The whirlwind 72 hours of rival AI announcements
By
Henry Chandonnet
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Why the stock market and economy may seem out of sync
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on July 08, 2026 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Stocks were off to a blistering pace in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy's trajectory is more tepid, somewhat divorced from that of stocks, economists said.
Bonnie Tyler superfan asked for an autograph then spent Christmas at her Mumbles home
Image source, Rob Marshall
The Download: Claude’s inner workings and OpenAI’s “super app”
Researchers at the company built a tool called the Jacobian lens (or J-lens) and used it to uncover a hidden area, which they named the J-space, inside its flagship LLM, Claude.
Meta AI Can Now Use Your Instagram Photos Without Consent. SAG-AFTRA Urges App Users to Opt Out: ‘Take Action to Protect Your Likeness’
SAG-AFTRA is urging its members and all Instagram users to take action against Meta’s new Muse Image model, which has been woven into the Instagram app and makes public accounts susceptible to AI generations of their content. Per Wired: “All someone has to do is tag your account’s profile in a prompt— if it’s public — and they can use Meta AI to generate an image using your likeness.”
Mathematicians put AI to work on Fermat's last theorem
Pierre de Fermat was a 17th-century mathematician Lebrecht Music& Arts, YAY Media AS/Alamy
In the lobby of a central London hotel, tourists are bracing themselves for a day of sightseeing in a heatwave. Meanwhile, staff are resetting the dining room after breakfast. And in a windowless meeting room, assembled academics are contemplating whether humans have a role to play in the future of mathematics, now that AI can prove theorems by itself.
Astronomers reveal how clouds shape the hidden interiors of the galaxy's most common planets
Sub-Neptunes are the most common type of planet in our galaxy. Bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, these worlds remain deeply mysterious because scientists still do not know what they are made of. What astronomers really want to figure out is their interior composition. They could be rocky planets wrapped in hydrogen-rich atmospheres, or they could be volatile-rich worlds loaded with water or carbon-bearing molecules.
Japanese Boy Band Psychic Fever Wants You to Know They’re All ‘Different’: ‘We Don’t Want to Fit in a Box’
Four years after its debut, Psychic Fever built its second full-length album around a simple idea: none of its seven members sound, look or think alike, and that’s exactly the point.
Delta expects higher airfare to last, bringing 2026 profit goal in reach, CEO says
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Delta Air Lines' profit goal is in reach this year as the carrier passes along higher fuel costs to customers, pricing power CEO Ed Bastian expects to last even as oil prices drop from multiyear highs.
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced's standard edition is "is the full, complete experience", Ubisoft insist in response to Steam DLC furore
They've been under cannon fire
Yarr, ye not be needin' to shell out for the more expensive editions of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced or its day one DLCs if you want to have "the full, complete experience". So developers Ubisoft have said in response to Steam reviews giving the Black Flag remake a thumbs down because it has a bunch of purchasable extras on sale right out of port.