Ol Kalou by-election, xAI open-sources Grok Build

Bloomberg reports Microsoft has developed competitive talking points highlighting cost and efficiency shortcomings in Anthropic's and OpenAI's products while positioning Azure AI as the better value. The shift is notable because Microsoft is OpenAI's largest investor and exclusive cloud provider. For businesses buying AI services, this means the vendor landscape is realigning: partnerships are becoming rivalries, and pricing, latency, and lock-in risk are now the primary evaluation criteria rather than raw model capability.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the driver manually pressed the accelerator to 100% while FSD (Supervised) was engaged, causing the vehicle to crash into a house and kill Martha Avila. Tesla shared its own data analysis days after the June incident, but the NTSB's independent confirmation carries more weight for insurance liability and regulatory scrutiny. The finding reinforces that current Level 2 systems depend entirely on human supervision and can be defeated by deliberate driver action even when the software performs as designed.

The Ford Security Package's engine start inhibitor, previously available only on F-Series trucks, now covers the 2026 Expedition, Bronco Sport, and Mustang Mach-E. Owners swipe a slider in the FordPass Monitoring section to prevent the vehicle from starting even if the key is inside. For Kenyan car owners, where vehicle theft is a persistent concern, a phone-based killswitch offers practical security without aftermarket wiring. Fleet operators also gain a remote recovery tool that doesn't require physical access to the vehicle.

Bloomberg reports the increase applies to new subscribers only; existing customers keep their current rate. Monthly plans now cost $0.50 more, annual plans $5 more. The move follows last month's across-the-board price increases on iPads, Macs, Vision Pro, HomePod, and Apple TV, which Apple attributed to rising DRAM and NAND flash component costs. For anyone buying Apple hardware in Kenya, where import duties already inflate prices, the higher AppleCare cost is another factor in the total cost of ownership calculation.

Earlier this week, iFixit listed the Steam Deck LCD battery as unavailable, sparking a wave of concern that Valve was sunsetting repair parts for the original model. Within 24 hours, both companies told The Verge that new stock is incoming and the battery will remain available. The episode highlights the tension between hardware lifecycle management and the right-to-repair expectations Valve itself created by partnering with iFixit. For Steam Deck owners with degraded batteries after 3-4 years of use, the outcome means self-repair stays on the table.

The project, hosted on Puter Labs, runs Gecko, all UI components, and the Spidermonkey JS engine compiled to WebAssembly inside a browser canvas. It uses the WISP protocol for end-to-end encrypted TCP-over-websockets networking and includes a novel WASM-to-JS JIT for experimental site speedups. The port cost over $25,000 in compute to compile. It is a technical curiosity rather than a practical daily driver, but it demonstrates just how far WebAssembly has come since its inception: a full browser engine running sandboxed inside itself.