My longstanding personal obsession, Rupert Murdoch, is getting sued by Donald Trump for the story The Wall Street Journal ran yesterday about a letter to noted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. I imagine this will get either thrown out entirely or settled — Murdoch often settles — but truth is an absolute defense in a defamation case. The WSJ isn’t Fox News. It’s Murdoch’s crown jewel — one he refused to tamper with, even when it cost him a $125 million investment. A settlement could permanently damage the paper’s reputation. Who ya got?

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We’ve talked before about the funhouse-mirror-alternative-reality that Trump (and Musk) have built. JP Brammer, who watches much more YouTube than I do, notes something weird is going on in content land — it seems Donald Trump has lost control of the plot. NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny, writing from a more anxious angle, seems to agree. Content has now outpaced reality. I guess we’re going to find out by how much.
[johnpaulbrammer.substack.com]








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Aravind Srinivas on Perplexity’s new Comet web browser, the AI talent frenzy, and a future IPO.



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Testing the $599 and $829 SteamOS models.
After The Wall Street Journal’s scoop last night on Epstein’s relationship with Donald Trump, I was inspired to go look at some old stories about the sex criminal’s buddies.
On reread, one thing stuck out to me: how close Epstein was to the pioneers, commercializers, and money men of AI. The WSJ scoop suggests there are still new stories out there; I wonder what’s lurking in the field of artificial intelligence — surely I am not the only person who’d like to learn more.
The Always Home Cam could be (re)launching soon in “limited quantities,” according to Business Insider. The publication cites sources who say that recently returned CEO Jamie Siminoff has been testing the indoor flying camera in his office and plans to make it available soon.
Announced in 2020 under Siminoff’s first tenure, the camera never shipped despite a brief invitation program. I saw it fly at CES in 2023; maybe 2025 will finally be its year.

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Right-wing influencers now have to choose between authenticity to their brand, and their loyalty to Trump.


FBC: Firebreak didn’t get off to a roaring start, but the team behind it is preparing a new “Major Update” it aims to launch in late September with changes like a better onboarding process.
Our review of the game said it “ignores Remedy’s trademark strangeness in an unremarkable shooter.”
[store.steampowered.com]
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Eddington hilariously and diligently evokes 2020 but has learned nothing from it.




That’s the newly-announced release date for Dreams of Another, the trippy-looking title from Q-Games where you shoot guns to help create the world around you. I loved the brief demo I played at this year’s Game Developers Conference.

Foundation and Strange New Worlds return, while Alien: Earth and Eyes of Wakanda will make their debuts.
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Wes Anderson’s latest, The Phoenician Scheme, is still in select theaters, but it’ll also be streaming very soon. Peacock just announced that it’ll air the movie starting on July 25th. The news comes just a day after the streamer announced a sizable price hike.
That’s how much Atomic Keyboard is charging for its MDR Dasher keyboard, based on Apple TV’s Severance, though early adopters can save $300 with a $10 deposit. That gets you an aluminum keyboard with a trackball and swappable magnetic top sheet that enables three different layouts, depending on how show-accurate you feel like being.
If it’s a little steep for you, $197 gets you Signature Plastics’ Macrodata Refinement keycap set to upgrade an existing board.
Don’t take my word for it — I interviewed Jason Valley, a visually impaired Verge reader, for this week’s Vergecast. Jason tells me how he uses the Ray-Ban Meta glasses as a visual interpreter, and how the Live AI feature has helped him live a more independent life after losing much of his sight. I also chat with Be My Eyes CEO Mike Buckley about why accessible design is universal design. Watch the full episode here.


CBS is also retiring The Late Show franchise, which it says is “purely a financial decision,” according to CBS News.
The order, which is planned to be released sometime next week, would “dictate that AI companies getting federal contracts be politically neutral and unbiased in their AI models,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

What foundational internet words have to do with 4chan.


Baumgartner died while paragliding today on the eastern coast of Italy, reports the Associated Press. Reports from Italian media said his motorized paraglider crashed into a swimming pool at a hotel, injuring a young woman on the ground
He was most widely known for his 2012 jump from the stratosphere that made him the first person to break the speed of sound in freefall, and the person to complete the highest-ever parachute jump, until that record was topped two years later.




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