Welcome to episode 377 (”Fable Is Back”) of the EdTech Situation Room from July 1, 2026, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) dug into the growing “ed tech backlash,” examining an Education Week piece on schools pushing back against screens and AI, and made the case for nuance over blanket bans. They traded stories about DIY home tech — from Home Assistant automation to repurposed mini PCs — and how AI tools have accelerated their own technical skills. Apple’s recent price increases, driven by a global RAM shortage tied to AI data center demand, prompted a discussion of shrinking memory options in Apple’s newest hardware. The hosts also explored signs that the “open web is closing,” pointing to Reddit’s new login requirements and the broader trend of platforms locking content behind logins. A wild story about AI data poisoning — where a manipulated Reddit thread caused DuckDuckGo’s AI to hallucinate a false story about a public figure’s death — sparked a conversation about misinformation, trust, and the need for AI tools to cite sources. They closed out the AI news with an update on Anthropic’s Claude Fable and Mythos models, which briefly became unavailable after an export-control order and were later restored, along with a look at “agentic loops,” DeepSeek’s low-cost API appeal, and Google’s upcoming Spark agent platform. Geeks of the Week included the Civics of Technology conference, open-source Whisper-based transcription apps, and the agentic BrowserOS browser.

Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links.

🔗 Links We Discussed

* The Ed-Tech Backlash Is Here. What It Means for Schools (Education Week, 30 April 2026)

* closescreensopenminds.com

* I run my whole house on Home Assistant — and Prime Day is the cheapest time to actually start (MakeUseOf, 24 June 2026)

* Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks, Separated for 400 Years, Have Been Reunited and Put Online (Open Culture, 24 June 2026)

* OpenAI and Anthropic face new AI reality as users shift from ‘tokenmaxxing’ to efficiency (CNBC, 26 June 2026)

* DuckDuckGo AI hallucinates Trump’s death after AI data poisoning campaign (CyberNews, 26 June 2026)

* AI Search Says Trump Analived via Rabies (Instagram VIDEO: ArtificialInstanityPod, 30 June 2026)

* Do not share with children: https://www.reddit.com/r/poisonai/

* Getting started with loops (Anthropic; 30 June 2026)

* Fable Drama!

* US allows Anthropic to release Mythos AI to ‘trusted’ US organizations (Reuters, 26 June 2026)