Why building AI for schools is harder than building a chatbot: inside Smartschool’s approach to exam prep
AI systems struggle to teach exam preparation effectively because students require personalized learning paths and adaptive feedback beyond simple information retrieval. Smartschool addresses this by building AI that adjusts to individual student performance on high-stakes tests like the SAT and ACT.
The chip industry has a warning for Trump: hands off the memory market
SEMI, a semiconductor industry group, warned the Trump administration against intervening in the memory chip market to address shortages. The industry cautioned that price controls or market intervention would worsen the supply squeeze.
Trunk Tools' stack cut document review from 60 days to 10 by ditching general-purpose models
Document review time for construction projects dropped from 60 days to 10 days using a specialized three-layer architecture with perception, semantics, and agents instead of general-purpose models. The system processes data through an ontology into a knowledge graph, enabling autonomous agents to reason over millions of pages of documentation.
Quantum Systems Doubles Valuation to $8B in New Round
Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion in funding, doubling its valuation to $8 billion. The German drone startup is benefiting from increased European military spending on unmanned aerial vehicles.
Politician who investigated spyware abuses had his phone hacked with Pegasus spyware
A European politician serving on an EU committee investigating spyware had his phone hacked with Pegasus spyware by a government customer of NSO Group. The politician was targeted while actively working on investigations into the spyware industry.
Anthropic is in talks with Samsung to manufacture a custom AI chip
Anthropic is negotiating with Samsung Electronics to produce a custom artificial intelligence chip designed for internal use. The project is in early stages with undecided specifications regarding the chip's purpose, power capacity, and server integration.
Boeing’s autonomous air taxi subsidiary faces a whistleblower lawsuit over rushed software testing
A Wisk Aero software manager filed a wrongful termination lawsuit after being fired for raising safety concerns about reduced software testing. The former employee alleged the autonomous air taxi subsidiary rushed testing procedures for its aircraft systems.
Sony’s ditching game discs for the PlayStation, but fans are still hungry for physical media
Starting in 2028, PlayStation will discontinue physical game disc production and release new games only through digital downloads. Sony cited data showing 85% of full-game software sales on PlayStation 4 and 5 were digital downloads in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025.
Kling AI raises two billion dollars as Kuaishou spins off its fastest-growing business
Kling AI raised two billion dollars in initial venture capital funding, with potential additional investment that could bring the total to three billion dollars. Kuaishou's stake in its video generation unit would be diluted to approximately 68 percent if the full funding round completes.
Microsoft's 6,000-Person AI Push
Microsoft is building a 6,000-person team to help businesses deploy artificial intelligence systems. The approach mirrors Palantir's forward deployment engineer model and AWS's adoption of it, focusing on hands-on implementation for enterprise clients.
Nuclear Reactor Powers Nvidia AI Chip in US First
A nuclear reactor generated electricity to power an Nvidia AI chip for the first time in the US. Valar Atomics demonstrated its Ward 250 reactor connecting to an Nvidia Blackwell chip at its Utah facility.
Lucid Motors replaces its CFO and overhauls its entire leadership team as new CEO reshapes the company
Lucid Motors replaced its CFO Taoufiq Boussaid with Alexander De Bock, a former TI Automotive finance executive, as part of a broader leadership overhaul under new CEO Silvio Napoli. De Bock will assume the role after a transition period that was not fully specified in the announcement.
Alibaba, Tencent Join $2 Billion Funding for Kuaishou’s Kling AI
Alibaba has joined a $2 billion funding round for Kuaishou's Kling AI video generation service, bringing the company's valuation to approximately $15 billion. Kling AI is one of China's most popular generative video services.
Microsoft launches a $2.5 billion AI deployment business with 6,000 engineers
Microsoft established a new operating business with a $2.5 billion investment and 6,000 engineers to deliver enterprise AI deployments using existing Microsoft tools. Early partners include the London Stock Exchange Group, Unilever, Land O'Lakes, and Accenture.
Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2, far exceeding the 406,000 Wall Street expected
Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2 2026, exceeding analyst expectations of 406,000 by approximately 74,000 units. The quarterly result represents a 25% year-over-year increase from the prior year period.
Cloudflare gives AI crawlers a September deadline: pay publishers or get blocked
Starting September, Cloudflare will block AI crawlers from accessing ad-supported websites unless publishers explicitly allow access. The company aims to force AI developers to negotiate payment with content creators rather than freely scraping web pages.
Why the next leap in AI video is teaching avatars to see and listen
AI avatars are now being designed to perceive their environment through vision and audio rather than solely improving visual quality and motion smoothness. This shift in focus marks a change from the previous years-long emphasis on video fidelity, physics accuracy, and clip duration.
Getty scraps its $3.7bn Shutterstock merger after a UK regulator won’t budge
Getty Images abandoned its $3.7 billion merger with Shutterstock after UK regulators refused to approve the deal without unacceptable conditions. The board voted unanimously to terminate the merger, with the British regulator's stance proving insurmountable despite approval from American authorities.
A cheap Chinese AI model is closing in on Anthropic and OpenAI
GLM-5.2, an AI model from Chinese startup Z.ai, ranked fourth on a major intelligence benchmark while costing significantly less than comparable models from Anthropic or OpenAI. The model was released last month and is noted for its strong coding and agentic capabilities.
Z.ai launches ZCode to challenge Cursor, Claude Code and GitHub Copilot in AI coding
Z.ai launched ZCode, a free desktop application for its GLM-5.2 language model that runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux with support for third-party models via bring-your-own-key configurations. The tool offers a 1.5x usage-quota bonus for GLM Coding Plan subscribers and competes with Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Google's Antigravity in the agentic coding agent market.
SAP Restricts Hiring, Travel to Fund ‘Significant’ AI Push
SAP is reducing hiring and travel spending to fund increased investments in artificial intelligence development. The company is redirecting resources to compete against emerging rivals in the AI technology space.
'Absolutely No Sign' of Let Up in AI Demand, UBS Says
Semiconductor stocks remain in high demand with no indication of slowdown in overall AI demand. UBS Wealth Management maintains a slightly overweight position in semiconductor stocks based on this outlook.
Together AI raises 800 million dollars in Series C as open-source cloud demand surges
Together AI closed an $800 million Series C funding round led by Aramco Ventures at a valuation exceeding $8 billion. The company now generates over $1 billion in annual revenue according to its claims.
Ashton Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures to start a new VC firm with Morgan Beller
Ashton Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures after 11 years to start a new venture capital firm with Morgan Beller. The new firm will focus on early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech.
Hyundai and Kia built a UV system that kills bacteria inside a car while you are sitting in it
A far-ultraviolet light system called Plasma Care UVC kills bacteria and viruses inside car cabins while passengers sit in the vehicle. Hyundai and Kia describe this as the first sanitization system of its kind designed for production vehicles.
Honda starts making batteries for data centres at a factory built for EVs it cancelled
Honda began producing batteries for data centre energy storage systems at an Ohio factory originally built for electric vehicle cells. The facility now supplies stationary power systems instead of vehicle batteries after Honda cancelled its EV production plans three months prior.
Autonomous vehicle hype is back, and Humble Robotics is bringing it to freight
Autonomous freight vehicles are becoming a focus of renewed investment and talent competition in robotics. Travis Kalanick's new robotics company exemplifies the sector's resurgence, drawing experienced engineers from the earlier 2016 autonomous vehicle cycle.
Publishers can’t control AI answers. They can’t ignore them either
# Summary A spring 2026 study commissioned by The New York Times found Google's AI Overviews accurate 91% of the time, meaning millions of inaccurate summaries are produced hourly across billions of daily searches. Google's AI system rapidly incorporated false information, such as repeating a fake claim that a BBC reporter was the best hot dog-eating tech journalist within a day of publication.
AI’s hopes and fears take over the world’s big central-bank gathering
Central bankers gathered in Lisbon this summer to discuss artificial intelligence as their primary economic concern rather than traditional inflation. The attendees shared uncertainty about how AI will affect the economy, with no consensus on its implications emerging from the discussions.
Humble Robotics’ CEO says the tech finally caught up to the vision for autonomous vehicles
Autonomous vehicle technology has advanced enough to match the original vision for self-driving cars, according to Humble Robotics' CEO. The industry is experiencing renewed investment and talent competition similar to the 2016 hype cycle, with figures like Travis Kalanick returning to robotics development.