WHAT’S INSIDE:

• Electric Aviation, Pixel 10, Bing Video, T-Mobile Fiber, Nothing Phone (3)

• Feature: PayPal Just Quietly Became a Travel App

• Latest food and dining and food technology news

• Arts and culture news, intersection of tech and entertainment

• The latest sports news and sports tech

• Futurism, the latest in future concepts and cutting edge deep tech

• Latest news in wellness and wellbeing tech, biotech, medtech and more

TOP CONSUMER TECH NEWS

iOS 26 AI Upgrades — iOS 26 debuts with new AI tools: real-time translation in Messages and FaceTime, Genmoji creation, Visual Intelligence, enhanced Apple Wallet functionality + Workout Buddy real-time coaching.

Google's AI Coach — Google Labs unveils Portraits, an AI tool featuring Kim Scott of "Radical Candor," offering workplace coaching.

Snap's AR Ambition — Snap plans to launch Specs in 2026, featuring see-through lenses and an AI assistant. Competing with Meta and Google.

Daylight Computer — The Daylight Computer is a reflective liquid-crystal display (RLCD) tablet with a 120Hz refresh rate, surpassing E Ink in brightness and detail for outdoor use. It runs internet and all the usual Android apps.

Huxe: Audio Assistant — Huxe offers a personal audio companion that curates daily briefings from emails, calendar, and news preferences. iOS invite-only app.

Silent Environment Tracker — This new home device monitors air quality, light, noise, humidity, and temperature, offering real-time private health scores, enhancing sleep and mood.

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FEATURE ARTICLE 

PayPal Just Quietly Became a Travel App 

AI agents, stablecoins, and hotel bookings—all inside the PayPal app.

PayPal has officially entered the travel game. It just embedded hotel booking directly inside its app, powered by Selfbook, and backed by a growing ecosystem of AI agents and stablecoin infrastructure.

Users can now search, filter, and book hotels—paying via PayPal, Venmo, or Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)—without leaving the app. Selfbook handles the backend, collapsing what used to be a disjointed process into a seamless, mobile-native experience.

This move is part of a broader shift as travel booking becomes less about platforms and more about systems—agentic, automated, and deeply embedded into everyday finance flows.

Selfbook: Compressing the Booking Stack

Selfbook’s infrastructure lets PayPal offer hotel booking, filtering, payment, and discounting in one interface. Users benefit from speed and personalization, while hotels benefit from higher margins. With no reliance on OTAs, hotels keep control of pricing, branding, and guest relationships.

Selfbook CEO Khalid Meniri describes the approach as collapsing discovery, booking, and checkout into a single “AI-powered flow”. And the numbers are compelling: PayPal reports an 84% increase in travel conversion rates when users use its payments system.

The AI Travel Market Is Exploding

AI is rapidly reshaping the global travel market. Consider these projections:

• AI in Travel (TBRC): $123.72B in 2024 → $531.95B in 2029 (CAGR: 33.8%)

• AI Travel Planner Apps: $544.1B → $1.45T by 2032

• Global AI in Travel (Market.us): $131.7B → $2.9T by 2033 (CAGR: 36.25%)

These forecasts reflect the rise of automated itineraries, chat-based search, predictive pricing, and embedded payment flows. PayPal is leaning into that future with the architecture it already owns.

Stablecoin Rails for Agentic Travel

The company’s stablecoin PYUSD—issued by Paxos and now expanded to Stellar’s blockchain—recently surpassed $1 billion in market cap. That’s another strategic lever in PayPal’s travel play. PYUSD offers:

• Instant, low-fee cross-border settlement

• Smart contract automation (e.g., release payment only on guest check-in)

• Protection from foreign exchange volatility

For international travelers and hotel operators, PYUSD simplifies transactions that typically involve high fees, slow settlements, and currency risk. And for AI agents, it enables real-time, programmable logic without banking middlemen.

Agentic Interfaces Meet Embedded Finance

PayPal’s deeper bet lies in the integration of AI agents and payments. Its interface with Perplexity enables users to chat their way through hotel discovery, filtering, and booking. But behind the scenes, these agents:

• Analyze traveler preferences

• Negotiate rates

• Finalize payments

• Handle refunds and fraud detection automatically

This travel system operates autonomously and scales globally. The backend is built for workflows, not just user interaction.

The Strategic Edge

PayPal already has several components most competitors lack:

• Global payment rails (PayPal, Venmo)

• Flexible credit (BNPL)

• Crypto-native settlement (PYUSD)

• Brand trust and regulatory approval (NYDFS-approved stablecoin launch on Stellar)

That combination allows PayPal to bypass traditional OTAs, reduce user friction, and offer embedded checkout in a high-frequency, high-margin vertical.

Challenges and Momentum

Adoption won’t be instant. PayPal still needs to educate users on stablecoin usage. To accelerate this, it recently introduced a 3.7% yield on PYUSD balances, encouraging users to hold and transact in stablecoins.

There’s also the regulatory dimension. Expanding across chains and jurisdictions requires careful navigation. But with approvals in place for Stellar, PayPal has already cleared a major hurdle.

The bigger challenge may be trust—ensuring users feel comfortable delegating financial and booking decisions to autonomous systems. The interface needs to work flawlessly. So far, that’s what Selfbook has delivered.

Architecture Over Interface

PayPal is essentially rolling out an operating layer for agent-driven commerce in travel here. This architecture links real-time intelligence, programmable money, and frictionless user flows into a single offering.

The opportunity isn’t just travel. It’s about redefining how services get discovered, negotiated, and paid for—across categories.

FOOD + DRINK

FDA Food Guidelines — The government is developing an ultraprocessed foods definition to inform school lunch policy, dietary guidelines & address health concerns.

UNFI Cyberattack — Grocery distributor UNFI faces operational disruptions from a cyberattack, affecting order fulfillment and supply chain operations. Clients like Whole Foods warn of product shortages as it disrupts deliveries.

xPizza Cube — XRobotics' compact pizza-making robot produces 25,000 pizzas monthly, reduces staff time by 80%, and secures $2.5M for North American expansion.

Wellness Trends — A global survey shows rising wellness spending, with a focus on gut health, GLP-1 weight loss medications, and health monitoring technology.

Bachan's BBQ Sauce — The Japanese-style BBQ sauce brand has seen explosive growth in the US since the pandemic, with revenue projected to exceed $100M in 2025, driven by effective marketing and a shift in consumer cooking habits.

French Cognac — French cognac producers propose minimum export prices to China to counteract provisional tariffs of up to 39% amid ongoing trade dispute.

ARTS + CULTURE

Wu-Tang's Final Tour — The legendary hip-hop group kicks off farewell tour in Baltimore, announce anew album for Record Store Day 2025.

AI Film Festival — NY festival showcases ten AI-created films, highlighting AI's growing role in filmmaking and sparking industry debates.

AI Lawsuit — Hollywood giants, including Disney and Universal, just filed a lawsuit against AI image generation startup Midjourney, alleging that the company’s models are a massive engine for copyright theft.

Timbaland's AI Label — The producer faces backlash over his label’s first artist, an AI artist TaTa, raising concerns from human artists over copyright.

Getty vs. Stability AI — Getty Images sues Stability AI over AI training data usage in landmark UK case that could reshape AI copyright law.

WBD Split — Warner Bros. Discovery announces a division into Streaming & Studios and Global Networks units by mid-2026 to boost operational efficiency.

SAG Gaming Deal — SAG-AFTRA reaches a tentative agreement with gaming companies on AI usage and compensation.

Festival Industry Struggles — Music festivals this summer face declining ticket sales due to changing preferences and economic challenges.

SPORTS DESK

NBA Finals — The Pacers defeated the Thunder 116-107 in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead, just two wins off a first NBA Title. Tyrese Haliburton and the bench shone including Bennedict Mathurin's 27 points and T.J. McConnell's five steals.

NCAA Settlement — A judge approved a $2.8B settlement allowing colleges to pay athletes up to $20.5M annually starting July 1, ending traditional amateurism rules.

Gauff Claims French Open — Coco Gauff defeats Sabalenka for her first French Open title; becomes first US champion at Roland Garros since 2015. Alcaraz wins second straight mens title, claims fifth Grand Slam.

Sovereignty Takes Belmont — Sovereignty wins 2025 Belmont Stakes at Saratoga, adding to Kentucky Derby victory but falls short of Triple Crown.

Portugal's UEFA Win — Portugal beats Spain on penalties (5-3) to win the European Nations League; Ronaldo scored his 138th international goal, and Neves netted the match winning penalty.

Ballers' Expansion Plans — Urban sports club Ballers raises $20M, launches in Philadelphia; plans 50+ venues across major cities including Boston, Miami, and LA.

FUTURISM

Transhumanism In Politics — Transhumanism enters mainstream political discourse through a House Oversight Committee hearing discussion.

Biohybrid Breakthrough — New biohybrid system combines E. coli with MOFs to create live-cell biocapacitor for environmental and medical applications.

Non-Binary AI Chip — World's first non-binary AI chip by Professor Li Hongge uses binary and probabilistic logic for improved efficiency, targeting smart control systems.

Giant Viruses Unveiled — Discovery of 230 new giant viruses affecting ocean ecosystems; BEREN tool reveals their role in marine photosynthesis and algal blooms.

Itaconate's Green Boost — UC San Diego finds animal metabolite itaconate stimulates plant growth, promising natural solutions for improved crop yields.

AI Drone Triumph — TU Delft's autonomous drone wins A2RL Championship against human pilots, showcasing advanced physical AI capabilities.

WELLBEING TECH

Bioprinting Breakthrough — Stony Brook's TRACE method enhances physiological material creation using collagen, advancing regenerative medicine.

Foot Scanner for Heart Health — UK startup's AI foot scanner predicts heart failure 19 days before hospitalization with 83% accuracy through fluid detection.

Nanoparticle HIV Breakthrough — mRNA nanoparticles target latent HIV showing promise as potential cure; further testing needed.

Universal Artificial Blood — Japanese researchers begin trials of artificial blood made from expired donations' hemoglobin to address global shortages.

Digital Twin Diabetes Control — UVA's digital twin artificial pancreas improves type 1 diabetes control, raising safe blood sugar time to 77% and lowering A1c.

Regeneration Revelation — Retinoic acid from acne medication found key in axolotl limb regeneration, showing potential for human regenerative medicine.