nerdmonitor

Waymo says San Francisco service has resumed after one-hour pause

This isn’t the first time power outages have caused issues for Waymo.

Kimi: Threat or menace?

Chinese company Moonshot AI released a new version of its Kimi model this week, prompting concern about "full AI communism."

All the EVs that were discontinued or killed off in the U.S. this year

Th Honda Prologue will no longer be sold in the U.S., joining a growing list of EV models to exit the market this year.

Federal employees can download TikTok on their work phones again

The Department of Justice says that federal employees can now download TikTok on their government devices.

A 600-mile road trip (and data) proves EV charging doesn’t suck anymore

A recent road trip in an EV revealed just how much faster and more reliable DC Fast charging has become in the U.S.

Neil Rimer thinks the AI money is coming back out

Neil Rimer, the venture capitalist who co-founded Index Ventures, predicts the historic wealth AI is generating in Silicon Valley will have to be redistributed, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Applications close in 48 hours — here’s everything Australian founders need to know about Stripe x Startup Battlefield

The window is almost shut. On August 19, eight startups will take the stage at Stripe Tour Sydney in front of investors, global press, and the Australian tech community. One startup walks away with automatic entry into TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco — no application, no further competition, a guaranteed spot on the world’s most […]

Vertu wants executives to pay $6,880 for an AI agent — here’s how it actually performs

From AI workflows to battery life and security, here's what it's really like to live with Vertu's luxury foldable every day.

Databricks hits $188B valuation, extending its run as AI’s favorite second act

Databricks has remade its image into an AI company and has published research on the cost savings of open weight AI models for coding.

The Zoom hack that says, ‘Don’t record me’

If every meeting, watercooler conversation, and date gets transcribed and summarized, who's actually reading any of it?

The Download: perimenopause misinformation and China’s latest AI leap

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. There’s a lot of hype around perimenopause. Don’t buy it. Perimenopause used to be considered taboo, but not anymore. Thanks at least in part to TV doctors and social media influencers,…

There’s a lot of hype around perimenopause. Don’t buy it.

Perimenopause has entered the chat. Perimenopause—and its better-known relative, menopause—used to be considered taboo. Not anymore, thanks at least in part to TV doctors and social media influencers. Perhaps it’s my age, but these days, both my algorithm and my conversations with friends increasingly swing toward perimenopause. Menopause is defined as the life stage that…

The risk of weather data sabotage is rising

Every morning, airline dispatchers, grid operators, and farmers around the world make decisions based on the same thing: a weather forecast. While these forecasts are something that most people glance at for two seconds, weather predictions influence major strategic decisions in many industries, with real money, livelihoods, and even actual lives at stake. Farmers use…

A scorecard for the AI age

Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI, introduces a practical AI scorecard to measure ROI through useful work, cost per successful task, dependability, and return on compute.

Why teens deserve access to safe AI

Learn how OpenAI is making ChatGPT safer for teens with age-appropriate protections, learning tools, parental controls, and expert partnerships.

Our approach to bioresilience

Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs are sharing our joint approach to bioresilience and AI models.

How Cars24 scales conversations and builds faster with OpenAI

Cars24 uses OpenAI-powered voice and chat agents to handle 1M+ monthly conversation minutes, recover 12% of lost leads, and bring agentic workflows to teams across the company.

The US is advancing AI safety through state and federal action

OpenAI outlines a “reverse federalism” approach to AI governance, where state laws help build a national framework for safe, democratic AI.

GPT-Red: Unlocking Self-Improvement for Robustness

Explore GPT-Red, OpenAI’s automated red teaming system that uses self-play to improve AI safety, alignment, and prompt injection robustness.

How to manage AI investments in the agentic era

Learn how enterprises can manage AI investments in the agentic era by measuring useful work per dollar, improving efficiency, and scaling high-value workflows.

@Kalshi

JUST IN: Microsoft is reportedly selling AI models to China

@AnthropicAI

We've raised $65 billion in Series H funding at a $965 billion post-money valuation, led by @AltimeterCap, Dragoneer, @Greenoaks, and @sequoia. This investment will help us advance our research and expand our capacity to meet growing demand for Claude.

@claudeai

Introducing Claude Opus 4.8: it builds on Opus 4.7 with sharper judgment, more honesty about its own progress, and the ability to work independently for longer than its predecessors. Available today at the same price. https://t.co/EufxL7T1kb

Robbyant/lingbot-map

A feed-forward 3D foundation model for reconstructing scenes from streaming data

apache/ossie

Apache Ossie, industry wide specification effort to standardize how we exchange semantic metadata across analytics, AI and BI platforms, providing a vendor neutral, single source of truth for semantic data

PostHog/posthog

🦔 PostHog is the leading platform for building self-driving products. Our developer tools – AI observability, analytics, session replay, flags, experiments, error tracking, logs, and more – capture all the context agents need to diagnose problems, uncover opportunities, and ship fixes. Steer it all from Slack, web, desktop, or the MCP.

ibelick/ui-skills

Skills for Design Engineers

rohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch

Learn it. Build it. Ship it for others.

tirth8205/code-review-graph

Local-first code intelligence graph for MCP and CLI. Builds a persistent map of your codebase so AI coding tools read only what matters, with benchmarked context reductions on reviews and large-repo workflows.

elder-plinius/G0DM0D3

LIBERATED AI CHAT

lyogavin/airllm

AirLLM 70B inference with single 4GB GPU

KnockOutEZ/wigolo

The go-to web for your AI coding agent — local-first search, fetch, crawl & research over MCP. No API keys, no cloud, $0/query. Public beta.

codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x

Master programming by recreating your favorite technologies from scratch.

MoonshotAI/kimi-cli

Kimi Code CLI is your next CLI agent.

Tech Layoffs Surge 83% as AI Replaces Entry-Level Roles — While 54,000 German Apprenticeships Sit

US judge to Meta's laid off employees: Cannot stop the company from job cuts, but can reconsider if you c

US court gives Meta the green light, rejecting a request to suspend employee layoffs in an AI dispute

ZA/UM Studios to lay off up to 32 workers two months after releasing Zero Parades: For Dead Spies

'This changes the shape of ZA/UM, but not its purpose. Our artistic standards remain unchange; we will persist.'

Todd Howard says 'the timing is right' for a collaboration with Obsidian

Fallout franchise director Todd Howard confirms a new Fallout game is in the works with sister studio Obsidian Entertainment.

Labor unions challenge Xbox, GameStop CEO says physical game sales are 'irrelevant,' and Glen Schofield retires - Patch Notes #61

Plus: A free 'good practice guide' for video game writing contracts in the UK.

Unions take legal action against Microsoft for allegedly mishandling Xbox layoffs

CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth claims the company 'unlawfully fired people without giving notice to or discussing it with the union.'

'The goal of design is to efficiently communicate ideas'

Revisiting Stone Librande's classic One Page Designs GDC talk, for a dose of the good stuff.

ZeniMax Online Studios leadership included in Xbox mass layoffs

The studio head, studio operations director, and studio game director join dozens of senior and lead positions cut by Xbox.

Pokemon Go owner Scopely 'reorganizes' Stumble Guys team

The reorganization has affected a 'small number of employees.'

Former Epic Games VP appointed Saber Interactive's chief business officer

Steve Allison will oversee publishing, marketing, and revenue opportunities, reporting directly to CEO Matthew Karch.

Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield retires

Schofield had long tenures as manager of Dead Space maker Visceral Games as well as Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games.

NYU opens incubator applications for New York City-area devs

The NYC Game Design Future Lab offers mentorship, workshop, and investor opportunities for Big Apple-based developers.

UK union launches free resource to decode video game writing contracts

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain said it has witnessed an increase in poor practices around writing contracts in recent years.

IWGB Game Workers union forms 'redundancy taskforce' to defend workers' rights

'With training, solidarity and support, workers can stand up to bosses who use redundancy to cover for their own mismanagement and greed.'

'The entire thing is going to fall apart:' Inside the latest round of mass layoffs at Xbox

Multiple workers impacted by the latest job cuts at Xbox believe the decision will hamstring some studios.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced crosses 2 million in sales as studio strikes over proposed layoffs

Ubisoft sold over 2 million copies of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced in 24 hours, all while its Barcelona studio striking over the proposed layoffs of 51 employees.

Paramount confirms Mike Zaimont is employed by Avatar Legends dev

Zaimont 'holds a position as an individual developer' at Gameplay Group International. He was previously accused of sexual harassment during his time as CEO of Lab Zero Games.

Compulsion Games posts call for business partners after Xbox spinoff

'We invite partners to leverage the talent and creativity of the award-winning team behind South of Midnight.'

Studio founded by former Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes GM lays off staff

Azra Games is 'reducing the size of its team' two years after raising $42 million in funding—and before it's even launched its debut game UnGodly.

Spin Master lays off Paw Patrol: The Game devs two days after launch

Spin Master says Toronto-based Sago Mini Team will take over Originator Inc's development duties.

The Alters and Frostpunk developer 11 Bit Studios is laying off 20 employees

The studio said it has managed to mitigate the number of job cuts by transferring employees to other internal teams.

Games Done Quick apologizes for partnering with Saudi-owned studio SNK

The speedrunning event cancelled a sponsored stream with SNK after community members sounded the alarm.

'A kick in the teeth:' Game workers protest alleged misconduct at MindsEye developer Build A Rocket Boy

'Whilst the goingson at BARB sound extreme, game workers know that shocking treatment from bosses is rife across the sector.'

NexusMods CEO digs into the dynamics of video game modding ft. Victor Folmann

Folmann believes the company can evolve from a file-hosting company to a bona fide user-generated content (UGC) platform.

Own goal specialist Xbox rifles another into the roof of the net - Patch Notes #60

In a change to our scheduled programming, we break down how one of the most significant weeks in the recent history of Xbox unfolded.

'We mean business:' Xbox union workers fighting back with 'Save Our Devs' rally on July 15

The protest is being organized by union members at Bethesda Game Studios.

Asha Sharma joins Federal Reserve advisory task force days after laying off thousands at Xbox

Sharma certainly knows about 'the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies.'

Eurogamer and VG247 veterans launch new independent site

Respec believes that the audience seeking magazine-style games coverage is best served through independence.

Fired Marathon director says he's settled lawsuit with Sony

Christopher Barrett, who was fired by Sony for misconduct allegations, now has his name on Marathon's credits.

A risk-averse video game industry is failing marginalized developers

Nazih Fares has been inundated with praise when pitching 'spicy' card battler The Arab League of Misfits, so why has funding yet to materialize?

Update: WARN notice confirms at least 52 Obsidian workers are being laid off

The Pentiment and The Outer Worlds studio is reportedly losing 60-70 employees in the cuts.

Xbox has laid off 379 Zenimax workers in Maryland

That includes 213 employees at The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios.

Blizzard eliminates 'small number' of roles in China

The news comes with Activision Blizzard's parent company cutting jobs across the board.

Mobile game Mario Kart Tour is winding down

There won't be an offline version, says Nintendo.

Atari appoints Andreas Deptolla as president of Atari Europe

Deptolla calls Europe a 'strategically important region for Atari.'

Opinion: Welcome to the house of pain, brought to you by Xbox

Don't mind the screams.

'Used, abused, and discarded:' CWA Canada slams Microsoft over handling of Bethesda layoffs

The union claims around a dozen roles have been eliminated at Bethesda Game Studios Montreal.

Supercell starts developer grants program for African studios

The equity-free grants can range from $20,000 to $200,000.

Xbox CEO amidst layoffs: 'I think our core has to be healthy'

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says that turning Xbox around will take time.

IO Interactive closing Istanbul studio after regaining control of Project Fantasy

The studio said it must restructure to find sure footing after Xbox pulled funding for the in-development RPG.

Update: 136 workers have been laid off at id Software

The news comes with Xbox preparing to 'reset' its video game division by eliminating 3,200 roles.

Nintendo is winding down original Switch sales in Europe

Nintendo will stop selling the original Switch console to retailers in February 2027.

Xbox cutting 3,200 jobs and parting ways with Double Fine, Compulsion, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs

'It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio.'

Ingress developer Niantic Spatial shuttering New Zealand office

The move comes with the company pivoting away from video games and entertainment.

EVE Online's cross-platform game engine framework is now fully open source

Carbon is the technology behind the sci-fi MMO's sprawling persistent universe.