The day in tech.

Apple increased iCloud+ subscription prices in Nigeria, Türkiye, Vietnam, Japan, Egypt, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Price hikes range from 11 percent to 55 percent depending on plan and country. Nigeria saw the largest increase, with the 50GB plan rising from ₦900 to ₦1,300. U.S. pricing remains unchanged.

Apple's Game Porting Toolkit 4 beta delivers significant performance gains for Windows games on Mac. On an M4 Pro MacBook Pro with 24GB of RAM, GTA V jumped from 106 fps under GPTK 3 to 176 fps with GPTK 4 beta, a 66% increase. Red Dead Redemption 2 improved from 60 fps to 75 fps under identical settings.

Wall Street banks are achieving record equity runs driven by artificial intelligence investments in Asia. The surge reflects growing institutional demand for AI-related opportunities across Asian markets. Banks are capitalizing on this trend to boost their financial performance and market positions.

Index Ventures co-founder Neil Rimer predicts AI wealth will be redistributed, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Index raised $15 billion and netted roughly $9 billion from exits including Figma's IPO and Google's purchase of Wiz. American charitable giving hit a record $592.5 billion in 2024, but the number of donors fell for five straight years.

Netflix disclosed in its second-quarter earnings report that generative AI was used in roughly 300 of its programs this year, mostly in post-production. The company said AI enhanced crowds, historical battle sequences, and worldbuilding establishing shots, and that it is leveraging the tools to deliver higher quality output more quickly and at lower cost.

BrainCo demonstrated its Brain-Controlled Robot AI Platform at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, claiming it as the world's first integrated brain-to-robot system. An EEG headset reads brain signals, AI decodes them into intent, and robot commands execute in under 200 milliseconds. The company also showed an Embodied AI Data Collection Solution using a wheeled rig and precision glove.

Ethed is in discussions to raise funds at a valuation of approximately $20 billion. The talks were reported on July 17, 2026, by multiple outlets including the Wall Street Journal and VentureBeat.

Indian startups raised $281.4 Mn across 24 deals between July 11 and July 17, over 3X the previous week's $71.9 Mn. AI startups captured $172.4 Mn across seven deals, nearly 60% of total funding. Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator, Fireside Ventures, Antler, and Spectrum Impact each backed two startups.

BTS member J-hope shared a video on Instagram appearing to show Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 8 ahead of the Galaxy Unpacked event on July 22 in London. The foldable is expected to feature a 7.6-inch QHD+ display, 4,800mAh battery, 12GB RAM, and start at $1,899.

A billing software bug in AWS Cost Explorer caused some customers to see wildly inflated estimated charges, including bills showing billions or even trillions of dollars. AWS identified the root cause within 90 minutes but the issue remained unresolved as of Friday afternoon Pacific time.