☕️ OpenAI releases GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work

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In today's Techpresso:

💥 OpenAI releases GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work

🤖 Humanoid robots perform surgery for the first time

🌐 OpenAI is shutting down its Atlas browser after 8 months

🚀 China lands a reusable rocket for the first time

📺 Netflix may add always-on TV channels

🎁 + 12 other news you might like

🧰 + 5 trending tools

📚 + 2 trending papers

💥 OpenAI releases GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work LINK

OpenAI on Thursday broadly released GPT-5.6 along with a new tool called ChatGPT Work, rolling out the model after staggering its launch at the request of the U.S. government.

GPT-5.6 comes in three versions: Sol is the most powerful with a new "ultra" mode that delegates work to submodels, Luna is built for speed, and Terra balances both for everyday tasks.

ChatGPT Work, powered by 5.6, is an agent that gathers context across connected apps and files to build documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, first arriving on Mac and Windows apps for all tiers of users.

🤖 Humanoid robots perform surgery for the first time LINK

Researchers at the University of California San Diego used a humanoid robot to help remove a gallbladder from a living patient, marking the first documented case of such a machine assisting in surgery.

The trials in early July 2026 involved Unitree G1 humanoid robots that human operators controlled with motion capture, foot pedals, and tracking systems, letting the robots coordinate both arms to hold tissue while cutting.

Led by Professor Michael Yip with surgeons Charles Goldberg and Preetham Suresh, the seven procedures were not autonomous, and clinical use remains years away pending trials, regulatory approvals, and safety evaluations.

🌐 OpenAI is shutting down its Atlas browser after 8 months LINK

OpenAI is shutting down Atlas, the AI browser it launched only last October 2025, and moving its features into an updated Chrome extension that runs ChatGPT inside Chrome's sidebar.

The company says it folded in what it learned from Atlas and user feedback, and Atlas users will get notified about the switch to the new Chrome extension.

Pulling the plug in under eight months puts Atlas on a growing list of scrapped OpenAI products, and it means the company has no way to pull users away from Chrome.

🚀 China lands a reusable rocket for the first time LINK

China landed the booster stage of its Long March-10B rocket on Friday, the first time the country has launched and partly returned a reusable orbital rocket safely to Earth, matching SpaceX and Blue Origin.

The rocket lifted off from the Hainan commercial space launch site at 12:15 pm, and its first stage touched down on a barge roughly six minutes later, caught by a large net in what's reportedly the world's first "net-based recovery."

China's reusable Long March rocket still trails rivals, carrying a maximum payload of 16 tons compared to Falcon 9's 25 tons and Starship's planned 100-plus tons, with landings lowering launch costs by avoiding booster burn-up on reentry.

📺 Netflix may add always-on TV channels LINK

Netflix is thinking about adding always-on channels that would stream specific shows and movies, working like the free services Pluto TV and Tubi, though Netflix already runs an ad-supported tier that costs $8.99 per month after a recent price hike.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is also considering selling bundles that would include other streaming services, matching what competitors like Apple TV and Prime Video already offer, as Netflix has been seeing signs of falling engagement.

Netflix has recently been bringing on new types of content, including video podcasts and videos from digital media brands like BuzzFeed and Condé Nast, that are easy to leave running in the background without the focus a prestige series demands.

Other news you might like

• Microsoft’s carbon emissions climb 25% as tech giants grapple with AI’s energy tollLINK

• Google will now disclose which ads are made with AILINK

• Instagram has just allowed anyone to alter your images with AI. Here’s how to opt outLINK

• Ben Bernanke appointed to Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit TrustLINK

• SK Hynix raises $26.5 billion, is the biggest foreign listing in U.S. history in its Nasdaq debutLINK

• OpenAI may have made a fatal misstep in copyright fight with news orgsLINK

• NEO humanoid robot gets new hands with 25 degrees of freedom to build LEGO, catch ballsLINK

• MiniMax’s CEO won’t take a salary until AGI. His company just raised $2bn after an 80% crashLINK

• OpenAI’s CEO of AGI Deployment, Fidji Simo, Is Stepping DownLINK

• Elon Musk praises Mythos/Fable, promises not to ‘cut off’ AnthropicLINK

• Meta found to breach EU laws with 'addictive' Instagram, Facebook designsLINK

🧰 Trending tools

PlugThis: lets you build, refine, and publish Chrome extensions through plain English chat, with backend support and store assets included.LINK

ConnectMachine 2.0: a privacy-focused networking app that digitizes business cards, tracks meeting context via AI, and syncs contacts directly to your CRM.LINK

GPT-5.6: lets developers build, deploy, and scale AI-powered applications using OpenAI's models through a unified API platform.LINK

Ship OS by Notion: a structured workspace template that combines project tracking, task management, and documentation to help teams plan and ship products faster.LINK

Native SDK: build, deploy, and scale web applications on Vercel's cloud infrastructure with CLI tools, Docker support, and automatic production deployments.LINK

📚 Trending papers & reports

Grammar-learning software now figures out sentence structure across six languages with 99.94% fewer internal settings, making it far more efficient and transparent about how it reaches its decisions.LINK

Spotting tiny lesions in medical scans gets more accurate with a new plug-in tool that sharpens weak visual clues, requiring no extra training and working with existing medical imaging software.LINK

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