In partnership with
Greetings! Your latest quick tech update is here:
☀️ On this day: On August 8, 1995, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh 7200, 7500 and 8500 at Macworld Expo in Boston, moving the Mac line from NuBus to PCI and putting the CPU on a swappable daughtercard for the first time. The top-end 8500 shipped with composite and S-Video in and out, making it the first personal computer with near broadcast quality 640x480 video capture, though no hard drive of that era could sustain the 18 MB/s needed to actually record it. It sold for $3,999, roughly $8,250 in today's money.
What’s happening:
🛑 OpenAI pauses Astra over hacking concerns
💰 X ends creator revenue sharing next month
⚖️ New Mexico court fines Meta $942 million
☁️ Cloudflare launches a browser for AI agents
💸 iPhone 17 prices may rise on August 10
+ 📊 Daily poll and results
+ 📈 Trending tools and resources
AI Guide
Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.
Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.
Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.
Hand-picked news:
🛑 OpenAI pauses Astra over hacking concerns ↗️LINK
OpenAI paused internal work on Astra, an unreleased model, after evaluations showed big gains in agentic coding and cybersecurity. The company says it cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities under its Preparedness Framework.
OpenAI reserves that label for models that can find and build working zero day exploits in hardened systems without human help. Every prior model, including GPT-5.6 Sol, sat one tier lower.
The timing lands awkwardly. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta all disclosed models reaching systems they should not have, though those breaches traced back to a testing partner's misconfiguration. OpenAI says Astra played no part.
💰 X ends creator revenue sharing next month ↗️LINK
X closed its Creator Revenue Sharing program to new sign ups on August 7 and will retire it on September 7. The Original Content Rewards Program replaces it.
Payouts now track qualified impressions on original posts, meaning writing, reporting, photos, videos, or memes you made yourself. Reposts with captions slapped on top earn nothing. X says the old incentives had drifted.
The bar is steep. Creators need Premium, 500 verified followers, and 500,000 timeline views from verified users in 90 days. Existing members reapply starting September 8.
⚖️ New Mexico court fines Meta $942 million ↗️LINK
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a youth mental health fund, adding to a jury's $375 million penalty from March and bringing the total to $942 million.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled the platforms created a public nuisance and imposed a five year decree capping teen usage at 90 hours monthly, curbing night notifications, and blocking sexualized AI chatbot interactions with minors.
Meta plans to appeal, and investors barely blinked. The stock slipped less than half a percent after the ruling, which tracks when $942 million lands against roughly $60 billion in annual profit.
☁️ Cloudflare launches a browser for AI agents ↗️LINK
Cloudflare released Kitesurf, a cloud hosted browser built for AI agents instead of people. It drops tabs, themes, and extensions, and handles context windows, token costs, and prompt injection risk instead.
The team built it in 12 weeks on Cloudflare's Workers platform, skipping Chromium entirely. Cloudflare says it passes over 215,000 web platform tests and runs free during beta inside Browser Run.
The efficiency numbers come from Cloudflare's own tests, which also show Kitesurf finishing tasks roughly 1.8 times slower than Chromium. Agents running dozens of pages at once probably won't mind.
💸 iPhone 17 prices may rise on August 10 ↗️LINK
A Weibo leaker with a solid supply chain record says Apple could raise iPhone 17 prices on Monday, August 10, weeks ahead of the iPhone 18 Pro launch next month.
Memory and storage costs are driving it. Apple raised Mac, iPad, Vision Pro, and Apple TV prices on June 25 for that reason but left the entire iPhone lineup alone.
Nobody has confirmed which models move or by how much. If you want an iPhone 17 at $799 or a Pro Max at $1,199, this weekend may be the cheap window.
Today’s Poll:
Vote and find out about the result tomorrow.
Yesterday’s Poll Result:
Do you feel comfortable knowing AI can now write working genetic code from scratch?
A) Yes - 45%
B) No - 55% 🏆
From our partner
The 10 Best AI Stocks to Own in 2026
AI is moving from experiment… to essential.
Every major industry is integrating it.
Every major company is investing in it.
By late 2025, AI was already an $800B market — growing at a pace that could push it well beyond $1 trillion in the years ahead.
Cloud infrastructure is scaling fast.
AI-enabled devices are multiplying.
Automation is becoming standard.
But here’s the real question…
When trillions flow into this transformation — which stocks stand to benefit most?
Our new report reveals 10 AI stocks positioned across the backbone of this shift — from the companies powering the infrastructure… to those embedding intelligence into everyday systems.
If you want exposure to one of the defining growth trends of this decade, start here.
Gamma: Create unlimited presentations, websites, and more in seconds. Everything you need to quickly create and refine content with AI.
Granola: AI notepad that turns your messy meeting notes into clean, structured summaries.
Better Pic: Get Studio Quality AI professional headshots, without a photographer or a photoshoot
Claude 101 (free course): Learn how to use Claude for everyday work tasks, understand core features, and explore resources for more advanced learning on other topics.
