Tech Roundup: Tesla FSD Under Fire, New Glenn Explodes, and AI Wars Heat Up

Autonomous Driving & Space

Tesla's self-driving tech under scrutiny — A Reuters investigation found that Tesla's FSD safety statistics are misleading, its robotaxi launches were carefully staged, and even the workers training its AI wouldn't trust the system with their lives.

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes on launch pad — During an engine test at Cape Canaveral, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket suffered a catastrophic anomaly and exploded in a fireball, dealing a major setback to the company's space ambitions. (Engadget, Ars Technica)

AI & Large Language Models

Claude Opus 4.8 proves AI is growing a backbone — Anthropic's latest flagship model crushed OpenAI's ChatGPT-5.5 in seven stress tests designed to measure sycophancy, showing a notable improvement in pushing back against user biases. (Tom's Guide)

Google adjusts Gemini's usage limits after backlash — Following complaints about compute-based limits hitting too quickly, Google announced changes to make Gemini's quotas last longer. (9to5Google)

Instagram Plus and WhatsApp Plus arrive — Meta is introducing paid tiers across its platforms. Instagram Plus offers enhanced features for creators, while WhatsApp Plus is harder to justify for most users. (Digital Trends)

Gaming

Valve Steam Deck sells out in 24 hours despite price hike — The OLED model, which saw price increases of up to $300, sold out immediately in the US after its first restock in months. (TechPowerUp)

007 First Light exceeds 1.5 million sales in 24 hours — IO Interactive's new James Bond game had a strong launch, though it peaked at only 68,477 concurrent players on Steam. (TechPowerUp)

Rockstar workers unionize ahead of GTA VI launch — Following the dismissal of 31 workers, Rockstar employees announced the Rockstar Game Workers Union as part of IWGB, prioritizing pay transparency and ending crunch. (TechPowerUp)

Hardware & Storage

Beelink ME Pro combines mini PC and NAS — The new lineup features up to 136TB of storage, dual 10GbE, and Ryzen AI processors with 80 TOPS, blurring the line between desktop and network-attached storage. (MiniPCs subreddit)

Anker launches Solix S2000 home battery — This portable power station promises 35 hours of fridge runtime and a 10,000-cycle lifespan, offering a reliable backup for homes. (Reddit)

Security & Science

Microsoft quietly removes blog claiming Defender is all you need — After controversy, Microsoft nuked the post that argued Microsoft Defender is sufficient for consumer security, acknowledging that third-party options may be better. (XDA)

MIT develops low-cost lithium extraction technique — A new method uses liquid reagents to extract battery-grade lithium from hard rock at half the cost with near-zero waste, potentially revolutionizing supply chains. (Slashdot)

Europe urged to curb datacenter boom to save water and power — A Grundfos report warns that by 2030, European datacenters could consume 7–9% of electricity and massive amounts of water, calling for tighter efficiency regulations. (Slashdot)