Sam's News — tech — 2026-08-03¶
TL;DR¶
- Iranian-linked hackers target U.S. water systems across multiple states
- Alibaba launches Qwen3.8-Max AI model challenging U.S. frontier labs
- Base Power raises $1 billion for home battery production
- ChatGPT dominates AI spending in U.S. Congress
- Horizon3 cybersecurity startup reaches $2 billion valuation in $250M funding round
- SpaceX plans to acquire 130,000 acres in southern Louisiana for launch facility
Security¶
Iranian-linked hackers target U.S. water systems across multiple states¶
Iran-linked hackers launched coordinated cyberattacks on water and wastewater operational technology systems across at least seven U.S. states in late July and early August 2026, though water safety was largely maintained.
- Over 30 Minnesota facilities targeted July 26-27
- Attacks spread to Michigan, South Dakota, Georgia and others
- One city briefly shut down its water plant as a precaution
Sources: SecurityWeek Research, The Register RSS
Russian state hackers compromise hotel Wi-Fi networks to spy on travelers¶
Russian state-sponsored hackers are hijacking hotel Wi-Fi networks globally to steal login credentials and deploy espionage malware on travelers' devices.
Sources: The Register RSS, The Record RSS, SecurityWeek RSS
UK police database breach exposes 100,000+ officers and staff contact details¶
Hackers accessed the Police National Legal Database (PNLD), compromising contact information for over 100,000 UK police officers and criminal justice professionals.
Sources: BleepingComputer RSS, The Register RSS, The Hacker News RSS
AI¶
Alibaba launches Qwen3.8-Max AI model challenging U.S. frontier labs¶
Alibaba released Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts model it claims rivals or beats Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 on several benchmarks, intensifying competition among Chinese AI developers.
- 2.4 trillion total parameters, ~95 billion activated per token (MoE)
- 1 million token context window; multimodal (text, image, video)
- Outranks Moonshot's Kimi K3 on multiple benchmarks
- Available via Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and QwenWork globally
- Open-weights release plus smaller Qwen3.8-27B checkpoint due next week
Sources: South China Morning Post Research, Bloomberg Research, Computerworld RSS, The Verge RSS, Euronews.com RSS, Startup Fortune RSS
ChatGPT dominates AI spending in U.S. Congress¶
House spending records reveal OpenAI's ChatGPT is the most widely paid AI tool used by congressional offices for drafting memos and legislation.
Sources: TechCrunch RSS, CNBC RSS
Energy¶
Base Power raises $1 billion for home battery production¶
Home battery startup Base Power raised $1 billion to scale production of residential energy storage systems.
Sources: TechCrunch RSS
Funding¶
Horizon3 cybersecurity startup reaches $2 billion valuation in $250M funding round¶
Cybersecurity firm Horizon3 raised $250 million at a $2 billion valuation as enterprises demand continuous AI-powered security validation.
Sources: TechCrunch RSS
Space¶
SpaceX plans to acquire 130,000 acres in southern Louisiana for launch facility¶
SpaceX is pursuing the acquisition of marshland in Louisiana to establish a new rocket launch site.
Sources: Ars Technica RSS
Gaming¶
Palworld expands to mobile with new MMORPG¶
Palworld is launching Palworld Online, a new open-world MMORPG for iOS and Android, developed by Garena.
Sources: The Verge RSS, GamesRadar+ RSS
Hardware¶
MediaTek plans $5 billion investment in AI datacenter chips¶
Taiwanese semiconductor company MediaTek assembled a $5 billion war chest to develop ASIC chips targeting the $80 billion AI datacenter market.
Sources: The Register RSS