IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Will it burst or rise?

If the AI scene feels a little too hot right now, you’re not imagining it. Sam Altman says we’re living through an actual bubble. The OpenAI CEO likened today’s frenzy to the dot-com craze of the ’90s, where “smart people got overexcited about a kernel of truth.” He didn’t hold back, calling valuations for tiny AI teams “insane” and warning that a lot of money is about to get burned. But in the same breath, Altman doubled down on AI’s long game, saying OpenAI will likely spend trillions on data centers soon. In other words: the bubble might pop, but the wave isn’t going anywhere.

Picture this: robots sprinting, tumbling, and even trying their hand at basketball in the same Olympic arena that once hosted world-class athletes. That was the scene in Beijing as the first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games wrapped up, with 500 robots from 16 nations competing across 26 events. The mix was wild: soccer matches turned into mass pileups, kickboxing bots swung at air, and cleaning robots struggled with doors, yet there were real breakthroughs too, like a robot finishing a 1,500-meter run in just over six minutes. Beyond the slapstick moments, the Games signaled China’s serious push to lead humanoid robotics by 2027. For now, we’re laughing at stumbles, but the future might have us racing to keep up.

Imagine Google’s annual showcase as a late-night variety show: awkward sketches, celebrity cameos, and a crowd unsure whether to cringe or cheer. Beneath the theatrics, though, the Pixel 10 lineup, Pixel Watch 4, and Pixel Buds 2a revealed Google’s real play: AI everywhere. Gemini powers Magic Cue, Camera Coach, Voice Translate, and Pixel Journal, all running on the new Tensor G5 chip with 60% more AI muscle. Hardware upgrades are incremental, but AI-led features like Pro Res Zoom hint at a new era of smartphones. With Apple’s AI plans on pause until 2026, Google is betting the next upgrade cycle will be driven by AI utility, if users are ready for it.

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SUBSTRATES
What else is on the radar?

AI

• Anthropic’s latest Claude models can now shut down harmful or abusive chats on their own.

• Microsoft adds a COPILOT function in Excel, letting you run AI tasks from formulas, currently beta only, with the $30/month Copilot plan.

• Grammarly launches a new document-style interface with an AI sidebar offering tools for grading, proofreading, citations, and AI content detection.

• DeepSeek quietly launched V3.1, a 685B-parameter model with chat, reasoning, and coding in one system, posting benchmark scores that rival OpenAI and Anthropic.

• NASA and IBM release Surya, an open-source AI on Hugging Face trained on nine years of solar data, to forecast solar flares with 16% higher accuracy and potentially give a two-hour warning to protect satellites and power grids.

WEB3

• Japan is set to approve the country’s first yen-pegged stablecoin this fall, issued by fintech firm JPYC.

• Tether welcomes Bo Hines as a strategic advisor for its U.S. expansion.

• Gemini filed to list on Nasdaq under GEMI, revealing a $282.5M H1 loss, a $75M Ripple credit deal in RLUSD, and plans to become the third U.S.-listed crypto exchange after Coinbase and Bullish.

• After months of speculation, Ye (formerly Kanye West) launch YZY coin on Solana with Ye Pay and YZY Card as part of his “new financial system,” briefly hitting a $3B market cap before dropping to $1.5B.

• Robinhood teams up with Kalshi to build a football prediction market.

• Volkswagen Group Singapore will accept Bitcoin as payment for its cars.

FROM THE REPOSITORY
Check this out!

• MCP clearly explained with great visuals.

• Is O-Commerce the next iteration of e-commerce?

• Here are 14 ways Googlers use AI at work.

Use now or save for later:

• Streamline and optimize your prompts with PromptGround.

• AiXBT is an AI Agent for crypto market intelligence.

• Turn any website into an API with Parse.bot.

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Visual of the week: Which domains are cited most by AI?

SCOOPS OF THE WEEK