Episode notes
Google launched Googlebook laptops with deep Android integration from five partners starting at $899, xAI released Grok 4.7 at bargain pricing but trailing Claude and GPT-6 on benchmarks, Amazon blocked Meta's Muse shopping agent, and chipmakers rallied on the news.
Tech Brew Ride Home
by Morning Brew · English · Tech & Science
Silicon Valley's water cooler podcast. A tech news summary every day... 15 minutes and you're up to date. From Tech Brew, Morning Brew's tech hub.
More from Tech Brew Ride Home
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24 Sep 2026 · 20 min
Meta Made a Tamagotchi for Its AI
Meta unveiled $1,299 VR Glasses, $349 camera-free Ray-Ban Audio glasses, and a keychain Muse Charm gadget, plus Ray-Ban Display upgrades. Anthropic's Claude agents found a CRISPR-like enzyme system in its biolab. OpenAI's agents hacked an Australian government site hunting data. Meta debuts Meta VR Glasses, a ~100g VR headset with an external compute pack, three-hour battery, and ~2.5K resolution per eye, coming spring 2027 for $1,299 (Bloomberg) The Verge goes hands-on with the Meta VR Glasses, calling them a lighter, easier-to-live-with take on Vision Pro-style computing — from VR-enhanced…
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23 Sep 2026 · 21 min
AI Models Just Got Cheaper?
Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, cheaper and safer than Opus 5, right as OpenAI dropped GPT-6 Sol and Luna with half the errors and lower prices. YouTube countered with Shorts Series, an AI creator agent, video A/B-testing, and Custom Feeds. Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5.5, its first model since Dario Amodei's "pace the frontier" essay, and says it has enhanced safeguards to combat risky behavior (The Verge) OpenAI launches GPT-6 Sol and Luna, saying Sol makes about half as many mistakes as GPT-5.6 Sol and Luna matches GPT-5.6 Sol's performance at ~1% of the cost (ZDNet) YouTube rolls…
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22 Sep 2026 · 23 min
Meta Finally Has An AI Hit
Meta's Muse topped download charts and sent Meta stocks soaring, Shopify agreed to let Muse complete checkouts via Shop Pay, Microsoft laid off Xbox staffers as Halo moves to Activision, and Xiaomi's MiMo-V2.6 Pro became a top open-weight model. Shopify plans to allow Meta's Muse to complete purchases on behalf of users at Shopify-powered stores via its one-tap checkout service Shop Pay (The Wall Street Journal) Bloomberg reports Muse hit No. 1 free app on iOS and Google Play with 902,000 downloads in six days, sending Meta shares up 11% to their highest close since October and lifting AMD…
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18 Sep 2026 · 22 min
OpenAI Got Hacked By... AI
Security researchers used Claude to hack into OpenAI's private code repository through a bug bounty program, OpenAI launched Astra for Law for select firms, Anthropic redesigned Claude projects to run parallel agent threads, and opened a Bay Area biology lab. Security researchers in an OpenAI bug bounty program hacked OpenAI, accessing its "monorepo" on GitHub, using a cybersecurity version of Opus 4.8 and Opus 5 (The Wall Street Journal) OpenAI launches Astra for Law, combining GPT-6 Astra with a legal search index and instructions for legal analysis and writing, initially for select law…
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17 Sep 2026 · 21 min
Catfished By AI!
OpenAI disclosed six new AI misalignment incidents, including models hiding their own mistakes, the SEC unveiled a five-year tokenized-stock trading exemption, Zuckerberg, Huang, and Musk successfully stalled a White House AI regulatory push, and Anthropic merged Claude chat with Cowork. OpenAI discloses six new misalignment incidents since October, including models concealing mistakes, and announces a framework for reporting model misalignment (Axios) The Times details the six incidents, including a GPT-5.6 Sol variant that hid errors via secret notes to itself, and an unreleased model that…
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16 Sep 2026 · 20 min
Crypto Takes An "L" In The Senate
The Senate failed to advance the crypto industry's Clarity Act, Meta prepared to launch camera-free Luna smart glasses this fall, OpenAI and Anthropic staff said they were blindsided by their CEOs' AI-slowdown pledges, and TypeSafe AI debuted its Jev model. The US Senate fails to advance the Clarity Act, dealing a major blow to the crypto industry's push for a comprehensive market structure framework; crypto falls (CNBC) Sources: Meta plans to release a camera-free pair of smart glasses this fall; the new model has six mics to let users speak with Meta's AI chatbot and Muse (The Information)…
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9 Oct 2026 · 23 minNew
Is Elon Musk Coming For Your Phone Plan?
Fired OpenAI safety researchers disputed their dismissals and OpenAI pushed back. The FT said OpenAI’s annualized revenue was nearer $50B than $70B, rattling AI stocks. SpaceX bought spectrum to take on carriers, and Apple lined up a second October event. AI researcher Mikita Balesni says he believes OpenAI fired him, Tomek Korbak, and Jasmine Wang for “prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI” (X) Fired OpenAI safety researchers Jasmine Wang, Mikita Balesni and Tomek Korbak published an open letter warning the “very public” firings could have a “chilling” effect on…
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8 Oct 2026 · 22 minNew
Are AI Labs Trying to Break Encryption?
Scott Aaronson said AI labs had started testing whether their newest models could break cryptography, and Vitalik Buterin urged taking it seriously. Anthropic launched Haiku 5.5, Google unveiled a universal Gemini agent, and Microsoft opened Surface Laptop Ultra preorders. A theoretical computer scientist, citing sources, says AI labs have started investigating whether their latest internal models can break cryptographic protocols (Shtetl-Optimized) Vitalik Buterin backs Justin Drake’s “bunker mode” warning that AI-accelerated math could break the cryptography behind blockchain wallets,…
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7 Oct 2026 · 20 minNew
Did OpenAI's Secret Model Just Crack Math?
OpenAI dropped hundreds of solved open math problems from an unreleased model. HBO Max and Paramount Plus agreed to become one streamer. Apple's smart home push leaked, including LG-branded gear. Ring unveiled a dial-recharging lock. And Xreal opened Aura preorders. OpenAI releases a range of new mathematical results produced by an internal model, with details like estimations of compute spent in terms of ChatGPT Pro usage (OpenAI) OpenAI reveals solutions to long-standing math problems from an unreleased frontier model in 722 manuscripts covering 372 result families, with the "average…
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6 Oct 2026 · 22 min
Le Chonk
Nvidia-backed Reflection unveiled Beam, a US open-weights model taking on Chinese labs. Plus, SemiAnalysis said Claude subscriptions were a better deal than OpenAI's, Meta and Microsoft cut back on Claude, Mistral dropped le Chonk, and ChatGPT faked New Yorker cartoonists' signatures. NYC-based Reflection unveils Beam, an open model it says rivals GLM-5.2 on reasoning while using 3x-4x less compute and approaches Qwen3.8-Max on agentic tasks (Semafor) Nvidia-backed Reflection pitches Beam to businesses and developers as a cheaper option for coding and agent tasks; the startup has held talks…
