Visa Foresees Stablecoins Enabling Micro Transactions in the Ecosystem Autonomous AI Agents
Stablecoins could enable micro transactions between autonomous AI agents operating independently in digital ecosystems. Visa identified this use case as particularly suited to economies where self-operating intelligent systems handle complex tasks without human intervention.
Volkswagen enters the robotaxi race with a shared shuttle service in Hamburg
Volkswagen's Moia subsidiary launched a self-driving taxi service using autonomous ID Buzz vans in Hamburg with up to five vehicles initially operating. The fleet is expected to expand to ten vehicles as the service grows.
What is a micro-cap IPO—and why are they disappearing from the stock market?
Micro-cap IPOs with market capitalizations historically around $5 million to $30 million are disappearing as regulators now require a minimum $15 million in public float and crack down on smaller listings. Foreign micro-cap companies have declined due to stricter listing rules following pump-and-dump schemes, resulting in trading halts for more than a dozen firms last year.
Linux Foundation Launches x402 Foundation to Enable Seamless Internet Payments
A new standardized payment protocol called x402 has been launched to enable financial transactions between machines, applications, and AI systems. The x402 Foundation aims to make web payments as seamless as standard data exchanges.
Truth Social is selling real-time access to posts that could move the markets
Truth Social's parent company is launching a paid data feed called Truth API that will give Wall Street firms real-time access to posts from the platform's top 10 most-influential accounts starting August 1. The service delivers posts within milliseconds to paying institutional clients seeking market-moving information before it becomes publicly available online.
Oracle is one notch above junk after S&P downgrade as AI data-centre spending burns through cash
Oracle was downgraded to BBB- status by S&P on July 9, placing it one notch above junk rating due to a $250 billion data-centre expansion plan consuming cash faster than revenue replaces it. The company now holds $117 billion in outstanding debt, making it the second-largest non-financial debt issuer in the Bloomberg US Corporate Bond Index after Amazon.
Shared charging is the key to electric trucking’s success
Electric truck costs are projected to drop from roughly $425,000 today to approximately $300,000 by 2028 and below $230,000 by 2035, driven by battery cost reductions and vehicle standardization. Shared charging infrastructure becomes critical as adoption grows, with fleets needing to balance depot charging control against public infrastructure reliance.
Google’s next Gemini Pro is months behind schedule as coding capabilities fall short of internal goals
Google's next Gemini Pro version is months delayed because its coding capabilities failed to meet internal performance targets. The company missed its planned May developer conference release date for the upgraded model.
China’s Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, the largest open-source model ever, rivaling top U.S. systems
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-source model described as the world's largest, with performance comparable to top U.S. proprietary systems from Anthropic and OpenAI. Full model weights are scheduled for release on July 27, and the model is currently accessible for testing at kimi.com.
The AI compute gap: Enterprises are buying infrastructure faster than they can measure what it costs
Across 107 enterprises, AI infrastructure spending is accelerating faster than organizations can track its costs, with GPUs operating at half utilization or less. Fewer than half of enterprises rigorously measure what their compute actually costs, creating a gap between rapid investment and economic visibility.
The agent security gap: 54% of enterprises have already had an AI agent incident, and most still let agents share credentials
Fifty-four percent of enterprises have experienced confirmed AI agent security incidents, while most still allow agents to share credentials rather than isolating them with individual identities. Only 30 percent of organizations isolate their highest-risk agents, and security controls remain borrowed from model providers instead of purpose-built for agent management.
Jensen Huang says the more AI is used, the more ‘we have to hire’
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claims increased AI adoption requires hiring more workers because AI agents demand new skills from software engineers. Huang stated that software engineers now prefer building agents over writing Python code, and that deploying AI agents across industries creates substantial new work requiring imagination and creativity.
Google Vids now lets you star in your own AI videos
Google Vids now allows users to create AI avatars that represent themselves in videos. The feature uses Gemini Omni-powered tools to generate and edit videos from prompts and reference images.
The EU is forcing Google to open Android to rival AI and share its search data
Google must allow rival AI assistants to operate on Android with the same capabilities as Gemini and share search data with competitors. The European Commission imposed these requirements under the Digital Markets Act, treating Google as a gatekeeper in the market.
S&P 500 companies with this AI strategy dramatically outperformed their peers: New data
Companies with high-quality AI strategy announcements measured on five dimensions, including CEO involvement and specific use cases, saw substantially better stock market returns from 2022 to 2025. Gregory assessed 449 S&P 500 companies using an AI Communications Quality Score ranging from 0 to 20, based on CEO ownership, named use cases, 90-day follow-through, board governance record, and tier-1 media coverage.
AI and a brain implant restored a paralysed man’s movement and touch
A paralyzed man regained hand movement and touch sensation through a "double neural bypass" system that rewired his nervous system. The technology, developed by the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, restored function in a patient paralyzed from the chest down.
Tim Merlier surges to Tour de France 2026 hat-trick on stage 12 but crash hits sprinters
Tim Merlier won stage 12 of the Tour de France, his third victory this year after winning stages in Bordeaux and Bergerac. Merlier's Soudal Quick-Step teammate finished ahead of Kooij and Philipsen at the riverside finish on the banks of the Saône.
‘Dirty Jobs’ host just revealed the lucrative salary Gen Z electricians make from AI data centers—the number is eye-popping
Young electricians working at AI data centers earn between $240,000 and $280,000 annually, with unlimited overtime opportunities and no debt. Construction workers on data center projects earn approximately 32 percent more than traditional construction work, with Northern Virginia and Texas locations reporting salaries between $140,000 and $280,000 per year.
The AI context gap: Enterprise AI organizations have a trust problem, not a retrieval problem — and most are still building the fix
A majority of 57% of enterprises report their AI agents have produced confident but incorrect answers traced to missing or inconsistent business context in the past six months. Most enterprises are building a governed semantic layer to address this context gap, while provider-native retrieval has overtaken dedicated vector databases as the default source feeding AI agents their business information.
How to Make an Invisible Drone
A drone called Phantom Twist spins at 15 to 25 Hz during flight, making it approximately ten times harder for humans to see than typical quadrotors. The spinning motion exploits human visual processing, which requires about 100 milliseconds to integrate scenes, turning the solid object into an opaque smear.
Stalled CLARITY Act Gets Presidential Treatment as White House Meeting Scheduled for Today
The CLARITY Act, stalled crypto market infrastructure legislation previously approved by the Senate Banking Committee, is being discussed at a White House meeting with legislators today. The bill has not yet received a floor vote in the Senate.
How a former DeepMind researcher raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation before launching a product
A former DeepMind researcher raised $300 million at pre-seed valuation before launching a product, leveraging over a decade of AI development experience. Andrew Dai believes visual AI represents a major frontier in artificial intelligence based on his work contributing to systems that informed ChatGPT's development.
BlackRock Outlines Roadmap for Blending Crypto with TradFi
BlackRock is developing investment vehicles that combine cryptocurrency with traditional finance offerings. The world's largest asset manager is positioning itself to bridge these previously separate financial sectors with sophisticated products.
The Download: OpenAI unveils GPT-Red and heat pumps rise in the US
OpenAI developed an LLM super-hacker called GPT-Red to identify vulnerabilities in its models before deployment. The system acts as a sparring partner to test and improve the safety of other AI models.
Digital Surveillance Reshapes Fishery Enforcement in Indonesia
Satellites and automated monitoring systems now track fishing vessel positions and automatically compare them against permits and authorized zones within minutes, identifying potential violations before patrol vessels leave port. Indonesia's Marine and Fisheries Resources Surveillance Station receives continuous position signals from vessels operating in the eastern Indian Ocean and uses geospatial analytics to flag unauthorized movements against historical patterns.
Why heat pumps are still so hot in the US
Heat pumps use electricity for heating and are highly efficient appliances gaining popularity in the United States. The devices are experiencing increased adoption despite being associated with winter heating needs.
85, 90+2! Argentina's late show breaks England hearts to end World Cup dream
Argentina defeated England 2-1 in the World Cup semi-final with Lautaro Martinez scoring the winning goal in stoppage time. England's hopes of reaching their first World Cup final since 1966 ended with this loss to their rivals.
Hyundai to Buy SoftBank’s Boston Dynamics Stake in Robot Push
Hyundai Motor and its affiliates are acquiring SoftBank Group's remaining stake in Boston Dynamics. The purchase accelerates commercialization of the company's Atlas humanoid robot.
New York Regulator Proposes Licensing Rules for BNPL Lenders
The New York State Department of Financial Services proposed licensing regulations for buy now, pay later lenders on July 15, with a public comment period extending to September 14. The proposed rule text was posted on the department's regulatory activity page for stakeholder review.
Revolut Gets Preliminary UAE Crypto License Nod Weeks After Banking Win
Revolut secured in-principle approval for a Virtual Assets Service Provider license from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority. The preliminary approval allows the company to provide crypto services in the UAE, subject to obtaining final regulatory approvals.