Daily Tech News Digest – 2026-07-29

Top tech headlines from BBC Technology, TechRadar and Ars Technica in the last 24 hours.

BBC Technology

• Data centres could pay hundreds of millions in deposits for power demands
  The regulator said a fee of between £237,500 to £712,500 per megawatt should be charged for upcoming projects.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:35:35 GMT
• OpenAI says its rogue AI tried to hack other companies
  The out-of-control AI found four logins which allowed it to access multiple unnamed online services.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:49:27 GMT
• Brits urged to avoid dangerous plug adaptors this summer - what to watch out for
  Campaign group Electrical Safety First has urged those "heading abroad this summer to think before they buy".
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:00:15 GMT
• Tech Life
  What do we need to know about agentic AI?
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:00:00 GMT

TechRadar Tech

• I gave Gemini 3.6 Flash and GPT-5.6 access to my entire digital life — here’s which one actually helped me more
  I gave Gemini and ChatGPT the same messy collection of personal data to see which one could turn it into a useful plan — and only one behaved like a genuine AI assistant.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:50:00 +0000
• Britain should turn Ukrainian wartime innovation into shared leadership
  Britain has turned wartime invention into global progress before. With Ukraine tech, it can do it again.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:45:09 +0000
• Low-power AI could define the next era of global innovation
  As AI grows, low-power systems may become the industry's greatest competitive advantage.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:31:56 +0000
• Agentic AI has a price: it's called ERP migration
  Amid the hype, organizations commit time and money to innovations that never quite live up to their billing.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:08:29 +0000
• Elevating the IoT: How AI is introducing a new era of connectivity
  As AI continues to transform processes across the IoT, this trajectory marks a fundamental shift.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:00:55 +0000
• The AI investment gap
  As organizations rush to deploy AI, the challenge is no longer whether to invest but how to ensure investments create long-term value, while mitigating growing operational, security, and compliance risks.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 09:30:12 +0000
• The new HP Omen 16 Slim isn't actually that skinny, but it is a surprisingly good budget gaming laptop - if you can get it at the right price
  The HP Omen 16 Slim does a surprisingly good job of the currently almost impossible task of serving up decent laptop gaming at an affordable price.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 09:16:44 +0000
• Power 50 2026 - All our finalists revealed
  The nominations are in - so who will be your 2026 person of the year?
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000
• Why proving personhood is the new standard for identity verification
  AI-generated identities are bypassing traditional checks, making proof of personhood business-critical for fraud prevention.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:57:27 +0000
• I turned my guitar amp into a giant home speaker and it was a loud and stupid idea, but it basically worked (with some serious caveats)
  A Line 6 Spider IV, a turntable, some speakers, an iPad, an overdrive pedal, loads of cables... what could go wrong?
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:50:00 +0000
• ‘Construction sites are probably one of the hardest environments you could ask an autonomous system to operate in’: Are autonomy and robotics gaining momentum in the industry?
  Automation has gotten so good within fixed parameters – construction is a whole new ball game, but with major potential benefits.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:44:36 +0000
• DataImpulse Proxy Service Review
  Can Dataimpulse's feature set and reliability compete with the industry's biggest names?
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:15:57 +0000
• How cloud architecture is reinventing primary storage for the AI era
  In modern cloud environments, primary storage determines how effectively AI can scale.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:03:59 +0000
• Silent Hill: Townfall is shaping up to be a great analog horror take on the series
  Silent Hill: Townfall goes big on analog horror.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 07:00:00 +0000
• Can smartwatches and glasses get smarter? Inside Qualcomm and MediaTek’s new wearable AI play
  How new 3nm silicon from Qualcomm and MediaTek brings on-device AI to smartwatches and glasses — without killing battery life.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 06:20:00 +0000
• They might have grown up online — but Gen Z are apparently far less likely to use antivirus, study finds
  A new survey from cybersecurity specialists Kaspersky has revealed a worrying trend among Gen Z: they’re ignorant of online threats.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000
• Stung by Apple's recent price hike? This budget Samsung tablet costs less than half the price of the entry-level iPad
  There's no need to spend hundreds of dollars on a good tablet — Samsung's A series Tabs offer excellent bang for buck and the latest Galaxy Tab A11+ is now 35% off on Amazon for the 256GB flavour.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 02:24:38 +0000
• 'I refused to let 3D die!': Someone built a custom player for all 3D movie formats — and is even futureproofing it to preserve the grandeur of 3D for whatever the future of projectors and TVs holds
  An intrepid Redditor has built a 3D movie player that supports three different generations of 3D, with an eye to the future of TV and projector tech.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:00:00 +0000
• Nvidia paid $20 billion for SRAM decode - AMD just partnered for it instead
  AMD and Cerebras are claiming 5x higher tokens per watt from their new disaggregated inference tie-up.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:35:00 +0000
• A 330 MW data center wanted to buy a farm, switch off the irrigation, and drink the difference — California's most powerful irrigation district said no, so it sued
  The largest AI data center project in California is suing to get access to the Colorado River, and the 287 million gallons of water it allegedly needs to cool a 330-megawatt facility.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:30:00 +0000

Ars Technica Technology

• Google's SynthID watermark is hard to break, but it doesn't solve AI misinformation
  Deciding what's real on the Internet won't be easy in the future.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:00:39 +0000
• Elon Musk finally launches X Money. What could possibly go wrong?
  Expect bumps with X Money rollout as major US financial markets are excluded.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:00:51 +0000
• Audi has a new flagship designed with the US in mind: The 2027 Q9
  The new full-size flagship SUV starts at $87,700 when it goes on sale in Q4.
  Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:00:36 +0000
• Reaction wheel failures leave Swift rescue mission spinning in orbit
  "Preliminary investigation shows that two of Link's three reaction wheels currently are not operable."
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 22:09:00 +0000
• College lab class ends with 32 people on antibiotics for deadly germ exposure
  Lab students were supposed to ID a mild germ. They all identified a deadly pathogen.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:49:52 +0000
• We now have a better understanding how OpenAI hacked into Hugging Face
  10 days passed from OpenAI models exploiting JFrog Artifactory 0-day to release of a patch.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:36:39 +0000
• eBay pays $46M to journalists it targeted in bizarre harassment campaign
  eBay sent bloody pig mask and other macabre deliveries to journalists' home.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:02:15 +0000
• Study: Dinosaurs were charbroiled after Chicxulub impact
  “We're in the realm where we might be essentially killing off everything within that first hour or two."
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:51:45 +0000
• Philly suburb: Sure, build that data center—but first meet our 43 demands
  The final condition will shock you! (It won’t. It’s taxes.)
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:43:19 +0000
• Despite AI hype, Google's data shows workers aren't automating themselves away
  Analysis of 15 million real AI interactions finds most tasks at most jobs are unaffected.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:20:20 +0000
• New airliner sets record flying 24 hrs nonstop from Australia to France
  Record flight shows viability of Qantas Airways’ Project Sunrise routes in 2027.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:43:36 +0000
• Judge blocks first state law that would have banned prediction markets
  Judge may allow Minnesota to ban some types of bets, but not all of them.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:31:13 +0000
• Report: Trump mad RFK Jr. hasn’t cut more vaccines or proven autism link
  Trump is fixated on the false, long-debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:16:25 +0000
• As US measles cases rise, biotech firms start developing new treatments
  The US is making measles great again, so treatment options are needed for the most vulnerable.
  Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:32:23 +0000

— Auto-generated digest