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Two specialized AI systems from DeepMind, AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry, were able to solve four out of six problems from this year’s International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). This is a big deal because AI is really bad at math. Have you seen the posts about ChatGPT saying 9.11 is bigger than 9.9?

The IMO represents a “litmus test” that suggests researchers could make bigger future breakthroughs, DeepMind VP David Silver said in a press briefing.

Bullying works: after TikTok users complained about Chipotle’s inconsistent portion sizes, the company announced this week it is “doubling down” on training to ensure customers get “correct and generous portions.” It will cost the company $50 million, executives told analysts.

The discussion about what Apple will do next with the fourth iPhone slot in its lineup had a lot of agreement in the comments section, except it wasn’t exactly in favor of the rumored “iPhone 17 Slim.”

Whether it’s a Mini, a Mini Pro, or a Mini Thick with extra battery packed inside, the people have their eye on one iPhone format in particular.

As reported by TechCrunch and in some social media posts, even if it seems a little light for a global outage affecting millions of systems (and codes that in some cases, didn’t work). In a statement sent to The Verge, spokesperson Kevin Benacci said:

CrowdStrike did not send gift cards to customers or clients. We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation. Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates.

Researcher Alex Hanna, of Distributed AI Research Institute and previously of Google, reflects on what might come next:

After the dust settles and NVIDIA has stopped churning out shovels (e.g. H100s) for the gold rush, what will be left behind? Will data centers go the way of shopping malls? Likely not—they’ll be repurposed for other massive computing projects. But what about those climate pledges?

According to a release by French prosecutors, Joseph Lombardi, the “unaccredited analyst” with Canada’s Olympic women’s soccer team, accepted a suspended eight month imprisonment sentence after admitting to spying on New Zealand’s team to learn its tactics.

The sport’s governing body has opened proceedings against Canada Soccer, while New Zealand has asked that no points be awarded to Canada if it wins today.

iPhone owners love the feature and get up in arms when automakers resist it. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said this week on Decoder that CarPlay can’t “leverage other parts of the vehicle experience” and takes control away from automakers.

Meanwhile, friend of The Verge, Patrick George, has the so-far unpopular opinion that while CarPlay is familiar, it’s rapidly becoming out of date.

Reuters reports that Meta could be slapped with fines as high as $13.4 billion for tying classified advertisements service Marketplace with its Facebook social network.

The ruling, which is expected in the coming weeks, would come over 18 months since the European Commission accused Meta of “abusive practices” that enabled it to distort competition in the online classified ads market.

Substack has launched a mobile editor on its iOS app and will release it on Android soon.

Right now, the mobile editor only offers simple text and image publishing functionality. You can’t create video and podcast posts, edit published work, or schedule posts from within the app. However, Substack says it’s working on adding these features and others in the future. 

Here’s an incredible WSJ piece about zoo visitors connecting with gorillas by showing them videos of themselves, and zoo officials trying to push back:

A few self-proclaimed gorilla groupies come almost daily to the world-renowned San Diego Zoo, filming and then showing the “home videos” to the apes. [...] Tears came to the woman’s eyes as she said the zoo might want to block her and others from showing the animals videos. “Any enrichment is good enrichment,” she said. 

Debatable!

We’ve all seen Jeff Goldblum lean into his quirkiness, but the menacing regality of his take on Zeus is what really jumps out in the first trailer for Netflix’s upcoming series Kaos due out August 29th.

It has been 20 years since Edgar Wright kicked off his (Three Flavours) Cornetto Trilogy with Shaun of the Dead, and to celebrate the film’s legacy, a remastered cut of it is being re-released in US and UK theaters beginning August 29th and September 27th, respectively.

It’s another delay for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, but at least this one is relatively short: the game is now coming out on November 20th instead of September 5th. The developers says that “these two additional months will give us the chance to fix more ‘unexpected anomalies’ (or simply ‘bugs,’ as you call them).”

First revealed earlier this year, Ayaneo’s Pocket DMG and Pocket Micro will be available for pre-order starting on July 31st at 8AM ET through Indiegogo.

Pricing details are still unknown, but the Pocket DMG will feature the Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 platform paired with an OLED screen, while the Pocket Micro will have an aluminum housing.

A new Rivian or easy access to your iPhone apps from your vehicle’s console? CEO RJ Scaringe says you can’t have both.

No, this isn’t another cardboard bed situation — the reasons for blocking the app make sense and mirror similar actions that Grindr took during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, after it was used to out a number of athletes during the previous Rio Games.