JD Digest — Sunday, July 12, 2026

DRIVER MARKET

Red Bull Keeping Close Tabs on Bearman Amid Verstappen Replacement Speculation

Red Bull are monitoring Haas driver Ollie Bearman as a potential replacement for Max Verstappen, according to Sky Sports commentator David Croft. Martin Brundle said Bearman’s path to a Ferrari seat — where he was part of the academy under Laurent Mekies, now Red Bull’s team principal — appears cut off following Charles Leclerc’s contract renewal and Lewis Hamilton’s resurgence at the Scuderia. Jenson Button advised Bearman to focus on the present. “I know Red Bull are keeping very close tabs on Ollie Bearman. If he hasn’t got a way into the Scuderia, that might be a very good option for Red Bull and for Ollie,” Croft said.

CHAMPIONSHIP

Overwhelming 97.6 Per Cent of Fans Back Ferrari Decision to Keep Hamilton for 2027

An overwhelming 97.6 per cent of RacingNews365 readers support Ferrari’s decision to retain Lewis Hamilton for the 2027 Formula 1 season. Hamilton endured a difficult 2025 campaign before bouncing back in 2026, winning the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona and recording five podiums from the first nine rounds. Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed Hamilton’s 2027 contract with a simple “yes” when asked. Hamilton currently sits third in the Drivers’ Championship on 147 points, behind Mercedes pair Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. “I wouldn’t be in this team without Fred,” Hamilton said.

GRID NEWS

Alonso Demands Aston Martin Progress Beyond Hungary Upgrade

Fernando Alonso has demanded continued progress from Aston Martin after the British Grand Prix, where the team were the only constructor to race without aerodynamic upgrades at Silverstone. Aston Martin sit at the foot of the Constructors’ Championship with one point, having also faced a one-second qualifying gap to the frontrunners at Silverstone. Alonso said the team is targeting a significant aero package for Hungary but called it only a first step. “We will get better. We will win races. Not this year, so this is only the first step in the plan; it cannot be the last one,” the two-time world champion said.

TECHNICAL

McLaren Explains Why Improved Mercedes Power Unit Has Been Delayed

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has explained why the Woking squad has not yet received the upgraded Mercedes HPP reliability unit. Stella said Alpine and Williams were given priority because they needed the improved power unit more urgently. McLaren has also faced its own reliability difficulties this season, suffering battery failures and a double non-start in China. Stella indicated the upgraded unit is expected to arrive at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. “As a customer team, you remain a bit on the back foot,” Stella said, describing McLaren’s position as a Mercedes engine customer.

REGULATION

Former F1 Boss Calls for Red Flag Rule Change After British GP Confusion

A former Formula 1 team boss has called for a rule change giving officials the option to wave a red flag when a safety car period causes confusion near the end of a race. At the British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen crashed on the penultimate lap, triggering the safety car. An unlapping procedure meant a standing restart was impossible, and a timing screen glitch compounded the spectator confusion at Silverstone. Otmar Szafnauer said officials should have intervened differently. “No, red flag it for the fans,” Szafnauer said, advocating a cleaner procedure for future incidents.

GRID NEWS

Bottas Says Cadillac Still in No Man’s Land Despite Silverstone Upgrades

Valtteri Bottas has assessed Cadillac’s performance at Silverstone, saying the team remain in a “no man’s land” despite bringing upgrades to the British Grand Prix. On the positive side, both Cadillac cars finished the race, with team-mate Sergio Perez equalling his best result of the season. However, Bottas acknowledged the upgrades did not produce a step-change in competitiveness, with further parts expected for the Belgian Grand Prix. “Lots of good information, but it’s still pretty clear that we’re in a little bit of a no man’s land over there,” Bottas said.

DRIVER MARKET

F1 Champion Norris Eyes Le Mans Partnership with MotoGP Icon Rossi

Formula 1 champion Lando Norris has expressed a desire to race alongside MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi at Le Mans, describing the prospect as “an honour.” The pair met at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where Norris — whose team McLaren is entering the Le Mans 24 Hours as a manufacturer in 2027 — said a shared drive could happen in a couple of years. Rossi responded by saying he would try to wait for the Briton. “Maybe in a couple of years, I would love to. It would be an honour for me and it would be a lot of fun, for sure,” Norris said.

INDUSTRYAI

Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX Combined Value Now Exceeds All Tech Exits of the Past 25 Years

A new analysis finds that Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX have collectively accumulated more private market value than all technology company exits — IPOs and acquisitions combined — over the prior 25 years. SpaceX alone reached a valuation of $1.77 trillion, while OpenAI and Anthropic have each secured enormous private valuations in recent rounds. The combined figure surpasses $4 trillion, dwarfing the aggregate exit value generated by the entire tech sector since the late 1990s. The data point reflects a structural shift in where capital concentrates: increasingly in private AI and deep-tech companies that can sustain stratospheric valuations without accessing public markets.

REGULATION

New York Times Accuses OpenAI of Hiding Evidence in ChatGPT Copyright Lawsuit

The New York Times has accused OpenAI of deliberately concealing evidence in ongoing copyright litigation over the company’s alleged unauthorized use of published journalism. Court filings revealed that OpenAI failed to preserve server logs that could have illuminated how ChatGPT was trained on Times articles and documents. The accusations centre on a deposition involving OpenAI’s general counsel, with the Times arguing the company’s conduct amounted to wilful destruction of evidence material to the copyright claim. If substantiated, the allegations could expose OpenAI to severe penalties including adverse inference instructions — allowing a jury to presume the destroyed logs would have proven infringement.

AIINDUSTRY

Paris AI Voice Startup Gradium Raises $100M Seed Round Backed by Nvidia

Paris-based AI voice startup Gradium has secured $100 million in seed funding — an unusually large early-stage raise — with backing from Nvidia and other strategic investors. Gradium is a spinout from Kyutai, the French AI research lab known for its Moshi real-time voice work, and counts Renault among its early enterprise customers. The round underscores Europe’s growing AI investment momentum and Nvidia’s strategy of backing startups that build on its compute ecosystem. Gradium’s founding team brings expertise in low-latency speech synthesis and real-time dialogue, targeting automotive and industrial use cases where voice interaction can replace screens and keyboards across factory-floor environments.

SECURITYAI

“Slopsquatting”: AI Hallucinated Package Names Are Becoming a Software Supply Chain Threat

Security researchers have documented a new class of software supply chain attack enabled by AI coding tools: “slopsquatting.” The threat exploits AI code assistants’ tendency to hallucinate non-existent package names at a rate of 19.7%, returning the same phantom identifiers consistently across repeated queries. Attackers who register these hallucinated names on PyPI, npm, or other repositories can silently intercept developer installations. Unlike typosquatting — which relies on human typing errors — slopsquatting scales through AI-generated code that developers may not carefully audit before execution. The researchers found the hallucination rate persistent across multiple frontier models, raising urgent questions about AI code assistant reliability in production pipelines.

HARDWARE

Even Realities’ G2 Smart Glasses Bet That No Camera Is the Right Call for the Enterprise

Smart glasses startup Even Realities has unveiled the G2, a 35-gram device that deliberately omits a camera — a striking reversal from competitors like Meta and Apple that have centred AI glasses around image capture. The G2 focuses instead on a 1200-nit display bright enough for outdoor use and a companion R1 ring controller for discreet hands-free interaction. The company argues enterprise buyers are more concerned about recording employees and customers than ambient intelligence features, and that privacy-first hardware unlocks corporate and medical deployments otherwise blocked by policy. The glasses support third-party AI integrations and are positioned as a productivity tool rather than a consumer lifestyle device.

RESEARCHAI

Reed Jobs’ Yosemite Fund Is Using AI to Accelerate Cancer Drug Discovery

Reed Jobs, son of Steve Jobs, has spoken candidly about the mission driving Yosemite, the oncology-focused venture fund he quietly launched in 2023. Rather than trade on his surname, Jobs says his aim is identifying academic research that AI can transform into viable cancer therapies. Yosemite takes early bets on university science that would otherwise stall in labs, then applies AI tools to drug discovery, clinical trial design, and patient matching. Jobs argued that AI’s capacity to analyse molecular data at scale is a genuine inflection point for oncology — not incremental progress, but a fundamental change in how quickly new treatments can be identified, validated, and brought to patients.

PROJECTSOFTWARE

MicroPython Comes to the SNES — With a Little Help From Claude Fable 5

Fabian Kübler used Claude Fable 5 to port MicroPython to the 3.58 MHz SNES processor — and it actually works. The port passes 430 of 468 core tests, boots in about 20 seconds, and runs at a blistering 0.8 FPS. What it lacks in speed it makes up for in sheer audacity, proving that AI-assisted porting can tackle genuinely tricky embedded targets. Source code on GitHub.

PROJECTHARDWARE

DOOM Runs on the Casio Loopy — and It Prints Screenshots on the Sticker Printer

The Casio Loopy — a 1995 Japanese girls’ console with a Hitachi SH-1 processor and a built-in sticker printer — now runs DOOM, courtesy of Throaty Mumbo. The port uses a FloopyDrive cartridge and fully supports the printer for hard-copy kill screens. Classic evidence that DOOM will eventually run on everything, including hardware that was never meant to play first-person shooters. Source code on GitHub.

HARDWAREELECTRONICS

Inside a 1997 BBC Ceefax Generator: MS-DOS, a 486, and a Teletext ISA Card

Nathan Dane cracked open a 1997 BBC Ceefax inserter — the box that generated the UK’s pre-internet news service — and found a 486-class industrial PC running MS-DOS 6.22. The key component is an ISA card carrying a TI TMS34010 graphics CPU that encodes teletext signals directly in analog, with no digital conversion required. A rare window into the broadcast infrastructure that shaped a generation of British viewers.

3D PRINTINGPROJECT

Clay Extruder Enables Printable Pottery — Including a Fired Ceramic Chain-Mail Mesh

Joshua Bird built a working ceramic 3D printer using an air-pressure-fed clay extruder with a stainless steel auger — because clay rapidly destroys plastic nozzles. His polar motion system handles the geometry; the real challenge is clay rheology: soft enough to extrude, stiff enough not to collapse before kiln firing. The results include a double-walled cup, decorative vessels, and an astonishing chain-mail mesh in fired ceramic.

PROJECTELECTRONICS

GeoLupe: A Robotic Arm That Shows Satellite Imagery Where You Point on a Paper Map

GeoLupe is a two-link robotic arm that tracks where a pointer rests on a paper map and instantly displays the corresponding satellite or street-map imagery on an M5Stack CoreS3 screen — entirely offline from an SD card. Fourteen-bit MT6701 magnetic encoders and least-squares forward-kinematics calibration deliver 2 mm positioning accuracy. An inspired blend of analog and digital map exploration, built around a fictional Doraemon gadget.

HARDWAREPROJECT

A $5 AliExpress Desk Toy Gets Custom Firmware — and Becomes a Proper Desktop Notifier

The GeekMagic SmallTV is a cheap ESP8266 or ESP32-C2 desktop display that ships as a Bitcoin ticker. A new community firmware by Giovi321 adds stock tickers, an ADS-B aircraft tracker, and a Claude AI token-usage gauge — all delivered over Wi-Fi. The modular code structure makes it straightforward to point at any data source, turning novelty e-waste into a genuinely handy desk gadget.

Evil Dead: Burn Opens to $15M, Landing in Second Place

The sixth entry in theEvil Deadfranchise,Evil Dead: Burn, opened to an estimated$15 millionfrom 3,004 screens over its debut weekend, placing second at the domestic box office. Directed bySébastien Vanicek, who co-wrote with Florent Bernard and Sam Raimi, the film follows a grieving widow whose in-laws fall victim to Deadite possession. The $20 million production outperformed analyst expectations for the lower-budget horror sequel. Cast members described the shoot as “relentless.” Burn is the first Evil Dead feature sinceEvil Dead Riseearned $25 million in its 2023 domestic opening. New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. distributed.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Tracking for $180–190M Domestic Debut

Sony and Marvel’sSpider-Man: Brand New Dayis tracking for a$180 million to $190 milliondomestic opening on July 31, which would make it the biggest box office debut of 2026. The film, directed byDestin Daniel Cretton, has posted the best first-day advance ticket sales of any release since Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021. The first trailer set an all-time record with718.6 million viewsin its first 24 hours, becoming the first trailer in history to surpass 1 billion views in total. The campaign includes a Samsung global partnership activation tied to the film’s July 31 release.

Apple TV+ Makes First-Ever Hall H Appearance at San Diego Comic-Con

Apple TV+will make its first-ever appearance in Hall H atSan Diego Comic-Conon Saturday, July 25, occupying the marquee venue for a two-hour panel. The debut will showcaseWidow’s Bay— the horror comedy that earned 19 Emmy nominations this week — alongside the John Cena action film Matchbox: The Movie (October 9), Ryan Reynolds thrillerMayday(September 4), and sci-fi series Dark Matter and Silo. The Hall H debut represents the platform’s first-ever presence at the convention and a new chapter in Apple’s theatrical marketing strategy. Comic-Con runs July 21–26.

Disney Entertainment Television Confirms SDCC 2026 Panel Lineup

Disney Entertainment Televisionhas confirmed its panels and activations forSan Diego Comic-Con 2026, which runs July 21–26. The lineup includes dedicated panel time forPercy Jackson and the Olympians Season 3andAmerican Horror Story Season 13. The Rookie is also confirmed for SDCC panel time. The announcements come as Disney’s television division coordinates its fall marketing push through a major convention presence. This week, Disney Entertainment Television joins Apple TV+, CBS Studios, and Star Trek in confirming substantial Comic-Con marketing commitments for the San Diego event.

CBS Studios to Bring Supersized Panel Block to San Diego Comic-Con

CBS Studioswill take a supersized panel block toSan Diego Comic-Con 2026(July 21–26), featuring hit comedyGhosts(confirmed for Season 5) and vampire workplace comedyEternally Yours. CBS will host a special advance screening of the Eternally Yours series premiere at the convention, giving fans early access before the fall broadcast premiere. Both are CBS Studios productions. The announcements join a wave of SDCC marketing confirmations from Disney Entertainment Television, Apple TV+, and Star Trek this weekend, as networks accelerate convention-circuit investment ahead of the 2026–27 season.

Star Trek Celebrates 60th Anniversary With Hall H Event at SDCC

Star Trekwill celebrate its 60th anniversary with a two-part Hall H event atSan Diego Comic-Con 2026on July 25. A main-stage panel forStrange New Worlds Season 4— featuring series stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck alongside executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman — will be followed by a franchise-wide anniversary panel with cast from across the Star Trek universe, led by a special introduction fromRod Roddenberry. A free advance screening of Strange New Worlds Season 4 episodes will be held at the Balboa Theater in San Diego on July 24.

DRIVER NEWS

Pato O’Ward Asks McLaren to Release Him from Formula 1 Reserve Duties

Arrow McLaren IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward has formally asked McLaren to release him from his Formula 1 reserve driver obligations, according to MotorsportWeek. The Mexican driver, currently fifth in the championship standings with 310 points, sought clarity on his future role as ongoing negotiations surrounding McLaren’s F1 lineup created uncertainty. O’Ward has served as a reserve and test driver for the McLaren F1 team, but the arrangement reportedly became untenable as his IndyCar commitments and long-term career trajectory came into focus. McLaren’s response has not been disclosed, but the development marks a significant shift in O’Ward’s relationship with the organization.

DRIVER NEWS

Josef Newgarden Racing Nashville in Walking Boot After Indy 500 Surgery

Josef Newgarden is still wearing a walking boot following surgery after the 2026 Indianapolis 500, according to Nashville television station WSMV, but the Team Penske driver confirmed he plans to compete in the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix on July 19. Newgarden, sixth in the championship with 270 points, underwent surgery after an injury sustained during the Indy 500. The Nashville native called the race a home event and expressed determination to line up on the grid despite ongoing rehabilitation. His medical team has cleared him to race at Nashville Superspeedway, where he is the defending grand prix champion.

CHAMPIONSHIP

Mid-Ohio Draws 1.34 Million Viewers — Up 73 Percent From 2025

The 2026 Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio drew 1.34 million viewers on FOX, IndyCar.com reported this week, representing a 73 percent increase over the same race in 2025. The ratings gain continues a positive growth trend for the series on FOX Sports. The July 5 race was won by Pato O’Ward in a competitive contest, with championship leader Alex Palou battling for position throughout. IndyCar has leveraged its FOX Sports partnership to expand its national audience, and the Mid-Ohio numbers suggest those efforts are generating measurable gains in viewership compared to the prior season.

OVAL

McLaughlin Posts Fastest Time at Full-Field Milwaukee Mile Test

Scott McLaughlin posted the fastest time at a full-field IndyCar test session at the Milwaukee Mile this week, according to Racer.com. The Team Penske driver topped the timing charts at the historic Wisconsin short oval during a session attended by the entire competitive field. The test provided teams valuable data on short oval car set-up as the series continues to evaluate potential future venue additions. McLaughlin, eighth in the championship with 262 points, showed strong pace throughout the session. The Milwaukee Mile visit has generated renewed discussion about returning the classic track to the IndyCar calendar in future seasons.

TECHNICAL

IndyCar and iRacing Unveil Official Standalone Video Game for 2027 Launch

IndyCar and simulation partner iRacing unveiled the name, logo, and 2027 launch plan for an official standalone IndyCar video game this week, according to Speedway Media. The announcement signals the series is pursuing a dedicated gaming title beyond its existing iRacing presence, bringing IndyCar content to a new standalone product. The game is being developed through a formal collaboration between iRacing’s simulation technology and IndyCar’s official series license. The project is seen as a significant move toward expanding IndyCar’s reach among the broader gaming and motorsport simulation audience ahead of the 2027 target launch.

WEC

Cadillac Locks Out Interlagos Front Row as Stevens Claims WEC Sao Paulo Pole

Will Stevens claimed Cadillac's second consecutive Sao Paulo pole with a 1:23.041 in the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R, locking out the Interlagos front row alongside teammate Jack Aitken in the No. 38 car. It was the fifth WEC Hypercar pole for Cadillac and Stevens' first since an LMP2 outing at Fuji in 2016. Alpine's Victor Martins finished third in Hyperpole, just 0.067 seconds behind — though Martins admitted frustration at the narrow margin. BMW and Porsche completed the top five. Aitken revealed he had not been confident both cars would even reach the shootout, noting all 17 Hypercars were within 0.739 seconds in Q1.

WEC

Toyota Becomes Sole Manufacturer to Miss Hyperpole as Kobayashi Receives Grid Drop

Toyota endured its most difficult qualifying of the 2026 WEC season at Interlagos, becoming the only manufacturer to fail to place a car in the Hyperpole shootout. The No. 7 GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi then received a three-place grid penalty for impeding the Genesis of Mathieu Jaminet in Q1, leaving Kobayashi effectively last among the 17 Hypercars. The No. 8 Toyota of Ryo Hirakawa qualified 14th, with Hirakawa acknowledging Interlagos has always been a tricky circuit for the brand. Toyota enters Sunday's race as WEC Manufacturers' Championship leader but from an unusually difficult grid position, with its title advantage under threat.

Genesis Tops WEC Practice for First Time as Jaminet Leads Sao Paulo FP2

Genesis Magma Racing logged its first-ever session-topping result in WEC competition when Mathieu Jaminet posted a 1:24.271 in the No. 19 GMR-001 to lead second practice at Interlagos on July 10. The South Korean manufacturer's car edged out a competitive Hypercar field on just its fourth WEC race weekend since debuting in 2026. Jaminet described the result as good motivation for the entire Genesis program. The team maintained strong pace into qualifying, with Jaminet reaching Hyperpole before a post-session grid penalty for impeding BMW's Sheldon van der Linde. Genesis fields a single Hypercar entry per round and has shown a consistent upward trajectory through the opening four rounds.

WEC

Ferrari Set to "Risk More" at Interlagos After Three Years Arriving as Championship Leader

Ferrari driver Antonio Giovinazzi says the Scuderia can risk a little bit more at Interlagos this season, freed from the pressure of defending a championship lead. The Ferrari 499P has never reached the podium at the Brazilian circuit, with a best result of fourth, and the car's characteristics struggle on the track's low-speed corners. Sitting third in the Manufacturers' standings and 70 points behind Toyota, Giovinazzi noted Ferrari has less to lose. Engineering chief Mauro Barbieri echoed the optimism, saying the field is more tightly packed than in previous seasons. Antonio Fuoco qualified best of the Ferrari trio in seventh — now sixth following Jaminet's penalty.

Lynn Still Absent as No. 12 Cadillac Runs Two-Driver Crew at Interlagos

Will Stevens and Jack Nato will share the No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo without regular third driver Alex Lynn, who continues to recover from neck surgery. Lynn — who took Cadillac's Sao Paulo pole last year and shared in the team's 1-2 victory — has been absent since the procedure with no confirmed return date. Running as a two-driver crew throughout the Interlagos weekend, the No. 12 still managed pole position as Stevens posted a 1:23.041 in Hyperpole. Cadillac's two Hertz Team JOTA entries lock out the front row for Sunday's race, suggesting Lynn's continued absence has not blunted the car's pace.

WECGT3

Pauwels Sets All-Time LMGT3 Lap Record at Interlagos to Claim Sao Paulo Pole

Kobe Pauwels set the fastest LMGT3 lap ever recorded at Interlagos — a 1:33.350 — to claim LMGT3 pole for the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo on just his second WEC start. The Belgian driver was standing in for regular Heart of Racing Aston Martin driver Eduardo Barrichello and beat the previous Interlagos LMGT3 record of 1:33.849, set by Barrichello himself, by almost half a second. The result extended Aston Martin's total to 72 WEC poles and its sixth in the LMGT3 era. Pauwels admitted he never expected pole on his first visit to the Brazilian circuit, crediting thorough preparation using data and video analysis.

IMSALMP

Clarke Smashes LMP2 Track Record for IMSA Overall Pole at CTMP

Jeremy Clarke shattered the LMP2 track record at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park during IMSA WeatherTech qualifying, recording a 1:07.904 in the No. 43 Inter Europol Oreca — the only driver to break the 1:08 barrier. Clarke's lap earned himself and co-driver Tom Dillmann overall pole for Sunday's Chevrolet Grand Prix at CTMP, Inter Europol's third pole of the 2026 IMSA season. The Canadian round features no GTP class, making LMP2 the headline category this weekend. In the IMSA GTP Drivers' Championship, Jack Aitken holds a 203-point lead heading into the weekend; the next GTP round is the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America on July 30-August 2.

WORKFORCE

Nurses Are Fearing AI Less — and Using It More

Nurses are increasingly embracing artificial intelligence even as job security worries persist. A 2026 survey of 2,240 nurses by Incredible Health found AI usage tripled from 15% to 44% over the past year. Despite those gains, 37% of nurses still fear AI will take their jobs. Eighty-three percent say AI output requires human checking, and only 8% report their employer has a clear AI strategy. The annual State of Nursing report also found 28% of nurses use Epic’s built-in AI features, and 59% use AI tools when job searching — a sign that AI is reshaping how nurses manage their careers.

AI/ANALYTICS

Could ‘Dr. AI’ Soon Practice Medicine?

Healthcare leaders hold widely divergent views on whether AI will ever independently practice medicine, but converge on one key point: accountability and governance matter more than raw technical capability. Experts from Altera Digital Health, Penguin AI, and Medicomp Systems agree that while limited autonomous AI already exists — FDA-authorized retinopathy screening systems have operated without a physician in the loop since 2018 — replacing the general physician remains more than a decade away. Dr. Jay Anders of Medicomp warns the industry is ‘rushing to let AI take over healthcare with little oversight,’ arguing that accountability structures must precede any expansion of AI clinical autonomy.

AI/ANALYTICS

Viz.ai, Cortechs.ai Partner on AI Imaging Workflow for MS Care

Viz.ai and Cortechs.ai have partnered to integrate quantitative MRI analysis into Viz.ai’s AI-powered care coordination platform, starting with multiple sclerosis. The collaboration brings Cortechs.ai’s NeuroQuant MS software — which measures and tracks lesion burden and count — into the Viz.ai workflow used by more than 2,000 hospitals and health systems. With nearly one million Americans living with MS, early and accurate MRI analysis is critical for diagnosis and monitoring. Viz.ai Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tim Showalter said the partnership extends the company’s proven care coordination infrastructure from neurovascular care into neurodegenerative disease, with plans to expand to additional conditions over time.

TELEHEALTH

Handspring Health Raises $19M to Expand Virtual Pediatric Mental Healthcare

Handspring Health has closed a $19 million Series B financing round, bringing its total funding to $37 million, to expand its virtual mental health platform for children, adolescents, and families. RPS Ventures led the round, with Angelini Ventures and returning backers including Cobalt Ventures and NextView Ventures also participating. The company operates across nine states and treats anxiety, depression, ADHD, OCD, and trauma. Handspring reports treating more than 4,000 families and growing revenue tenfold in two years. Funds will support clinician hiring, value-based care partnerships, and the company’s Complex Care program for high-risk youth who might otherwise be referred to emergency departments.

AI/ANALYTICS

AI Note-Taking Helps Clinicians Reclaim Patient Time

A behavioral health clinician at Prevention Research Institute is saving roughly three hours per week using AI-powered ambient documentation. Aaron Weiner, a board-certified addiction psychologist, adopted SimplePractice’s Note Taker to cut documentation burden across a daily schedule of six to eight patients. The tool listens to clinical sessions and generates draft notes that Weiner reviews and finalizes — taking about three minutes per note versus six previously. For a therapist seeing 25 patients weekly, that adds up to roughly 90 minutes saved. Weiner emphasized that the AI functions as a drafting assistant while the clinician retains full responsibility for every finalized note, preserving clinical oversight.

INFRASTRUCTUREINTEROPERABILITY

Linux Foundation to Launch Open Health Stack for Open-Source Digital Health

The Linux Foundation is launching the Open Health Stack Software Foundation (OHS-SF), a vendor-neutral, community-governed platform designed to address fragmentation in global digital health infrastructure. Built around HL7 FHIR foundations, a multiplatform deployment toolkit, and an AI Commons co-developed with the World Health Organization, OHS-SF counts Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, Medtronic Labs, and the WHO among its founding supporters. Google contributed a $3 million grant and transferred its Open Health Stack project, originally launched in 2023, to the new foundation. An implementer program aims to bring developers from low- and middle-income countries into governance without financial barriers.

AI/ANALYTICS

OpenEvidence Expands Clinical AI Tools Across NYC Medical Centers

OpenEvidence is expanding its AI-powered clinical decision support platform to NewYork-Presbyterian, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Weill Cornell Medicine. The deployment gives clinical staff across all NYP hospitals and hundreds of care sites in New York City and Westchester County the ability to ask complex medical questions in conversational language and receive evidence-grounded responses. NYP Chief Information Officer Chif Umejei said the tool allows clinicians to access and analyze medical research in real time. The expansion follows OpenEvidence raising $250 million in January at a $12 billion valuation, bringing its total funding to nearly $700 million.