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// Tech news at terminal velocity

cat 2026-07-16.md

The 975-Billion Parameter Elephant in the Room

$ cat TLDR.md

• Mira Murati's new startup drops a massive 975B parameter open-weights model, putting pressure on closed-source giants.

• OnePlus officially throws in the towel on the US and European smartphone markets.

• xAI open-sources its terminal-native coding agent, Grok Build.

Headlines & Launches

🧠 Thinking Machines Drops a 975B Parameter Behemoth

Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati isn't messing around. Her new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, just released 'Inkling'—a massive 975-billion parameter open-weights model that requires a small server farm to run at full precision. It's a direct shot across the bow at her former employer's closed-source philosophy.

Source: The Register

📱 OnePlus Says 'Peace Out' to the West

The 'flagship killer' has officially been killed by the market. OnePlus is winding down its operations in the US and Europe, meaning the OnePlus 15 was the last hurrah for Western fans of the brand.

Source: The Verge

💻 xAI Open-Sources Grok Build

Elon Musk's AI venture just handed the keys to its terminal-native AI coding agent over to the community. Developers can now compile, customize, and extend the CLI tool locally without asking for permission.

Source: Blockchain.News

🔪 Microsoft's Friendly Fire

In a classic corporate backstab, Microsoft is reportedly training its sales reps to talk down its own partners, OpenAI and Anthropic. The pitch? Microsoft's in-house models are cheaper and more efficient. With friends like these, who needs competitors?

Source: TechCrunch

Deep Dives

⚛️ Quantum Computers Learn to Fix Themselves

Quantum systems are notoriously fragile, usually requiring constant, calculation-interrupting recalibration. Google Quantum AI just published a paper in Nature detailing a machine-learning approach that lets these finicky machines learn from their own errors and stabilize on the fly.

Source: Phys.org

🍿 The Rise of AI Slop Cinema

Remember those terrible direct-to-DVD sequels you'd find in the bargain bin? They've been replaced by AI-generated 'slop movies.' Filmmakers are using cutting-edge generative tools to churn out low-effort cash grabs faster than you can say 'blockbuster.'

Source: The Verge

🚔 The Booming Business of Robocops

Selling AI to law enforcement is becoming a massive, highly lucrative industry. A deep dive into a recent policing tech conference reveals how companies are pitching 'the future of policing in the digital age' to departments eager for a high-tech upgrade.

Source: The Verge

Engineering & Research

🛠️ Google Genkit Gets an Agents API

Google's open-source AI framework, Genkit, just shipped a new Agents API for TypeScript and Go. It neatly packages message history, tool execution loops, and human-in-the-loop capabilities behind a single, clean interface.

Source: InfoQ

🐛 A Zero-Day for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft released a record-breaking number of patches this week, but hackers still managed to rain on the parade. A new Windows zero-day vulnerability dropped on the exact same day, proving that the security whack-a-mole game never truly ends.

Source: Ars Technica

Sheetz Ditches VMware

The Broadcom acquisition fallout continues. Convenience store chain Sheetz is migrating a whopping 11,000 virtual machines off VMware, citing 'too much uncertainty' under the new management.

Source: Ars Technica

Odds & Ends

🦖 It's a Unix System! I Know This!

An absolute hero of an engineer went through Jurassic Park frame by frame to identify and explain every single piece of 1990s computing hardware in the movie. Yes, Lex was right—it really was a Unix system.

Source: Ars Technica

🖊️ The $860K Space Pen

Buzz Aldrin just auctioned off the famous felt-tip pen that he used to fix a broken circuit breaker and save the Apollo 11 mission. It fetched a cool $860,000, making it the most expensive office supply in history.

Source: Ars Technica

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