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

In today’s edition we are tackling the following:

🚰 U.S. agencies warn hackers are using AI to breach water systems.
💬 OpenAI launches Apple Messages plug-in letting ChatGPT read, draft, send texts.
⚠️ Senators demand TikTok answers over disabled safeguard affecting 15M U.S. users.
🏰 Zuckerberg buys 19th-century Gothic castle in southeast Ireland worth up to €30M.
🤝 China & Indonesia ministers meet in Jakarta on security & trade.

TECHNOLOGY

• U.S. agencies warn hackers are using AI to breach water systems (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: FOX, PCMag}}

  • CISA, the FBI, and the NSA say attackers are targeting all Siemens S7 programmable logic controllers.

  • The hackers use AI to generate exploit scripts against devices running outdated or poorly secured software.

  • Officials warn of downtime, safety incidents, and equipment damage, with rural communities often the most affected.

• OpenAI launches Apple Messages plug-in letting ChatGPT read, draft & send texts (MacRumors)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Yahoo!, 9to5Mac}}

  • The plug-in connects a user's Messages inbox to ChatGPT for sorting, analyzing, and editing conversations.

  • It also works with Codex and ChatGPT Work, extending the feature into professional as well as personal use.

  • OpenAI says the tool runs locally and does not build an index of someone's messages.

• xAI's Grok glitch is sending users strings of nonsense responses (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!}}

  • One user asking for a PDF received several paragraphs of disconnected words instead of usable output.

  • Affected users were on Grok Lite and first noticed problems Wednesday morning; xAI has not commented.

  • Refreshing the session usually restores normal replies, and the Grok account on X remains unaffected.

BUSINESS

• Senators demand TikTok answers over disabled safeguard affecting 15M U.S. users (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: LA Times, TNW, Axios}}

  • Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal called the experiment 'depraved' in a letter to TikTok's leadership.

  • TikTok reportedly switched off a harmful-content safeguard for 10% of U.S. users to test engagement effects.

  • The senators want responses to 13 questions, including why minors were included, by September 1.

• Zuckerberg buys 19th-century Gothic castle in southeast Ireland worth up to €30M (NY Post)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, TOI, The Guardian}}

  • Strancally Castle, built around 1830 above the River Blackwater, was extensively renovated in 2003.

  • The sale is absent from Ireland's property price register; the Irish Times estimates €20M to €30M.

  • The castle sits 125 miles from Meta's EU headquarters, where the company employs around 1.5k people.

• Cerebras backer Adit Singh joins Mayfield as an infrastructure partner (AOL)
  ^{_{More: Business Wire, TechCrunch}}

  • Singh co-led Cerebras' first round at Foundation Capital, which held roughly 7% at its May IPO.

  • At Mayfield, he will cover hardware, infrastructure software, cybersecurity, and physical AI, drawn by its semiconductor portfolio.

  • The chip designer previously co-founded Neotribe Ventures in 2017 before moving to early-stage firm Cota Capital.

MARKETS

WORLD

• China & Indonesia ministers meet in Jakarta on security & trade (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: WTOP, Economic Times, France 24}}

  • Wang Yi met counterpart Sugiono in his first Jakarta visit in two years, ahead of '2+2' talks.

  • Indonesia pledged more military exercises, exchanges, and defense industry partnerships following a rare naval drill in August.

  • Jakarta is balancing ties with Beijing and Washington amid trade disputes and South China Sea tensions.

• AI rewrites India's IT contracts as clients demand more for less (CNA)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Business Standard}}

  • TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, and Cognizant are tying fees to outcomes rather than hours worked.

  • Executives say clients are moving tasks in-house with AI, and contract lengths are getting shorter.

  • Large headcounts no longer win deals, as automation allows smaller rivals to compete for the same work.

• Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree closes 460% higher in Shanghai debut (AP)
  ^{_{More: ABC, Washington Post}}

  • The Hangzhou company raised roughly $904M on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Nasdaq-style STAR market Wednesday.

  • Unitree and AGIBOT each shipped over 5k humanoid robots last year, far outpacing U.S. rivals.

  • Analysts note most humanoid robots still serve demonstrations, performances, and research rather than real-world applications.

FUTURISM

• Meta opens Pocket, its AI game-making app, to all U.S. users (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Business Insider}}

  • The app lets people generate small interactive games from AI prompts, published to a scrollable feed.

  • Built on Meta's acqui-hire of Gizmo, the games respond to touch, phone tilt, and sound.

  • Creations can use camera roll photos and be saved, remixed, or reposted by other users.

• China showcases robotics ambitions at Beijing's 2026 World Robot Conference (AP)
  ^{_{More: ABC, The Independent}}

  • The five-day event opened Wednesday with organizers expecting around 3k products on display across exhibitor booths.

  • Despite the conference's name, no other countries were exhibiting at the Beijing show.

  • Unitree drew crowds with humanoid models that boxed, danced, and played ping pong against a human.

• Nevada approves Tesla, Uber & Waymo to run up to 8k robotaxis (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Tech Buzz}}

  • The Nevada Transportation Authority unanimously cleared three permits Thursday covering Clark County, home to Las Vegas.

  • Tesla can deploy 5k vehicles, Waymo 1k, and Uber 1k through partnerships with Motional and Zoox.

  • Tesla's Cybercab chief engineer said reaching 2.5k vehicles within a year would already be satisfying.

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CONTENT

• Astrocade CEO Amir Sadeghian says taste is the new programming language (This Week in Startups)

  • Users describe a game in plain sentences, and AI builds it for a TikTok-style feed.

  • Sadeghian argues frontier models regress to the mean rather than pushing creative boundaries on their own.

  • A human-in-the-loop workflow is what turns generic prompts into games worth publishing and playing.

• Hannah Ritchie asks whether AI's power demands are being overstated (The Prof G Pod)

  • The Our World in Data deputy editor joins Scott Galloway to unpack the global energy race.

  • They cover China's clean-energy advantage and why the U.S. risks falling behind on electrification.

  • Ritchie argues the climate outlook is more hopeful, and more complicated, than headlines suggest.

• a16z investors on why the next great founders will be borderless (a16z)

  • Angela Strange and Gabriel Vasquez describe founders blending home-market networks with Silicon Valley talent, capital, and speed.

  • They trace a16z's global strategy from early Latin America work into a wider international network.

  • Founder diasporas act like alumni networks, opening doors as companies launch across multiple countries from day one.

EXTRAS

• Enterprise data firm Alation confirms cyberattack after customer service disruption (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, Crypto Briefing}}

  • Alation described an isolated incident involving unauthorized activity in one of its systems, now under investigation.

  • The company serves over 500 global firms, including roughly half the U.S. Fortune 1000.

  • It has not disclosed the attack's nature, root cause, or how many customers were affected.

• Pop Mart shares slide as overseas sales fall & Citi cuts target (SCMP)
  ^{_{More: CNBC, Business Times, Straits Times}}

  • First-half revenue rose 23.8% year over year to $2.55B, but growth came almost entirely from China.

  • Sales fell 9.7% in Asia Pacific excluding China and 16.5% across the Americas.

  • Citi now expects an 8% revenue decline in 2026 and lowered its target to HK$198.

• Apollo Atomics shrinks the steam generator to cut nuclear power costs (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: AOL, Yahoo!}}

  • Founders Assil Halimi and Drew Walker argue rivals chase reactor design instead of thermal-to-electric conversion.

  • Its person-sized, mass-manufacturable generator enables a reactor 40 times smaller than conventional steam generator designs.

  • Apollo closed a $26M seed round, including $5M in debt, targeting commercial deployment in 2028.

AND MORE

• New data shows OpenAI closing the gap with Anthropic among business users.

• Prince Harry awaits ruling on costs from his failed Daily Mail lawsuit.

• Hire vetted LATAM engineers in as little as five days, and save up to 70% on salary costs.*

• The Enhanced Games posted a $60M loss after tech's steroid-friendly experiment.

• Typhoon Maysak killed at least 159 in China's southwest in July.

• Nigerian families protest nearly 100 days after their children were abducted.

• Attackers used a fake crypto conference as bait to target security researchers.