Welcome back to your daily memorandum talking tech, business, AI, markets, and more. 🗞️

In today’s edition, we are tackling the following:

🍎 Apple proposes a 15% commission on purchases made through external app links.
🗣️ Amodei rejects claims his AI warnings fueled backlash, citing a trust crisis.
🧠 U.S. commander acknowledges mental health strain aboard USS Abraham Lincoln.
🚀 SpaceX closes Cursor acquisition, giving the startup access to vast GPU capacity.
📉 China's economy loses momentum as July output & retail sales miss forecasts.

TECHNOLOGY

• Apple proposes a 15% commission on purchases made through external app links (Engadget)
  ^{_{More: Firstpost, TechCrunch, Yahoo!}}

  • Apple filed its proposed commission structure for external link purchases in a federal court in California.

  • Small business developers would pay 5%, while partner program members and subscription renewals would pay 10%.

  • The filing follows Apple's years-long antitrust battle with Epic Games over App Store commission policies.

• Amodei rejects claims his AI warnings fueled backlash, citing a trust crisis (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Eastern Herald, Crypto Briefing}}

  • Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei denies his public messaging on AI has been disproportionately negative or pessimistic.

  • Investor Gavin Baker argued Amodei's warnings fueled U.S. backlash, particularly opposition to new data centers.

  • Amodei says public negativity stems from distrust of companies, governments, and the tech industry generally.

• Woman joins lawsuit alleging stepfather used Grok to create explicit childhood images (Washington Post)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Yahoo!}}

  • A woman identified as Jane Doe 4 has joined a lawsuit against Elon Musk's xAI.

  • She alleges her stepfather used Grok to generate more than 7k explicit images from a childhood photo.

  • Three Tennessee teenagers seeking class-action status accuse xAI of failing to block the generation of explicit images.

BUSINESS

• U.S. commander acknowledges mental health strain aboard carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: NBC, BBC, Washington Post}}

  • Adm. Brad Cooper of U.S. Central Command acknowledged mental health challenges aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

  • His visit came as the war with Iran stretched into a fifth month without resolution.

  • The comments follow reports that a sailor jumped overboard during the carrier's long Middle East deployment.

• SpaceX closes Cursor acquisition, giving the startup access to vast GPU capacity (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Business Insider, TechCrunch}}

  • AI coding startup Cursor is now officially part of Elon Musk's SpaceX, per its blog.

  • The April deal gave SpaceX an option to acquire Cursor for $60B, later exercised.

  • Cursor says the deal grants it access to the world's largest fleet of GPUs.

• PayPal sale talks with Stripe & Advent intensify as turnaround plan continues (WSJ)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Investing.com}}

  • Stripe and Advent offered $60.50 a share in July, valuing PayPal at $53B.

    PayPal rejected the bid, but talks continued, and a deal could close within weeks.

    CEO Enrique Lores is also cutting the workforce by 20% over two to three years.

MARKETS

WORLD

• China's economy loses momentum as July output & retail sales miss forecasts (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Nikkei, Business Times}}

  • July industrial output and retail sales both slowed, with retail sales rising just 0.6%.

  • Extreme weather disruptions and persistently weak domestic demand renewed pressure on Beijing to expand stimulus.

  • Second-quarter growth cooled to a three-and-a-half-year low, leaving the economy still reliant on exports.

• Trump orders Pentagon to substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea (AP)
  ^{_{More: NY Times, CNBC, France 24}}

  • Trump instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to scale back annual joint exercises that began Monday.

  • He cited costs, his relationship with Kim Jong Un, and Seoul's refusal to help against Iran.

  • The move follows similar friction with NATO allies over support for Trump's war with Iran.

• Binance gave Moscow client data used to charge Russians over Ukraine donations (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: AOL, Straits Times}}

  • Law enforcement documents show Binance handed Russian authorities details of crypto donations to Ukrainian fundraising campaigns.

    The data supported terrorism financing charges against IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy, detained in September 2025.

    Binance said it fully exited Russia in 2023, though dozens of donors have faced prosecution.

FUTURISM

• Alibaba to sell Lingxi Games to Trustar Capital in $2B deal (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, AOL, Yahoo!}}

  • A source says Alibaba expects to reap more than $2B from the sale.

  • CEO Zhou Bingshu and the existing management team will remain in place after the deal.

  • The sale comes as Alibaba concentrates resources on artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

• Google lets users remove visible watermarks from AI-generated images, videos & songs (The Verge)
  ^{_{More: Engadget, TechCrunch, Yahoo!}}

  • Google will let users toggle off visible watermarks across Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models.

  • Invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata remain in place, preserving AI detection through Gemini and Search.

  • The toggle arrives in Gemini and video editor Flow first, with Search support coming soon.

• Overcast creator launches Unforgetful, a reminders app built for chronic procrastinators (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: 9to5Mac}}

  • Marco Arment, creator of Overcast and Instapaper, released Unforgetful for iOS and Mac on Friday.

  • The app works with the existing Apple Reminders database but replaces its interface and organization.

  • Arment cited flawed snoozing, accidental dismissals, and missed notifications for untimed tasks as key motivations.

• Hunting for AI roles eats hours across careers pages, internal referrals, group chats, and a dozen overlapping boards*

  • The Athyna AI Job Board does the watching for you and matches openings to your profile in the background.

  • When a role hits a 75% matching index or higher, we notify you with details and a direct apply link.

CONTENT

• OpenAI design head Ian Silber says AI will not replace product designers (Lenny's Podcast)

  • Silber leads product design at OpenAI, overseeing ChatGPT, Codex, and the wider product experience.

  • He argues engineers have gained enormous leverage from AI while design teams have not yet.

  • Silber says humans still lead on user understanding, invention, and having a point of view.

• Susan Kare on designing the icons & typefaces that defined the original Mac (Y Combinator)

  • Kare joined Apple as an art history PhD who knew almost nothing about computers.

  • She designed the Happy Mac, Command key, and Chicago font for the original Macintosh.

  • At Startup School 2026, she shared lessons on constraints, iteration, and keeping designs simple.

• Growth leader Matt Swulinski shares lessons from scaling Wispr Flow & Superhuman (20VC)

  • Swulinski was marketing hire number one at Wispr Flow, growing it from pre-launch to millions of users.

  • He argues the e-commerce paid ads playbook applies to SaaS and most analytics setups are wrong.

  • He covers LTV to CAC benchmarks and how token-based products reshape growth economics.

EXTRAS

• American actress Hayden Panettiere, star of 'Heroes' & 'Nashville,' dies at 36 (BBC)
  ^{_{More: NBC, ABC, Reuters}}

  • Panettiere's family announced her death on Sunday through her publicist, with no cause stated.

  • The publicist told NBC News that the actress's death was under investigation.

  • A former child actor, she voiced Dot in 'A Bug's Life' before starring in 'Heroes.'

• Disney & Square Enix preview 'Kingdom Hearts 4' at Anaheim fan convention (CNA)
  ^{_{More: TOI, Reuters}}

  • Disney and Square Enix showed a four-minute trailer at the D23 convention in Anaheim.

  • The game debuts in 2027, marking the franchise's upcoming 25th anniversary celebration.

  • Creator Tetsuya Nomura said Pixar's 'Coco' was chosen for how well it fits gameplay.

• Bespoke Ferrari Luce EV sells for $40M, setting a new auction record (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: Investing.com, BBC}}

  • A one-off version of Ferrari's first fully electric car sold for $40M at charity auction.

  • The sale set a record for a new car sold at auction.

  • Ferrari raised full-year guidance last month after beating Wall Street's second-quarter expectations.

AND MORE

• How to tell whether your AI platform accounts have been hacked.

• Google unveils latest Pixel phones with slimmer cameras & expanded AI features.

• Roko’s Basilisk skips the buzz words and cuts straight to what moves markets, products, and careers.*

• Why people are not buying into Mark Zuckerberg's vision of an AI future.

• Flock announces changes to license plate reader network amid mounting public backlash.

• Seven desk gadgets that can meaningfully improve your everyday work setup.

• Colleges bet on content creator degrees as critics question their real value.