Tootfinder

Ooredoo, Nvidia, Nokia, and Indosat launch Zankore, Indonesia's first dedicated AI compute and neocloud platform; Ooredoo, which owns a 49% stake, commits $800M (Melissa Hancock/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/08/06/qatar-o

Qatar’s Ooredoo, Nvidia, and Nokia unveil multi-billion-dollar AI compute platform—and Southeast Asia is their target
Qatar's Ooredoo is spearheading a multi-billion-dollar AI compute platform with Nvidia and Nokia, targeting Southeast Asia's booming digital economy

Paramount commits to keep UK linear and streaming services separate, maintain news and kids' networks editorially independent, and boost Channel 5 funding (Lucas Manfredi/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/busi

Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Cleared by UK Competition and Markets Authority
Despite the green light, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy previously warned she's "minded to intervene" and is still conducting her own assessment

Pattern formation: reactivity is not necessary for chemotaxis--driven instabilities
Angela Monti
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.03685 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.03685 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.03685
arXiv:2608.03685v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: A classical result by Neubert, Caswell and Murray states that reactivity of a spatially homogeneous equilibrium is a necessary condition for diffusion-driven (Turing) instability. In this work, we investigate whether the same conclusion remains valid in the presence of chemotaxis. We consider a general reaction--diffusion system coupled with a chemotactic flux and establish necessary conditions for asymptotic instability. We show that the classical requirement of reactivity can be relaxed when the chemotactic contribution is sufficiently strong. In particular, while reactivity remains necessary for Turing instability, it is not a necessary condition for chemotaxis-driven instability. From a computational viewpoint, we extend the matrix-oriented formulation developed for reaction--diffusion systems to the more general class of reaction--diffusion--chemotaxis models. The chemotactic transport term is discretized in a form compatible with the matrix-oriented approximation of the diffusion operator, yielding an efficient numerical framework for the simulation of chemotaxis-driven pattern formation. A geometric interpretation of the instability region is presented, highlighting the distinct roles played by diffusion and chemotaxis. The theoretical and numerical developments are illustrated through two representative examples: a chemotaxis-extended Schnakenberg model, showing how chemotaxis modifies classical Turing patterns, and a predator--prey model, demonstrating that chemotaxis alone can induce pattern formation in the absence of both reactivity and diffusion-driven instability. These results reveal a fundamental difference between diffusion-driven and chemotaxis-driven mechanisms of spatial self-organization and provide new theoretical and computational insights into the role of non-symmetric transport processes in biological pattern formation.
toXiv_bot_toot

Astra working with Blender via computer use feels like magic, showing computer use could be the fourth demand wave after chatbots, reasoning, and agentic coding (Tae Kim/Key Context)
https://taekim.substack.com/p/gpt-6-astra-and-the-fourth-exponential

GPT-6 Astra and the Fourth Exponential
AI computer tool use is a big deal.

In Texas governor’s race, Abbott spends big to try to stay in office
In a surprisingly competitive race,
new filings reveal that Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott (R) has spent down the majority of his war chest
in an effort to preserve his position,
while Democratic challenger
Gina Hinojosa’s fundraising has ramped up.

In a New York Times-Siena poll conducted in late September,
Hinojosa received support from
49 percent of likely voters,
ver…

In Texas governor’s race, Abbott spends big to try to stay in office
Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa has ramped up her fundraising.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@Sobieck/117218414828168219
For what it's worth, I don't think it's social media, or the algorithms… I think it's the Internet and computers.
Starting—at least in my context—with when drum machines came along and…

I'm watching The Librarians: The Next Chapter 2x04 "And the Recipe for Disaster" https://trakt.tv/shows/the-librarians-the-next-chapter/seasons/2/episodes/4

And the Recipe for Disaster
When Connor is bewitched by a "smell spell" and becomes a contestant on a cooking competition show, the Librarians must break the enchantment by defeating…

Circular Economy Synergies and Trade-offs in Data Centres
Vlad C. Coroam\u{a}, Oana Dumbrav\u{a}
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.04571 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.04571 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.04571
arXiv:2608.04571v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: This report analyses data centre (DC) sustainability and circularity, revealing existing synergies and trade-offs:
The PUE is too coarse, mixing cooling and power provisioning. It wrongly attributes server fan consumption and transformation losses to IT energy. It does not measure compute but infrastructure efficiency, which is already outstanding. Compute energy, however, is exploding. Better energy metrics for DCs would thus cover i) compute efficiency, ii) transformation efficiency, and iii) cooling overhead.
Trade-offs exist between cooling energy and water as well as on-site and upstream water: Consuming water on-site lowers the cooling energy, which also lowers the water consumed upstream in power generation. For 'wet' electricity, there is little competition: It is worth spending more on-site energy to save both electricity and related upstream water. For 'dry' electricity, there is a trade-off.
Waste heat recovery brings energy circularity but has limited uses and is not the same energy quality, a fact not reflected by current metrics. A better metric would consider the avoided energy through heat recovery instead of the amount recovered.
Material circularity can be achieved by interpreting the 9R framework in the context of DCs. Circularity-enhancing measures can be categorised into product design, process design and business models, choice of materials, and operating conditions. Together, they have effects across all circularity levels.
The relation between DCs and the power grid is complex. Modern DCs present new challenges for the grid. Mitigation includes battery storage and onsite generation. These measures have, in turn, further consequences, both beneficial and detrimental. They can offer grid flexibility as well as innovations in the field of energy. But they also bring noise, pollution, and GHGs, and compete with the energy sector for resources.
toXiv_bot_toot

Coupled quintessence from an axion dark sector
Rayff de Souza, Edmund J. Copeland, Jailson Alcaniz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.05032 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.05032 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.05032
arXiv:2608.05032v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Recent observational data arising from the DESI collaboration has hinted at a possible departure from the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, preferring instead the presence of a dynamical dark energy component. Specifically, the associated equation of state of the dark energy features a crossing into the so-called phantom regime, which is challenging to accommodate in canonical single scalar-field scenarios. However, this behavior can be effectively described by an interacting dark sector, where the specific dark energy equation of state remains above the phantom divide whilst the dark matter component deviates from the standard cold dark matter evolution. In this work, we explore this possibility in the context of an axion dark sector, where both the dark energy and dark matter are represented by two interacting axion-like fields. We show that given the required mass hierarchy for these fields to play such roles, their dynamics can be effectively placed in the coupled quintessence framework, where their motion follows from a sourced continuity equation in the fluid description. In this regime, we perform a statistical analysis of this scenario with current data, finding that a sub-Planckian dark energy axion decay constant stays well within the observational bounds without the need to fine-tune the associated field's initial conditions. We also perform a comparison with $\Lambda$CDM, where we find that the model provides a better fit to the data while staying competitive from a Bayesian perspective.
toXiv_bot_toot

OpenAI disputes Apple's account of pre-lawsuit contacts, rejects claims that ex-staff used confidential information, shares iMessages and emails, and more (OpenAI)
https://openai.com/index/apple-is-getting-this-wrong