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GOOGLE'S PIXEL 10 CHIP SWITCH REPORTEDLY CAUGHT SAMSUNG OFF GUARD

Google has relied on Samsung's foundry for its Tensor chips since the Pixel 6, but this year Google decided to switch to TSMC.

AI IS EATING SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

OpenAI Codex has merged 345,000 PRs on GitHub in the last 35 days.

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NETFLIX REALLY IS TV NOW

Netflix has signed a deal with French TV network TF1 to show linear TV. France's largest commercial broadcaster, TF1 will show all five of its linear channels on Netflix, as well as more than 30,000 hours of TV shows available on demand. The deal opens the door to more deals between Netflix and traditional TV groups and could bring different sorts of TV shows to Netflix, such as soap operas and live sports.

AWS' CUSTOM CHIP STRATEGY IS SHOWING RESULTS, AND CUTTING INTO NVIDIA'S AI DOMINANCE

AWS has updated its Graviton4 chip, which now has 600 gigabits per second of network bandwidth. The CPU's release schedule will be provided by the end of June. The updated Graviton4 chip puts AWS into competition against traditional semiconductor players like Intel and AMD. The upgrade demonstrates Amazon's broader ambition to control the entire AI infrastructure stack.

WAYMO WANTS TO BRING ITS ROBOTAXIS TO NEW YORK CITY

Waymo plans to return to New York City next month to do more mapping as well as testing. However, its vehicles will be driven by humans. New York state law doesn't allow for vehicles to operate without a person at the wheel, but Waymo is pushing for changes to the law. Waymo's taxis have surged in popularity in other cities - the company now provides more than 250,000 autonomous trips each week.

AMAZON'S ZOOX OPENS ITS FIRST MAJOR ROBOTAXI PRODUCTION FACILITY

Zoox has opened its first full-fledged production facility in Hayward, California, near the company's Foster City headquarters. The new factory will be used for engineering, software and hardware integration, assembly, storage, and testing. Zoox expects to one day build 10,000 robotaxis per year at the site. It is currently testing vehicles in multiple US cities.

THE UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF FUZZING FOR PORTING PROGRAMS

One way to port a codebase from C to Rust is to have large language models write fuzz tests and build the port in topological order. This blog post discusses how. While the overall system seems to work, there are some downsides - for example, the resulting Rust code is very 'C-like'. Full automation is difficult, but it may not be completely necessary as humans can still be used to fix issues as they emerge.

FANG

Fang is a starter kit for Cobra CLIs. It features fancy output, fancy errors, themes, and more. Screenshots and examples are available in the repository.

MICROSOFT PLANS TO CUT THOUSANDS MORE EMPLOYEES

Microsoft plans to lay off several thousand employees around the beginning of the company's new fiscal year, which starts in July. The job cuts will affect sales and other teams. The number of cuts has not yet been finalized. Microsoft laid off roughly 6,000 product and software developer roles around the world in May.

THE GREAT DECOUPLING (OR WHY YOUR CLICKS ARE DOWN AND IMPRESSIONS UP)

Google's AI Overviews creates two opportunities for top-ranking content to log impressions for a given keyword: once as a blue link and again as a citation in an AI Overview. Citations seem to be pulled from content that already ranks highly in traditional search results. Clicks are decreasing because AI Overviews are increasing zero-click searches - many searchers are able to resolve their queries now without leaving the search results page. However, it's not all doom and gloom: visits from AI search convert 23 times better than visits from traditional search.

CHATGPT IS MY STATIC SITE GENERATOR

Give ChatGPT a template and some content and it can generate a complete site.

TRUMP TO EXTEND TIKTOK DEADLINE FOR THIRD TIME, PUSHING DECISION OUT ANOTHER 90 DAYS

The new extension will last 90 days - it is still unclear whether the Chinese government will approve a deal.

HOMOMORPHICALLY ENCRYPTING CRDTS

Homomorphic encryption is a special form of encryption that allows computers to run programs on encrypted data without decrypting it.

UNREGISTRY

Unregistry is a lightweight container image registry that works like rsync for Docker images.

OPENAI SELF DRIVING TECH

Sam Altman recently said in an interview that OpenAI has new self-driving car technology that is better than any other current approach.

EXPERT GENERALISTS

The most effective workers have skills that span across many specialties.

GOOGLE'S GEMINI AI FAMILY UPDATED WITH STABLE 2.5 PRO, SUPER-EFFICIENT 2.5 FLASH-LITE

Google has expanded its Gemini AI model family. Gemini 2.5 Pro has left preview and Gemini 2.5 Pro Flash-Lite is now in preview. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite can run high-volume AI workloads without incurring significant costs. Google Flash and Flash-Lite are coming to search - custom versions of these models are now active in AI overviews and AI Mode. The Flash-Lite preview is available in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI for developers.

MUSK'S XAI BURNS THROUGH $1 BILLION A MONTH AS COSTS PILE UP

xAI is trying to raise $9.3 billion in debt and equity, with plans to spend more than half of it in just the next three months. The startup is expected to burn through about $13 billion over the course of 2025. Its prolific fundraising efforts are just barely keeping pace with expenses. The losses are due in part to the huge costs that all AI companies face - building server farms and buying the specialized computer chips needed to train advanced AI models.

HONDA UNEXPECTEDLY ENTERS THE SPACE RACE WITH FIRST SUCCESSFUL ROCKET LAUNCH

Honda recently launched and landed a prototype reusable rocket. The company plans to achieve suborbital space flight by 2029. The 20.6-foot experimental reusable launch vehicle reached an altitude of 889 feet at a test facility in northern Japan. Honda has yet to make a decision regarding the commercialization of its rocket technologies. The launch and landing's success sets an optimistic tone for the company's space program.

MICROBE WITH BIZARRELY TINY GENOME MAY BE EVOLVING INTO A VIRUS

A newly discovered microbe known as Sukunaarchaeum isn't a virus, but it seemingly has just one purpose: to make more of itself. It appears to be a parasite that provides nothing to its hosts. Most of its genes are focused on replicating its own genome and it steals everything it needs from its host. The microbe's bizarre virus-like way of living challenges the boundaries between cellular life and viruses.

REDIS 8.0

Redis 8.0 introduces powerful new capabilities and over 30 performance improvements. The Redis Community Edition has been renamed to Redis Open Source - this version offers the full power of Redis. This post looks at the new features, improvements, and changes with the update. There are some breaking changes regarding ACL behavior and the Redis Query Engine.

DOUBLE-ENTRY LEDGERS: THE MISSING PRIMITIVE IN MODERN SOFTWARE

Double-entry ledger modeling is a better fit for a lot of systems compared to the ad-hoc ledger-ish things they currently use. A double-entry ledger records the current amount or balance of a thing, a historical record of how the amount got to that amount, and where that amount came from at each step. Apps with ledger models built-in can have many things built on top of them without a lot of extra work or complexity. While there is an initial cost to introducing a ledger, that value is recouped over time.

SAM ALTMAN SAYS META TRIED AND FAILED TO POACH OPENAI'S TALENT WITH $100M OFFERS

Meta seems to be on a hiring spree lately to staff up its new superintelligence team. It has reportedly offered employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that those efforts have largely been unsuccessful. Altman believes that Meta's focus on high compensation rather than a mission of delivering AGI would likely not create a great culture.

AMAZON CEO SAYS AI AGENTS WILL SOON REDUCE COMPANY'S CORPORATE WORKFORCE

Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy issued a memo to employees on Tuesday saying that he expects the company to reduce its corporate workforce in the next few years as it leans more heavily on generative AI tools to help fulfill workplace duties. Generative AI and agents are expected to change the way the company does its work. Amazon will need fewer people doing the same jobs done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. The hard pivot into AI has received negative feedback from some white-collar employees at the company.

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WHAT GOOGLE TRANSLATE CAN TELL US ABOUT VIBECODING

Google Translate was talked about as the end of translation and interpretation as professions, but the number of available job opportunities for translators and interpreters has actually been increasing.

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE DESIGN IN THE ERA OF LLMS: A RETURN TO MEDIOCRITY?

The opportunity cost for using niche languages is now substantially increasing, which means language designers will be held to a higher standard to justify the use of their domain-specific languages.

FACEBOOK ANNOUNCES THAT ALL VIDEOS ON ITS PLATFORM WILL SOON BE SHARED AS REELS

All videos on Facebook will soon be shared as reels regardless of their length or orientation.

SENATE PASSES GENIUS STABLECOIN BILL, GIVING CRYPTO INDUSTRY FIRST MAJOR LEGISLATIVE WIN

The GENIUS Act establishes the first federal framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins.

LSTR

lstr is a blazingly fast, minimalist directory tree viewer with a powerful interactive mode.

WHY CLAUDE CODE FEELS LIKE MAGIC?

Claude Code feels like magic because it is iterative - you just have to iterate through the whole possible space until you find one that works.

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OPENAI AND MICROSOFT TENSIONS ARE REACHING A BOILING POINT

OpenAI wants to loosen Microsoft's grip on its products and computing resources and secure approval for its conversion into a for-profit company, but negotiations have been difficult. The company's executives have discussed the option of accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior during their partnership - this could result in a regulatory review of the terms of the contract for potential violations of antitrust law. OpenAI must complete its conversion to a public-benefit corporation by the end of the year or it risks losing $20 billion in funding.

WHATSAPP IS OFFICIALLY GETTING ADS

WhatsApp will now show ads from businesses through its Stories-like status feature. Ads will be tailored to users using limited information, like location, language, and followed channels. Users can change their ad preferences from Meta's Accounts Center. WhatsApp will now also start showing promoted channels when users click on the Explore button and it is rolling out the ability to subscribe to channels to receive exclusive updates.

DANISH MILITARY USING ROBOTIC SAILBOATS FOR SURVEILLANCE IN BALTIC AND NORTH SEAS

Denmark's armed forces are trialing uncrewed robotic sailboats known as Voyagers. The 10-meter-long vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance. Powered by wind and solar energy, they can operate autonomously for months at sea. The vessels carry advanced sensors, including radar, infrared and optical cameras, and sonar. They are aimed at identifying maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing, and smuggling.

FINLAND WARMS UP THE WORLD'S LARGEST SAND BATTERY, AND THE ECONOMICS LOOK APPEALING

A small town in Finland recently started using the world's largest sand-based battery. Sand batteries are a type of thermal storage system that uses sand or crushed rock to store heat, which can be later used for various things like warming buildings. They are typically 'charged' by using electricity to heat the sand. The battery will help slash carbon emissions and help the town eliminate the costly oil that currently helps power its district heating network. The cost of the project has not been revealed, but the raw materials were cheap and the structure itself isn't particularly complex.

Read the Delve case study.

CODING AGENTS HAVE CROSSED A CHASM

Over the past few months, autonomous AI coding agents have gone from a neat curiosity to something some developers can't imagine working without. The technology has moved from a 'smarter autocomplete' to something you can genuinely delegate tasks to. These new tools can be incredible force multipliers, especially when users have enough knowledge to be good editors. However, they can be dangerous accelerants for confusion when users are out of their depth. The pace of improvement suggests we're still in the early stages of the shift - every week brings new capabilities.

CANINE

Canine is a deployment platform for Kubernetes clusters. It makes it easy to deploy and manage applications. A modern alternative to Heroku, Canine makes cheap hosting providers as easy to use as expensive ones. Canine has everything needed to deploy an app, including GitHub integration, one-click deployments and rollbacks, SSL certificate management, and easy autoscaling.

SCALE AI'S WANG BRINGS TO META KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING

Alexandr Wang co-founded Scale AI, which recently received a $14.3 billion investment from Meta, at 19. Wang is known for his ability to cultivate influential relationships and to know what's going on in the AI industry. He has a direct relationship with a dizzying amount of people, in both junior and senior roles, and knows what they're working on and what they want to be doing. Meta's recent investment means that the company now has the one guy who knows what everyone else in the AI industry doing.

META AND OAKLEY TEASE A SMART GLASSES ANNOUNCEMENT FOR JUNE 20

A new Instagram account called @oakleymeta has teased a video announcement for this Friday, with Instagram's own official account and Mark Zuckerberg sharing the post on their stories. Meta's web store has a banner saying 'The next evolution arrives June 20' and an option to sign up for updates on products, news, and innovations. This all indicates that Oakley Meta glasses will likely be announced this week. The video is available in the article.

SNORTING THE AGI WITH CLAUDE CODE

Claude Code has a lot of untapped potential, and with the release of the new Python SDK, more weirder use cases are about to emerge.

CHOOSING WHERE TO SPEND MY TEAM'S EFFORT

Take a strategy and start linking broad actions that could be taken to handle that strategy - make these more specific, and eventually you'll find a real project that you can pitch to higher-ups.

WHY GENERATIVE AI CODING TOOLS AND AGENTS DO NOT WORK FOR ME

People who claim that AI makes them faster or more productive are making a conscious decision to relax their quality standards or they personally benefit from selling AI.