Chinese AI labs keep releasing open-weight models while US firms lock theirs down A wave of open-weight AI models from Chinese labs is putting fresh pressure on Silicon Valley and drawing pointed reactions from Washington. In the span of just a few weeks, Z.ai released GLM 5.2, Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, and Alibaba released the latest version of its Qwen line, all with open weights, all benchmarking close to the best Western models, and all optimized for the agentic coding tasks that have become the year's dominant AI trend. K3 in particular has drawn the sharpest attention: Trump AI adviser David Sacks called its performance "concerning," Commerce Secretary Scott Bessent floated the idea of sanctions on Chinese AI companies, and White House science and technology policy director Michael Kratsios alleged that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic's Fable model to build K3, calling it "stealing proprietary US technology." The episode is drawing comparison...

  Report: Netflix invents cable TV Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock While some people turn into their parents as they get older, some streaming companies turn into cable television. Netflix is considering adding live channels and bundles to boost sagging engagement, the Wall Street Journal reported. The report states that Netflix is concerned about a decline in engagement (i.e., how often a viewer stays with a show, movie, or series), which can signal subscription cancellations. Among the solutions being discussed, per the WSJ, is Netflix edging closer to the very thing it disrupted—traditional TV: Executives are reportedly weighing adding live channels that constantly stream shows and movies of a specific genre, because the one thing Netflix subscribers were missing was a random weekday airing of Couples Retreat at 2pm. Also on the table: Bundling with other subscription-based streaming platforms and selling those packages through the main app, similar to what rivals Amazo...

 Finance Interactive Dictionary Author: R.G.Richardson Finance Interactive Dictionary - multi-language search updated 2026. Balancing the definitions between the old and the new! A biannual updated series of economics, Markets, Finance, money, and Banking. Available on Amazon and Kobo/Rakuten. This search is in English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Indian, Portuguese and Japanese! Economic Interactive Notes, Financial Market, Money and Banking terms and definitions with over 9900 quick links! Great for students or anyone who wants to keep up with all the terminology. This is a live interactive series that helps guide you and keeps you up to date on all the economic terminology past and present, including access to charts, graphs and video presentations on the subject. An educational learning tool that keeps businesses and students on the same page! This is all about pick and click, no more typing, with over 9900 preset searches for 8 search engines, inclu...

   Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a breath of fresh air for smartphone lovers Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrives as one of the most dramatic physical reinventions the foldable category has seen in years, and the headline figure tells the story immediately: this phone weighs just 201 grams, making it lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro at 204 grams, and that iPhone has only one screen. Even folded shut, the Fold 8 measures just 9.7mm thick, less than a millimeter more than Apple's flagship. The result is a book-style foldable that finally earns the word pocketable without any asterisks. The design ambition goes beyond the scale. When unfolded, the Fold 8 opens to a 7.6-inch flexible display running at a 4:3 aspect ratio, a meaningful departure from the tall, square-ish proportions that have plagued foldables with persistent letterboxing. Films, games, and books spread across the panel naturally, without the black bars or forced stretching that have frustrated foldable owners for y...

Did students at Brown use ChatGPT to ace tests? Getty Images In the scandal heard ’round the Ivy League, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano accused his students of using AI to cheat on a take-home exam, and said the school was “meek” when presented with evidence. And that evidence includes an abnormally large number of students with a masterful understanding of welfare economics and social choice theory:Serrano’s class swelled from the usual 30 pupils to 86 after announcing his course would have take-home exams. The average score on the take-home midterm was 96%, when it typically fell between 65%–80%. Serrano alerted students to his AI suspicions and decided to make the final in-person and worth 80% of the final grade. The average score on the final was a “historic low” of 48.6%. A university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that Serrano still “has not provided the necessary details” for the school to take action. Serrano decided to administer the take-home tests...

American Tech Companies Are Suddenly Sweating Bullets as China Catches Up on AI Reality is setting in. By Frank Landymore Published Jul 9, 2026 9:50 AM EDT Add Futurism(opens in a new tab) More information Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Shutterstock Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email addressSign Up The head start that the US companies enjoyed in the AI race is quickly vanishing. Chinese competitors are now nipping at their heels, and it’s causing a wave of anxiety in the American sector. Over a year ago, DeepSeek spurred an existential crisis — and a mass stock selloff — in the US tech industry when it released a competitive AI model created for a fraction of the cost of the leading American models. If that was a wakeup call, then the release of GLM-5.2 last month is loudly banging on the front door. The model, from the Chinese start-up Z.ai, has been hailed as nearly or just as powerful as f...

Google fined €890M in its first Digital Markets Act penalty Brussels penalised the company for favouring its own search results and restricting Google Play developers, and gave it 60 days to comply. July 23, 2026 - 11:33 am Image by: Shutterstock The European Commission fined Google €890 million on Thursday for breaking the Digital Markets Act, the first time Brussels has penalised the company under the rulebook it built to rein in the largest technology platforms .The penalty divides in two. A €460 million share covers search self-preferencing , where Google gave its own shopping, hotel, transport, and sports results more prominent placement than competing services without applying, in the Commission’s words, “transparent, fair and non-discriminatory conditions.” The remaining €430 million concerns anti-steering rules on Google Play, where the company charged fees and set terms that stopped developers from freely directing users to cheaper purchase options outside its store. “The bes...

  June home sales disappoint as prices reach an all-time high June home sales disappoint as prices reach an all-time high Published Thu, Jul 9 202610:00 AM EDT Diana Olick @in/dianaolick @DianaOlickCNBC @DianaOlick WATCH LIVE Key Points Sales of previously owned homes in June dropped 2.4% from May. Inventory at the end of June was 1.56 million units, down 0.6% from May but 1.3% higher than June 2025. One quarter of all sales were all-cash, down from 29% last year. A for sale sign is posted in front of a home on April 13, 2026 in Pasadena, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images High mortgage rates coupled with record-high prices is causing homebuyers to pull back. Sales of previously owned homes in June dropped 2.4% from May to 4.09 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Housing analysts were predicting a slight gain month over month. June sales were, however, were 2.8% higher than the same month a year prior....

Short Sellers Are Having a Field Day Betting Against SpaceX as Shares Continue to Slip It could soon get even worse. By Frank Landymore Published Jul 16, 2026 5:04 PM EDT Add Futurism(opens in a new tab) More information Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images; Shutterstock Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email addressSign Up SpaceX bears are smelling blood in the water. As its stock languishes below its IPO price — at press time, $131 — short sellers are going all in against the company, hoping to make a killing off of CEO Elon Musk’s faltering pull on investors . As CNBC reports citing data from S3 Partners, 185 million SpaceX shares are now sold short, which is nearly 29 percent of its publicly tradable shares, when it was around only five to seven percent three weeks ago. It’s one of the highest levels of short selling for a company in its first month of being pub...

  Xbox starts major layoffs to save its lagging biz Morning Brew Inc, Photo: Getty Images One of the biggest names in gaming could use an infinite money glitch right now. With revenue falling and a string of acquisitions not paying off, Microsoft-owned Xbox will slash about one-fifth of its staff and divest from some development studios, CEO Asha Sharma said yesterday. Sharma called it “the most significant restructure” in the company’s history. Xbox will… Lay off 1,600 people this week and another 1,250 over the next year. Sell or spin off four to five game studios that it acquired within the past decade, which will cut another 350+ people from Xbox’s staff (games that are already announced won’t be canceled, Sharma said). “Our business today is not healthy,” Sharma wrote in a memo, acknowledging the company’s measly 3% profit margin. Its quarterly revenue recently declined 5% year-over-year. The Game Pass gamble One big reason for Xbox’s slowdown appears to be its strug...

 The EU launches its new satellite plan and challenges Starlink: “Reserve two-thirds of the bandwidth for domestic operators” The Commission’s proposal aims to strengthen Europe’s technological sovereignty by reducing its dependence on US companies. Under the proposal, companies from third countries will only be able to access one-third of the EU’s satellite bandwidth and will be permitted to provide only commercial services: defence, security and critical communications are excluded  by Giorgio Dell'Omodarme 27 May 2026 in Net & Tech Fonte: (Unsplash) Brussels – The European Commission’s efforts to boost the Old Continent’s industrial competitiveness and strategic autonomy continue to infinity and beyond. Today (27 May), the European Commission has finalised its proposal for a new European regulation on mobile satellite services (MSS), with the aim of increasing the presence of European operators and reducing dependence on US companies, which have historically dominated ...

Premier Smith’s Warm Embrace of Meta Not a word about the tech behemoth’s harm to kids. One disgusted jury awarded $375 million in damages. Andrew Nikiforuk 14 Jul 2026The Tyee Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more. Our journalism is supported by readers like you. Click here to support The Tyee. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. His trillion-dollar company faces numerous lawsuits for imperiling child safety. Photo via Wikimedia. Listen to this article 5 min Let’s get this straight. The premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, dons a cowboy hat and gushes and glows over a $13-billion data centre project in Sturgeon County just outside Edmonton. Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners Eight Local Books to Upgrade Your Summer Reading List A curated booklist to suit varied seasonal whims. Ah, the success of low taxes and less red tape, she enthuses. Smith then s...

Trump Suddenly Opens Dozens of Gas Stations Selling Suspiciously Cheap Fuel, and Experts Are Already Warning of Impending Disaster "When losses happen, somebody's got to pay for it." By Joe Wilkins Published Jul 8, 2026 2:00 PM EDT Add Futurism(opens in a new tab) More information Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Shutterstock Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email addressSign Up Trump Mobile. Trump Steaks. Trump Coin. Trump Vodka. By this point, you know the drill. The president’s latest personal venture doesn’t bear his name, but it does come with all the signature hallmarks of a Trump brand: it’s garish, incredibly shady, and likely to implode sooner rather than later. Called Freedom Fuel Network, the enterprise encompasses dozens of gas stations throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, USA Today reported , although it isn’t exactly clear which locations are open for business. Plaste...

New York outlaws big new data centers for 1 year Niv Bavarsky Cold water is being thrown on new data centers in the Empire State, but not for them to slurp up. Yesterday, New York became the first state to temporarily ban approvals for resource-hungry jumbo data centers that AI companies are rushing to build. Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order pausing permits for new data centers that use 50 or more megawatts of power for up to a year. However, projects with prior approval can still proceed. Hydration break brainstorm Hochul said the moratorium will give regulators time to study how to ensure that the facilities don’t raise local electricity bills, undermine the water supply, or cause noise pollution. The governor plans to require large data centers to produce their own electricity or pay extra to access New York’s grid. She also wants to have operators invest in grid infrastructure, while removing tax subsidies.Environmental activists and some fellow Democratic politicia...

New EU border security is causing airport chaos Dursun Aydemir/Getty Images You shall not pass through Europe without waiting in line to provide biometrics, despite protest from top travel officials. This week, the EU rejected calls from the aviation industry to suspend new fingerprinting and facial recognition border controls that have led to hourslong disruptions at some European airports. ICYMI: The new Entry/Exit System (EES), which launched in April, requires all 25 EU members (plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) to collect biometrics from noncitizens upon entry and confirm their identities upon departure. But the confusing system is making some would-be visitors reconsider traveling to Europe:With airports reporting insufficient border control staffing, vacation hot spots like Spain and Italy have been plagued by delays and missed connecting flights. Nearly every day this summer, airports in Rome have had to partially suspend the system’s biometric collection,...

  Apple sues OpenAI over alleged theft of hardware trade secrets Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging the systematic theft of hardware trade secrets, naming OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran, as a defendant. According to the filing, Tan directed job candidates still employed by Apple to bring physical parts from the company to their interviews for what the suit describes as "show and tell" sessions designed to extract confidential information. A separate defendant, former Apple employee Chang Liu, is alleged to have stolen an Apple laptop upon departing for OpenAI. Apple stated in a representative's comment to CNBC that significant evidence recently emerged suggesting that individuals at OpenAI wrongfully took secret information about unreleased technologies, processes, and products, with specifics in the filing reaching down to proprietary metal-finishing techniques. The timing is striking given that the two companies r...

  The barrier is breached: screwworms are here Adobe Stock The USDA announced this week that the New World screwworm—a flesh-eating fly that had been successfully kept out of the US for decades after wreaking havoc on cattle herds—has entered the country. So far, it’s only one case. T he agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) found a three-week-old calf in Texas with the larvae, marking the first case of screwworms in the state since 1966. Screwworms are parasites that lay hundreds of eggs in a wound or orifice of a warm-blooded animal; those eggs then hatch and start eating the animal’s flesh. Beginning in the 1950s, the USDA was able to create a biological barrier by releasing millions of sterilized male flies from airplanes and pushing the screwworms south to Panama’s Darién Gap. But a year ago, cattle industry groups sounded the alarms about the risk of a return. The USDA claims that screwworms entering the US this year was inevitable and said it ha...

Texas water officials seek more funding as crisis worsens, costs soar: 'This is not going to stop' Texas water officials seek more funding as crisis worsens, costs soar: ‘This is not going to stop’by Eden Shimanek and Adam Schwager - 06/24/26 10:01 AM ET AUSTIN (Nexstar) – Texas water officials pleaded with members of the Texas House Natural Resources committee on Tuesday to provide more funding for water supply projects as project costs skyrocket. Despite the Texas Legislature allocating increased funding to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) in 2013, and again last year, water experts are concerned about a lack of funding available for local governments to undertake needed water infrastructure projects. Funding Gaps In 2013, the Legislature passed House Bill 4, which created the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT). This fund had an initial investment of $2 billion and provided communities with low-interest financing to address state water plan projects. Ex...

  Toy Story 5 didn’t play around in box-office debut Julien Hekimian/Getty Images If Lou Bega and the Short Circuit movies taught us anything, it’s that No. 5 has value. The fifth installment of Toy Story is taking that lesson all the way to the piggy bank, notching the strongest box-office debut of 2026. In its opening weekend , the Disney and Pixar movie: Grossed $160 million domestically—a franchise best. Made $152 million overseas. Had the second-strongest animated debut ever, behind Pixar’s Incredibles 2 in 2018. Like its predecessors, Toy Story 5 also has strong reviews from audiences and critics, so its mojo probably won’t collapse like the toys do when a human walks into the room. To infinity and…even farther: Woody and the gang have been rounding up audiences for nearly 31 years. The first four movies brought in about $3 billion in total box-office revenue, and toys and merchandise tied to the movies raised the franchise’s total revenue to ~$16 billion , accordi...

  Curry chooses Chinese co as new sneaker partner Eakin Howard/Getty Images The greatest shooter in NBA history is getting it done from long distance again. Steph Curry announced a 10-year brand partnership deal with Li-Ning, a China-based sportswear company, to produce basketball gear, athleisure, and a full golf line. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Curry parted ways with a faltering Under Armour seven months ago, ending a 12-year relationship that included a shoe that was roasted like no other in 2016. With Li-Ning, the 38-year-old is looking beyond the end of his career (he sees golf as part of that future) to join a company that’s closing the gap on Nike in China: Li-Ning generated $4.3 billion in revenue in 2025, with 98% coming from inside China. Nike, meanwhile, earned $6.5 billion in China in its fiscal 2025. That’s a much smaller gap than in 2020, when Nike ($6.7b) tripled the revenue of Li-Ning ($2.2b). Curry’s new shoemaker is now on track to outsell Nike ...

  Homeownership expenses are on a tear Pm Images/Getty Images On the spectrum that runs from gross hyperbole to established fact, the statement “everything about owning a home is more expensive” currently sits far closer to the latter than it has in a long time. An analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that costs went up in the following categories between 2019 and 2025: Emergency repairs (up 175%) Home maintenance (85%) Insurance (72%) Interest (35%) Property taxes (31%) Those cost increases have made it harder for middle-class Americans to join the ranks of homeowners. According to Redfin, homebuyers with a budget of $2,500/month in 2019 could have purchased a $517,500 home with 20% down at the then-common 3% interest rate without their budget spreadsheet throwing an #ERROR. Nowadays, with that same monthly budget, they could only afford a $384,000 home at the now-standard 6.5% interest rate. Longtime homeowners feel the bite, too In 2019, US homeowners spe...