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18 events on 2026-07-18role: thematic3d historyaccess: keyless

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2026-07-18UK's incoming PM Andy Burnham is expected to scrap Keir Starmer's plans for digital ID cards; last year a petition opposing the cards attracted ~3M signatures (Geraldine McKelvie/The Guardian)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p15#a260718p15 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/18/burnham-to-scrap-starmers-digital-id-scheme-in-reset-of-priorities"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i15.jpg"
2026-07-18Permit hurdles push up costs for AI data centers; Oracle pivoted from gas turbines to costlier fuel cells for its Project Jupiter in NM, costing billions more (Ann Davis Vaughan/The Information)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p14#a260718p14 <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/exclusive-oracle-data-centers-face-multibillion-dollar-cost-surprises"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i14.jpg" vspace
2026-07-18Prediction market political betting on insider info spreads in DC; sources: WH lawyers raised alarms over anonymous Polymarket bets on the Iran ceasefire timing (Wall Street Journal)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p13#a260718p13 <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/dc-government-prediction-market-betting-8134c3fc?st=g4Pf1U"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i13.jpg" vspace="4" /></a>
2026-07-18How the Trump administration shifted from a "light-touch" approach to AI policy to an interventionist stance that led to restrictions on top AI models in the US (Leo Schwartz/The Information)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p12#a260718p12 <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/trumps-ai-agenda-collides-reality"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i12.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <a href="https://www.
2026-07-18The grassroots group HumansFirst is organizing protests against the "unaccountable" buildout of data centers across 125 US locations on July 18 (Reuters)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p11#a260718p11 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-data-center-protests-go-national-backlash-grows-2026-07-18/"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i11.jpg" vspa
2026-07-18A review of Microsoft's 13-inch Surface Laptop shows 8GB of RAM is not enough for a good Windows 11 experience; PC makers have unveiled upcoming 8GB laptops (Antonio G. Di Benedetto/The Verge)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p10#a260718p10 <a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/966937/microsoft-surface-laptop-13-inch-8gb-ram-2026-review?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IlkyTktjVHcwZ3MiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTY2OTM3L21pY3Jvc29mdC1zdXJmYWNlLWxhcHRvc
2026-07-18Analysis: recent open weight models lag frontier closed models' cyber capabilities by 4 to 7 months, a narrower gap than the 6 to 10 months through most of 2025 (AI Security Institute)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p9#a260718p9 <a href="https://www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/how-far-behind-the-frontier-are-leading-open-weight-models-on-cyber"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i9.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <
2026-07-18SEC filing: GameStop says it owns 9.8% of eBay, signaling its intent to press ahead with a bid for the company after its unsolicited $56B offer was rejected (Reuters)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p8#a260718p8 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/gamestop-owns-nearly-10-ebay-sec-filing-shows-2026-07-17/"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i8.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <a hr
2026-07-18Feathery, which develops an AI operating and decisioning system for financial services, raised $30M in total funding, including a recently completed Series A (FinTech Global)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p7#a260718p7 <a href="https://fintech.global/2026/07/15/feathery-lands-30m-to-rewire-financial-services-workflows/"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i7.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <a hr
2026-07-18China's National Data Administration says the country's daily AI token consumption hit 140T in March 2026, up from 100T in December 2025 and 100B in early 2024 (Minxiao Chang/South China Morning Post)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p6#a260718p6 <a href="https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3360956/chinas-tech-giants-fuel-rise-ai-tokens-new-corporate-currency"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i6.jpg" vsp
2026-07-18London-based Risk Ledger, which helps organizations manage supply chain cyber risks, raised a £24M Series B led by Axiom Equity, taking total funding to £33.8M (Ionut Arghire/SecurityWeek)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p5#a260718p5 <a href="https://www.securityweek.com/risk-ledger-raises-32-million-in-series-b-funding/"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i5.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <a href="https://w
2026-07-18Data infrastructure startup Cribl acquires CardinalOps, which offers AI-powered threat detection tools and had raised $40M, sources say for around $100M (Meir Orbach/CTech)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p4#a260718p4 <a href="https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rk71zhxeml"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i4.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <a href="https://www.techmeme.com/260718
2026-07-18Sources: China's National AI Industry Investment Fund gained voting rights in DeepSeek by joining its $7.4B round; other investors like Tencent and JD got none (Bloomberg)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p3#a260718p3 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-17/deepseek-champions-china-s-bid-to-flood-the-world-with-cheap-ai?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0a
2026-07-18Thira, an AI startup founded by Apptio co-founders to develop AI agents that handle back-office tasks such as IT support, raised a $21M seed led by Madrona (Todd Bishop/GeekWire)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p2#a260718p2 <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2026/apptio-co-founders-reunite-to-launch-enterprise-ai-startup-thira-with-21m-in-funding-led-by-madrona/"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260
2026-07-18Japan plans to buy 27,500 Nvidia Rubin chips to develop a domestic AI foundation model for robots, in a Noetra-led effort that includes SoftBank, Sony, and NEC (Bloomberg)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260718/p1#a260718p1 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-16/japan-to-buy-nvidia-rubin-chips-to-build-sovereign-ai-for-robots"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260718/i1.jpg" vsp
2026-07-18Anthropic says Claude Fable 5 will be included in Max and Team Premium plans at 50% of limits from July 20 and via usage credits for Pro and Team Standard users (Claude/@claudeai)
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2026-07-18China's BrainCo unveils what it says is the world's first integrated "brain-to-robot" platform that lets users control robots using an EEG headset (Minxiao Chang/South China Morning Post)
Techmeme permalink: https://www.techmeme.com/260717/p29#a260717p29 <a href="https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3360893/brainco-unveils-brain-controlled-robot-platform-chinas-world-ai-conference"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260
2026-07-18Memo: the DOJ says federal employees can now download TikTok on government devices, citing TikTok US' transfer of control, lifting a 2022 congressional ban (David Shepardson/Reuters)
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