Tech Daily News Update

1. Solar to dominate energy by 2035, but AI data centers will keep fossil fuels in business

   Costs for solar panels are expected to drop another 30% in the coming decade, helping the tech cement its lead in energy markets.

2. Theo Baker spent four years investigating Stanford. Before he leaves, here’s what he found.

   "There's a common refrain among [young] people in this world that it's easier to raise money for a startup right now than to get an internship. Which is remarkable, right?"

3. OSHA probing worker death at SpaceX’s Starbase site

   The death is the latest worker safety issue at the Starbase facility, which has a higher injury rate than all other SpaceX sites.

4. SandboxAQ brings its drug discovery models to Claude — no PhD in computing required

   Other venture-backed companies like Chai Discovery and Isomorphic Labs have raced to build better models. SandboxAQ is betting that access is the bigger obstacle and that Claude solves it.

5. Anthropic has acquired the dev tools startup used by OpenAI, Google, and Cloudflare

   Stainless, a New York-based startup, founded in 2022, rose to prominence in the emerging AI industry for automating the creation and maintenance of software development kits, or SDKs — the libraries developers use to interact with APIs.

6. Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

   Elon Musk's claim that he was mistreated by his OpenAI co-founders failed after nine California jurors decided in a unanimous verdict that his lawsuits had been filed too late.

7. NYC Health + Hospitals says hackers stole medical data and fingerprints during breach affecting at least 1.8 million people

   The New York public healthcare system said hackers stole personal and medical data, and scans of biometrics — including fingerprints — in one of the largest recorded breaches of 2026.

8. Kin Health raises $9M to build an AI notetaker for patients

   The app is similar to a meeting notetaker — you can record doctor visits, and it will return an AI summary of the meeting, with the next steps, all of which you share with family and friends if you want to.

9. Amazon’s new Alexa+ powered feature can generate podcast episodes

   Amazon’s Alexa+ can now generate custom AI podcasts on demand, as the company expands its assistant into a personalized AI content platform.

10. Open source tool maker Grafana Labs says hackers stole its code, refuses to pay ransom

    The open source project said hackers stole its codebase and threatened to publish its source code if the company did not pay.

11. South Korea’s LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses

    A lens the size of a thumbnail — and the South Korean startup that makes it — could become the optical backbone of the AI glasses era.

12. Apple’s Siri revamp could include auto-deleting chats

    Privacy will be a major theme when Apple unveils a new version of Siri.

13. Why trust is a big question at the Elon Musk-OpenAI trial

    A big theme in the trial’s final days was whether OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is trustworthy.

14. If you’re giving a commencement speech in 2026, maybe don’t mention AI

    It's tough to get graduating students excited about a future shaped by artificial intelligence.

15. TechCrunch Mobility: The AI skills arms race is coming for automotive

    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

16. For Eclipse, the $2.5B Cerebras win is just the start of realizing its physical-world thesis

    Investing in the real world was lonely for Lior Susan 10 years ago. Now his firm finds itself at the center of the tech world's action.

17. The haves and have-nots of the AI gold rush

    The vibes around the current AI boom aren't great, even in the tech industry.

18. Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo

    AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic.

19. Research repository ArXiv will ban authors for a year if they let AI do all the work

    ArXiv is doing more to crack down on the careless use of large language models in scientific papers.

20. The offline desk gadget that actually got me to sit up straight

    Deep Care's $350 device is pricy, but it runs offline and helps you improve your posture and movement habits.