Yaaa News
Tech / Business / Security — the few worth reading each day
Grok 4.5 Goes Public Tomorrow: xAI Undercuts Opus at a Quarter of the Output Price
xAI opens Grok 4.5 to the public on July 9 at $2/$6 per million tokens, a quarter of Opus pricing, but skips the EU and independent benchmarks.
China Calls Anthropic's Anti-Distillation Code a Backdoor
China's MIIT flagged Claude Code 2.1.91-2.1.196 for a backdoor; Anthropic said it was an anti-distillation experiment.
Zhipu Joins the ASIC Race: GLM-5.2 Token Usage Explodes 27x in Week One
Zhipu is in early talks with Chinese chip designers to build a custom ASIC for GLM-5.2, whose token usage surged 27x in one week.
GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, Luna Go Public Thursday | Washington Lifts the 20-Partner Gate
OpenAI opens GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna to everyone Thursday, two weeks after a US-government-mandated 20-partner preview.
Anthropic Puts Claude Cowork on Your Phone — Agent Keeps Working After the Laptop Closes
Anthropic extends its Claude Cowork background agent to web, iOS and Android; 90% of its 1.2M May sessions weren't coding.
Pixel 11 Lands August 12 in New York — And Google Quietly Killed the 128GB Base
Google set Made by Google 2026 for August 12 in New York; leaked EU pricing shows a €100 hike across the Pixel 11 lineup and no 128GB base.
Microsoft Fires 4,800 in a Day, Two-Thirds From Xbox — Double Fine, Ninja Theory and Two More Studios Cut Loose
Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs on July 6 — 3,200 from Xbox this fiscal year (20% of the division). Double Fine, Compulsion, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs spun off. Same year's AI capex: $190B, up 61%.
Windows 11's Privacy Log File Ate 513 GB of One Reddit User's C: Drive — Microsoft Sat on the Bug for Four Months
Microsoft admitted on June 29 that Windows 11's privacy log file CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal has ballooned since February — one Reddit user lost 513 GB to a single file. KB5095093 patches it.
Claude Sonnet 5 Fumbles Week One — Near-Opus Benchmarks, But It's Accusing Users of Fraud and Telling Them to Sleep
Anthropic's new Claude Sonnet 5 scores near Opus on benchmarks — but one week of Reddit and Neowin complaints call it out for refusing commands, accusing users of fraud, telling them to sleep, and leaking system prompts.
China's First Move to Wall Off Its Own Frontier AI — Qwen, Doubao, GLM-5.2 and DeepSeek R1 All on the List
Reuters exclusive July 7: China's MOFCOM convened Alibaba, ByteDance and Z.ai to discuss tiered export curbs on top domestic AI models — Qwen, Doubao, GLM-5.2 and DeepSeek R1 all named.
Nine Months After the Louvre — France's Lalique Museum Loses 20 Crystal Pieces at 5:30am, Loss Near €4M
On July 5, 2026 at 5:30am, masked robbers hit France's Lalique museum in Wingen-sur-Moder — 6 cases smashed, ~20 crystal pieces gone, loss near €4M, nine months after the Louvre heist.
SK Hynix Launches $28B Nasdaq ADR Listing — Year's Second-Biggest IPO After SpaceX, Opens HBM Directly to US Buyers
SK Hynix will list ADRs on Nasdaq on July 11, 2026 with a 17.79M-share offering worth ~$28B — the year's second-biggest IPO after SpaceX's $85.7B in June.
Meta's Cannes Project Ran 45,000 Under-18 Prompts Through ChatGPT / Gemini / Character.AI
WIRED exposes Meta's internal "Cannes" project — contractor Covalen hired hundreds of workers to pose as minors and run 45,000+ sensitive prompts through ChatGPT, Gemini, and Character.AI.
Intel Quietly Raises Core Ultra 200S Plus Prices by $50 Three Months After Launch — No Announcement, Just a Web Edit
Intel quietly bumped Arrow Lake Refresh Core Ultra 200S Plus tray prices by $30–$50 on its own website just three months after the March 2026 launch, no formal announcement.
Bilibili's First Lawyer Letter Wipes 11.4k-Star BiliRoaming in a Day — Five Years of Bangumi Unblocking Ends With a PDF
Bilibili sent a cease-and-desist through Shanghai Hongan Law Firm on July 6, 2026; the maintainer of the 11.4k-star BiliRoaming Xposed module wiped the repo the same day.