Thursday 25 June 2026
Anthropic launches Claude Tag to turn Slack into an async agent workplace, while OpenAI unveils its first custom silicon built with Broadcom. The NSA lost access to Anthropic’s Mythos model amid export control friction, and ASIO reveals an Australian citizen spied for Iran in the Bondi firebombing. Europe swelters through record June heat as Germany’s rail network collapses from an IT failure.
🤖 Models and Launches
Anthropic launches Claude Tag, a Slack-native async agent for teams — Claude joins Slack as a team member with access to selected channels, tools, and codebases; Anthropic says it now writes 65% of its product team’s code internally.
ByteDance introduces Seedance 2.5 video model with 30-second 4K generation — Accepts up to 50 image, video, or audio references for greater control. Available in China next month; international release timing unannounced.
OpenAI prepares bidirectional voice mode for ChatGPT rollout — The new Bidi 1 model can speak, hear, and listen simultaneously, switch tasks mid-conversation, and even sing — though some users are already seeing it in model selectors.
Krea 2 technical report details expressive image generation model — Multi-stage training with a prompt expander and style-reference system aims to overcome default aesthetic limitations and give users nuanced stylistic control.
Qwen-AgentWorld: Language world models for general agents — Alibaba’s Qwen team proposes language-based world models as a foundation for general-purpose agents that can plan and act across environments.
💰 Funding and Business
OpenAI unveils its first custom chip, built by Broadcom — The chip marks OpenAI’s move into bespoke silicon to reduce dependence on Nvidia GPUs and lower inference costs at scale.
Elon Musk loses trillionaire status as SpaceX and Tesla stock drops — Falling shares push the tech mogul back to billionaire ranks after SpaceX’s IPO briefly made him the world’s first trillionaire.
Meta announces new smart glasses starting at $299 — New designs built in partnership with EssilorLuxottica continue Zuckerberg’s push into wearables.
Apple and Disney had conversations about merging, says Bob Iger — The talks never went anywhere because Apple didn’t show that much interest, according to the Disney CEO.
🌍 World and Australia
ASIO says Australian citizen working as spy for Iran orchestrated Bondi firebombing — Mike Burgess’s annual threat assessment also warns social media is amplifying erosion of trust in institutions and heightening polarisation.
Germany’s railways grind to halt as IT maintenance snag takes down network — Deutsche Bahn widely criticised after hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded in the operator’s latest setback.
UK records hottest June day and France its hottest day ever as heatwave sweeps Europe — 36.1C recorded in Hampshire; two-thirds of Europe’s population experiencing temperatures above 30C.
Colombia’s leftwing candidate concedes election to Trump-endorsed millionaire — Far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella won by a razor-thin margin over leftist Iván Cepeda.
NASA rover detects potential signatures of ancient microbial life on Mars — Perseverance identifies organic carbon molecules in rocks along a riverbed that carried water billions of years ago.
Australian energy prices expected to fall from July 1, but savings won’t reach many — Chris Bowen’s touted price cuts won’t be passed on to many households and businesses, raising questions about retail pricing behaviour.
🔒 Security
NSA lost access to Anthropic’s Mythos amid export control dispute — NSA analysts had been impressed by Mythos’s ability to rapidly identify cyber flaws on classified networks; a classified contract to restore access remains unfinalised.
US presses Meta to agree to voluntary AI model reviews as security concerns rise — Meta is the only major US AI developer that hasn’t reached an agreement to share its models with the federal government for review.
🌐 Notable
Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk, the AI bubble, and bosses’ cruel fantasies — The writer who coined ‘enshittification’ argues AI will never deliver what it promises, yet still appeals to those in power.
SpaceX launches Starfall, a secret cargo reentry pod for orbital delivery — The saucer-shaped capsule can return up to 2,200 pounds of payload from orbit and is designed for mass production on Falcon 9 or Starship.
AI helps read papyrus scroll burnt during Vesuvius eruption — Previously hidden text revealed without unrolling the scroll discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art, and human behaviour.
Chinese supercomputer leapfrogs best US machines to top Top500 ranking — China’s LineShine debuts at number one in the Top500, a list often viewed as a measure of national tech prowess.
🔥 Hacker News
Bunny DNS is now free (248 comments) (discussion) — Bunny.net makes its DNS service free, citing commoditisation of DNS infrastructure and desire to expand its platform reach.
Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days, and still can’t send an invoice (651 comments) (discussion) — A detailed account of the bureaucratic gauntlet required to incorporate in Germany, sparking debate about European business friction.
Carmack reflects on early mistakes at id Software (220 comments) (discussion) — John Carmack shares lessons from the early days, prompting discussion on founding decisions and technical tradeoffs.
For Most of the World, Open-Source AI Is the Only Way Forward (123 comments) (discussion) — An argument that open-source AI is a necessity, not a choice, for most countries shut out of frontier model access.
Stealing Is a Skill (117 comments) (discussion) — An essay on why copying well — from competitors, from nature, from the past — is an underrated engineering discipline.
Fix MacBook Neo cursor lag: record 1 pixel of the screen every 10 seconds (87 comments) (discussion) — A bizarre but effective workaround for MacBook Neo cursor stuttering by periodically triggering a screen redraw.
Sources: TLDR (General + AI), AINews/Latent Space, The Guardian, Hacker News — 6 newsletters processed, ~35 stories distilled