TechCrunch: Satya Nadella says companies that trust one AI for everything may not survive
TechCrunch writes that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is warning businesses not to entrust all their AI work to a single model provider. He advises companies to keep their data and usage records so they could one day train a model of their own, and to build their tooling so that models can be swapped freely; otherwise a firm has handed its thinking to someone else, and the model’s owner may eventually become its competitor. The warning is not entirely selfless, as this is exactly the kind of infrastructure Microsoft itself sells.
Wired: An Extreme Solar Storm May Be Even More Devastating Than Previously Imagined
Wired writes that an extreme solar storm could hit Earth roughly twice as hard as previously estimated. For years scientists believed that the planet’s magnetic-field response stops growing once the solar wind becomes very strong, but a new study argues that this apparent ceiling is most likely an illusion created by measurement uncertainties.
NPR: Authors have mixed feelings over the landmark Anthropic copyright settlement
NPR describes authors’ mixed feelings after the settlement in which Anthropic will pay 1.5 billion dollars to more than 300,000 authors whose books were used to train its models. Each author gets about 3,100 dollars per book used, but the court also held that training AI on books is legal as long as they are paid for, which is why some authors see the settlement as more of a win for the AI industry.
LSM tells the story of Larisa Mednis, a second-generation Latvian in Pittsburgh who has become a certified mushroom expert and performs under the stage name Mother Mushroom. It was her Latvian roots that drew her to foraging; today she writes vegetarian recipes, composes songs and plays the kokle for American audiences.
The New York Times: Beyond Amsterdam and Venice: 6 Delightful European Canal Cities
The New York Times recommends six European canal cities without the crowds of Amsterdam and Venice. The list includes Haarlem, Ghent, Aveiro, Hamburg, Strasbourg and Livorno.
Financial Times: Big Tech credit risks rise sharply as AI spending soars
The Financial Times writes that the price investors pay to insure against a default on Big Tech’s debt is rising fast. Oracle’s credit rating has been cut to the last notch above junk, Meta’s latest data-centre borrowing is trading close to junk-bond levels, and the hundreds of billions poured into data centres are not yet turning into revenue.
Meduza: “I desperately want to sleep, in my own bed. But I’m heading to the station”
Meduza publishes a Ukrainian journalist’s diary of two nights spent in the Kyiv metro, where hundreds of residents shelter from Russian missile and drone attacks. Ninety metres underground people sleep in tents and on camping mats, and at night the station resembles one enormous shared bedroom. According to the UN, about 1,400 civilians have been killed in Ukraine in half a year, a third more than in the same period last year.
The New York Times: Aquariums Are Relocating 30 Beluga Whales in ‘Unprecedented’ Rescue
The New York Times describes an unprecedented operation to move thirty beluga whales from the shuttered Canadian park Marineland to aquariums in the United States and Spain. The first six have already been flown by cargo plane to Chicago and San Antonio. Canada only approved the export after the park threatened to euthanise the whales. The move, though, transfers the whale-welfare problem to other countries.
LSM: Does climate change bring ever more downpours? Latvian data show a different picture
LSM meteorologist Toms Bricis explains that the data do not support the popular idea that climate change is making summer downpours in Latvia ever more frequent. The number of days with very heavy rain has not changed, two per summer on average, and future scenarios project no substantial increase either. The sense that such storms are becoming more common owes more to the phone and drone footage that now follows every storm.
Al Jazeera: Why has Iran’s economy not collapsed under US war pressure?
Al Jazeera explains why Iran’s economy has collapsed neither under years of sanctions nor after five months of war with the United States. Inflation is around 90 percent, nearly half the population lives below the poverty line and the middle class has become a minority, yet a diversified economy, shadow oil trade and state subsidies keep the system standing. Economists say the shocks are in effect absorbed by households, which keep getting poorer.
RFE/RL: Ukraine Hits At Iran. In The Caspian Sea, Things Get Even Messier.
RFE/RL analyses Ukraine’s drone strikes in the Caspian Sea, which hit a Russian missile boat and two cargo ships that Kyiv says were carrying military cargo between Iran and Russia. An Iranian sailor was killed and Tehran vows to respond, but experts reckon its options for retaliating against Ukraine are quite limited and the strikes will mainly complicate the Iran-Russia supply routes.
ABC: Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games celebrate the British Empire while poking fun at every turn
Australia’s ABC describes how Glasgow hosts the Commonwealth Games while poking fun at the legacy of the British Empire itself. The city once renamed a street after Nelson Mandela so that the apartheid-era South African consulate had to write his name on every letter, and for many Scots a win over England still means more than any medal.
Politico: Germany’s Merz says EU budget needs cut of ‘several hundred billion’ euros
Politico reports that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants the European Commission’s proposed EU budget of almost two trillion euros cut by several hundred billion and calls the plan to add 2,500 new jobs at EU institutions unacceptable. Ireland, which holds the presidency, must now draft a new budget proposal before the October summit and square Merz’s demands with the countries that want a bigger budget.
The New York Times: Anthropic A.I. Model Finds Flaws in Tough-to-Crack Encryption Algorithms
The New York Times writes that in a research test an Anthropic model found new attacks on a deliberately weakened version of the AES encryption algorithm and broke it hundreds of times faster than human researchers had managed. Today’s encryption is not yet at risk, but the study raises the question of how long that will remain true with AI capabilities growing at this pace.
Yle: Northern Lapland bids farewell to summer’s nightless nights
Yle reports that the nightless nights are over in northern Lapland. On Tuesday in the village of Utsjoki the sun dipped below the horizon for the first time since mid-May.
Meduza: United Russia has finally sent its regions a brand book
Meduza writes that less than two months before Russia’s parliamentary elections, United Russia has finally sent its regions templates for campaign materials, but the party programme is still missing from them. In place of text, the mock-ups repeat the words “text text text” and a passage from Tolstoy’s War and Peace about the uncle who sings the way the people sing. The party list will be led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and the party calls itself the president’s “team”.
DW: Why is Germany building roads for yesterday’s climate?
DW explains why Germany’s motorways buckle in heat waves. Bitumen, the binder in asphalt, starts to soften at around 60 degrees Celsius, a temperature dark road surfaces easily reach in the sun, and in early July seven stretches of road had to be closed for a time. The solutions are known, such as lighter-coloured surfaces that heat up less, but it may take years or even decades before they make it into binding construction rules.
The Kyiv Independent: 2 Skelia soldiers charged with torturing comrades as abuse investigation widens
The Kyiv Independent reports that Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation has charged two servicemen from the medical unit of the 425th Skelia assault regiment with torturing fellow soldiers. The investigation has been widening since the outlet Babel described abuse in the regiment and at least 26 noncombat deaths among recruits. The regiment’s commander has already been suspended.
Al Jazeera: Inside the secret battle to document RSF abuses in Sudan
Al Jazeera tells the story of the secret monitoring teams who use mobile phones to document the crimes of the paramilitary RSF in Sudan’s Darfur region, so that the evidence may one day reach a court. The human rights commission has recorded mass graves, nearly four thousand victims of sexual violence and thousands of civilians detained without trial.