Tech Business/VC Ars Technica

Third-party app stores coming to Google Play next week as Epic settlement withdrawn

Google Play is introducing third-party app stores following the withdrawal of a settlement with Epic Games.

Hardware/Chips Ars Technica

OpenAI's first branded hardware is... a light-up keyboard?

OpenAI introduces the Codex Micro, a light-up keyboard designed for monitoring agentic threads.

AI/ML arXiv cs.AI

Rethinking Reward Models for Multi-Domain Test-Time Scaling

Research exploring reward models for test-time scaling in LLMs, finding that generative outcome reward models (gORM) are the most robust across domains.

AI/ML arXiv cs.AI

CrochetBench: Can Vision-Language Models Move from Describing to Doing in Crochet Domain?

Introduction of CrochetBench, a benchmark for evaluating the ability of vision-language models to generate executable crochet procedures.

AI/ML arXiv cs.AI

JADE: Expert-Grounded Dynamic Evaluation for Open-Ended Professional Tasks

JADE is proposed as a two-layer evaluation framework for agentic AI on open-ended professional tasks to improve stability and align with expert rubrics.

AI/ML arXiv cs.AI

Calculating Mutual Information between a Reward Maximizer and its Environment

A theoretical study quantifying the mutual information between an optimal policy and its environment in controlled Markov processes.

Hardware/Chips Hacker News

Codex Micro

A discussion regarding Codex Micro, likely focused on its technical specifications or hardware capabilities.

AI/ML Hacker News

Murati's Thinking Machines Releases Open-Weights 975B Parameter LLM

Thinking Machines has released a massive 975B parameter open-weights LLM, pushing the boundaries of available open-weights models.

Tech Business/VC Hacker News

Stripe, Advent offer to buy PayPal for more than $53B

Stripe and Advent are reportedly making a bid to acquire PayPal for over $53 billion.

AI/ML Hacker News

Inkling: Our Open-Weights Model

Introduction of Inkling, a new open-weights model for developers.

Software Engineering Hacker News

Editing React components that never rendered

A technical discussion on the challenges and methods of editing React components that have not yet rendered.

Other TechCrunch

Apple quietly reveals how its Maps ads will differ from Google’s

Apple details its Maps advertising policies, which prohibit several home service categories to maintain a curated experience.

Other The Verge

Our ‘explosive diarrhea parasite’ future

A report on the spread of cyclosporiasis, a parasite-driven illness, and its impact on affected individuals.

Hardware/Chips The Verge

Something’s glowing on the Pixel 11’s camera bar

Leaks suggest the upcoming Pixel 11 will feature a glowing orb on the camera bar, potentially integrated with Gemini AI.

AI/ML VentureBeat

Cohere VP says enterprise AI sovereignty requires control of the full agent stack at VB Transform 2026

Cohere emphasizes AI sovereignty for enterprises, highlighting the importance of controlling the full agent stack and the release of open-source models like North Mini Code and Command A+.

AI/ML arXiv cs.AI

DeepTravel: An End-to-End Agentic Reinforcement Learning Framework for Autonomous Travel Planning Agents

DeepTravel introduces an end-to-end agentic reinforcement learning framework for autonomous travel planning, enabling smaller LLMs to outperform frontier models in this domain.

Open Source Hacker News

FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code from Its Base System

FreeBSD 16 has officially removed the remaining GPL-licensed code from its base system to maintain its permissive licensing goals.

Tech Business/VC TechCrunch

SpaceX slips below its $135 IPO price ahead of Starship launch

SpaceX stock has fallen below its IPO price as market expectations cool ahead of the Starship launch.

AI/ML TechCrunch

Thinking Machines amps up its bet against one-size-fits-all AI with its first open model, Inkling

Thinking Machines has released 'Inkling', its first open AI model, as a challenge to the one-size-fits-all AI approach.

Tech Business/VC TechCrunch

Phone maker OnePlus reportedly plans to wind down US and Europe operations

OnePlus is reportedly planning to shut down its business operations in the US, Europe, and eventually India by 2027.