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Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

Google Earth Retracts AI Tool for Making Fake Satellite Images After It Was Immediately Abused Upon Release

arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/google-earth-releases-swiftly-retracts-ai-feature-to-make-fake-satellite-images/

Jeremy Hsu, Ars Technica:

Google briefly allowed anyone to create AI-modified versions of satellite imagery available in Google Earth — before quickly reversing its decision as people shared examples of AI-generated pictures that illustrated the potential for misinformation and disinformation.

Momentum!

Link: arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/google-earth-releases-swiftly…

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

Some New Data Centers Are Necessary

newyorker.com/cartoon/a62045

A bunch of mine are stored here.

Link: newyorker.com/cartoon/a62045

Colossal Valid
Text • Grace Ebert

Under Glass Cloches, Amber Cowan Nests Enchanting Flameworked Scenes

Under Glass Cloches, Amber Cowan Nests Enchanting Flameworked ScenesKnown for her lush assemblages of flameworked glass, Amber Cowan reimagines a ubiquitous medium.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Under Glass Cloches, Amber Cowan Nests Enchanting Flameworked Scenes appeared first on Colossal.

Simon Willison's Weblog Supports Webmention
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Moonlight & Mayhem (Raccoon Heist by Codex + GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra)

Moonlight & Mayhem (Raccoon Heist by Codex + GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra) On Wednesday I wrote about One-shotting a Raccoon Heist game using Claude Fable 5, where I had Claude Fable 5 build a full working game from a premise I generated with GPT-3 and DALL-E four years ago. I deci...

Simon Willison's Weblog Supports Webmention
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Moonlight & Mayhem (Raccoon Heist by Codex + GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra)

Moonlight & Mayhem (Raccoon Heist by Codex + GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra) On Wednesday I wrote about One-shotting a Raccoon Heist game using Claude Fable 5, where I had Claude Fable 5 build a full working game from a premise I generated with GPT-3 and DALL-E four years ago. I deci...

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

An AI Model From Meta Also Hacked Another Company During Testing

simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/6/an-ai-model-from-meta/

Simon Willison:

So that’s Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta. Google Gemini really needs to catch up on accidentally cyberattacking other companies.

I’m surprised Willison hasn’t heard about how much momentum Gemini has.

Link: simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/6/an-ai-model-from-meta/

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

Meta: Introducing Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2

research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-code-and-muse-spark-1-2

Meta AI: We’re excited to release Muse Code (beta), a terminal coding agent powered by Muse Spark 1.2, our newest model. This marks our next step toward the frontier, with larger and much more capable models on the way. [...] Muse Code takes on complex software engineer...

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

App Store Review Times Are Failing to Meet the AI-Driven Influx of Submissions

macaw.social/@mergesort/117055390966724799

Joe Fabisevich, on Mastodon:

I submitted Plinky 6.0.4 for review last week. The macOS app was approved in 4 hours, the iOS app is still waiting for review. Sure do love to distribute software this way.

He’s not an outlier; I see comments like this from App Store developers everywhere I look.

(Plinky, by the way, is an intriguing link-bookmarking app that syncs across iOS and MacOS. It’s not for me, but the nature of my work is such that I have very unusual bookmarking needs. Plinky offers a bunch of convenient ways to stash new bookmarks with low friction. It’s a labor of love — it’s totally obvious that Fabisevich himself is the number one user of Plinky, and that’s almost always true of the very best apps.)

Link: macaw.social/@mergesort/117055390966724799

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

Leadership Shake-Up at Google DeepMind

blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/next-chapter-ai-momentum/

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence research lab: We have arrived at a pivotal moment in human history. I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand. It’s critical that we coll...

xkcd.com Valid
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Trick Play

I've been trying to find out whether the Laws of the Game take the axiom of choice or not, but FIFA officials keep blocking my number.

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

‘Google’s Top AI Brains Are Leaving to Launch Discovery Loop’

wired.com/story/jeff-dean-google-discovery-loop-startup/?ref=spyglass.org

Steven Levy, writing for Wired: Today it’s official: After almost 27 years, Dean is leaving Google, along with Ghemawat and two other top-tier AI scientists, to found a company called Discovery Loop. Even though Google will take a stake in the new company, it’s a devast...

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

★ App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours

[Update, Saturday 8 August: This story is retracted. Details forthcoming.] Terry Godier, “Browsers Have Standards, the App Store Has Judgment”: A while ago I tried to submit an iOS app for Dark Hours, my astronomy website for normal people. It was rejected on the ground...

Simon Willison's Weblog Supports Webmention
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The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI

The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI There's a fun anecdote from Accenture (apparently via leaked meeting audio recordings) in this 404 Media piece from June 24th: “We’re seeing from some of the data internally at least that it...

Simon Willison's Weblog Supports Webmention
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The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI

The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI There's a fun anecdote from Accenture (apparently via leaked meeting audio recordings) in this 404 Media piece from June 24th: “We’re seeing from some of the data internally at least that it...

Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

Meta Ordered to Pay $942 Million in New Mexico Child-Safety Lawsuit

wsj.com/tech/meta-ordered-to-pay-942-million-to-address-harm-to-kids-from-social-media-8ba5aab7?st=WwRP65

Meghan Bobrowsky and Erin Mulvaney, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link): A New Mexico judge ordered Meta Platforms to pay more than $900 million and limit the time young people in the state can spend on its apps, significantly increasing the cost of the lan...

Colossal Valid
Text • Kate Mothes

A Menagerie of Animal Sculptures by 50+ Artists Populate ‘The Ark’

A Menagerie of Animal Sculptures by 50+ Artists Populate ‘The Ark’Powerhouse Arts asks, will we care for the future of our planet the way we care for the animals we love?

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Menagerie of Animal Sculptures by 50+ Artists Populate ‘The Ark’ appeared first on Colossal.

Radiolab Updates instantly via WebSub
Audio • WNYC Studios

Red Herring

It was the early '80s, the height of the Cold War, when something strange began happening off the coast of Sweden. The navy reported a mysterious sound deep below the surface of the ocean. Again, and again, and again they would hear it near their secret military bases, in th...

Longreads Valid
Text • Longreads

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

War stories, new colors, and the joy in getting hands on in art and gardening.

sorry, this post is only available to Longreads members. To become a member, visit longreads.com/join.

The Atlas Obscura Podcast Updates instantly via WebSub
Audio • SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

The Legend of Kelpius

From alchemy to doomsday prophecies, we delve into the lore of Johannes Kelpius, a mystic believed to have started a cult in the Wissahickon Valley near Philadelphia.


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Daring Fireball Valid
Text • John Gruber

Gurman on OpenAI’s Device: ‘A Doughnut-Shaped Speaker That Costs Over $300’

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/what-is-openai-s-device-a-doughnut-shaped-speaker-that-costs-over-300?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4NjA0NjY3NSwiZXhwIjoxNzg2NjUxNDc1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUSjlNQ01UOU5KTFUwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDNEVEQ0FFMUZBMDU0MEJFQTI0QTlGMjExQzFFOTA4MCJ9.pj0oCNz7Ez90rn67tMWib-ed2PxcUAhAG2-hlVQ_DRg&leadSource=article-gifting

Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg (gift link): OpenAI expects users to rely on the smart speaker throughout the day. It will work similarly to the company’s ChatGPT voice mode on smartphone apps, but with more advanced models for humanlike interactivity. The device is...