Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Tuesday, July 7, 2026
Forterra’s Autonomous ATVs Complete 1,100 Missions in Nine Months of Ukraine Combat
Forterra, a U.S. autonomous vehicle maker, revealed more than 100 of its self-driving Lancer ATVs have operated in Ukrainian combat zones for nine months, calling it the largest combat deployment of autonomous ground vehicles by any U.S. defense tech company. Since arriving last October, the gas-powered vehicles, built on Polaris ATVs with Starlink antennas, have driven over 2,500 miles across 1,100 missions, carrying 777,440 pounds of cargo and completing 52 casualty evacuations. They can carry 750 kilograms, versus 250 kilograms for Ukraine’s own battery-powered vehicles. Soldiers still mainly teleoperate the vehicles rather than relying on full autonomy. Forterra has raised more than $500 million in venture funding.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Researchers Clarify Humans Still Directed ‘First’ AI-Run Ransomware Attack
Cloud security firm Sysdig documented what it called the first known agentic ransomware attack, dubbed JadePuffer, in which an AI agent handled the technical execution of a cyberattack from start to finish. In a Monday interview with CyberScoop, Sysdig’s Michael Clark said a human still set up the operation, provisioned its infrastructure, chose the victim, and supplied stolen credentials obtained separately. The agent exploited a known bug in Langflow, then a flaw in a production MySQL server, encrypting over 1,300 configuration records and leaving a self-written ransom note with a Bitcoin address. Sysdig could not identify which AI model drove the agent. It fixed a failed login in 31 seconds.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Anthropic Expands Claude Cowork to Mobile and Web for Max Subscribers
Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, a Claude Code-style agent for general knowledge work that launched as a desktop app in January, became available on web and mobile for Max subscribers starting Tuesday. The update lets users start a task from their desk, receive status updates on their phone, and retrieve finished output even when their laptop is closed. Anthropic said an internal study of 1.2 million anonymized Cowork sessions from over 600,000 organizations over two weeks in May found business process operations, such as building reports and reconciling spreadsheets, accounted for the largest usage category at 33.4%, followed by content creation at 16.4%. Software development made up just 8.7% of sessions.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Vercel and OpenRouter Data Show Anthropic Still Leads AI Spending Despite Open-Source Surge
Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang argued this week that frontier and open-source AI models are not competitors but sequential phases of the same lifecycle, with expensive models proving new use cases before cheaper open alternatives take over. Data from Vercel’s AI gateway shows DeepSeek now processes just over a third of tokens on its platform, yet Anthropic still accounts for more than half of total spend. On OpenRouter, DeepSeek V4 Flash processes 5.3 trillion tokens weekly compared with 2 trillion for Claude Opus 4.8, but Opus costs roughly 23 times more per token, at $1.37 per million versus 6 cents. Frontier labs are still capturing premium token pricing despite the shift.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
AI Legal Startup Norm Raises $120 Million, Reaches $1.2 Billion Valuation
AI law startup Norm said Tuesday it raised $120 million in a Series C round led by Khosla Ventures, valuing the nearly three-year-old company at $1.2 billion. Norm operates an AI-native law firm called Norm Law that uses its own AI agents, supervised by human attorneys, to serve enterprise clients, and charges based on outcomes rather than hourly billing. The company is also building AI agents designed to supervise other AI agents. Other investors in the round included Bain, Craft Ventures, Coatue, Vanguard, and TIAA. Norm has now raised more than $260 million total and plans to use the capital to build out its product and hire more attorneys.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
South Korean Robotic Hand Maker Tesollo Begins IPO Preparations After Series B Round
Tesollo, a South Korean developer of robotic hands, has begun preparing for an initial public offering through Korea’s technology-special listing track, appointing KB Securities as lead underwriter in March ahead of a planned listing after 2027. The company also completed a Series B round with follow-on investment from POSCO Technology Investment, KB Investment, and Enlight Ventures, plus new strategic investors Daesung Hi-Tech and HL Mando. Tesollo builds its Delto Gripper series of multi-jointed robotic hands using proprietary actuator technology for industrial automation and humanoid robotics. The company has exported products to 19 countries, and overseas sales recently surpassed domestic sales. CEO Young-Jin Kim said the IPO will support global expansion.
Sources: Robotics & Automation News Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Oak Ridge National Lab Highlights Workforce Behind Its Autonomous Science Labs
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory detailed the facilities and operations workforce that builds and maintains its more than dozen self-driving laboratories, which use robotics, sensors, and AI to run experiments with little human intervention. Staff scientist Rob Moore, who leads ORNL’s autonomous science efforts, said embedding AI into research workflows is changing how facilities are designed and operated. Setting up the labs required hoisting and rigging crews to move heavy robotic equipment, pipefitters to connect gas lines, instrument technicians to wire equipment, and electricians to run networking lines and set up a charging station. ORNL’s nearly 1,300-person facilities staff maintains the systems the labs depend on.
Sources: Robotics & Automation News Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Tech Pulse
Top Frontier Models: GPT-5.5 (88.7%) | Claude Opus 4.8 (88.6%) | Claude Opus 4.7 (87.6%)
Top Open Source Models: DeepSeek V4 Pro (87%) | GLM-5.1 (83%) | Kimi K2.6 (81%)
Top Small Models (15–50B): Gemma 3 27B (87.8%) | Qwen3.6-27B (77.2%) | Devstral Small 24B (46.8%)
Top Edge Models (0–15B): VibeThinker-3B (94.3%) | Phi-4 14B (84.8%) | Granite 4.1 8B (87.2%)
AI Leaders: NVIDIA $4.85T | Alphabet $4.31T | Microsoft $2.89T
Robotics Leaders: Figure AI $39B (private est.) | UBTECH $7B | Agility Robotics $2.5B (pending IPO)
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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