Tech July Summary — TechX/ShipX

Jul 31, 2026

From next week, we will send a weekly newsletter…

if you have Medium Premium (read it from here): https://medium.com/techx-official/tech-july-summary-techx-shipx-6577dbba37de?sk=417e85bfe6f8862e3874a9ef593d4312

(📖 TOP 5 Crazy Tech Stories)

Linus Torvalds’ July 14, 2026, email to Linux kernel developers rejects anti-AI positions, stating the project is not one of those and that AI is now a clearly useful tool whose value is no longer debatable.

For real, I’m a bit of an AI skeptic myself, but its utility for code development is unquestionable at this point, it would be insane for Linux to be “anti-ai”. — RThunder

“Chinese steal the technology(Claude) and replicate it(Kimi), the state subsidizes it and that’s their model of success. They are very good at it.” — CIA Director John Ratcliffe on China’s Kimi

A 37-year-old teacher named Lux Claridge from Kansas was arrested. He clapped at a public meeting to support people against new big data centers.

He left jail the same day and said it was about free speech… But the city still voted to approve the data center plan.💀

Read full story source(YouTube video included): Teacher Cuffed and Dragged Out for Opposing a Mega Data Center

New court papers show Microsoft helped the FBI: To catch a hacker named Peter Stokes from the Scattered Spider group. They used a special ID number from his Windows computer to link his secret hack account to his normal social media.

SSD came with a 5-year warranty, and when he asked for a replacement, Samsung said the SSD was “out of stock” and couldn’t be replaced, offering only a refund of the original ~$330 purchase price. Not even a replacement…

https://medium.com/techx-official/why-louis-rossmann-is-suing-samsung-950-betrayal-976e5d04b759?sk=de2246ad13ac9da6e7c4888728d574d3

( AI &🏢 Big Tech)

Model weights: http://huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-K3

Tech report: http://github.com/MoonshotAI/Kimi-K3/blob/master/k3_tech_report.pdf

Tech blog: http://kimi.com/blog/kimi-k3

source; Why-apple-sued-openai-its-worse-than-you-think

paper link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.03979

(👨‍💼 CEOs & Founders & Startups)

NEW: Meta employees consumed 73.7 trillion AI tokens in a single month. Which costs roughly $221 million a month and around $2.65 billion a year.

Meta burns $2.65B a year on AI tokens. at $300K for a Meta engineer, that’s enough to pay ~9,000 engineers for a full year.

now ask yourself: since the layoffs, has Meta shipped anything that feels like 9,000 engineers’ worth of output?

🆕New Tech & Robotics

TLDR:

Federal agents stopped Sam Tunick at Atlanta airport.
- They made him unlock his GrapheneOS phone without a warrant.
- The phone wiped all data using its special duress code.
- The DOJ is now charging him with destroying evidence.
- Tunick was being checked for links to protests against “Cop City.”
- The case raises big questions about phone privacy tools and forced searches.
GrapheneOS defends its special safety feature: This feature lets you set a second password that wipes all phone data instead of unlocking it.( A man got charged in the US for using it at the border.
GrapheneOS says it is legal for privacy, they cannot recover the data or assist investigators because the data is permanently erased.

Main features include:

162 meters (531 feet) long.
- Room for up to 130 scientists and crew.
- Support for missions as deep as 11,000 meters (36,000 feet), reaching the deepest ocean parts.
- Built for mapping the ocean floor, collecting samples, and supporting deep-sea submarines and underwater robots.
- A large battery system allowing quiet operation for up to 12 hours without disturbing marine life.
- Four stabilizers to keep the ship steady in rough seas.
- Modern laboratories, workshops, offices, and private rooms for researchers.
- A large crane and special equipment for launching and recovering deep-sea vehicles.

Proof includes the same software updates sent out almost at the same time for both versions, plus hidden website notes telling AI bots to deny Russian links.
This raises worries for EU users because the makers once joked about it being a “Putin password project,” even though it claims full EU privacy rules.