OpenAI has started previewing its GPT‑5.6 series, which will be available in three versions, to a limited number of trusted partners. The company says the variant Sol is its strongest model yet, while Terra is for everyday use and has a similar performance to GPT‑5.5 despite being twice as cheap. Luna, the last variant, is the company’s lowest cost model. OpenAI plans to give them a broad release sometime in the coming weeks.

The company gave the US government a preview of GPT‑5.6 and its capabilities before today. It’s also  by the administration’s request that it is previewing the model to a small group of trusted partners “whose participation has been shared” with the government. “We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI wrote in its announcement. It said it’s taking the “short-term step,” for now, because it ensures it can release its latest model series to the public soon. 

President Trump signed an AI cybersecurity order earlier this month, which asks companies to present their most powerful models for voluntary government review 30 days before making them publicly available. According to a recent report by The New York Times, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and Microsoft have been giving the government early access to their latest models even before Trump signed the order. Meta was the only holdout, and the US government has reportedly been urging it to submit its AI models for evaluation. 

GPT‑5.6 introduces a “max” reasoning effort, which gives Sol more time to reason deeply. Sol is also OpenAI’s most capable model for cybersecurity and is the best option to help users find and fix vulnerabilities. OpenAI says Sol comes with strengthened protections for high-risk activities and sensitive requests. It also says that the company had spent several weeks finding its weaknesses and fortifying it against real-world attacks.

The company put safeguards on all the variants, however, to make sure they hold up to real adversarial pressure. In addition, OpenAI trained GPT-5.6 to refuse “prohibited cyber assistance,” including attempts at jailbreaking the model. It spent 700,000 GPU hours to find universal jailbreaks to develop measures against them, and it pledges to implement a “rapid-response process to reproduce, assess, prioritize, and remediate newly discovered jailbreaks.”

OpenAI’s focus on jailbreak prevention likely stems from what happened to Anthropic. A couple of weeks ago, Anthropic suspended all access to its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models after a directive from the government. While the company didn’t say it outright, Amazon and other companies had reportedly notified authorities that its models could be jailbroken and used for malicious purposes. It has started lifting its access block, though, since US government has just given Anthropic permission to redeploy Mythos to a select group of organizations. 

The company has priced GPT‑5.6 Sol at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output, much less than what Fable cost when it was still available. ($10 for input and $50 for output for the same amount of tokens.) Terra costs $2.50 for input and $15 for output, while Luna costs $1 for input and $6 for output. 

Y Combinator-backed insurance tech startup Corgi became embroiled in yet another controversy earlier this week when Papermark, maker of open source data room software, accused Corgi of stealing its software and passing it off as its own.

Corgi denies this. “No code was used from Papermark,” the company tells TechCrunch.

But there were reasons why people believed the initial allegation, which was made by Papermark co-founder Marc Seitzon X and concerned Corgi’s newly released product called Dataroom. Deal room software is essentially secure document sharing. It is famously used by startups to pitch VCs and send them supporting materials for due diligence.

Seitz’s post blew up because he shared screenshots showing Corgi’s product using the same language for the same features as Papermark’s, word for word. He went as far as to call Corgi’s new product copyright- and license-infringing, and “fraud.”

Corgi’s co-founder and CEO Nico Laqua saw the tweet and promised to investigate. Soon after, he responded on X with a full denial, showing that the code was different between the two products.

While he strenuously pushed back on the allegations of a license violation — arguing that “copying my style” is a different claim than “stealing enterprise code” — he did admit that relying on a vibe-coding design led to the replica features.

“Looking back, we should’ve leaned more into our own language and visual choices instead of taking cues from existing products in the space, and that’s on us,” he posted.

A Corgi spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the offending features were vibe-coded and said they have already been changed, downplaying the situation.

“The issues were isolated to visual elements on two peripheral settings pages,” the spokesperson told us, adding that these elements were “immediately updated” and that “our team confirmed that no code was used from Papermark.”

Laqua and the spokesperson also accused Papermark of making these accusations because Corgi is offering a less expensive product. “I get that this stings since we’re putting out something mostly free that competes with his SaaS. I’d be mad too,” Laqua wrote of Seitz. Seitz did not respond to a request for comment.

The copying of visual elements and identical feature language, however, went beyond sour grapes as a credible complaint. It raises a new and thornier question: If vibe coding makes it so easy to copy the look, feel, and every function of another’s work, while not copying every line of the code itself, how much does it matter if the source isn’t identical?

Obviously, legally speaking, it’s the only thing that matters. So this is not the same as the controversy over Y Combinator alum PearAI, a 2024 startup that admitted to cloning another open source project and releasing it under its own license.

Morally speaking, this is ambiguous and will become increasingly common.

As fellow YC alum and founder of the agent operating system OpenProse Dan Barrett explained on X: “In a world where a bot can trivially copy 1:1 the structure of something even if the character-level code diverges … what makes one unacceptable and the other not? existing IP law, incidental to the old world? is there not some greater principle at work here?”

Corgi is now vigorously trying to clean up any reputational damage. It has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Seitz demanding that he take down the tweet, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The founder of Hello World Cafe, which competes in part with Corgi’s coffee shop business, says he also received a cease-and-desist from Corgi’s lawyers over a tweet joking about the Dataroom controversy. Though X still remembers. There have been hundreds of comments and countless subtweets.

This is not the first time Corgi has been accused of heavy-handed legal tactics. In May, competitor Matcha accused the company of bullying behavior, a dispute that unfolded alongside a separate lawsuit. The two-year-old startup has also sued various former employees and developed a growing reputation for being litigious.

(Corgi also offers a 24-hour coffee shop, with plans to open more, Laqua recently said on VC Harry Stebbings’ podcast.)

This latest hullabaloo adds to a growing list of chatter around Corgi. The two-year-old startup, for instance, has a growing reputation for being litigious. It’s already sued various former employees.

Laqua also recently went viral for his comments on Stebbings’ podcast about how he expects employees to work seven days a week. “Whatever you can get done in five days, I promise you, you’ll get more done in six and seven,” he said.

That is, of course, the fallacy of startup hustle culture. Decades of research repeatedly conclude that human productivity is not a quadratic equation. While sprints can be effective and build camaraderie for short-term problems like the site going down, the research shows that, as a matter of routine, more hours of work reduces productivity, not the other way around.

The startup also got tongues wagging for how fast it has raised money with increasing valuations, even by AI-startup standards. Last month, Corgi raised a $106 million Series B1, valuing the company at $2.6 billion, just three weeks after announcing a $160 million Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation and four months after its $108 million Series A. 

Corgi also operates a 24-hour coffee shop, with plans to open more, Laqua said on the Stebbings podcast.

TikTok is no longer just a video app. The platform has spent the past year adding hotel bookings, in-app commerce, sports hubs, casual games, microdramas, and a fintech licence application, building out the infrastructure of what the industry calls a “super app,” a single destination that handles tasks users currently spread across a dozen different services.

The super app model originated in China, where WeChat combines messaging, payments, ride-hailing, government services, and e-commerce into one platform with more than a billion monthly users. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance already operates Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, which integrates AI shopping agents, ticket bookings, and payments in ways that Western platforms have not matched. The question is whether that model can cross the Pacific, and TikTok, now under primarily US ownership after a January transition to an Oracle and Silver Lake-led joint venture, is the vehicle ByteDance is using to find out.

The most commercially significant expansion has been TikTok Shop. According to eMarketer, TikTok Shop grew US sales by 407 percent in 2024 and another 108 percent in 2025 to reach nearly sixteen billion dollars, capturing more than 18 percent of total US social commerce. That share is expected to reach roughly 24 percent by 2027, putting TikTok in direct competition with Amazon, Shein, and traditional online marketplaces.

In May, TikTok launched TikTok GO, a feature that lets US users discover and book hotels, attractions, and experiences without leaving the app. The service partners with Booking, Expedia, Viator, GetYourGuide, and Trip, turning travel content that already drives millions of views into a direct booking funnel. It puts TikTok in competition not just with Google Search and Google Maps, but with the entire online travel agency industry.

The company is also pushing into financial services. In March, Reuters reported that TikTok applied to Brazil’s central bank for two fintech licences, one to offer prepaid accounts where users can store funds and make payments, and another to operate as a direct credit provider. Brazil, where TikTok reaches roughly 131 million users aged 18 and above, would be the first market where the platform handles money directly.

TikTok has also built a dedicated hub for the 2026 FIFA World Cup with live scores, match schedules, standings, and curated video highlights, keeping sports fans inside the app instead of switching to ESPN or Google. ByteDance, meanwhile, continues investing in content tools, recently unveiling its Seedance AI video model that produces 30-second clips at native 4K resolution. The parent company’s broader ambitions in AI, commerce, and entertainment all feed into TikTok’s platform expansion.

The entertainment push extends to scripted content and gaming. TikTok launched PineDrama in January, a standalone microdrama app offering bite-sized TV shows in one-minute episodes, and has added casual games to its DMs. The company previously attempted a music streaming service in 2023 but shut it down in November 2024, pivoting to partnerships with Apple Music and Spotify instead of competing directly.

Whether any of this amounts to a true super app outside China remains an open question. Western users have historically resisted consolidating their digital lives into a single platform, and regulators in the US and EU are more likely to scrutinize a company that handles shopping, payments, travel, entertainment, and social networking under one roof. TikTok is betting that the habit of opening one app for everything can be built incrementally, one feature at a time, rather than arriving fully formed.

Craft Recordings and Bluesville are adding two more essential titles to one of the stronger all-analog blues reissue programs currently on vinyl: Jimmy Reed’s Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall and Skip James’ Devil Got My Woman. Both LPs have been cut from the original analog master tapes by Grammy-nominated engineer Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab, using an AAA mastering chain, and pressed on 180-gram vinyl in partnership with Acoustic Sounds.

The packaging is not an afterthought, either. Each release comes in a tip-on jacket with an obi strip and new album reflections by Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and bluesman Scott Billington—details that help distinguish Bluesville from the usual bare-bones catalog recycling. High-resolution and standard digital remasters will also be released alongside the vinyl editions.

Reed’s 1961 Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall is a studio recording despite the misleading title, and includes “Bright Lights Big City.” Skip James’ Devil Got My Woman, released in 1968, is a far starker and more intimate affair, built around the Delta blues legend’s singular guitar work, fractured vocals, and the title track that became his signature song.

The new releases follow Bluesville’s recent AAA editions of Albert King’s I’ll Play the Blues for You and Eddie Kirkland’s It’s the Blues Man!, both of which we just reviewed. Those records demonstrated that Craft is taking the series seriously: strong tape work, clean pressings, properly made jackets, and prices that have not yet wandered into the usual audiophile nonsense.

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Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall Vinyl Reissue Brings a Blues Essential Back

Jimmy Reed’s Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall is not a live album, despite the title’s rather shameless attempt to borrow some Manhattan prestige. Originally released by Vee-Jay in 1961 as a double LP, the record was assembled from studio material rather than Reed’s actual Carnegie Hall appearance the previous year. Bluesville’s new edition focuses on the first disc, collecting sides A and B on a single 180-gram LP.

That distinction matters less once “Bright Lights Big City” begins rolling out of the speakers. Reed’s best work was built from deceptively modest ingredients: a loose, infectious shuffle, clipped electric guitar, harmonica, and a vocal delivery so relaxed it could sound almost casual. Yet the groove was nearly impossible to resist. “Bright Lights Big City” reached No. 3 on the R&B chart in 1961, crossed onto the Billboard Hot 100, and later became a No. 1 country hit for Sonny James. The song’s influence on British rock, country, and American blues is difficult to overstate.

Born Mathis James Reed in Dunleith, Mississippi, Reed became one of the defining figures of postwar electric blues after signing with Vee-Jay in 1953. Working closely with guitarist Eddie Taylor and drummer Earl Phillips, he built an extraordinarily successful run of singles that included “You Don’t Have to Go,” “Honest I Do,” “Baby What You Want Me to Do,” and “Big Boss Man.” His appeal was never about virtuoso fireworks. Reed made the blues feel conversational, danceable, and accessible enough that everyone from Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones to Van Morrison and the Grateful Dead eventually came knocking.

The new Bluesville pressing includes “Bright Lights Big City,” “Tell Me You Love Me,” “Hold Me Close,” and “Blue, Blue Water,” the latter featuring Eddie Taylor and Phil Upchurch. It also benefits from the same careful production approach as the recently reviewed Bluesville editions of Albert King’s I’ll Play the Blues for You and Eddie Kirkland’s It’s the Blues Man!.

For listeners who know Reed only through compilations, or through somebody else covering “Big Boss Man” — this is a strong place to start. It is not the full double album, but it contains enough of Reed’s particular magic to explain why so many musicians spent the next several decades trying to find that same pocket.

Where to buy: $32.99 at Amazon (available August 21, 2026)

Skip James Devil Got My Woman

There are plenty of Delta blues records that sound old. Devil Got My Woman sounds as though it was transmitted from a place slightly outside time, where conventional tuning, meter, and emotional restraint were politely asked to leave the building.

Born Nehemiah Curtis “Skip” James in Bentonia, Mississippi, James was never a conventional bluesman. His singing could rise into a high, ghostly falsetto, while his guitar work moved through unusual minor-key voicings and open D-minor tuning with a fluidity that still feels unnerving almost a century later. He was also a formidable pianist, and the music rarely follows the tidy twelve-bar rules that made other Delta blues artists easier for later generations to imitate.

James recorded for Paramount in 1931, but the records did not turn him into a star. The Depression did not help, nor did the fact that his music was too strange, too personal, and too far removed from the more accessible blues styles of the day. He largely disappeared from public view for more than three decades before John Fahey, Bill Barth, and Henry Vestine found him in a Tunica hospital in 1964.

That rediscovery brought James to the Newport Folk Festival and back into the studio, where he recorded a run of material for Melodeon, Takoma-related sessions later issued as She Lyin’, and Vanguard. Today! arrived in 1966, followed by Devil Got My Woman in 1968, his final album released during his lifetime.

The Vanguard set is a solo performance in the truest sense. James handles the vocals, guitar, and piano himself, moving between instruments rather than relying on a backing band to soften the edges. The title track, a revisiting of one of his 1931 Paramount sides, remains the centerpiece, but the album is deeper than a single famous song. “Little Cow, Little Calf Blues,” “22-20 Blues,” “Sickbed Blues,” and “Illinois Blues” reveal a musician still capable of making familiar blues language feel unsettling, intimate, and completely his own.

James died in 1969, only a year after Devil Got My Woman was released, but the music kept finding new listeners. The title track later reached a wider audience through Ghost World and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2020. That is deserved recognition, although the better reason to own this album is simpler: nobody else in blues sounded remotely like Skip James, and nobody has managed to replace him since.

Where to buy: $32.99 at Amazon or get both for $57 at Craft Recordings (available August 21, 2026)

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OpenAI has released GPT-5.6 Sol, its most powerful model, to roughly 20 partners whose names were individually approved by the US government. The release is the first time an American AI company has launched a frontier model under a government-managed access list, a step beyond the voluntary pre-release review framework Trump’s AI executive order established on June 2.

Sol is the most capable model in a new three-tier series that also includes Terra, a mid-range option, and Luna, which is optimized for speed and cost. OpenAI described Sol as excelling at coding, biology, and cybersecurity, and introduced a new “max reasoning effort” mode that gives the model extended time to work through complex problems. The company plans to add an “ultra” mode that splits tasks among multiple sub-agents.

The limited preview follows a direct request from the Trump administration to stagger the release, with the government approving access customer by customer during the preview period, according to Bloomberg. OpenAI said in a blog post that it does not believe “this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” but agreed to participate.

The arrangement is the first practical test of the executive order Trump signed earlier this month, which asks AI companies to voluntarily give the government up to 30 days of pre-release access to models deemed to have advanced cyber capabilities. The order explicitly rejects mandatory licensing, but the Anthropic precedent gave it teeth. Two weeks ago, Washington ordered Anthropic to shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after a reported jailbreak, the first time the government forced a commercial AI model offline.

OpenAI’s decision to cooperate contrasts with Anthropic’s experience. Anthropic complied with the shutdown order but publicly called the action disproportionate, warning it would halt all frontier model deployments if applied across the industry. OpenAI appears to be taking the opposite approach, framing voluntary compliance as a way to avoid a more coercive outcome while preserving its ability to push back on the principle.

Sol is also available through Amazon Bedrock, making it the first model in the new series accessible on a competing cloud platform. OpenAI said it plans to make all three tiers generally available in the coming weeks, though it has not set a public date.

The broader question is whether government-gated releases become the template for every frontier model that follows. OpenAI clearly wants to prevent that, and said so publicly. But with Anthropic’s models still offline and the executive order’s voluntary framework already producing mandatory-looking outcomes, the line between cooperation and compliance is getting harder to draw.