Tech News Roundup — June 29, 2026 (AM)

Linux dominates this morning’s roundup: the 7.2 merge window has closed with rc1, the Mageia lineage is alive again, and CachyOS is shipping its June refresh. There’s also a China-vs-the-world AI subplot (Z.ai on cybersecurity, a Chinese supercomputer claim), a real-world AI-in-the-courtroom moment out of LA, and — somehow — Spyro is back.

Linux & Open Source

• Linux 7.2-rc1 closes the merge window. Linus Torvalds cut the first release candidate of 7.2 over the weekend, with the release notes calling the cycle “reasonably normal.” The big pulls are AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL support, AMD ISP4 enablement, and continued CAS (Cache Access Stashing) work. Eight weeks of testing put 7.2 stable in line to power Fedora 45 and Ubuntu 26.10. A separate Phoronix story also previews a 7.3 DRM “Color Format” property headed for AMD GPUs. Phoronix
• Mageia 10 ISOs are out. The Mandrake → Mandriva → Mageia lineage is alive and well: Mageia 10 ISOs are now available for the community-driven fork, picking up the modern desktop stack while keeping the Mageia package management model. Phoronix
• CachyOS June 2026 release lands. The Arch-based performance-tuned distro is out with a new feature release, leaning further into BORE/EEVDF scheduler tuning and the usual round of hand-rolled -march build flags. Phoronix
• Arch Linux’s Archinstall 4.4 adds Dank Material Shell + Niri. Ahead of the July 2026 ISO refresh, the text-mode Arch installer picks up a Dank Material Shell desktop option and the Niri scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor as install-time choices. Phoronix
• Q2 2026 Intel Linux recap. Phoronix rounds up the quarter’s biggest Intel Linux stories: USB4STREAM, the usual optimisation push, the Jay work, and the kernel-side patching that has been steady if not flashy. Phoronix

AI / ML

• Z.ai says GLM 5.2 can match Mythos on cybersecurity. Beijing-based Z.ai claims its latest model hits parity with Anthropic’s Mythos on offensive-security benchmarks — a notable claim if it holds up to independent testing. [The Verge]
• China says it has the world’s fastest supercomputer. State media is reporting a new system that (per China’s own benchmarks) tops the current Top500 leader, though independent verification is pending. [The Verge]
• Suno launches the Spark incubator program. The AI music platform is opening an incubator to feed independent artists into its training and release pipeline, framing it as a “fairer” relationship than pure scraping. [The Verge]

Security / Law

• Palisades fire prosecutors put ChatGPT logs in front of the jury. In the arson trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht — the man accused of setting the New Year’s Day 2025 fire that became one of LA’s deadliest wildfires — prosecutors introduced his ChatGPT conversation history as evidence. The logs include image-generation requests for fire, a “Why am I so angry all the time?” prompt, and a screen recording in which Rinderknecht allegedly rants to the chatbot about the wealthy destroying the world. Defence will likely push back on whether AI-prompt output is authenticable evidence. [The Verge]

Gaming

• Spyro is back — and the team nearly didn’t make it. A new Spyro entry is in the works, but the development story is the real headline: the studio reportedly came within weeks of collapse mid-project before a last-minute restructure pulled it back from the brink. [Windows Central]
• My Hero Academia: All’s Justice gets a Switch 2 release date. Bandai Namco’s anime fighter gets a confirmed launch on Nintendo’s new console. Pplware

Self-Hosted / Homelab

• Lunarr lands on UGREEN NAS. Marius Hosting walks through installing Lunarr — a self-hosted media streaming server and Plex alternative — on UGREEN NAS hardware. Lunarr matches files against TMDb metadata, supports HLS transcoding with FFmpeg (including hardware acceleration), sidecar subtitles, Chromecast, and AirPlay, and reads libraries from local disks, SFTP, or WebDAV. Marius Hosting

In Brief

• An electric car that charges in 9 minutes — without the most powerful chargers. A new fast-charge protocol demo hits 9-minute 10→80% on hardware that isn’t the top-tier 480+ kW class. Pplware
• A 119-metre superyacht with a -253 °C tank. Liquid-hydrogen storage meets luxury marine engineering in a new concept vessel. Pplware
• Portuguese social-benefits payment schedule for July. The state publishes the calendar for July’s prestações sociais payouts. Pplware
• Office 2024 keys from €13.4 in the GoodOffer24 mid-year promo. Discount software licence reseller running a half-year sale. Pplware
• Why your keyboard isn’t in alphabetical order. A QWERTY-history explainer — typewriters, jams, and the layout that won anyway. Pplware
• Does leaving the phone charger plugged in waste electricity? A vampire-load explainer with measurements. Pplware
• PcDays at PcComponentes — up to 50% off. Spanish PC-parts retailer’s summer sale kicks off. Pplware
• The duty-free threshold for China parcels ends Wednesday. EU tariff exemption for low-value Chinese parcels expires July 1, ending the “borla” era for cheap direct-from-China shipping. Pplware
• Pplware Classics 756. This week’s music round-up from Pplware’s long-running column. Pplware
• The Cube is Jim Henson’s little-known proto-Black Mirror. A retrospective on Henson’s 1969 TV movie — a dystopian anthology of strangers trapped in a cube, predating the Twilight Zone revival era by decades. [The Verge]

Roundup compiled from the TTRSS Tech feed. 22 stories from 4 sources summarised (Phoronix, The Verge, Pplware, Marius Hosting, Windows Central).