Saturday opens with AI’s power bill colliding with climate math—datacenter emissions from Microsoft, Amazon and Google now rival a medium country—while wearable brain-tech from China challenges Neuralink’s implant narrative and Washington still wants a public Hormuz pledge from Tehran.
Microsoft, Amazon and Google together emitted about 119 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent in the year to March 2026, roughly a third of France’s national footprint and up nearly a fifth year on year, as AI datacenter buildouts swamp their climate targets. Researchers warn governments not to treat the same firms’ green-AI pitches as carbon-neutral by default.
State lawmakers and clean-energy advocates are pushing utilities to tie new AI datacenters to renewables even as tech giants’ power hunger is driving the largest U.S. buildout of gas-fired plants in years, with some operators also seeking to extend coal plants that wind and solar cannot spin up fast enough to match.
The Justice Department subpoenaed several New York Times journalists to testify before a Manhattan grand jury next week after the paper reported on security concerns around Donald Trump’s Qatar-gifted Air Force One replacement, with agents serving some notices at reporters’ homes.
Neon picked up Luca Guadagnino’s nearly finished OpenAI drama “Artificial,” starring Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, after Amazon MGM dropped the roughly $40 million project despite its own multibillion-dollar OpenAI partnership, with Neon planning a 2026 release aimed at the Oscars.
A speedboat carrying 32 Indian tourists and four crew capsized less than half a kilometer from shore after leaving Vietnam’s Phu Quoc islands on Saturday, killing 15 people; witnesses said rescuers arrived quickly but onshore medical care was scarce, and some passengers were on a company tour tied to handset maker Lava International.
Typhoon Bavi packed sustained winds near 144 kph as Japan’s southern islands saw canceled flights and storm surges, while Taiwan and eastern China issued evacuations ahead of a forecast pass north of Taiwan and landfall in Zhejiang early Sunday.
U.S. officials told reporters Washington wants Tehran to issue a public pledge keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial traffic after recent ship shootings Tehran privately called a mistake by hardliners, warning of consequences if the statement does not come while strikes and Gulf retaliation continue.
Algeria and Mali restored ambassadors and reopened airspace more than a year after Algeria shot down a Malian drone dispute, with both capitals framing reciprocal steps as a thaw that could ease Sahel security spillover.
China’s BrainCo is pitching noninvasive EEG headbands and prosthetic-control wearables as the mass-market path for brain-computer interfaces while Elon Musk’s Neuralink pursues skull-implanted chips, betting regulation and consumer comfort favor sensors you can take off.
Vivani Medical is testing a rice-grain-sized implant that slowly releases GLP-1 agonists for months, aiming to solve the dropout problem as patients quit weekly injections once weight loss plateaus.
Former Amazon employees describe months of fruitless interviews and burnout after recent layoffs, with recruiters saying the white-collar market is flooded by ex-Big Tech résumés even as AI hiring stays selective.
A failed late-stage trial for a key AstraZeneca cancer asset is pressuring the drugmaker’s premium valuation, raising questions about how much pipeline risk investors will tolerate after years of oncology-driven growth.
Webb telescope observations of WD 1856 b, a Jupiter-mass world orbiting a white dwarf, suggest it somehow survived its star’s red-giant death, deepening the mystery of how giant planets endure stellar cremation.
The FCC fined eight suspected DJI front companies $25,000 each and demanded answers by July 20 about how banned Chinese drone gear is reaching U.S. buyers through rebranded cameras and drones.
HN’s top thread revisits Apple’s trade-secret suit against OpenAI after ex-Apple engineers allegedly took hardware roadmaps to ChatGPT’s device team.
A Show HN author documents running Zhipu’s GLM 5.2 locally on modest hardware via the Colibri project.
Jeff Geerling demos QuadRF, a handheld RF rig that maps Wi-Fi and drone signals through walls.
Essay argues the best engineering tools disappear into workflow instead of demanding attention.
Military historian’s primer on the Late Bronze Age collapse sparks debate on complexity and climate shocks.
“AI 2040: Plan A” lays out a scenario deck for how institutions might adapt if agents keep compounding.
Brown University chemists show relativistic effects shape bonding in superheavy elements, not just nuclear physics.
LWN editorial warns residential proxy crackdowns are reshaping who can scrape the open web.
SpaceX filed for up to 100,000 additional Starlink satellites, a bandwidth play that would dwarf today’s constellation.
Oral history revisits the practical VFX and computing breakthroughs behind Terminator 2.
Classic piece on limpet teeth outperforming spider silk in tensile strength resurfaces.
Browser-based combustion-engine simulator visualizes cylinder cycles for students and tinkerers.
Production shop Scarf explains why seven years of Haskell gave way to a more operable stack.
Collection of alternate clock and calendar designs for anyone bored with Gregorian defaults.
Photo tour of Soviet mission control aesthetics circa 2018 enjoys a nostalgia revival.