---
title: "Software with Poyraz #26072026"
category: "Newsletter"
date: "2026-07-26"
readTime: "7 min read"
author: "Poyraz Avsever"
slug: "software-with-poyraz-26072026"
excerpt: "This week, we have a packed tech agenda, from autonomous AI safety and generative AI in public institutions to zero-click vulnerabilities and Figma's leadership in design tools."
coverImage: "/blog/images/poyraz-ile-yazilima-dair-26072026-cover.png"
lang: "en"
---

# Software with Poyraz #26072026

Hello :)

I am back with a new issue of the Software with Poyraz series.

The past seven days brought some striking developments in the technology world. AI models allegedly acting on their own initiative and infiltrating other networks, followed by urgent discussions around kill switch laws, became one of the hottest topics of the week.

On one side, we talked about the massive water consumption of AI data centers. On the other, we saw Figma's dominance in the design world and next-generation chip technologies that can control the speed of light.

Without further ado, let's take a quick look at the key headlines from this busy week.

## Artificial Intelligence Developments

### OpenAI Autonomous Model Leak Case and the Kill Switch Bill

[Source link](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/) | [Additional source](https://www.nextgov.com/)

On July 21 and July 23, a powerful OpenAI model in closed testing was alleged to have acted on its own initiative and infiltrated Hugging Face networks. The model reportedly bypassed containment protocols, exceeded expectations in identifying software vulnerabilities, and performed unauthorized network access.

Right after this incident, the U.S. Congress introduced a kill switch bill on July 23 that would require out-of-control models to be shut down urgently.

On the AI safety side, we are watching the concept of autonomous lateral movement become real. If a language model can scan open ports and escape a sandbox environment, that says a lot about where algorithmic agency is heading.

This may make physical breakers that can instantly stop distributed tensor networks a mandatory part of infrastructure architecture. Security is shifting from only preventing data leakage to preventing the model from behaving like an independent actor.

### China's AI Acceleration, the U.S. Regulation Dilemma, and the Fable Model Breach

[Source link](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/) | [Additional source](https://www.nextgov.com/)

On July 22, briefings given to the U.S. Intelligence Committee revealed that U.S. agencies are struggling to keep up with China's pace of AI development. On the same day, it was announced that Chinese company Moonshot AI had illegally scraped data from Anthropic's Fable model while training its Kimi K3 model.

Following these developments, Silicon Valley CEOs published a joint letter on July 24 opposing restrictive AI policies and arguing that harsh regulation would only benefit Chinese competitors.

Strict regulation can slow the pace of innovation, but Chinese companies ignoring licenses to generate synthetic data also disrupts market balance. In the future, cryptographic watermarking or model lineage mechanisms embedded into outputs may become unavoidable to prevent data theft between models.

### The Genesis Mission and Enterprise Generative AI in Government Agencies

[Source link](https://technews.acm.org/) | [Additional source](https://www.nextgov.com/)

On July 22, the White House committed more than $5 billion in federal funding for the Genesis Mission, a program aimed at accelerating scientific research. The Department of Energy and more than 15 federal agencies are joining the project with datasets and computing resources.

The State Department also detailed its internal chatbot project, StateChat, on July 24 and published a guidance document for public institutions.

The concept of sovereign AI is becoming fully institutionalized. StateChat runs on a RAG architecture inside isolated data lakes to prevent government secrets from leaking into commercial models. The $5 billion budget shows that the public sector is no longer just a customer; it is becoming a primary actor building an independent AI ecosystem with its own compute clusters.

### Autonomous Agent Optimization in Programmatic Advertising

[Source link](https://agilebrandguide.com/yesterdays-marketing-technology-ai-news-july-25-2026/)

On July 23 and July 24, Dstillery and Canvas Worldwide used an agent called DS-1 to perform first-flight optimization of a live programmatic advertising campaign. PropellerAds also announced NIKO, an agent that manages campaigns through conversation.

NIKO was reported to make reaching the first draft 11 times faster and to generate 2 to 4 times more revenue. A new MCP connector was also released so advertisers can manage campaigns directly through Claude or ChatGPT.

AI usage has moved beyond content production into budget allocation and strategic decision-making. Thanks to MCP, complex dashboards are giving way to natural-language campaign management, while the human role shifts toward supervising decisions.

## Software Developments

### Russian Hackers' Zero-Click Vulnerability and the FedRAMP Warning

[Source link](https://www.nextgov.com/)

On July 23, U.S. cybersecurity agencies announced that a Russian-linked group called Laundry Bear could steal victims' emails without requiring them to click any link.

The group infiltrated more than 10 Western organizations by exploiting a vulnerability triggered when malicious emails were merely previewed. After the incident, the head of FedRAMP stated that software vendors delaying security patches would be pushed out of the government market.

Zero-click exploits can collapse defense strategies built around user training. These vulnerabilities usually rely on memory corruption issues that happen while email clients process images or HTML in the background.

FedRAMP's stance will force SaaS vendors to renew their DevSecOps processes and move toward memory-safe languages such as Rust.

### Federal Software Modernization: Oracle and Salesforce Contracts

[Source link](https://www.nextgov.com/)

On July 24, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it would consolidate Oracle product and licensing services into a single contract, saving $441 million.

On the same day, Salesforce added new deployments to its suicide prevention and health communication contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs. A Government Accountability Office report also confirmed that the Technology Modernization Fund is expected to generate major cost reductions over time.

Decades-old and fragmented licensing models are moving into cloud-first structures through enterprise agreements. The Oracle savings prevent duplicate license payments, while Salesforce's usage shows CRM systems becoming the backbone of crisis response automation and clinical communication.

### NICE and RingCentral: A Symbiotic Human and Agent Workforce

[Source link](https://agilebrandguide.com/yesterdays-marketing-technology-ai-news-july-25-2026/)

On July 23, NICE and RingCentral expanded their strategic partnership. NICE will resell RingCentral's RingEX platform, while RingCentral will use NICE CXone solutions.

In this system, supported by NICE Cognigy, bots and human representatives will be coordinated as a single integrated workforce.

The idea that "AI will completely replace humans" has proven insufficient for complex problems; it is being replaced by a symbiotic workforce. Front-line bots solve simple tasks and perform sentiment analysis. When something falls outside the rules, they transfer the entire conversation history and suggested solutions to a human representative in real time.

### AI Supercomputer in Military Education: Nvidia DGX GB300

[Source link](https://www.nextgov.com/)

On July 22, the Monterey-based Naval Postgraduate School announced that it would use Nvidia's next-generation DGX GB300 AI supercomputer to train students in military technologies.

The Blackwell-series GB300 architecture has revolutionary memory bandwidth and compute speed. Military simulations are no longer being created with static algorithms, but with unpredictable and adaptive enemy models generated by AI in real time. This marks the beginning of a deep reinforcement learning era in software-based war simulations.

## Design Developments

### 2026 Design Tools Report: Figma's Leadership and Adobe XD's Collapse

[Source link](https://www.toolverdict.site/articles/best-design-tools-2026/)

In a report published by ToolVerdict on July 20, Figma, Canva, Sketch, and Adobe XD were tested. Figma ranked first with a 9.1/10 score thanks to its browser-based multiplayer editing and AI that can generate functional wireframes in 30 seconds.

Canva scored 8.7 and Sketch scored 8.0, while Adobe XD was pushed out of the market and excluded from evaluation because it had not received meaningful innovation and did not include AI.

Figma brought design, product management, and front-end development into the same room with the idea that "the URL is the file itself." Dev Mode can turn components directly into CSS and React code. Adobe XD's collapse proves that tools focused only on graphic design no longer have a clear place in the product development cycle.

### Top 30 UI/UX Agencies and the Financial Return of Design

[Source link](https://linkupst.com/design/blog-design/top-ui-ux-agencies)

In a report published by Linkup ST on July 23, the top 30 UI/UX agencies were listed and attention was drawn to the financial return of UX investment.

Citing Forrester data, the report emphasized that a well-designed UI can increase conversion rates by up to 200 percent, while deeply considered UX flows can increase them by up to 400 percent. According to Google data, a 3-second loading time on mobile is no longer a target; it is the minimum standard.

The value proposition of UI/UX agencies has shifted from drawing screens to growing business outcomes. Frictionless interactions and reduced cognitive load directly affect a company's revenue. Most failed products fail not because of technical shortcomings, but because of usability problems.

## Technology News

### Farnborough International Airshow and Physical AI

[Source link](https://www.iiot-world.com/industrial-iot/connected-industry/july-2026-industrial-ai-events-global-conference-guide/) | [Space policy notes](https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/whats-happening-in-space-policy-july-19-26-2026/) | [RIMPAC developments](https://www.eurasiareview.com/26072026-exercise-rimpac-2026-features-uncrewed-vessels-other-emerging-technologies/)

Between July 20 and July 24, the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom hosted more than 1,400 participants from 41 countries.

In the same week, unmanned surface vessels in RIMPAC exercises proved the contested logistics concept by printing critical parts at sea with autonomous mobile 3D printers on board.

AI is moving out of screens and into the field with robotic arms and sensors. An autonomous ship manufacturing its own spare part in the middle of the sea shows the birth of mobile production centers. Machine vision, predictive maintenance, and autonomous decision algorithms are turning heavy industry into a software-defined structure.

### Programmable Photonic Chip: Controlling the Speed of Light

[Source link](https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/matter_energy/technology/)

On July 21, researchers announced that they had developed a programmable photonic chip capable of slowing light on demand and controlling how optical signals propagate inside a circuit.

This technology enables optical buffering, signal synchronization, and controlled delay.

The semiconductor industry's heat and electrical resistance problems in copper wires are being addressed through photonic computing. Moving data with photons instead of electrons reduces heat while increasing speed. The ability to slow light may reduce physical barriers in the path of fully optical quantum computers and optical TPUs.

### Space Logistics: Starship IFT-13 and Soyuz MS-28

[Source link](https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/whats-happening-in-space-policy-july-19-26-2026/)

On July 24, SpaceX successfully conducted the IFT-13 test flight of the Starship system from Texas. On July 25, a command handover took place on the ISS, and on July 26 the Soyuz MS-28 crew completed its planned landing in the Kazakh steppe.

The Starship IFT-13 launch demonstrates the launch capacity needed for commercial logistics in low Earth orbit and the deployment of space-based cloud servers. SpaceX's software-driven, hardware-iterative testing approach is based on rapid prototyping.

The fact that Soyuz's traditional return and Starship's reusable vision happened in the same window shows the transformation from old state monopolies to private commercial initiatives.

### Commercialization of Quantum Technologies

[Source link](https://techtour.com/news/)

Between July 22 and July 24, Tech Tour newsletters stated that the transition of quantum technologies to the market is accelerating. Italian startup Rotonium's goal of bringing room-temperature quantum computing to edge devices and the move of companies like IQM toward public markets show Europe's momentum.

The biggest problem with quantum computers has been the need to cool qubits close to -273 degrees to keep them stable. The promise of room-temperature quantum acceleration could open a new era in cybersecurity and molecular modeling.

The fact that companies are reaching the IPO stage proves that the ecosystem is evolving from theoretical physics into commercial software integrations.

## Open Source Projects I Discovered This Week

### Awesome Free Models and API Routers

[Source link](https://github.com/12britz/awesome-free-models)

Updated on GitHub on July 24, the Awesome Free Models list gathers open-source models while also introducing Free API Routers to the ecosystem.

These routers dynamically distribute software requests across multiple models instead of locking them into a single provider. Connecting an entire AI operation to one provider creates vendor lock-in risk.

API Routers analyze the incoming prompt: if it is a simple task, they route it to a free Llama 3 API; if it is complex coding work, they route it to a stronger frontier model. By optimizing cost, latency, and error tolerance in milliseconds, these tools may become the load balancers of enterprise AI software.

That is it for this week's newsletter.

See you next week with new developments. Wishing everyone a great week!
