Search the archive

higher-level tasks? Try free for 30 days

SPACEX: CELLULAR STARLINK SERVICE IS READY TO GO

SpaceX now has enough satellites in Earth's orbit to offer commercial services for its cellular Starlink system. The company now has over 320 'direct to cell' Starlink satellites in space. The service will work with normal mobile phones without any extra equipment or special apps. SpaceX is partnering with T-Mobile to offer cellular satellite technology to consumers. The company still needs approval from the FCC before it can operate a commercial cellular service.

'IPHONE 17 AIR' RUMORED TO SURPASS IPHONE 6 AS THINNEST IPHONE EVER

The iPhone 17 Air will be around 6mm thick, according to rumors. This will make it the thinnest iPhone ever. Most sources agree that it will have around a 6.6-inch display. The device is expected to have a standard A19 chip, a Dynamic Island, a single rear camera, and an Apple-designed 5G modem. The iPhone 17 Air will likely be unveiled in September 2025.

MUSK'S NEURALINK LAUNCHES STUDY OF MIND-CONTROLLED ROBOTIC ARM

Neuralink is starting to test a technology that could allow paralyzed people to control a robotic arm. It is conducting an early-stage study aimed at letting patients with Neuralink devices implanted in their brains manipulate robotic arms. Neuralink's device allows patients to control computer cursors, iPads, and similar digital tools. It is currently implanted in at least two humans.

US SUPERSONIC JET SOARS TO RECORD 25,040 FEET, FUELS SPEEDY TRAVEL DREAMS

Boom Supersonic's XB-1 demonstrator aircraft recently completed its eighth flight and set a new altitude record. It reached an altitude of 25,040 feet during the 54 minute flight and a top speed of Mach 0.82, tying its previous speed record. Boom Supersonic has planned a few more subsonic flights before it will attempt to break the sound barrier. While the XB-1 will be capable of exceeding Mach 1, the company plans to fly its aircraft at Mach 0.94 over land to avoid the disruptive noise caused by sonic booms.

INTRODUCING THE MODEL CONTEXT PROTOCOL

Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a new standard for connecting AI assistants to data systems. It is aimed at helping frontier models produce better, more relevant responses. MCP provides a universal open standard for connecting AI systems with data sources, resulting in a simpler, more reliable way to give AI systems access to the data they need. It uses a straightforward architecture that allows developers to either expose their data through MCP servers or build AI applications that connect to these servers.

AMAZON S3 ADDS NEW FUNCTIONALITY FOR CONDITIONAL WRITES

Amazon S3 can now perform conditional writes that evaluate if an object is unmodified before updating it. This will help developers coordinate simultaneous writes to the same object and prevent multiple concurrent writers from unintentionally overwriting the object without knowing the state of its content. Conditional writes simplify how distributed applications with multiple clients concurrently update data across shared datasets. The new conditional header can help improve the efficiency of large-scale analytics, distributed machine learning, and other highly parallelized workloads by offloading compare and swap operations to S3. The new conditional-write functionality is available at no additional charge in all AWS regions.

THE PROBLEM WITH REASONERS

o1 reasoners are the most exciting models to come out since the original GPT-4, but they suck on important problems. o1 uses a reinforcement learning (RL) environment where reasoning steps are actions, previous tokens are observations, and reward is the solution's correctness. RL is great for games, high-frequency trading, protein folding, and other problems, but not for open-ended thought without clear feedback. RL-based reasoners struggle to perform in domains outside of their training, which is most fields. Transformative AI will likely come from scaling rather than through reasoning models.

VALVE, STEAM, AND THE ENTIRE PC GAMING INDUSTRY WERE SAVED BY A SINGLE INTERN

Valve recently released a documentary to celebrate the Half-Life 2's 20th birthday. One of the facts shared in the documentary was that the entire PC gaming industry as we know it today wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for a single Korean-speaking intern named Andrew. Andrew found a document that proved that a company Valve was fighting against in a lawsuit was destroying evidence related to the case. The company had buried Valve in documents to slow down the process, with many of the documents written in Korean. Andrew's discovery helped Valve win the lawsuit, securing Valve the rights to the Half-Life and Counter-Strike franchises, ultimately leading Steam to evolve from a small software client into the largest digital distribution platform and storefront.

GOOGLE IS INSERTING SEARCH LINKS INTO WEBPAGES IN THE GOOGLE APP NOW

The Google App for iOS is automatically converting some website text into links to Google Search results without explicitly asking users or site owners first.

THE TWO FACTIONS OF C++

There's a growing rift between the two factions in C++ - those with good tooling that can effortlessly build from source vs those with poor tooling who can't build from source - that likely won't be closing anytime soon.

WESQL

WeSQL is a MySQL distribution with a storage backed by S3 that can run on any cloud.

TESLA APPEARS TO BE BUILDING A TELEOPERATIONS TEAM FOR ITS ROBOTAXI SERVICE

Tesla is hiring a software engineer to help develop a teleoperations system that will allow human operators to remotely access and control the company's upcoming robotaxis and humanoid robots.

NOTICE OF BREAKING CHANGES FOR GITHUB ACTIONS

There are several significant changes coming to GitHub Actions, including the migration of the 'ubuntu-latest' label to 'ubuntu 24' starting on December 5.

HAS GOOGLE'S TENSOR PROJECT FAILED?

Google's next two generations of smartphones will continue to leave power users wanting in many regards.

Schedule a demo to learn more

ANDROID 16 COULD GIVE GEMINI THE POWER OVER APPS ASSISTANT NEVER GOT

Google is working on an API for Android 16 that will let system apps perform actions on behalf of users inside applications. The API will be guarded by a permission granted to the default assistant app. Apps will be able to create functions by defining a service that can only be bound by a system process. Details on the new API are scarce, but it appears it will allow Gemini to control apps in a way that Google Assistant never managed to do.

AMAZON'S MOONSHOT PLAN TO RIVAL NVIDIA IN AI CHIPS

Nvidia has transformed from a niche chipmaker to the main supplier of the hardware that enables generative AI over the past two years. The demand for the chipmaker's latest hardware will outstrip supply for several quarters. Nvidia's biggest customers, which include cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, are eager to reduce their reliance on - or replace - Nvidia's chips. This article looks at Amazon's chip development journey and how it plans to compete with Nvidia.

TWEAKING NON-NEURAL BRAIN CELLS CAN CAUSE MEMORIES TO FADE

Astrocytes, non-neuron brain cells, can be artificially manipulated to suppress or enhance specific memories while leaving all other memories intact. These cells play various roles in the brain, many focused on the health and activity of their neighboring neurons. Scientists hope to be able to develop an astrocyte-targeted treatment for disorders such as PTSD.

A STUDY SAYS GRAY HAIR MAY BE REVERSIBLE

Researchers have discovered one of the causes of gray hair: stuck stem melanocyte stem cells. The cells usually travel between compartments of developing hair follicles. They can't make the protein needed to pigment hair when they get stuck, unable to move back to the germ compartment. Making them move again could result in the production of pigment and the return of colored hair.

ZERO DISK ARCHITECTURE

The idea of Zero Disk Architecture is simple: instead of writing to a storage server, write instead to S3. This means you won't have to manage any storage server - this is all offloaded to AWS. The cost and latency of S3 are both going down as the technology improves. While there are still some tradeoffs to consider, Zero Disk Architecture can be very attractive for systems that don't care about latency.

FOURSQUARE'S 104M POINTS OF INTEREST

Foursquare recently made its Points of Interest dataset freely available. This post looks into the dataset. Foursquare was likely earning a good amount of revenue from the dataset as there isn't a lot of competition from the freely available data sets. Companies that produce these datasets can charge yearly rental fees that run into the six-figure territory.

BLUESKY IS ON THE VERGE OF OVERTAKING THREADS IN ALL THE WAYS THAT MATTER

The Bluesky app has exploded to 3.5 million daily active users. Its user base has increased by 300% since Election Day. Journalists, academics, and companies are fleeing X and going to Bluesky instead of Threads possibly due to Threads' decision to downplay political content on the platform. Bluesky is quickly becoming the platform for political and cultural debate.

AMAZON TO INVEST ANOTHER $4 BILLION IN ANTHROPIC, OPENAI'S BIGGEST RIVAL

Amazon is investing an additional $4 billion into Anthropic. Its total investment into the artificial intelligence startup is now $8 billion. Amazon will retain its position as a minority investor. Anthropic will use Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud and training partner.

THIS WEBSITE IS HOSTED ON BLUESKY

This post explains how to host a website on Bluesky.

‘I HAVE NO MONEY': THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS SEE THEIR SAVINGS VANISH IN SYNAPSE FINTECH CRISIS

The situation highlights the risks of fintech startups.

THE DEAL

The return you get from making bets and investments in people you admire and work well cannot be measured in dollars and cents.

HOW DECENTRALIZED IS BLUESKY REALLY?

Bluesky is currently not meaningfully decentralized nor federated - to claim that it is moves the goalposts of both those terms.

AI EATS THE WORLD

Slides from Benedict Evans' yearly presentation on macro and strategic trends in the tech industry.

EMERGING DETAILS OF CHINESE HACK LEAVE U.S. OFFICIALS INCREASINGLY CONCERNED

Chinese hackers closely linked to the country's Ministry of State Security were lurking undetected inside the networks of the biggest US telecommunications firms for more than a year.

version here...

APPLE WORKING ON 'LLM SIRI' FOR 2026 LAUNCH

Apple is working on a smarter version of Siri that employees are calling 'LLM Siri'. It will be able to hold ongoing conversations like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Using large language models will allow Siri to perform much more complex tasks. The new Siri could be announced as part of the June Worldwide Developers Conference in 2025. Apple is aiming for a spring 2026 launch date.

WELCOME TO GOOGLE'S NIGHTMARE: US REVEALS PLAN TO DESTROY SEARCH MONOPOLY

The US Department of Justice has filed its proposed final judgment in the antitrust case against Google. The plans require Google to sell its Chrome browser and retains the option of forcing Google to divest Android if competition doesn't increase from behavioral remedies. They include bans on exclusive default deals with other browsers and device makers and prohibit Google from building new browsers. Google may have to fund an education campaign showing people how to switch search engines. The company will have plenty of time to argue against the proposal as the final revisions are not due until March next year.

THE KEY MOMENT CAME 38 MINUTES AFTER STARSHIP ROARED OFF THE LAUNCH PAD

The only hiccup during SpaceX's sixth Starship test was an abortive attempt to catch the rocket's Super Heavy booster back on the launch site. SpaceX demonstrated that Starship can safely deorbit itself on future missions by reigniting one of its six Raptor engines for a brief burn to slightly adjust its flight path about 38 minutes after liftoff. The achievement means that Starship will likely soon be cleared to travel into orbit, deploy Starlink internet satellites, and conduct in-space refueling experiments. There will be plenty more opportunities for booster catches in the coming months as SpaceX plans to ramp up its launch cadence at Starbase.

NEURALINK GETS APPROVAL TO START HUMAN TRIALS IN CANADA

Neuralink has secured Health Canada's approval to launch human trials in the country. The company is now actively looking for potential participants. Neuralink's implant allows patients to control devices with their brains without the need for wires or any kind of physical movement. The company is specifically looking for patients who have limited or no ability in both hands due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for its trials in Canada.

Maven AGI [11], get a personalized demo.

ELECTROBUN

Electrobun is a solution-in-a-box for building, updating, and shipping ultra-fast, tiny, and cross-platform desktop applications written in TypeScript. It uses Bun to execute the main process and to bundle WebView TypeScript and has native bindings written in Zig. Electrobun provides a tightly integrated workflow for fast setup and distribution.

TAILWIND CSS V4.0 BETA

Tailwind CSS v4.0 is now in beta. While there are still many things to improve, there will likely be no more breaking changes between now and the stable release. This site covers everything Tailwind CSS v4.0, including new changes, components, templates, and more. It contains links to screencasts and resources for learning more about the release.

~9.5% OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERS DO VIRTUALLY NOTHING

US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SEEKS TO UNWIND GOOGLE'S ANTHROPIC DEAL

The US Justice Department has proposed that Google unwind its partnership with AI startup Anthropic as part of a resolution for the landmark antitrust case over online search. Google may be barred from acquiring, investing in, or collaborating with any company that controls where consumers search for information. Google says that the remedy would chill the company's investment in artificial intelligence and jeopardize the US' global economic and technology leadership at a time when it's needed most. Anthropic's deal with Amazon is also under scrutiny.

AWS GIVES ITS MANAGEMENT SCREENS A MAKEOVER IN THE NAME OF IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY

The updated look is available now in selected consoles across all AWS regions and will eventually made available across all services.

NO MORE INJECTIONS: MIT DEVELOP CAPSULE THAT DELIVERS DRUGS STRAIGHT TO THE GUT

MIT and Novo Nordisk researchers have developed a capsule, inspired by squid propulsion mechanisms, that delivers drugs directly into the stomach wall or other organs in the digestive tract.

TYPED JQ

Typed JQ gives types to JQ to make it easier to pinpoint the source of an error.

OPENAI CONSIDERS ADDING WEB BROWSER AND SEARCH PARTNERSHIPS

OpenAI's potential web browser would integrate ChatGPT and web apps from the startup's partners.

AMAZON S3 EXPRESS ONE ZONE NOW SUPPORTS THE ABILITY TO APPEND DATA TO AN OBJECT

Applications can now add data to existing objects in S3.

PERSONALITY BASINS

Personality basins is a mental model for reasoning about humans within their environment that considers why people are the way they are, how they change over time, and how mental illnesses and addiction function along with how we should look for their cures.