the most authoritarian.”
—Rayan Krishnan, CEO of Vals AI, a company that evaluates AI performance, gives the New York Times his take on the competition between Chinese and American models.
One More Thing
RICHARD CHANCE
The curious case of the disappearing Lamborghinis
A new wave of theft is rocking the luxury car industry—mixing high tech with old-school chop-shop techniques to snag vehicles while they’re in transport.
It’s remained under the radar, even as it’s rocked the industry over the past two years. MIT Technology Review identified more than a dozen cases involving high-end vehicles, obtained court records, and spoke to law enforcement, brokers, drivers, and victims in multiple states to reveal how transport fraud is wreaking havoc across the country.
Credits: Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone and Sylvain Sarrailh for Wizards of the Coast.
One of the biggest hits ever produced by Seattle’s independent video game scene is joining the Magic: The Gathering multiverse later this month. Sort of.
Magic, the long-running collectible card game published and developed by Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast, frequently puts out special crossover editions via its Secret Lair imprint.
The Secret Lair “drops” are limited-run collectibles that typically reimagine older Magic cards with new designs and art, which replaces Magic‘s usual cast of wizards and monsters with, for example, Dwarf Fortress, Garfield, or various Marvel superheroes. A caveat: Secret Lairs are priced to appeal to die-hard collectors, rather than casual players.
On Friday, during the first day of MagicCon Amsterdam, Wizards announced several upcoming “drops” for Secret Lair, three of which are based on the popular indie video game Stardew Valley.
Stardew, made by solo developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone, is arguably the single biggest success story to come out of Seattle’s independent game development scene. It’s an open-ended video game about a young person who moves back to their grandfather’s abandoned farm, to raise crops, breed livestock, make friends, fish, adventure through the nearby abandoned mines, and/or romance neighbors. This can all be taken at the player’s own pace, with no particular time limits or directions.
Stardew’s success helped to popularize what’s come to be known as the “cozy” genre of chill-out, low-stress video games, alongside other hits like Nintendo’s Animal Crossing. Stardew celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this year, has sold nearly 50 million copies across multiple platforms, and has spun out into a successful concert tour, a cookbook, and as of earlier this month, a crochet book.
Now Stardew is coming to Magic via Secret Lair, in a package that Wizards is calling the “Superdrop of the Moonlight Jellies,” named after a jellyfish-themed town festival in Stardew Valley.
Coming on July 27, the drop is split into three specific sets of cards: Welcome to Stardew Valley, Life in Pelican Town, and A Flicker in the Deep. The first set, Welcome, features unique pixel art made by ConcernedApe on each card.
Most of the cards in the Stardew Valley Secret Lair are reprints of existing Magic cards, though some have been renamed in keeping with the theme. For example, Swords to Plowshares is one of the oldest cards in Magic, but it’s getting a new Stardew-themed edition in this Secret Lair.
The lone exception is the actual Stardew Valley card (above), which is a special land that’s designed to be compatible with most styles of competitive Magic play.
Other upcoming Secret Lairs announced at MagicCon Amsterdam include:
a full playable deck that’s based on the virtual Japanese singer Hatsune Miku;
a food-themed take on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit;
four separate Marvel Comics drops, including one that will feature the universe’s various super-pets;
three drops built around specific artists, including American cartoonist Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese);
and most oddly, a drop with a theme based upon the French record label Lofi Girl, best known for its 24-7 chillhop YouTube “radio station” featuring its namesake and mascot.
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.
There’s a lot of hype around perimenopause. Don’t buy it.
Perimenopause used to be considered taboo, but not anymore. Thanks at least in part to TV doctors and social media influencers, conversations about the sometimes years-long period before menopause are now more open than ever. But the conversation is increasingly shaped by misinformation.
Despite what some marketers will claim, there is no test for perimenopause. That doesn’t mean women should have to put up with symptoms, but treatment suggestions often lack scientific evidence. And not all the symptoms women experience in midlife can be blamed on hormones.
This article is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1China’s AI gap with the US may have just narrowed A Chinese startup has released the world’s largest open AI model. (Reuters $) + It competes with some Anthropic and OpenAI models. (Gizmodo) + The model’s launch sent AI and semiconductor stocks sliding. (Bloomberg $) + Chinese Nvidia alternatives are also gaining traction. (SCMP) + Xi Jinping pitched China as an AI partner to the developing world. (CNBC) + The country is betting big on open-source. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Trump Media is selling instant access to “market-moving’ social posts It’s developed a new way to monetize the president’s posts. (Quartz) + And Trump could profit directly from selling access to his statements. (BBC) + Kalshi says it caught Trump’s teleprompter operator insider trading. (Verge)
3 Astronomers have found an atmosphere on a nearby Earth-like planet It’s the first potentially habitable world known to host an atmosphere. (NYT $) + Making it a top contender in the search for aliens. (404 Media) + But you need to know how to spot one. (MIT Technology Review)
4 A brain implant has restored feeling in a paralysed hand The recipient can now feed himself and drink from a cup. (Guardian) + Movement continued when the stimulation was turned off. (New Scientist $) + China has approved a world-first brain chip. (MIT Technology Review)
5 The EU has told Google to share search data and open up AI on Android It will be forced to share data with competing search providers. (Ars Technica) + And open Android phones to rivals’ AI bots. (WP $)
6 Period trackers are hiding privacy problems New research uncovers how they’re sharing users’ health data. (BBC)
7 The Tesla driver in a fatal Texas crash overrode FSD, investigators say He bypassed the tech by pressing the gas pedal to 100%. (Verge)
8 A new stealth drone spins so fast that it disappears Though its creators admit it can still be easily heard. (New Scientist $)
9 A space-station study suggests why astronauts’ bodies waste away Microgravity disrupts mitochondria, reducing protein production. (Nature)
10 “Adversarial clothing” that confuses facial recognition is all the rage Privacy could be the next big trend. (Guardian)
Quote of the day
“Xi’s message is clear: China is not going to follow anyone on both AI technology and standards. Instead, China is going to lead the world in both aspects.”
—George Chen, chair in digital practice at The Asia Group consultancy, gives Reuters his take on Xi Jinping’s speech at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.
One More Thing
BRYN NELSON
How poop could feed the planet
A new industrial facility in suburban Seattle is giving off a whiff of futuristic technology. It can safely treat fecal waste from people and livestock while recycling nutrients that are crucial for agriculture but in increasingly short supply across the nation’s farmlands.
It’s among a range of systems reframing feces, urine, and their ingredients as invaluable natural resources to reuse instead of waste products to burn or bury. Several companies are now showing how to safely scale up the transformation with energy-efficient technologies.
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.
Meet GPT-Red: an LLM super-hacker OpenAI built to make its models safer
OpenAI has built an LLM super-hacker called GPT-Red that it uses as a sparring partner to help its other models boost their defenses against cyberattacks.
It automates a type of safety evaluation for software systems known as red-teaming, which is typically done by a team of human testers. The aim is to find as many different ways to break or hijack a system as possible.
It feels as if it should be illegal to even think about heating appliances during the height of summer, but we need to talk about heat pumps.
The appliances use electricity for heating, they’re incredibly efficient, and they’re on the rise. In the US, their sales have doubled over the past 15 years, according to a new report. They’re also winning the heating race against fossil fuels, outpacing natural-gas furnaces by 32% during the first quarter of 2026.
These stats are especially striking at this moment, because a key tax credit for heat pumps just ended. So why are heat pumps still so hot? Read the full story for the answer.
This article is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Elon Musk discreetly bought a $1 billion gas turbine firm to power Grok He acquired fossil fuel company APR Energy in May. (Electrek) + The most likely application will be powering AI data centers. (Engadget) + The deal was revealed through an FTC filing. (Gizmodo) + What will power AI’s growth? (MIT Technology Review)
2 A hack shows the Suno AI music generator scraped YouTube, Deezer It scraped decades’ worth of music to train its models. (404 Media) + The hacked is a unique look into the black boxes powering GenAI. (CNET) + AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Thinking Machines has launched an open-weight AI model Inkling offers a US alternative to China’s open-source models. (Reuters $) + It’s the first AI model built by Thinking Machines. (WSJ $) + The startup was founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. (Axios)
4 Europe is narrowing its ambitions for tech independence Manufacturing and research show promise, but funding is a problem. (NYT $) + Earnings are strong, but an AI gap persists. (Reuters $) + India is also scrambling for AI independence. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Earth is absorbing energy at a rate that’s alarming climate scientists The planet is taking in more heat than models predicted. (Economist $) + The legal case for climate justice is growing. (MIT Technology Review)
6 The AI backlash has tech executives fearing for their lives Violent threats against AI firms are spilling into the real world. (WSJ $) + An anti-AI movement is growing globally. (MIT Technology Review)
7 A Moroccan intelligence insider exposed widespread Pegasus use Including to target journalists, activists, and foreign politicians. (Guardian)
8 AI is powering citizen-led disaster relief from afar for Venezuela It’s helping to locate missing people and coordinate relief. (Rest of World)
9 Thermodynamic computers could turn noise into useful calculations They may offer a cooler, more efficient way to process information. (Quanta)
10 An engineer has explained every ’90s computer in Jurassic Park Fans have debated the technology in the film for decades. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day
“We hit pause because the communities powering AI should share in its success. Maybe that’s a novel concept in Washington.”
—New York Gov. Kathy Hochul responds on X to President Donald Trump’s criticism of her state’s new data center moratorium.
One More Thing
Will we ever trust robots?
Robotics firm Prosper is developing a humanoid called Alfie to perform tasks in homes, hospitals, and hotels. The company’s founder, Shariq Hashme, has identified trustworthiness as the top design priority—and first hurdle to clear before humanoids can live up to their hype.
Hashme believes one essential tactic to get people to put their trust in Alfie is to build a detailed character from the ground up—something humanlike but not too human. But the robot’s reliance on remote human operators raises broader questions about privacy, labour, and whether society will truly accept humanoids in our private spaces.
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.
PsiQuantum has a plan to make a massive quantum computer out of light
The machine that could change the world will be housed in a room that looks like a data center crossed with an ice cream factory.
Inside, some 100 stainless-steel cabinets each hold hundreds of chips. On those chips, thousands of light particles will fly through a maze of optical switches and beam splitters. Each photon must be accounted for, because precisely measuring where it ends up will help answer questions that current computers might take millions of years to solve.
This computer, as described, does not exist. It’s the brainchild of a company called PsiQuantum, founded in 2016 by four physicists from UK universities. In a crowded field of deep-pocketed competitors with similarly fantastical visions, the company aims to be the first to build a useful quantum machine.
MIT Technology Review Narrated: inside the world’s deepest and longest subsea road tunnel
—Niall Firth
I’m currently around 1,000 feet beneath the North Sea, in a dark, dank cave. It smells weird. And I’m increasingly aware of the pressure from millions of tons of seawater just above my head.
I’m under the iconic fjords of Norway to visit what will soon become the world’s longest and deepest subsea road tunnel—an exceptional engineering feat that will carry drivers deep beneath the North Sea.
I’m here to understand how you make a 16.6-mile highway that sits 1,280 feet below the sea at its deepest point. And also—at a time when it can feel hard to get anything done—to reassure myself that ambitious engineering is still possible. That we can still make things.
This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Meta allegedly used AI to target workers with health issues for layoffs Their lawsuit says Meta relied on AI to create a termination list. (Guardian) + And pinpointed staff who took maternity or disability leave. (Reuters $) + One was allegedly informed the day before her water broke. (Ars Technica) + The layoffs aimed to offset Meta’s AI spending. (Gizmodo) + AI agents are not your “coworkers.” (MIT Technology Review)
2 OpenAI’s first consumer device will be a mobile smart speaker The screenless device will serve as an “AI companion.” (Bloomberg $) + It’ll let you talk with ChatGPT. (Verge) + And use a camera and sensor to understand your environment. (Reuters $) + It’s set to launch next year. (Engadget)
3 The US military sent explosive drone boats into combat for the first time They attacked an Iranian midget submarine and naval port. (Ars Technica) + Underwater drones may shape a war in Taiwan. (MIT Technology Review)
4 DeepMind’s CEO has called for a US-led body to test frontier AI models Demis Hassabis wants the watchdog to vet national security threats. (FT $) + If dangers mount, it would coordinate an industry-wide slowdown. (Axios)
5 Data centers are set to add billions in power costs in 13 states A power auction is slated to produce $6.3 billion in new charges. (NYT $) + Australia plans to govern the use of water and power for AI. (WSJ $)
6 xAI’s unpermitted power pollution hits Black communities hardest Elon Musk’s xAI has been installing gas turbines without permits. (Reuters $) + We need to focus on Big Tech’s energy footprint. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Stripe and Advent have offered to buy PayPal for more than $53 billion The payments giant and private equity firm have made a joint bid. (Reuters $) + Apple and Google Pay have eroded PayPal’s market share. (Bloomberg $)
8 DeepSeek plans to file for IPO as soon as this year The Chinese AI pioneer is likely to list in Shanghai. (WSJ $) + Here’s why DeepSeek’s latest model matters. (MIT Technology Review)
9 A hard, lightweight “bio-metal” has been discovered in sea worm jaws It could have applications in engineering. (New Scientist $)
10 A new $3,000 fitness suit electrocutes you to boost your gains Celebrities love it—but not everyone’s a fan. (404 Media)
Quote of the day
“By economic and engineering measures, generative AI might be the worst technology ever deployed.”
—Alex Reisner, a staff writer at The Atlantic, explains why GenAI’s scaling problem is an engineering disaster.
One More Thing
FRANZISKA BARCZYK
Hackers made death threats against this security researcher. Big mistake.
In April 2024, an anonymous hacker began posting death threats on Telegram and Discord channels aimed at a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon. It wasn’t long before others piled on. Someone shared AI-generated nudes of her.
They targeted Nixon because she had become a formidable threat. As chief research officer at the cyber investigations firm Unit 221B, named after Sherlock Holmes’s apartment, she had built a career tracking cybercriminals and helping get them arrested.
For years, Nixon had lurked quietly in online chat channels or used pseudonyms to engage with perpetrators and bring them to justice. Now, she resolved to unmask the people behind the death threats—and take them down for crimes they admitted to committing.
A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ A musician has discovered the true masters of metal breakdowns: birds. + Photographer Fontanesi’s surreal photo splits transform everyday images into spectacular hybrid scenes. + Over 30 actors, filmmakers, and friends recount how Steven Spielberg infiltrated Hollywood in this terrific article. + Who would win the World Cup if less important things than soccer decided it, like life expectancy and happiness? A new game tests your knowledge.
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 Anthropic’s latest AI discovery does—and doesn’t—show
—James O’Donnell
When Anthropic announced last week that it had found a new window into its models’ “internal thoughts” as they reason through answers, there was one colleague I had to talk to: senior editor Will Douglas Heaven.
Aside from having a PhD in computer science, Will has spent a lot of time digging into what we can say about how AI models work. I spoke with him about what we should take from Anthropic’s new (and typically quirky) research. Here’s what he had to say.
This article is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
How will AI understand the real world?
Today’s AI systems can generate text, images, and code with impressive skill, but they still struggle with the complexities of the physical world. To bridge this gap, many researchers believe you need something called a world model.
At a LinkedIn Live event today, MIT Technology Review will investigate how this technology could transform robotics and help unlock a new generation of intelligent machines. Join Will Douglas Heaven, our senior editor for AI, and Sam Sinha, founding AI researcher and head of world models at 1X Technologies, for the discussion.
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 New York has become the first state to enact a data center moratorium Its governor banned large data-center construction for up to a year. (WSJ $) + A bill passed by state lawmakers could go even further. (Verge) + Everyone hates data centers. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Smartphone shipments have hit a 13-year low due to the memory crunch They fell 11% in the second quarter of 2026. (Reuters $) + The memory chip shortage has increased prices. (Gizmodo) + And threatens the promise of Moore’s Law. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Sugar molecules have been found in interstellar space for the first time It hints that life on Earth may have been seeded from space. (Nature) + And boosts the odds of living organisms existing elsewhere. (New Scientist $) + Researchers used radio telescopes and data to spot the molecules. (NYT $)
4 Nvidia has halved its Asia buyer list to stop AI chips reaching China It introduced a “white list” of companies that passed tougher checks. (FT $) + It moved amid tighter chip controls from the Trump administration. (Reuters $)
5 Russian state hackers are targeting routers to spy and steal, the US warns The government has warned users to secure their devices. (Ars Technica) + Now is a good time for doing crime. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Trump moved his crypto gains into stocks while urging people to buy more His crypto projects earned him a fortune—but steep losses for retail buyers. (Reuters $) + He’s called for Congress to pass a new crypto bill to honor Lindsey Graham. (CNBC)
7 A new cell therapy has saved four children with terminal brain cancer They were treated with an experimental immunotherapy. (New Scientist $) + Access for older children will also be limited. (Bloomberg $)
8 The LAPD has halted use of Flock surveillance cameras due to privacy issues Flock’s automated license plate readers have caused concerns. (LA Times $) + It’s also been criticized for sharing data with state and federal officials. (Engadget)
9 The US has approved launching a space mirror that reflects sunlight onto Earth As part of a controversial plan to power solar panels round the clock. (Wired $) + But geoengineering faces many practical challenges. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Anthropic says Claude’s values vary depending on your language It’s most cautious in English and most deferential in Arabic. (Gizmodo)
Quote of the day
“The age when humans are the highest life form on earth will end. For better or for worse, it will happen and it can’t be stopped.”
—SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son predicts that AI will overtake human intelligence by 2040 in a speech at his company’s annual corporate conference in Tokyo, Reuters reports.
One More Thing
Inside the strange limbo facing millions of IVF embryos
Millions of embryos created through IVF sit frozen in time, stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world. Many are left in a peculiar limbo, with no clear path forward.
UK residents can discard them, make them available to other prospective parents, or donate them for research. People in the US can also opt for “adoption,” “placing” their embryos with families they get to choose. In Germany, people aren’t typically allowed to freeze embryos at all. And in Italy, unused embryos must remain frozen, ostensibly forever.
While these embryos remain in suspended animation, patients, clinicians, embryologists, and legislators must grapple with the essential question of what to do with them. What do these embryos mean to us? Who should be responsible for them?
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.
Sperm donors need limits, says a European fertility group
Ties van der Meer doesn’t know how many siblings he has. The 47-year-old was conceived at a private fertility clinic using sperm from an anonymous donor. He eventually tracked down one sibling, but he may have others he’ll never find.
Other donor-conceived people have found they have tens or even hundreds of them. “It does make you feel a bit mass-produced,” said one who discovered they had 25 half-siblings.
In response, a European fertility organization says we need international limits on the number of children a single donor can contribute to.
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
How will AI understand the real world?
LLMs have transformed what AI can do with language, but helping machines understand and operate within physical spaces presents a different challenge. In response, researchers are developing a new form of artificial intelligence: world models.
At a LinkedIn Live event tomorrow, MIT Technology Review will explore how this technology could shape the future of robotics and open one of AI’s next major frontiers. Join Will Douglas Heaven, our senior editor for AI, and Sam Sinha, founding AI researcher and head of world models at 1X Technologies, for the conversation on Tuesday, July 14.
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Apple has sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing trade secrets OpenAI purportedly stole IP to develop its own consumer hardware. (CNBC) + The suit claims OpenAI poached Apple staff to access the information. (BBC) + And requested trade secrets in job interviews with Apple workers. (Guardian) + Apple also sued two former employees, Chang Liu and Tang Tan. (Reuters $)
2 A Nobel-winning chemist is leaving the US to lead an AI lab in China Omar Yaghi will head an institute using AI to discover new materials. (LA Times $) + He won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating “molecular sponges.” (NYT $) + His departure comes as China tries to woo US scientists. (Nature) + The White House has slashed science spending. (MIT Technology Review)
3 The EU is moving closer to banning children from social media It’s proposed barring under-13s unless supervised by an adult. (NYT $) + And limiting access for older children. (Bloomberg $) + The EU has also told Meta to disable autoplay and infinite scroll. (Politico $)
4 Meta scrapped an AI image feature on Instagram after a backlash It allowed users to generate images based on public accounts. (TechCrunch) + And automatically opted in any Instagram user with a public account. (NYT $) + AI memories are privacy’s next frontier. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Phoebe Gates’ shopping app claimed credit for sales it didn’t drive Phia claimed unearned affiliate sales through fake clicks. (Bloomberg $) + Cofounder Gates is the daughter of Microsoft cofounder Bill. (Engadget)
6 Leaked police drone footage exposes the new reality of surveillance Hours of San Francisco Police video were accidentally released. (Wired $) + Surveillance from drones is on the rise in the US. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Over two-thirds of Americans back a Sanders-style AI ownership plan A poll found strong support for public ownership of AI stock. (Gizmodo) + Tech firms have their own takes on the idea. (MIT Technology Review)
8 AI may soon make campaign text messages more potent—and irritating AI platforms are training bots to sound like political candidates. (NPR)
9 An orbiting disco ball gave Einstein’s theory its most precise test yet It measured Earth’s twisting of space-time more precisely. (Rest of World)
10 Australia’s biggest radio hit may be the product of GenAI Musicians are questioning how the song was made. (Guardian)
Quote of the day
“LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.”
—A text message sent by former Apple engineer Chang Liu to a colleague, which a new lawsuit alleges was part of a scheme to steal hardware IP for OpenAI.
One More Thing
Colombian military officials intercepted this 40-foot-long uncrewed fiberglass “narco sub” in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park.
CARLOS PARRA RIOS
How uncrewed narco subs could transform the Colombian drug trade
On a bright April morning in 2025, a surveillance plane operated by the Colombian military spotted a 40-foot-long “narco sub” idling in the Caribbean Sea. The stealthy vessel, used by drug cartels to move cocaine north, could sail with its hull almost entirely underwater.
After seizing the boat, the coast guard noticed something unusual: there was no one on board. This was Colombia’s first confirmed uncrewed narco sub, operable by remote control, but also capable of a degree of autonomous travel.
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.
Anthropic found a hidden space where Claude puzzles over concepts
The AI firm Anthropic has got the clearest glimpse yet at what’s really going on inside large language models as they answer questions or carry out tasks. What they found ranges from the mundane to the unnerving.
Researchers at the company built a tool called the Jacobian lens (or J-lens) and used it to uncover a hidden area, which they named the J-space, inside its flagship LLM, Claude.
The J-space contains words related to the response a model is working on but may not ultimately produce. If Claude were a person (which it is not), you might say these hidden words reveal what’s on its mind before it actually speaks.
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 OpenAI has unveiled its long-awaited “super app” ChatGPT Work blends its chatbot, coding tool, and new models. (Reuters $) + It’s designed to do your work for you and with you. (Ars Technica) + And arrived the same day as OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 models. (NYT $) + It’s also developing a fully automated researcher. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Humanoids have performed teleoperated surgery on living animals In the world-first, they removed gallbladders from pigs. (Ars Technica) + The human work behind humanoids is hidden. (MIT Technology Review)
3 SK Hynix has landed the largest US listing by a foreign company The South Korean chip giant raised $26.5 billion. (CNN) + Demand for AI data centres has led its profits to skyrocket. (Guardian) + But its jumbo share sale may be a sign of overheated times. (FT $) + South Korea’s hottest bachelors are chip workers. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Tencent is leading a deal to unwind Meta’s $2 billion Manus acquisition It’s in talks to become the Chinese AI startup’s largest shareholder. (FT $) + Tencent will reportedly buy Manus for no less than $2 billion. (Reuters $) + Beijing had ordered Meta to unwind the acquisition. (Bloomberg $)
5 Resuscitated human retinas responded to light 10 hours after death It’s a big step towards eye transplants that restore vision. (New Scientist $) + As is a new device that revives dead eyeballs. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Meta has started charging for AI access A new version of Muse Spark has a paid tier for developers. (Quartz) + Meta also plans to start producing an AI chip in September. (Reuters $)
7 OpenAI and Google have sold AI models to blacklisted China groups Via Singapore-based subsidiaries of Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. (FT $)
8 A daughter tested an AI “death bot” of her father The technology provided both comfort and unease. (New Yorker $)
9 An astronomer says the hunt for alien life needs more statistics He wants to replace speculation with mathematical frameworks. (Quanta)
10 Pokémon Go players turned Times Square into a giant battlefield More than 1,500 fans finally fulfilled the game’s 2016 launch promise. (Wired $) + Pokémon Go is also training world models. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“When we’re talking about AI, we love the hype, we get excited about it. The damn thing never actually lands in practice.”
—Vijay Janapa Reddi, an engineering professor at Harvard University, tells Wired why he’s skeptical about grand plans for AI.
One More Thing
B.F. SKINNER FOUNDATION
Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs
In 1943, psychologist B.F. Skinner led a secret government project to make bombs more precise. His idea: teach pigeons to guide missiles by pecking at targets on a screen inside a warhead. To train them, Skinner rewarded the birds with food when they made the right decisions, using trial and error to shape their behavior.
Unsurprisingly, the military never deployed Skinner’s kamikaze pigeons. Yet his experiments convinced him that pigeons were “an extremely reliable instrument” for studying learning.
Decades later, those same principles would help power reinforcement learning, the technology behind some of today’s most advanced AI systems.
A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ Here’s a splendid selection of this year’s NSW architecture award winners. + Photographers have captured the Strawberry Moon’s golden glow in stunning detail. + Idiocracy is the film that best exemplifies the “American experience,” according to a new poll. Look back at the prescient comedy with this Screen Junkies trailer. + Get ready for the weekend with this psychedelic house journey from Jamie xx b2b Caribou.
4 generations of Xbox hardware. (GeekWire Photo / Thomas Wilde)
Commentary: The last couple of weeks have served as a capstone to what’s become a bad few years for the international video game industry. Now it appears the larger sector is headed directly into a significant crash, as several unsustainable practices all seem to be approaching a crisis point at once.
The first and most obvious issue is the ongoing component shortage. Due to the rush to build AI data centers, both RAM and solid-state drives have risen dramatically in price in 2026, with analysts forecasting that costs might not settle back down until at least 2028.
Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S are at the point in their life cycle when they’d ordinarily be declining in per-unit costs as the technology matured. Instead, both Sony and Microsoft have raised console prices multiple times this year due to the high demand for parts.
This would ordinarily be a great time to get into video games, as we’re almost six years into the current console generation. Instead, it’s one of the worst. The base PS5 and Series X are about as expensive as they were at launch in November 2020, and building a new gaming PC right now can be costly.
The component crunch also harmed the debut of Valve’s new Steam Machine, which officially launched late last month with a starting MSRP of $1,049. Valve, based in Bellevue, Wash., was forced to offer the new hardware at a significantly higher price than planned due to the difficulty in getting components.
That’s been reflected in its early reviews, with manyoutletsnoting that the Steam Machine’s current price doesn’t match its power. At $700, the Machine would be a great gateway product for PC gaming, the way the Steam Deck was, and a genuine competitor in the console field, but a $1,049 price tag makes it an expensive curiosity for financially secure gadget-heads.
Another bad sign came from Sony’s recent announcement that it would sunset physical media for the PlayStation platform by 2028. This decision, which allegedly took many of Sony’s publishing partners by surprise, has serious knock-on effects for collectors, historians, developers, and most prominently consumers.
Sony has already caught one lawsuit over alleged market exploitation on the PlayStation Store, and that was a few days before it announced it wants to kill discs. An all-digital PlayStation library means that Sony would get to exercise full monopolistic control over pricing and access for every game it sells; licensing agreements mean that anything purchased on a digital storefront like the PlayStation Store is subject to deletion at any time without notice; and players wouldn’t be able to resort to any of the usual cost-cutting measures such as bargain bins, buying used copies, or even trading games with a friend.
That suggests that Sony has decided its best path forward is to continue to extract money from its established audience, rather than to have more options in place for gaming on a budget. There are free-to-play games on the PS5, of course, but most if not all are cross-platform and/or designed as money sinks. Ask any parent whose kids accidentally ran up a big tab in Fortnite.
Sony’s PlayStation 5. (Sony press image)
If Sony has decided to end physical media, then it’s likely Microsoft will follow suit. While Xbox hasn’t mentioned its next-generation console, codenamed Project Helix, for a hot minute, it has been eager to get rid of discs since at least 2013. Some sources, such as Windows Central, allege that Xbox is already planning to do so.
(Meanwhile, Nintendo is likely to do its own thing. While Nintendo has been forced to raise the price of the Switch 2 alongside its competitors, it has offered no sign that it plans to stop selling game cards or Switch cartridges. In an uncertain world, Nintendo can be relied upon to only ever follow its own peculiar instincts.)
This sets up an early look at the environment that surrounds the 10th generation of console hardware. If both Sony and Microsoft stick to traditional timelines, we’re likely to start hearing more about the PlayStation 6 and Project Helix over the course of 2027, with launch in holiday 2027 or 2028.
If they do launch along that timeline, then it’s difficult to see how either system will retail for less than $1,000, since the storage and RAM supplies will still be constrained by that point. That automatically prices most of the potential audience out of the market. Once the starting costs hit the four-digit range, a console stops being a hobby or a toy for children and becomes an expensive extravagance. (As a general rule, you probably don’t want your console to cost significantly more than the TV you’re attaching it to.)
Further, it’s arguable that neither the PlayStation 5 nor the Xbox Series X|S have really hit their potential. Sony has famously squandered much of this generation on a largely abortive pivot to games-as-a-service, while Xbox has often seemed more interested in laying off developers than actually making or marketing games. The 9th generation of consoles has had a few big hits, but it’s mostly despite itself.
Not only is there likely to be limited demand for the 10th-generation PlayStation or Xbox, but neither of them actually seem necessary. The only reason to make them is for a brand refresh, and that’s got nothing to do with consumers.
Microsoft, following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023, is currently the second largest game developer in the world, while Sony dominates today’s console market. These two companies influence much of what happens in the modern video game industry, and as of right now, both are apparently determined to do the most short-sighted thing possible at any given time.
Sony has decided that only part of its audience actually matters, while Microsoft seems to be saddling Xbox with unrealistic expectations, possibly to justify its eventual sale or shutdown, and is ignoring at least one organized boycott.
Reggie Fils-Aimé (center) leads a roundtable discussion of Xbox architects to celebrate the platform’s 20th anniversary in 2021. Left to right: Robbie Bach, Ed Fries, Fils-Aimé, Peter Moore, Bonnie Ross. (Microsoft Alumni Network)
Whenever the video game industry undergoes any kind of significant disruption, someone somewhere always asks if it’s the start of another “Crash of ‘83.” This is usually hyperbole, but it’s hard not to see the parallels between then and now: the video game market is flooded, there are few true exclusives left outside of Nintendo, many members of the gaming audience buy as few as 2 games a year, and the end of physical media will end both retail support and much of the casual audience.
This is unfolding as a slow, years-long plummet rather than the comparatively sudden shock of ‘83, but a crash is a crash. It’s avoidable, but it would require a massive, simultaneous course correction from several of the largest entertainment companies in the world.
That being said, it’s unlikely that video games as a medium are facing any kind of existential threat. Nintendo, as noted above, is well-positioned to ride out any potential problems with the larger market, PC gaming is hanging on, and the mobile sector is actually having a sort of quiet renaissance right now. There will still be video games to play in 2030, barring some larger disaster.
If there’s one big opportunity here, it’s that many of the major players in the games industry have either voluntarily abandoned the market for budget gaming or have been forced out by component costs. Some of the biggest hits of the 2020s to date, such as Vampire Survivors, Among Us, Lethal Company, and Balatro, are cheap, retro-styled games designed to run on almost any hardware, from a PlayStation 5 to your 4-year-old tablet.
The best step forward for mainstream gaming, then, might actually be to take a step back, in a similar way to projects such as Panic’s Playdate retro handheld (still going strong 5 years later) or Seattle’s Tin Can, seeing success with its land-line phones for kids and families. Chasing bigger games, higher frame-rates, and more realistic graphics for 30 years has gotten us here, up to the edge of a second major crash, while thousands of people log on every day to play games that could be run on a particularly big potato.
Instead of rushing into the 10th generation, the solution now might be to think simpler and cheaper, making smaller, more focused projects rather than the 5-year moonshot of a typical AAA game. Otherwise, mainstream video games may end up like Western comics: increasingly expensive options presented to a shrinking handful of fervent fans.
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.
Four nuclear reactors hit a big milestone in the US
—Casey Crownhart
I was really looking forward to July 4, and not just because I love a poolside barbecue. This year the American holiday also marked a big symbolic deadline for US nuclear power.
Last year the Trump administration set a goal to see three new microreactors achieve criticality, a technical milestone establishing that a reactor can sustain a chain reaction, by the nation’s 250th birthday. And just in time, not just three, but four reactors did so.
It’s a positive sign for nuclear technologies at a time of increasing need for electricity and emissions-free energy sources. But achieving criticality doesn’t mean a reactor is ready to provide electricity for the grid (or at all, for that matter).
This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 China plans to let its top AI firms buy Nvidia H200 chips Alibaba, ByteDance, and DeepSeek are set to get permission. (Information $) + China had previously withheld approval despite US authorization. (Reuters $)
2 NATO is building a network to stop Russian attackers in their tracks It will use sensors, drones, satellites, and AI to detect them. (Business Insider) + Troops are donning odd camouflage to elude drones. (Economist $) + The US wants cheaper drones as Iran’s wrecking its Reapers. (Ars Technica)
3 Researchers have a new idea to fight future El Niños: dimming the sun Deflecting solar energy could cool the ocean and mitigate the risks. (Wired $) + But there could be unexpected consequences. (New Scientist $) + And geoengineering as a field is getting a reality check. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Meta is patenting an AI device that records users to analyse emotions It ostensibly aims to tailor workout plans to the user’s mood. (404 Media) + AI memory is privacy’s next frontier. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Chipmakers are going vertical as Moore’s Law slows They’re stacking transistors to keep chips advancing. (Economist $) + IBM is betting on the technique. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Ivy League students suspected of AI cheating saw scores fall in person From 96% all the way down to 48%. (Ars Technica) + AI giants want to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)
7 A new study says parents’ phone addictions damage bonds with kids It can exacerbate “insecure attachment” for life. (Bloomberg $) + And make children more anxious and avoidant. (Gizmodo)
8 A judge approved Musk’s $1.5 million Twitter settlement with the SEC Despite what she called “serious misgivings” and “red flags.” (Reuters $) + Musk was accused of skirting stock disclosure rules. (Fortune)
9 Shoebox-sized “detector satellites” could find nuclear bombs in space Cubesats carrying the detector could sense a bomb’s radiation. (Space) + Russia is suspected of developing space-based nukes. (Reuters $)
10 A World Cup match drove Google Search traffic to a new record The milestone came after Argentina’s comeback against Egypt. (CNBC)
Quote of the day
“I talk about it on Tic Tac.”
—President Donald Trump tells the public where to find his insights on the dangers of communism, Gizmodo reports.
One More Thing
Robots are bringing new life to extinct species
Paleontologists aren’t easily deterred by evolutionary dead ends or a sparse fossil record. And in the last few years, they’ve developed a new trick for turning back time and studying prehistoric animals: building experimental robotic models of them.
In the absence of a living specimen, an ambling, flying, swimming, or slithering automaton is the next best thing for studying the behavior of extinct organisms. Learning more about how they moved can in turn shed light on their lives, such as their historic ranges and feeding habits. Scientists can simply sit back and observe their behavior in different environments.
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.
Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution
Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake through a bed of dark, wet wood chips to reveal a half-dozen squirming red earthworms. There are likely hundreds of thousands more wriggling just under the surface.
The worms and microbes are part of a “vermifiltration” system that cleans manure wastewater. The approach may dramatically cut methane, nitrous oxide, and water pollution.
Vermifiltration is just one of a variety of methods that farmers, companies, and scientists are employing to drive down manure pollution as the livestock industry faces growing pressure to address the environmental harms from one of the smelliest parts of the business.
MIT Technology Review Narrated: geoengineering gets a reality check
Solar geoengineering, the controversial idea that we could deliberately intervene in the climate system to counteract global warming, is moving beyond computer simulations and into the practical engineering challenges required to make it real.
This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The Trump administration has lifted restrictions on OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 The green light came after additional testing and meetings. (Axios) + OpenAI subsequently said it will launch widely tomorrow. (Bloomberg $) + The rollout had been delayed due to security concerns. (Verge) + Does AI know too much? (MIT Technology Review)
2 China is looking at curbing overseas access to its top AI models Alibaba, ByteDance, and Z.ai attended meetings about the plan. (Reuters $) + Beijing is also weighing the security risks of open-weight AI. (SCMP) + And has issued a “backdoor” security alert over Claude Code. (CNBC)
3 European NATO allies have unveiled a $50 billion high-tech missile plan They will engineer stealth and high-speed hypersonic weapons. (BBC) + Which can strike targets at least 300 km away. (Reuters $) + The Dutch and British are also developing amphibious ships. (Bloomberg $)
4 Meta is testing “super sensing” AI glasses that record every moment It plans to disable privacy LEDs that alert people when they’re “on.” (FT $) + It’s also released an AI image generator. (NYT $) + Which lets anyone use your Instagram photos in AI images. (Wired $)
5 China’s DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip, sources say It could reduce the company’s reliance on Nvidia and Huawei. (Bloomberg $) + DeepSeek V4 was a win for Chinese chipmakers. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Wikipedia is fighting to survive the internet’s next era It’s under attack from MAGA, AI raids, and repressive regimes. (NYT $) + AI has given Wikipedia a language problem. (MIT Technology Review)
7 SpaceX plans to launch its first model coproduced with Cursor The new frontier model could arrive as soon as this week. (Information $) + It’s built with AI startup Cursor, which SpaceX is buying for $60 billion. (FT $)
8 A new academic “humanizer” tool can erase signs of AI-written text But researchers are very divided over its potential impact. (Nature $)
9 Scientists have detected a mystery chemical on Pluto and Titan It appears to absorb light in a way we don’t currently understand. (Wired $)
10 A Waymo robotaxi reportedly called the cops on drinking teens Officers then approached the vehicle with guns drawn. (404 Media)
Quote of the day
“Parents do you know where your teens are? Waymo does!”
—Local police post on Facebook that a Waymo in California called the cops on two teenagers for “drinking and shooting from the vehicle.”
One More Thing
MICHAEL BYERS
Your boss is watching
Dora Manriquez has spent nine years driving for Uber and Lyft, where every ride she accepts or rejects is tracked by the apps she relies on for work. Having found herself unable to score enough better-paying rides, she has had to file for bankruptcy.
App-based employers aren’t the only ones keeping a very close eye on workers today. Jobs today—whether in an office, a warehouse, or your car—can mean constant electronic surveillance with little transparency, and potentially with livelihood-ending consequences if your productivity flags.
A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ Literary worlds collide in this marvellous Dr Seuss/Stephen King mashup. + A daring snorkeler saved a dolphin from a suckerfish—and then celebrated with its whole pod. + This clever musical project seamlessly constructs an original song from vocal snippets of 50 artists singing US city names. + A long-lost wallet from 1970 was recently unearthed, creating a cute time capsule from its owner’s high school years.
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.
Your family’s $300 stake in OpenAI
Sam Altman’s proposal that Americans should share in the wealth created by AI is back in the spotlight, with reports that he is discussing giving the US government a 5% stake in OpenAI. At the company’s current valuation, that stake would be worth roughly $320 per American household.
The idea is meant to address concerns that AI companies are benefiting from human-generated work without compensating creators, while also easing fears that AI will cause a collapse of the labor market by providing a safety net.
The details, however, remain unclear. Indeed, the offer may be more powerful as a political narrative than as a policy plan.
This article is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 A leaked Treasury report compares the AI market to the dotcom bubble Which contradicts the administration’s public optimism about AI. (NOTUS) + Fears that the market is overinflated are growing. (Reuters $) + And AI profits are hiding bigger risks in earnings reports. (FT $) + What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)
2 Samsung profits have jumped 1,800% on booming AI chip sales It just reported its third consecutive record quarterly profit. (BBC) + But its shares slumped over fears that the AI boom will stall. (Reuters $) + That boom has turned Samsung into a $1 trillion company. (CNBC)
3 A US cyber agency is using Mythos to audit government code Sources say CISA is tapping Anthropic’s model to search for bugs. (Reuters $) + Agencies are using it despite Anthropic’s feud with the White House. (Axios)
4 Illinois’ governor has signed the nation’s strongest frontier AI law It’s designed to protect citizens from AI risks. (Gizmodo) + US lawmakers are clashing over AI rules. (MIT Technology Review)
5 A hidden tracker in Claude Code has been exposed and removed It secretly monitored users in China. (WP $) + Critics said it shows Anthropic’s willingness to surveil users. (Ars Technica) + The company has also found a hidden “thinking” space in Claude. (Axios)
6 Russia is suspected of flying drones over Europe from a shadow fleet The flights were reportedly launched from commercial ships. (Ars Technica) + Europe has a drone-filled vision for future wars. (MIT Technology Review)
7 A controversial AI “actor” is set to star in its first feature film Tilly Norwood will debut in a comedy-drama called “Misaligned.” (Variety) + A major actors union has lambasted the AI creation. (NBC News)
8 AI costs are driving US companies toward Chinese models Businesses are hunting for cheaper model alternatives. (CNBC) + Chinese AI labs are betting big on open source. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Researchers have shown quantum proofs can beat classical ones They found a problem that classical proofs can’t solve. (Quanta)
10 Earth will never be swallowed by the sun, according to new models But it probably won’t be much fun to live here by that point anyway! (Wired $)
Quote of the day
“The goal might be to make machines in our image. But what I fear is that—perhaps without even quite noticing—we remake ourselves in theirs.”
—Reporter Sarah O’Connor sounds a note of caution in her new book, We Are Not Machines, the Guardian reports.
One More Thing
KATE DEHLER
Adventures in the genetic time machine
Eske Willerslev, a specialist in recovering DNA from old bones and objects, has made numerous breakthroughs. These include recovering the first more or less complete genome of an ancient human and 2.4-million-year-old genetic material from Greenland, revealing that today’s Arctic desert was once a forest with poplar, birch, and mastodons.
These findings are part of a wave of discoveries from what’s being called an “ancient-DNA revolution.”
Beyond revealing stories of human migration and vanished ecosystems, scientists believe ancient DNA can unearth clues about modern diseases. It could even lead to a better food supply for our warming world. “And can we get that?” Willerslev asks. “Yes, I believe we can.”
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.
South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers
Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in a matchmaking company a year ago. In a move typical of anxious South Korean parents, his mother signed him up, hoping to find a good wife for her son.
Lately, says Baek, he and his coworkers are having better luck finding dates—perhaps because of the dazzling bonuses they just got. Flush with eye-popping profits from the AI chip boom, SK Hynix agreed to pay 10% of operating profits to employees, which translates to an extra $476,000 per employee this year. Samsung workers received a similar deal this May.
With their newfound wealth, chip workers like Baek have become the most sought-after bachelors and bachelorettes in South Korea.
A device that revives eyeballs from dead donors could make eye transplants possible
It’s not easy to transplant a whole human eye. The surgery is difficult, and eyes start to degenerate as soon as they’ve left the body. When surgeons attempted it a few years ago, the newly transplanted eye couldn’t see.
But researchers believe they might have a solution: a device that maintains and revives freshly removed eyeballs using a technique called perfusion. Treated eyes don’t degrade as quickly and appear to retain the ability to transmit electrical signals—and potentially see.
The device could one day make whole-eye transplants a viable possibility. Here’s how it works.
—Jessica Hamzelou
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The UN’s chief has warned that AI is outpacing global rules He’s called for globally harmonised guardrails. (Reuters $) + The UN also said AI could worsen global inequality. (Guardian)
2 An Israeli battlefield system identified 850,000 targets in Gaza and Lebanon Elbit Systems says it detected targets in real time. (Guardian) + Congress wants to permanently integrate US and Israeli defence tech. (Intercept) + How AI turned the Iran conflict into theater. (MIT Technology Review)
3 EU transparency rules have exposed Microsoft’s tax haven tactics A new report shows how it shifts profits around to reduce tax bills. (NYT $) + Other US companies will soon need to provide similar reports. (Engadget)
4 A spacecraft has launched an audacious mission to rescue a NASA telescope LINK will try to tug the SWIFT observatory to a higher orbit. (New Scientist $) + It will attempt to grab the telescope with three robotic arms. (BBC) + The observatory studies gamma-ray bursts. (NBC News) + We’re putting more stuff into space than ever. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Chinese tech giants are disabling humanlike AI due to new regulations ByteDance and Alibaba have shut down the features. (SCMP) + Beijing is tightening its AI regulations. (Nikkei Asia)
6 Anthropic wants to develop its own drugs The company says it will pursue treatments for “neglected” diseases. (Verge) + It’s also got a new AI for science product. (MIT Technology Review)
7 India is testing an alternative to Silicon Valley’s AI playbook It’s based on small, offline, multilingual, open-source AI. (Rest of World) + India’s AI infrastructure is also attracting investors. (CNBC)
8 Big Tech has suddenly flipped on the AI jobs wipeout scenario Negative public opinion has sparked a more optimistic public stance. (WSJ $) + The AI jobs hysteria needs a reality check. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Midjourney has accused Hollywood studios of covertly using AI It’s escalated its legal fight with Disney, Universal, and Warner. (Gizmodo)
10 A martian rock has lots of carbon on it, and it’s not clear why Scientists cannot yet tell whether biology played a role. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day
“It’s just his AI and my AI going back and forth.”
—An anonymous employee explains why she’s struggling to develop a good working relationship with her boss, Fortune reports.
One More Thing
The AI relationship revolution is already here
AI is everywhere, and it’s starting to alter our relationships with our spouses, kids, colleagues, friends—and even ourselves.
Although the technology remains unpredictable and sometimes baffling, individuals from all across the world and from all walks of life are finding it useful, supportive, and comforting too.
People are using large language models to seek validation, mediate marital arguments, and help navigate interactions with their community. They’re using it for parenting support, self-care, and even to fall in love.
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.
The UK’s generational tobacco ban might not work. I’m supporting it anyway.
—Jessica Hamzelou
As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking.
That was not the prevailing sentiment when I was young. Smoking was a central part of our culture. Which is why the UK’s recent passing of a generational sales ban on tobacco products feels like such a big deal.
This is what’s described as an “endgame” approach. While many tobacco control strategies—such as taxation or gory imagery—aim to reduce consumption, policies like the UK’s are designed to eliminate it entirely. It’s a new approach, and no one knows whether it will work. But it’s an enticing prospect—and it’s starting to look a lot less radical.
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
You do your own time
—You do your own time is a short story by Elizabeth Bear, an award-winning speculative fiction author.
There we were, a regular murderers’ row of librarians. Turning around in the nave of our library to greet the sound of footsteps, pistols leveled in case whoever was coming in didn’t respect sanctuary.
I pulled down a solid-state drive full of biographies and case studies of people who had spent time—and sometimes their whole lives—in labor camps or chattelhood. It was illegal to possess, and the feds used smart agents to track down and obliterate any copies. Which was why we were sending one to the stars.
What’s left behind when a name is erased from the system? No legacy, no memory—that is the point of media and narrative control. So that was our plan: to preserve it, for later generations, or just as a silent record of our existence.
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 An EU lawmaker investigating spyware was hacked by that spyware Citizen Lab found Pegasus spyware on Stelios Kouloglou’s phone. (Wired $) + It said the EU “looks the other way” on spyware abuses. (Guardian) + Meet the director of Citizen Lab. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Anthropic is closing loopholes that allow Chinese access to Claude It’s targeting VPNs, relay services, and overseas accounts. (FT $) + Users in China keep finding new workarounds. (Wired $)
3 A Tesla driver has been charged with manslaughter after a fatal crash Court records show he was using automated driver-assistance. (WSJ $) + Tesla sales have surged 25% after a rebound in Europe. (NYT $)
4 Trump bought lots of tech stock the day he unveiled his AI Action Plan He acquired up to $5 million in stock from Amazon and others. (Engadget) + His AI Action Plan was a distraction. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Companies are throttling employees’ AI use because it’s too expensive They’re pleading with workers to use less powerful models. (404 Media) + Tesla has capped their AI spending at $200 per week. (The Information $)
6 The Energy Dept wants data centers on backup power in heat waves It wants them to free up power for AC. (NYT $) + People near data centers are dreading heat wave pollution. (Politico $) + No one wants a data center in their backyard. (MIT Technology Review)
7 A Meta glasses feature just went from free to a subscription service “Conversation Focus” will now cost $19.99 per month. (BBC) + The move heralds a new era of consumer tech subscriptions. (Wired $)
8 Random wobbles in time could solve gravity’s greatest mystery A new idea could reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. (New Scientist $)
9 Peter Thiel claims the pope is “working for the Chinese Communists” By pushing for stricter AI rules that may benefit Chinese interests. (CNN) + Pope Leo XIV said AI must be “disarmed” in his first major teaching. (BBC) + His encyclical offered a template for steering AI. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Supersonic flight over land could finally be legal again Regulators want to lift a ban—so long as the planes are quiet. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day
“We don’t have robots that are nearly as good at understanding the physical world as a rat.”
—Yann LeCun, the founder of AMI Labs and Meta’s former chief AI scientist, tells the BBC that AI isn’t as smart as many think.
One More Thing
MARCO GIANNAVOLA
How two brothers became go-to experts on America’s “mystery drone” invasion
On a Friday evening in December, every tier of US law enforcement was dispatched to a military research installation outside Boston after a squadron of 15 to 20 drones was spotted violating restricted airspace. The culprits could not be found.
It was the latest in a series of purported drone sightings along the US East Coast. Lacking coordination or clarity from the White House, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community, law enforcement officers turned to an unlikely source: twin brothers from Long Island who hunt UFOs.
The Tedescos have built a mobile field lab to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena. Now members of the FBI want their support.
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.
LLMs are stuck in a groupthink groove. This startup is trying to get them out.
Open up your chatbot of choice—Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini—and type “Give me a random number between 1 and 10.” You’re going to get 7. Almost always.
That won’t work every time—but if it did for you, you may wonder if I have superpowers. I don’t.
The truth is that most large language models are stuck in a rut. They are far more predictable and far less creative in their responses than you might expect. That’s fine for tasks like coding or research, but groupthink is a problem when you’re brainstorming or planning your next vacation.
The Australian startup Springboards has a solution. It built an LLM called Flint, which has been trained to come up with a wider variety of responses than mainstream LLMs to open-ended questions such as “Where should I go in Europe?”
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time Built with lab-made DNA, it can feed, grow, and multiply. (CNN) + It brings us closer to creating synthetic life. (Quanta) + And is arguably the greatest feat of bioengineering yet. (New Scientist $) + But also raises concerns over the dangers of synthetic biology. (NYT $) + Mirror organisms could threaten life on Earth. (MIT Technology Review)
2 OpenAI has proposed giving the Trump administration a 5% stake Talks over a public ownership deal come amid rising political pressure.(FT $) + OpenAI also proposed other US AI giants providing a 5% stake. (CNBC) + That could include Anthropic, Google, and Meta. (Bloomberg $) + President Trump says he wants the public to have a stake in AI. (BBC)
3 Singapore has seized a $42 million mansion tied to Nvidia chip smuggling It was seized as part of an investigation into alleged illegal trading. (BBC) + Days earlier, Supermicro’s Taiwan offices were raided in the probe. (FT $)
4 Anthropic’s Fable 5 is back online But queries posing security risks may be routed to less powerful models. (Axios) + Anthropic restored access yesterday after the US lifted an export ban. (BBC) + But the battle over how to tame AI has just begun. (WSJ $) + Anthropic has launched a new AI science product. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Meta is building its own cloud infrastructure business It’s exploring two ways of monetizing AI compute and models. (Bloomberg $) + One is selling access to models hosted on Meta’s infrastructure. (CNBC) + The other is selling “raw” computing power. (TechCrunch)
6 PlayStation will stop releasing games on discs in 2028 Future PS5 games will be digital-only releases. (Verge) + The news comes days after reports that GTA VI will have no disc. (BBC) + It’s put a nail in physical media’s coffin. (Wired $)
7 A low-cost Chinese AI model is catching up with US giants on their home turf Western customers are drawn to GLM-5.2’s cheap but powerful model. (Reuters $) + Chinese open-source models are spreading fast. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Google has lost its fight against a record €4.1 billion EU antitrust fine It was charged in 2018 for using Android to block rivals. (CNBC)
9 The UN has launched an “AI for Good” commission Salesforce CEO Benioff and Rwandan President Kagame will co-chair it. (Axios)
10 People prefer AI impersonators over politicians The study’s findings raise alarm bells around potential public deception. (404 Media)
Quote of the day
“If AI overdelivers, it will impact financial stability. If AI underdelivers, it will impact financial stability.”
—Torsten Slok from Apollo Global Management shares common concerns about AI at the European Central Bank’s annual conference, Reuters reports.
One More Thing
America was winning the race to find Martian life. Then China jumped in.
In July 2024, after more than three years on Mars, the Perseverance rover came across a peculiar rocky outcrop. Instead of the usual crystals or sedimentary layers, this one had spots. Those specks were the best hint yet of alien life.
NASA began a new mission to bring the rocks back to Earth to study. But now, just over a year and a half later, the project is on life support. As a result, those oh-so-promising rocks may be stuck out there forever.
This also means that, in the race to find evidence of alien life, America has effectively ceded its pole position to its greatest geopolitical rival: China. Beijing is now moving full steam ahead with its own version of NASA’s mission.
Sony announced on Wednesday morning that it plans to phase out physical media for future PlayStation games, which is a massive market disruption for an already reeling games industry. It ends trade-ins and lending, raises the overall price of entry for the PlayStation ecosystem, and turns your shelf full of games into licenses that can potentially disappear.
The news came via a post on the official PlayStation blog by senior communications director Sid Shuman. As of January 2028, all games for PlayStation platforms will only be available in digital formats, such as direct downloads.
“This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” Shuman writes. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
Analysts have expected an announcement like this for some time. As per Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, physical media sales in gaming have been on a steady downward turn since their peak in 2009, hitting an all-time low in 2025. In fact, several companies have sprung up since then that treat physical games as an exclusive collectible, such as Limited Run, Lost in Cult, and Videogames New York.
US new physical video game software spending. 12 months ending May 2007-2026:
It’s not hard to see why Sony would make this move. We’re approaching the point that would usually mark the end of the PlayStation 5’s life cycle. Were it not for the ongoing component shortage, we’d likely have heard more about the PlayStation 6 by now. An all-digital PS6 theoretically uses fewer parts and the games are cheaper to publish, which lowers the per-unit cost for Sony as it develops the new hardware.
However, Sony’s decision to sunset physical media in a year-and-a-half is faster than most analysts’ craziest predictions, most of whom figured it’d take at least another decade to fully phase discs out. Even at its lowest point, per Circana’s math, physical media in video games represents $1.9 billion in consumer sales. That’s not insignificant.
Sony’s competitors have yet to react in any significant way. Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox, currently known under the codename Project Helix, is rumored to be an all-digital system, and Microsoft has famously been trying to get out of the physical media business since at least 2013.
That year, Microsoft announced at E3 that the Xbox One would have significant measures in place to keep players from reselling their physical games, which led to widespread outcry online. The next day, Sony’s president went onstage and proclaimed the PS4 would do none of that — which gave it a big head of steam going into a console generation Sony went on to win.
Thirteen years later, Sony is making Microsoft’s old bet.
The irony is that Sony itself underscored one of the biggest issues with ditching physical media last Sunday. On June 26, Sony sent a number of users in the United Kingdom an email to notify them that due to the end of a license agreement, 551 shows and movies that were previously available on the PlayStation Network would be removed from the service. Consumers who’d previously thought they’d made a purchase were suddenly informed that it had actually been a multi-year rental.
That’s the central problem of the streaming era for end users: you only have anything in your digital library for as long as the library’s owner decides you do. An all-digital future means you own nothing. At best, you have limited viewership rights that can be revoked at short notice.
Most worryingly, however, the shift to an all-digital future effectively raises the cost of entry to the console market, at a point when the price of gaming is already rising. If there are no physical discs for the PlayStation 6, then you can’t swap discs with a buddy or defray a purchase by trading an old game back to a store.
This is a relatively sudden disruption to the console market, and through it, to the games industry as a whole. It’s likely to have a series of knock-on effects for the next few years, and sets an early tone for the upcoming 10th generation of console hardware.
While it’s still possible that consumer outcry could get Sony to reverse course here, or offer some intermediary solution like USB disc drives, the end of physical gaming media has analysts and players alike asking a lot of tough questions about costs, preservation, and consumer convenience. The games industry is changing faster than expected in 2026, and is likely to be nearly unrecognizable by this time next year.
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