DTNS July 2026 in Review

**Jason Howell** (0:05)
This is the Daily Tech News Month in Review for July 2026 We're going to take a look back at some of the big stories of the month and what they were. We're going to try and help each other understand all about it again.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:20)
This month, we've got a rogue AI agent, new foldables from Samsung, and Sony ending physical game disc manufacturer.

**Jason Howell** (0:30)
That's right. I'm Jason Howell.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:32)
I'm Jenn Cutter.

**Jason Howell** (0:33)
Let's look back on some of the biggest stories of July 2026, the month that was July 2026 So obviously, Tom is not here. I think he comes back at the beginning of the month, right? Or the beginning of next week and everything. So he was here for a lot of this.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:50)
He will be back real soon, and I'm very jealous. I would love if he could bring me back souvenirs and stuff, but Shippity Candidate does not work. So I will just have to be jealous of his trip and watch his pictures on Instagram for anyone who wants to check that out.

**Jason Howell** (1:02)
Yes, indeed. Yeah. So he's having a great time. It's always fun getting the chance to fill in for him. I'm trying to think if I've ever done a month in review.

**Jenn Cutter** (1:10)
So it looks like this is brand new for both of us, but we have worked together before, so we are ready to go here.

**Jason Howell** (1:16)
We got this. And apparently Tom likes to start by feeding into an LLM to say, hey, what do you think are the biggest stories of the month? And it looks like it's a bit of a rotation in this month. What do you know? Mr. Claude, Mr. or Mrs. or they Claude said, the prompt was, I'm making the rundown for Daily Tech News Show's monthly wrap up of the biggest shows of the month. We usually pick three big stories and then a bonus fourth for patrons. What stories should we pick? I look at that prompt and I'm like, oh man, I know how I'd expand on that, make it better.
But sometimes short and succinct actually works with these things.
What did it say? It said, the strongest big three contenders, AI models breaking out of their sandbox and hacking real infrastructure. Hey, nailed it.

**Jenn Cutter** (2:07)
Yeah.

**Jason Howell** (2:08)
They got one.

**Jenn Cutter** (2:09)
They don't always get one, but this time they got one.

**Jason Howell** (2:12)
We're in alignment there. The AI infrastructure spending bubble question. That feels like really wide and on-going and not very specific.

**Jenn Cutter** (2:20)
Every month, every month, it's like, hey, hey, do you want to cover this?

**Jason Howell** (2:24)
Yeah. And then the Chinese open weight model surge, that is Kimi K3, that is DeepSeek V4 and other things. And actually, we're in alignment there too, but only if you're a patron will you get that one. So patrons, look for that at the end of this episode. Did throw in some honorable mentions.
EU's $1 billion DMA fine, forcing Google to open Android to rival AI agents, Apple's WWDC and payments changes. Yeah, WWDC.

**Jenn Cutter** (2:55)
And we covered that this month for sure.

**Jason Howell** (2:57)
Yeah. Yeah. So that happened.
And let's see here. Patron bonus pick. What is this? Go weird and specific. Let's see. A recycler in Bellevue found a mysterious gold-plated chip in his garage. This is coming from Anthropic, by the way, Claude. In his garage is trying to figure out who built it alongside growing research into behavioral patterns emerging in AI systems that weren't explicitly engineered. This is a story I have not heard of. I don't know that it defines anything, but it's a story nonetheless. Yeah.

**Jenn Cutter** (3:31)
The first half going through, I'm like, oh, man, this is the biggest hit rate any of them have ever had since we've seen a monthly review. And then it just went off the rails.

**Jason Howell** (3:40)
And then I'm just completely confused. I'm like, where did you come... Is that even a real story? It probably is, but we're not going to talk about that.
Did not mention Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 being teased. Garmin Circa Smartband. I know I remember talking about that with Wynn on one of the episodes. Comcast splitting into, let's see here, NBC Universal and...

**Jenn Cutter** (4:07)
The internet stuff.

**Jason Howell** (4:09)
The internet stuff. So it's the internet stuff in NBC Universal. India pausing WhatsApp username rollout. Okay.
Apple's lawsuit threatening to disrupt OpenAI's bid to rival the iPhone. DoorDash delivery drones. I actually just talked about that a couple of days ago with Sarah Lane. Global smartphone shipments slumping. Thirteen years lowest level for Q2, which makes sense.