News

TechCrunch Mobility: Zoox prepares for launch and Uber’s AV empire
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.
techcrunch.com
This ‘adversarial’ pattern can prevent surveillance cameras from detecting you
A security researcher has designed an algorithm that can create computer-generated patterns capable of hiding people, faces, and vehicles from detection by surveillance cameras.
techcrunch.com
Corrupt Minds Think Alike
Tariq Panja, reporting for The New York Times: The five men should have been in a celebratory mood. FIFA had just pulled off a World Cup that broke records on a number of fronts. Its spectacular culmination, the final, was a day away from kickoff. But their mood was anything but …
New York Times
★ Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was, in Fact, a Correct Rejection
Yesterday I published an article titled “App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours”. I have retracted it. Its premise was so fundamentally wrong that there’s no point merely correcting or editing it. Even the title, as I explain below, was inaccurate. Although the original is n…
daringfireball.net
Michael Mando Says ‘Brand New Day’ Isn’t the End of Scorpion’s Story
Whatever's next for Spider-Man after 'Brand New Day,' it seems Mac Gargan may be along for the ride.
gizmodo.com
Historian Jill Lepore says Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy
On the latest episode of Equity, we spoke to Jill Lepore about "government by machines" and why Elon Musk is a bad science fiction reader.
techcrunch.com
International tech
China’s AI models spooked Wall Street. But they may turbocharge industry growth
Breakthroughs in cheap Chinese open-weight artificial intelligence models have spooked US investors, but analysts argue plummeting model costs will benefit the AI industry in the long run by supercharging global demand for AI systems. Companies across the AI industry have slashed…
scmp.com
Indian Startup IPO Tracker 2026
Dalal Street emerged as a founder’s paradise in 2025, with 18 Indian startups listing on the bourses and collectively mopping…
inc42.com
Smart planning, not panic, must guide Asia’s data centre buildout
Across the United States, home to 37 per cent of the world’s 10,800 or so data centres, 2026 has been awash with protests against this infrastructure buildout. On July 18 alone, 142 protests were reported across 42 states. According to Data Centre Watch, 75 US data centre project…
scmp.com
Psychology says falling asleep to your favorite podcast or show often isn’t about the content at all — in silence, the thoughts you successfully outran all day finally catch up with you, and the voice in the background is the last line of defense against them
We use our favorite shows and podcasts as emotional sedatives, not entertainment—and silence is the price we pay for avoiding ourselves.
siliconcanals.com
Childhood trauma really is one of the most common roots of family estrangement, but the research complicates the sentence in an important way: the cut-off is usually less a wound than a considered, last-resort decision that people rarely make lightly
When adult children cut off parents, it rarely springs from impulse—it's the exhausted conclusion of a calculation most people spend years refusing to make.
siliconcanals.com
The hardest thing about deeply unhappy men is that many of them do not look unhappy: the research suggests male distress often surfaces as anger, overwork or drinking rather than sadness, and the reluctance to name it can turn dangerous
Male distress wears many masks—rage, relentless ambition, substance abuse—and that invisibility can be deadly.
siliconcanals.com
Maybe ‘Steal Underpants by Blowing a Fortune on AI Tokens’ Is, in Fact, Not a Good Business Plan
Joseph Cox, writing for 404 Media (paywalled, sans gift links, alas): Consulting giant Accenture is trying to figure out how to stop non-technical workers from blowing through companies’ AI token budget on trivial tasks like converting PDFs to presentation slides, according to le…
404media.co
The AI safety test is becoming a safety risk
AI agents are escaping cybersecurity testing environments and reaching real-world systems, raising questions about whether safety infrastructure, industry standards and regulation can keep pace with increasingly powerful models.
techcrunch.com
YouTuber Spends Two Years Making Alcohol From Thin Air, Doesn’t Even Get Wasted
But still: alcohol from thin air!
gizmodo.com

Trending

Mea Culpa – Dark Hours
Article URL: https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/08/09/mea-culpa-dark-hours.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49231154 Points: 254 # Comments: 112
terrygodier.com
Dithered QR Codes
Article URL: https://www.andrewt.net/dithered-qr-codes/wtf/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226742 Points: 323 # Comments: 34
andrewt.net
High-Density Parchment Paper Papertronics with Laser-Carved Hydrophilic Channels
Paper as a substrate for electronic circuits is not very common, but promising for flexible circuits with low cost and easy recyclability. That said, paper is not an easy material …read more
hackaday.com
Whatever Happened to the Computer of Tomorrow, Anyway? The Xerox Alto Story
You’ve almost certainly heard of the Xerox Alto, the machine that pioneered the desktop-mouse-keyboard interface and inspired Steve Jobs to produce the Apple Lisa and Macintosh computers. It wasn’t just …read more
hackaday.com
Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386
Article URL: https://os8088.com/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226923 Points: 222 # Comments: 146
os8088.com
Tracking Bees with a Stereo Camera
For whatever reason, [Jeremy] wants to photograph bees in flight. This is one of those things that doesn’t seem that hard until you try to do it. He’s got the …read more
hackaday.com
Transmitting Analog Video Via Frikkin’ Laser Beams
Transmitting analog video via photons is old hat: that’s how everything started, after all, back in the day with over-the-air TV. Up the frequency of those photons from radio to …read more
hackaday.com
Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection
Thread for original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49214863 Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228166 Points: 285 # Comments: 51
daringfireball.net
Continously Extruding 3D Printed Tubes with Compressed Air
[Jan] of [Roetz 4.0] has a unique approach to multi-material 3D printing: he’s designed an extruder which takes two different materials and extrudes one as a shell around the other. …read more
hackaday.com