Google Play now lists Aptoide in the US—marking the first alternative app store on Play in 2026. It stems from the 2024 ruling by Judge James Donato in Google vs. Epic, Google’s failed appeal, and a deal cleared after the firms dropped their joint proposal last month.
Google announced in August 2026 that it is adding Venmo as a payment option on Google Play, allowing users to purchase games, apps, add-ons, and other digital content through the platform.
Users can…
Discovered Materials says its AI-agent pipeline using Anthropic models can evaluate thousands of semiconductor candidates per day (vs ~20 during founder Akash Ramdas’s Stanford PhD). The 2026 $9M seed—led by Lightspeed India Partners with Peak XV and angel Paul Graham—targets thermally cooler chip materials, and it plans to patent viable GPU uses.
Anthropic is switching Claude Code’s auto mode on by default for Pro, Max, and Team account holders, with the change taking effect on August 14, 2026. The move reduces the number of manual approval…
X is shutting down its revenue-sharing program for content creators and replacing it with a new initiative called Original Content Rewards, set to launch on September 8, 2026.
To qualify, creators…
OpenAI has acquired NextSlide, a startup that built an AI tool for generating presentations, with the deal having taken place earlier in 2026. NextSlide founder Ahmed Beshry confirmed the acquisition…
Google revamped hacking-group naming in July 2026, replacing the numbered APT scheme with two-word labels to make tracking its 5,000+ activity clusters easier. The first word is random; the second’s initial marks country (Castle=China, Ion=Iran, Neptune=North Korea, Relic=Russia), unifying Google TAG and Mandiant.
Flock Safety’s sales deck for Georgia’s AG (Aug.) pitched a Nexar deal to use Uber/Lyft and delivery dashcams for plate data from moving cars, covering 350,000 devices. Flock says it wasn’t finalized; the deck shows no driver notification, and Nexar was breached in September with terabytes of video exposed.
WhatsApp began rolling out a new update on August 4, 2026, adding several group chat features including an @all mention tag, anonymous polling options, and a faster way to create smaller groups from…
OpenAI announced Friday that it has suspended work on certain aspects of its upcoming AI model, Astra, after an internal review determined the model had developed capabilities significant enough to…
Rippling launched its AI Spend Console in August 2026 after CFO Adam Swiecicki warned in March that AI token costs could hit 40% of R&D headcount budget (up 80% MoM). The company traced most spend to 10–15% of employees (one at $50,000/month) and routed prompts via its AI gateway; internal deployment cut token spend to ~15%.
OpenAI announced in August 2026 that it is pausing “internal activities” around an in-development AI model called Astra after internal evaluations found it may have reached a dangerous cybersecurity…
