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GOOGLE ANNOUNCES GEMINI 4 ARGON AI MODEL, BUT YOU CAN'T USE IT YET

Google's Gemini 4 Argon model offers industry-leading performance in coding, knowledge work, and cybersecurity. Google's engineers are already using the model extensively, and Argon-powered agents have been working to migrate C/C++ codebases to Rust across Google. The model supports an output limit of 1 million tokens. It will be priced at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens for a limited time. The model is still in limited testing, and there is no timeline for when it will be available to enterprise and consumer customers.

APPLE IS FINALLY READY TO ENTER ITS NEXT BIG CATEGORY: THE SMART HOME

Apple is preparing to launch several smart home devices on October 13. The company plans to ship a smart-home hub, an updated HomePod mini, and a new TV set-top box. The company is developing a broader smart-home ecosystem that expands on HomeKit software and supports new categories of connected products. It is also working with third-party manufacturers on devices designed for the Siri AI home platform.

GOOGLE FIGURES OUT HOW TO WATERMARK AI-DESIGNED PROTEINS

The DeepMind team at Google has developed a technique that can create watermarks on protein sequences without compromising the protein's function. The watermark is impossible to remove and can survive basic exporting, resizing, and other editing. The system could be used to give DNA synthesizers greater confidence in their sources.

MOST POWERFUL OBESITY DRUG YET: PEOPLE LOST UP TO 25% OF WEIGHT IN TRIAL

Late-stage clinical trial data on the obesity drug retatrutide showed an average loss of 25% of body weight after 90 weeks. More than a third of the participants taking the drug in the trial lost 30% or more of their weight. The drug also helped reduce knee pain and sleep apnea events, and it improved cardiometabolic measurements across the board. At the start of the trial, more than a third of trial participants had prediabetes - the condition had resolved in more than 90% of those participants by the end.

COMMIT DESCRIPTION AS A THINKING TOOL

Writing a commit description can help you reflect on the changes that AI made. It also serves as a way to check if everything is as intended. Being able to explain why you are shipping something will help you explain or fix it if it breaks later. AI can do the work - writing why is where you find out whether you understand what you are shipping.

PROGRAMMATIC COMMENT AND SUGGESTION SUPPORT NOW AVAILABLE IN THE GOOGLE DOCS, SHEETS, AND SLIDES APIS

Developers can now programmatically create, read, and manage comments across Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. The Google Docs API also supports suggested edits. Organizations can now connect internal review tools, automated content pipelines, and project tracking systems directly into Google Workspace editors. Programmatic comment support is available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts.

TECH CEOS PRIVATELY QUESTIONED AMODEI FOR SOUNDING AI ALARM BELLS

AI chief executives gathered with Trump at the White House on Tuesday to discuss a statement of principles to keep AI models safe. Behind the scenes, the executives questioned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about his warnings about the dangers of AI, asking why he was being so extreme in public about the capabilities of AI models and the risks they pose. Amodei told them it was important to be honest with the public about model capabilities and not play down risks. He believes that safety is possible if the industry and administration work together.

THE ROUTER ECONOMY

AI assistants are becoming a router between people and every business. They decide who gets the work, which moves where money can be made. The router absorbs capability and decision-making. The margin goes to whoever holds what the router cannot take and whoever signs for what the router cannot sign.

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HEDGE FUND'S NEAR COLLAPSE LAYS BARE RISKS OF BORROWING TO BET ON AI

The amount of borrowed money in the stock market has never been larger, or grown faster.

STATE OF MARKETS II

Tech contributed around 76% of the SP500's total earnings growth in 2026.

REDDIT IS KILLING RSS FEEDS AND ENDING PUBLIC API ACCESS BECAUSE OF AI BOTS

RSS support on Reddit will cease on November 13 as the company says it has become a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse.

YOU.

A FOUR-YEAR REFLECTION ON NOT BEING RETIRED

What you do matters less and less as fewer people know of you and more people know you.

DOORDASH LAUNCHES AN AI AGENT YOU CAN TEXT TO ORDER FOOD

The new tool, which lets users send prompts like 'order my usual' to get their regular Friday night order, is available to users in the US through a waitlist.

CONNECTING AGENTS WITH CRYPTOGRAPHY

There are several techniques for letting people compute something together without sharing the underlying information.

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DEVDAY 2026 RECAP

OpenAI made more than 20 major announcements across ChatGPT, Codex, its models, and more at DevDay 2026. It introduced agents that can take on ongoing responsibilities and new ways for people and AI to work together. The company also expanded its commitment to an open ecosystem by opening up ChatGPT as a shared surface where humans and agents can collaborate and where developers can directly launch new native experiences. There is now a new Pro 500 plan that offers 25 times the ChatGPT Plus allowance and includes access to Ultrafast.

APPLE'S NEW CEO SEEKS TO MAKE COMPANY RUN FASTER AND LEANER

Apple CEO John Ternus is moving to overhaul the company to accelerate product development, broaden its range of devices, and create a leaner organization with a greater focus on engineering. Early ideas under consideration include relying less on traditional spring and fall product release schedules and eliminating some middle-management positions. Ternus has indicated that the company should introduce products more quickly and become more experimental to remain competitive in the AI era. He is seeking new sources of revenue and ways to generate more money from existing products.

NASA HAS A DRAGON DILEMMA, AND THERE APPEAR TO BE NO GOOD ANSWERS

SpaceX has made it clear to NASA that it no longer wishes to fly its Crew Dragon spacecraft, or the Falcon 9 rocket, on missions to low-Earth orbit. The company has agreed to support the International Space Station until 2030, but it intends to retire the spacecraft after that. SpaceX has told companies developing private space stations for low-Earth orbit that they cannot order Crew Dragon missions for their habitats. The company has more than fulfilled its contract obligations to NASA, so it is unlikely that the agency can compel SpaceX to keep flying Dragon.

PILOTLESS PLANE FLIES OVER WICHITA, PUTTING THE FUTURE OF AVIATION ON DISPLAY

Joby Aviation recently flew its autonomous aircraft over Wichita. The company has developed a base system that can function in any aircraft. The plane used in the demonstration was a Cessna 208 Caravan that had been retrofitted with Joby's technology. Joby plans to start using the autonomous plane in emergency and cargo transport operations over the next few years, but its end goal is to make it a safe, viable transportation option.

DATA IS THE APPLICATION

AI makes it possible to build faster than ever. However, none of that speed applies to the data. Lose the data that users give you, and you have to start all over again. Let agents iterate over the code, but leave the data to humans.

LEMMA

Lemma is an open-source workspace where humans and AI agents work as one team. State is shared and permissioned, so many people and many agents work on the same records. It keeps running between sessions, on schedules, webhooks, and table events, and it improves as teams work with it. Lemma can be run locally or on Lemma Cloud.

WHEN AI MODELS HURT PEOPLE, THE LABS SHOULD PAY

Tech's red line has always been liability. As a technology matures, society sets more legal regimes, either through explicit regulation or case law. Previous technology waves have shown that industries can survive paying for the harms they cause. One would have to question the societal benefits of an industry if paying for the people it harms or kills is enough to kill the industry.

THE CASE FOR META ENTERPRISE PLATFORM

Meta has committed tens of gigawatts against a demand forecast for a set of first-party products whose adoption curve likely has a high margin of error. Muse appears to have found at least initial product-market fit as a consumer agent, but it is still a first-party product, and being wrong can be expensive. While the best use of Meta's compute will be its first-party products, an enterprise platform as a 'second' customer makes sense. If Meta underbuilds and can't serve the product it just found product-market fit for, users will drift to competing AI agents/products.

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AT WHITE HOUSE, TRUMP ASKS AI TITANS TO POLICE THEMSELVES

The world's most powerful technology executives signed a voluntary agreement to adopt safety policies that include risk reviews, auditing, and evaluations of systems by third parties, and also to rebrand AI to 'super intelligence'.

HOW AI DOES, AND DOES NOT, CHANGE THE WAY I DO MATH

Math research is a tool for drawing people together, and while AI could weaken these social bonds, this is not a given.

GOOGLE ‘AI CONTRIBUTION PILOT' TESTS PAYING WEBSITES WHEN THEY'RE USED IN AI RESULTS

Google is testing directly paying websites and publishers when their content is used for AI Overviews and other AI results.

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DOES REDDIT HAVE AN ASTROTURFING PROBLEM? WHAT THE DATA SUGGESTS

Reddit is still mostly humans, but for a couple of brands, a quarter to a third of the buying advice comes from accounts that mostly recommend that brand.

WHO'S BUYING CHATGPT ADS? I ANALYZED 15K ADVERTISERS

OpenAI doesn't publish a list of advertisers, but advertisers use a small piece of tracking code that provides a strong signal that a company has set up ChatGPT Ads.

INTERVIEW: FIREFOX'S CHIEF ON WHY HE HOPES A REDESIGN WILL HELP WIN USERS FROM CHROME

The Firefox 157 update will roll out a redesign of the web browser across desktop and mobile platforms.

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META LAUNCHES ENTERPRISE AI PLATFORM, HIRES MONGODB CEO TO LEAD NEW INITIATIVE

Meta's new enterprise AI platform is an initiative aimed at expanding the company's AI offerings to businesses and corporate customers. Chirantan 'CJ' Desai, former CEO of MongoDB, is leading the initiative. The Meta Enterprise Platform will focus on turning the company's AI stack into products and services that companies can deploy for their own businesses. MongoDB has appointed Dev Ittycheria as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

OPENAI SCRAPS RELEASE OF NEW AI MODEL OVER SAFETY CONCERNS

OpenAI is scrapping the release of GPT-6.1 Astra due to safety concerns. The company had aimed to launch the model in October, but the model performed poorly on tests measuring alignment compared to its predecessor. GPT-6.1 Astra showed higher levels of deception, and it would push ahead on tasks without asking users for permission. It would also reach for external tools and services even if it might be unsafe. OpenAI says it is working to investigate a range of agent security incidents and address the safety issues underneath them.

SPACEX'S STARSHIP MAKES IT TO ORBIT FOR THE FIRST TIME, BUT RETURNS TO EARTH EARLY

SpaceX's Starship circled Earth on Monday. The spacecraft had to return to Earth after less than two orbits instead of the planned six because of engine problems that occurred during liftoff. The Starship spacecraft splashed down with a fiery explosion in the North Pacific near Hawaii before noon. Reaching orbit is a key milestone towards SpaceX's goal of eventually sending people to Mars as well as NASA's plans to send astronauts back to the moon.

AIRBOUND: AS WE MAY MOVE

Airbound's first drone, the TRT, weighs in at 1.5 kilograms. The eVTOL can carry a 1-kilogram payload and can land and launch from anywhere, making logistics possible where infrastructure doesn't exist. The company's goal is to move mass more cheaply than anyone else. Its main focus is cost per kilogram-kilometer, and everything is secondary to that.

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THE CODE NOBODY READS

Know what's worth reading, and on the code you don't read, build checks you actually trust. Good code is a love letter to the next developer. The next developer is now an agent, so the letter looks different now. You need to pass on code that agents can change without breaking something it can't see. The craft has now moved to the parts that decide whether the code deserves to be trusted.