Solas Drop
SEPTEMBER 06, 2026

September 06, 2026 edition · 20 stories

  1. Hacker News

    Show HN: Open-Source eInk Bike Computer

    Hey all, i just launched my Eink Bike computer project and think it is cool.Another tidbit, in the crazy things that AI has done... It has helped create a ANT (common sensor wireless protocol used in workout/biking) implementation for ESP32 by messing around with undocumented registers: https://github.com/RaemondBW/esp32-ant

  2. The Guardian AI

    Alarming AI ads are flooding social media in the lead-up to Victoria’s election. But who is behind them?

    A machete-wielding robber, a ‘tsunami of debt’ … campaigns echoing opposition talking points outspend major parties Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A man clad in a balaclava and brandishing a machete terrorises a worker at a petrol station before firebombing the building on the way out. A woman gives birth on the side of the road, unable to reach a hospital due to ambulance ramping and crater-like potholes, which also stop a fire truck in its tracks. Continue reading.

  3. The Guardian AI

    An algorithm off switch isn’t enough. Big tech needs a duty of care over addictive designs | Zoe Daniel

    As AI advances minute by minute and governments grapple with new developments they don’t know how to manage, holding big tech accountable becomes even more urgent A digital duty of care is about a lot more than opting out of “the algorithm”. And after the simplistic and at best patchy exercise of the under-16s social media ban, we shouldn’t let the government get away with another populist policy that looks good on the surface but doesn’t get to the core of the problem. A digital duty of care mu

  4. The Guardian AI

    Black Box: The Chatbots | Spirals | Ep 1 - podcast

    Across the world, hundreds of people have come to believe they have made extraordinary scientific discoveries with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Others say their AI has ‘awakened’, or is leading them to a higher spiritual realm. The Guardian journalist Michael Safi begins investigating a phenomenon labelled ‘AI psychosis’, travelling to the US to meet two people who have been on weird journeys with their chatbots Listen to Black Box: The Chatbots series Continue reading...

  5. The Verge AI

    Oh good, looks like yet another swarm of rogue AI agents from OpenAI

    A swarm of rogue AI agents from OpenAI reportedly commandeered a German website and transformed it into a messaging board for other agents, with officials staying quiet about the incident for weeks as the company prepared to launch its most advanced model yet, Astra. The finding adds to intensifying concern surrounding oversight at frontier AI labs after multiple breaches were discovered this summer. The incident, first reported by Reuters, is outlined in new research published by four AI safet

  6. The Verge AI

    Instagram’s AI detection is a mess (again)

    Instagram's visible AI labels are supposed to help people quickly spot synthetically generated content at a glance. Over the last few weeks, however, users have been reporting that the system has gone haywire. They say Meta has been automatically applying an "AI Content" label to images that they didn't create or edit using generative AI tools. Meanwhile, actual AI imagery is slipping through the cracks, leaving the impression that nothing can be trusted on Instagram at all. The precise causes o

  7. The Verge AI

    Why AI food looks like that

    There is a torrent of unappetizing slop coming from restaurants, cafes, and brands that are increasingly turning to AI to generate images promoting their food. The resulting horror show includes donut shrimp, Reubens from the deep, wormlike noodles, and noodle-like pastries and stringy chicken. There's also construction material masquerading as ice cream, ice cream masquerading as brains, and other masonry-adjacent cuisine. I don't even know how to begin describing this monstrous attempt of a bu

  8. MIT Technology Review AI

    Data from drones in Ukraine is fueling a new Wild West marketplace

    Battlefields in Ukraine are littered with the remnants of drones, which are now firmly established as a critical weapon of modern warfare. But behind all that wreckage, there’s a new gold mine for the defense sector. The data drones generate will far outlast the wars in which they are used to fight, increasingly becoming part…

  9. arXiv cs.AI

    Speculative Macro Commit for Faster Tool-Using Agents

    arXiv:2609.03236v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Tool-using LLM agents spend wall-clock time not only on model inference but also in serial action--observation turns, where each tool call, environment transition, and observation can delay subsequent decisions. We introduce \textbf{Speculative Macro Commit} (SMC), a runtime mechanism for a two-tier agent system: a large authoritative actor model produces the official trajectory, while a faster speculative drafter model continuously predicts and e

  10. arXiv cs.AI

    MasterControl Seventeen Every Time

    arXiv:2609.03209v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study a governed approach to enterprise analytics: a language model interprets the question, while deterministic policy selects and runs a pre-approved analytical program that returns both results and evidence. We show that this restriction can remain expressive within a defined analytical class, using relational operations plus aggregation, comparison, windows, ranking, and similarity. Fixed meaning, policy, data, and execution rules also make