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Tech Beat · 8 PM Update

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TikTok is testing a new opt-in tool that scans for AI-generated likenesses and lets creators flag them directly to the company. The feature is currently being piloted with a limited group of US creators. YouTube recently launched something similar for all adult users, signaling that protecting digital identity is becoming a real platform priority, not just a talking point.

Shifting to energy, nuclear startup Valar Atomics is in talks to raise new funding at a valuation of six billion dollars. The deal reflects a broader pattern in the sector where complex, multi-stage funding rounds are becoming common, sometimes making it harder to track what investors are actually paying to get in. The appetite for nuclear, though, is clearly not cooling.

And from the skies above our cities to the skies beyond our solar system — NASA is inviting media to the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, built and tested at Goddard Space Flight Center. Roman is designed to survey dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets at a scale no telescope has managed before. It is, by any measure, a genuinely ambitious machine.

That is your Tech Beat for today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.

Sources

  1. https://www.theverge.com/tech/967486/tiktok-ai-likeness-detection-tool
  2. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/la-nasa-invita-a-los-medios-de-comunicacion-al-lanzamiento-del-telescopio-espacial-roman/
  3. https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/17/nuclear-startup-valar-atomics-in-talks-to-raise-new-funding-at-6b-valuation/
  4. https://www.wired.com/story/cities-from-chicago-to-washington-dc-look-like-wildfire-smoke/
  5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48951167
  6. https://decrypt.co/373749/caradno-ada-price-spikes-iohk-decentralizing-development
  7. https://www.hackingleadership.com/p/why-the-people-who-could-fix-it-are-the-first-to-leave
  8. https://blog.dshr.org/2026/07/portents-of-doom.html
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