Search the archive

ELON MUSK EMAIL TO X STAFF: ‘WE'RE BARELY BREAKING EVEN'

Banks are preparing a coordinated move to sell some of the $13 billion in debt they loaned Elon Musk to buy Twitter.

PERPLEXITY AI REVISES TIKTOK MERGER PROPOSAL THAT COULD GIVE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT A 50% STAKE

Perplexity's proposal to merge with TikTok now allows for the US government to own up to 50% of the new company upon a future IPO.

THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF UI AT GITHUB

This page contains the slides from Joel Hawksley's talk presented at Boulder Ruby.

THE SHORT CASE FOR NVIDIA STOCK

DeepSeek's efficiency breakthrough suggests that the entire industry has been massively over-provisioning compute resources.

2025 WILL LIKELY BE ANOTHER BRUTAL YEAR OF FAILED STARTUPS, DATA SUGGESTS

More startups shut down last year than the year before - the trend is expected to continue this year.

NO ONE IS DISRUPTING BANKS

Despite 30 years of trying, Fintech companies have still not disrupted any of the big banks and have hardly challenged the key banking model - taking deposits and issuing loans.

technology

OPENAI LAUNCHES OPERATOR, AN AI AGENT THAT PERFORMS TASKS AUTONOMOUSLY

OpenAI has launched a research preview of Operator, a general-purpose AI agent that can control a web browser and independently perform certain actions. Operator is coming first to US users on ChatGPT Pro but will roll out to users on its Plus, Team, and Enterprise tiers eventually. OpenAI plans to integrate Operator into all of its ChatGPT clients. Operator is powered by a Computer-Using Agent that combines the vision capabilities of GPT-4o with reasoning abilities from the company's more advanced models. While Operator can perform many tasks, it currently cannot handle complex or specialized tasks or interact with highly customized or non-standard web interfaces.

TIKTOK BAN COULD BE RESOLVED WITHOUT SELLING TO A US COMPANY, SAYS AMERICAN BOARD MEMBER

One of ByteDance's directors has suggested that a compromise deal to the TikTok ban may be possible. There are a number of alternative solutions that the company is discussing with the Trump administration that fall short of selling the company. It isn't clear what form that compromise might take, but it may allow the company to continue to operate, albeit with a change of control of some kind. ByteDance is optimistic about the dialogue that is emerging between President Trump and President Xi.

FIRST-EVER DATA CENTER ON THE MOON SET TO LAUNCH NEXT MONTH

Lonestar Data Holdings, a Florida-based startup, is set to launch the first Moon-based data center in February. Dubbed the 'Freedom Data Center', the information hub will piggyback on an upcoming lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Storing data on the Moon offers unique benefits - it provides unmatched physical security and protection and is much more environmentally friendly. The company still needs to overcome enormous technical challenges as deploying a data center on the lunar surface is complex. Lonestar will maintain a ground-based backup at a Flexential facility in Tampa.

FDA-APPROVED NASAL SPRAY FOR DEPRESSION IS FIRST OF ITS KIND

The FDA has approved a ketamine-based nasal spray for treatment-resistant depression in the US. The Johnson & Johnson drug, Spravato, can now be prescribed to adult patients with depression who have tried at least two antidepressants without adequate improvement in symptoms, as well as those with major depressive disorder who have acute thoughts of self-harm or suicide. While it's not clear yet why the drug works as an antidepressant, studies show that it can alleviate symptoms of depression as soon as 24 hours after the first spray, with 22.5% of patients achieving remission after four weeks of treatment. Spravato is the first new medication for major depression approved by the FDA in decades.

GOOGLE ROLLING OUT ANDROID 16 BETA 1 FOR PIXEL

Android 14 Beta 1 is now rolling out to Pixel devices. The beta is available as an over-the-air update for those enrolled in the Android Beta Program. It introduces Live Updates, a new class of notifications that helps users monitor and quickly access important ongoing activities. It also adds support for the Advanced Professional Video codec, designed for high-quality video recording and post production. Other changes in the beta are detailed in the article.

APPLE ANNOUNCES NEW APP STORE TOOL TO GIVE DEVELOPERS MORE IN-APP PURCHASE OPTIONS

Apple's new Advanced Commerce API offers expanded options for managing In-App Purchases. It allows eligible App Store business models to more flexibly manage In-App Purchases within their apps. Full details of the API should be available soon.

'STARGATE' SQUARES SOME AI CIRCLES

The Stargate Project, spearheaded by OpenAI, is an ambitious project that aims to invest $500 billion over the next four years into building out AI infrastructure for the US. While the announcement of the project is an early win for the Trump administration, looking below the surface yields a lot of questions. It appears that previously announced deals and projects will be roped into this new initiative. Stargate will provide a lot of positive media for all of the companies involved while making a lot of money for some partners.

META'S GENAI ORG IN PANIC MODE

Meta engineers are frantically trying to dissect DeepSeek's models and copy everything they can learn from it. Its management is worried about justifying the massive cost of the company's GenAI organization, especially when every single leader is making more than what it cost to train DeepSeek V3 - and there are dozens of such 'leaders'. DeepSeek V3, trained with a $5.5 million budget, is already ahead of Llama 4 in benchmarks. DeepSeek R1 made things even scarier for the Meta.

HOW SHUTDOWN BAY AREA TECH COMPANIES DITCH THEIR FANCY GEAR FAST

Companies like Silicon Valley Disposition auction off assets from dead companies.

WE TRIED OPENAI'S NEW AGENT - HERE'S WHAT WE FOUND

OpenAI's Operator can autonomously perform actions for users like shopping for airline tickets, making restaurant reservations, buying flowers, and more.

BUNSTER

Bunster transforms shell scripts into efficient, standalone binaries while ensuring performance, portability, and robustness.

WAY MORE GAME MAKERS ARE WORKING ON PC TITLES THAN EVER, SURVEY SAYS

Four out of five game developers are currently working on a project for the PC, up from 66% of developers a year ago.

EVEN SOME OF THE BEST AI CAN'T BEAT THIS NEW BENCHMARK

Every publicly available flagship AI system scored below 11% on Humanity's Last Exam, a benchmark that includes thousands of crowdsourced questions in multiple formats.

WHY AMAZON IS STRUGGLING TO CRACK ARGENTINA

Custom duties and fees delay deliveries and make items significantly more expensive.

WANT TO SEE YOUR API DOCS BUILT WITH FERN? 👉 Request a free preview

🤌 POWERING: docs.cohere.com [7] & elevenlabs.io/docs

SAMSUNG UNPACKED: SAMSUNG'S GALAXY S25 ARRIVES WITH A BETTER GOOGLE GEMINI

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and Galaxy S25 Ultra at its Unpacked 2025 event on Wednesday. The Galaxy S25 series has a new side button that allows users to quickly access Gemini. Customers are able to preorder devices now, with shipping beginning on February 7. Google marked the occasion with a slew of Android updates, including an improved Gemini and new Gemini Extensions for some Samsung apps. Samsung plans to add more AI features in the coming months.

DEEPSEEK: THE QUIET GIANT LEADING CHINA'S AI RACE

Deepseek's latest R1 model beat OpenAI's o1 on multiple reasoning benchmarks. The Chinese AI lab is fully funded and has no plans to fundraise. It is focused on building foundational technology rather than commercial applications and has committed to open-sourcing all of its models. This article contains an in-depth interview with Deepseek's CEO Liang Wenfeng, which covers Deepseek's ambitions for AGI, why the AI Lab views open source as the dominant strategy, how Deepseek hires and organizes researchers, why Chinese firms settle for copying and commercialization instead of 'hardcore innovation', and how Deepseek plans to ignite more 'hardcore innovation' across the Chinese economy.

CHINA TO PLANT 'FLAPPING' FLAG ON MOON: A LUNAR FIRST

China plans to place a free-standing flag designed to 'flap' on the airless surface of the Moon. The flag will have closed-loop wires embedding into its fabric - it will 'flap' using magnetic currents and electromagnetic interactions to create a waving motion. The flag will be installed in late 2026 when Chang'e 7 heads to the Moon. Chang'e 7, destined to land near the edge of Shackleton Crater in the Moon's south polar region, is designed to carry out some serious science - the area it is landing in is suspected to contain water ice.

WORLD'S LARGEST SOLAR ENERGY PLANT BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE IN ABU DHABI

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company aka Masdar and Emirates Water and Electricity Company are building a gigascale solar farm project in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It will be coupled with a Battery Energy Storage System to supply energy even when the sun's not out. The project will deliver up to 1 GW of base load power every day, enough to power 750,000 homes. It may require an estimated nearly 10 million panels to complete the project.

TAILWIND CSS V4.0

Tailwind CSS v4.0 is now available. It has been optimized for performance and flexibility and has a reimagined configuration and customization experience that takes full advantage of the latest advancements the web platform has to offer. Tailwind CSS v4.0 features a new high-performance engine, a first-party Vite plugin, automatic content detection, built-in import support, new 3D transform utilities, and much more. This post discusses the new features - a comprehensive upgrade guide and an automated upgrade tool is available for existing projects.

BROWSERAI

BrowserAI is a simple, fast, and open source tool for running large language models in the browser. All of the processing happens locally - user data never leaves the browser. BrowserAI is cost-effective, offline-capable, blazing fast, and developer-friendly. It is perfect for web developers building AI-powered applications, companies that need privacy-conscious AI solutions, researchers experimenting with browser-based AI, and hobbyists who want to explore AI without infrastructure overhead.

HERE'S WHAT SAMSUNG'S FIRST ANDROID XR HEADSET LOOKS LIKE IN PERSON

Samsung displayed its Project Moohan headset during its Galaxy Unpacked event. The device looks similar to Apple's high-end Vision Pro headset with a hint of Meta's discontinued Quest Pro. The headset runs Android XR, an OS designed specifically for headsets and smart glasses. Samsung plans to launch Project Moohan to developers first. Pictures of the headset from various angles are available in the article.

LAWYER EXPLAINS WHY APPLE CAN'T BRING TIKTOK BACK TO THE APP STORE YET

Apple has removed TikTok from its App Store because of the company's obligation to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates. While President Trump has assured that the law banning TikTok would not be enforced, some experts say the promise offers minimal security. Trump could change his mind at any time or selectively enforce against companies that fall from political favor. Future administrations would almost certainly be free to pursue violations. The financial consequences of non-enforcement could be severe, even for a company of Apple's stature.

NETFLIX IS RAISING PRICES AGAIN, AS THE STANDARD PLAN GOES UP TO $17.99

Netflix's cheapest plan is now $7.99 per month, and its priciest subscription costs $25.

AI APPS SAW OVER $1 BILLION IN CONSUMER SPENDING IN 2024

Apps that mentioned 'AI' saw 17 billion downloads in 2024.

SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACK HITS CHROME EXTENSIONS, COULD EXPOSE MILLIONS

The attack, which is designed to lift API keys, session cookies, and other authentication tokens, has potentially impacted hundreds of thousands of individuals already.

MASTERCARD DNS ERROR WENT UNNOTICED FOR YEARS

MasterCard recently fixed an error in its domain name settings that could have allowed anyone to intercept or divert Internet traffic for the company by registering an unused domain name.

GOOGLE FIBER IS COMING TO LAS VEGAS

Google has started construction in Las Vegas and Clark County, where its internet service will be available later this year.

OPENAI, SOFTBANK EACH COMMIT $19 BILLION TO STARGATE AI DATA CENTER, THE INFORMATION REPORTS

OpenAI will hold a 40% interest in Stargate, a joint venture to develop data centers for artificial intelligence in the US.

NAME: Ava, the AI SDR

SKILLS: Automates your entire outbound demand generation process [4]. Finds and researches leads. Data mining. Sentiment analysis. Engages prospects with personalized messages. Creates outreach campaigns to target your ideal customer on email and LinkedIn. Self-optimizes over time. Needs no training. Incorporates feedback instantly. Never sleeps. Equipped with every tool you need for outbound.

Hire Ava now →

OPENAI TEAMS UP WITH SOFTBANK AND ORACLE ON $500B DATA CENTER PROJECT

OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, along with others, have teamed up to build multiple data centers for AI in the US. The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and secure American leadership in AI. It will begin with a large data center project in Texas before eventually expanding to other states. The companies expect to pour up to $500 billion into the venture over the next four years. OpenAI is reportedly aggressively building out a team of chip designers and engineers to create an AI chip for running models - it could arrive in data centers as soon as 2026.

MRBEAST IS REPORTEDLY NOW AMONG THOSE TRYING TO BUY TIKTOK

Employer.com has joined forces with YouTuber MrBeast to buy TikTok. They haven't disclosed their all-cash bid amount, and it's not clear if ByteDance is seriously considering the offer. President Trump has signed an executive order delaying any potential TikTok ban for 75 days. Other potential TikTok buyers include Elon Musk, Amazon, Oracle, and a syndicate headed by billionaire Frank McCourt.

DEEPMIND'S HASSABIS SEES AI-DESIGNED DRUG TRIALS THIS YEAR

Isomorphic Labs' Nobel Prize-winning chief executive officer says that the company will hopefully have some AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of the year. It is working on shortening the drug discovery process from a decade or more to just weeks or months. The company, created in 2021 to commercialize Google DeepMind's AlphaFold AI for drug discovery, announced strategic research collaboration agreements with Eli Lilly & Co. and Novartis AG last year. AlphaFold can model a range of molecular structures and predict how they interact with each other.

417-MEGAPIXEL ANDROMEDA GALAXY PANORAMA TOOK OVER A DECADE TO MAKE

Astronomers have completed the most comprehensive survey of the Andromeda galaxy so far and created a 417-megapixel panorama. The massive 42,208 by 9,870-pixel panorama took over a decade to create and includes more than 600 photos. It is the largest photo mosaic ever created using Hubble Space Telescope observations. The photo shows 200 million stars, a fraction of the estimated one trillion stars in the system. It will help scientists learn more about Andromeda's history. A video showing highlights from the mosaic is available in the article.

ARE LLMS MAKING STACKOVERFLOW IRRELEVANT?

The volume of questions asked on StackOverflow fell quickly after ChatGPT's release in November 2022. The drop continues into 2025 at an alarming speed. The site has not seen so few questions asked monthly since 2009. Its decline actually started before ChatGPT - the release of the chatbot merely sped up the decline. StackOverflow's lack of innovation may have resulted in the initial drop in questions. The drop in questions indicates that trouble is ahead.

PERPLEXITY LAUNCHES SONAR, AN API FOR AI SEARCH

Perplexity's Sonar API allows developers to build generative AI search tools into their applications. There is a base version that is cheaper and faster and a pricier version that's better for tough questions. Developers will be able to customize the sources that the AI search engine pulls from. Perplexity claims to be offering the cheapest AI search API on the market. Its models reportedly outperform leading models on a benchmark that measures factual correctness.

INSTAGRAM IS REPORTEDLY TRYING TO ATTRACT TIKTOK CREATORS WITH LARGE BONUSES

Instagram is offering creators $10,000 to $50,000 a month to exclusively post Reels. Meta has also launched the Breakthrough Bonus program, which lets TikTok creators earn up to $5,000 over three months for posting Reels to Facebook and Instagram. The company has extended the maximum length of Reels to three minutes. It is working on a new video editing and creation app designed to compete directly with ByteDance's CapCut.