Claude 4.1 | GPT‐OSS launch | Google breach | Apple's $100B US push

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Claude Opus 4.1
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• Claude Opus 4.1 is a drop-in upgrade to Opus 4, released on August 5, 2025, offering improved performance on agentic tasks, coding, and reasoning.

• It’s now available to paid Claude users, Claude Code users, and via the API, as well as on Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, with pricing unchanged from Opus 4.

• Notably, Rakuten Group highlighted its exceptional precision in multi-file code refactoring—accurately pinpointing necessary corrections without introducing bugs.

Introducing gpt-oss
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• OpenAI released two open‑weight language models, GPT‑OSS‑120B and GPT‑OSS‑20B, under the Apache 2.0 license, available since August 5, 2025.

• The 120B model matches performance of o4‑mini and can run on a single ~80 GB GPU; the 20B model, similar to o3‑mini, runs on devices with just ~16 GB of VRAM, including phones.

• These models support reasoning, coding, web browsing, tool integration, and expose raw chains of thought for analysis; OpenAI emphasizes safety, community transparency, and customization.

Google suffers data breach in ongoing Salesforce data theft attacks
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• On August 6, 2025, Google disclosed a breach of its Salesforce database containing small and medium-sized business contact information and notes; the breach was part of an ongoing wave of attacks by the ShinyHunters extortion group.

• ShinyHunters previously targeted other major organizations—Qantas, Allianz Life, Pandora, LVMH, Chanel—stealing or leaking data via similar Salesforce-related attacks.

• These attacks typically exploit social engineering (e.g., phishing or OAuth abuse) to gain access to Salesforce systems.

Apple announces $100 billion US manufacturing plan after pressure from Donald Trump
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• Apple announced an additional $100 billion investment to expand U.S. manufacturing, building on its earlier $500 billion pledge over the next four years; the move follows pressure from President Trump to bring more production stateside.

• The new “American Manufacturing Program” includes producing all iPhone and Apple Watch glass at Corning’s Kentucky facility, using new chip-making technology in collaboration with Samsung in Texas, mass-producing servers in Houston by 2026, expanding a data center in North Carolina, and launching a manufacturing training academy in Michigan.

• Tim Cook stated the goal is to build an end-to-end domestic silicon supply chain; this shift partially reflects tariff threats and previous relocations to Vietnam and India.