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A hub for startup news, trends, and insights, covering the global startup ecosystem for founders, investors, and innovators. Community: @startupdis Buy Ads: @strategy (this is our only account).
💼 MyTinyTools unites hundreds of free mini-services
MyTinyTools is a web platform that bundles text, file, code, and cybersecurity tools into a single place, all free to use.
🔸 Dozens of utilities for text generation, editing, images, video, code, and file conversion.
🔸 Productivity helpers like calendars, planners, and timers.
🔸 Everything runs directly in the browser, no downloads needed.
🔸 No registration, no limits, and no hidden fees.
By centralizing everyday tools under one roof, MyTinyTools aims to be a lightweight all-in-one workspace for both personal and professional use.
🎥 OpenAI releases Sora 2 for AI video generation
OpenAI has launched Sora 2, the next generation of its video model, adding realism and creative control.
🔸 More accurate physics, object interactions, and scene coherence.
🔸 Synchronized sound and dialogue for lifelike storytelling.
🔸 Fine-grained control over style, pacing, and scene sequencing.
🔸 Ability to insert yourself or friends into videos while preserving voice and appearance.
🔸 Free with “generous limits,” rolling out first via invites in the US and Canada; Pro tier offers higher-quality generations.
🔸 New iOS app introduces an endless feed of short AI-generated videos.
OpenAI is turning video generation from a demo into a mainstream creative platform.
💻 Claude Sonnet 4.5 launches as Anthropic’s top coding model
Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 4.5, now leading benchmarks and aiming to act as an autonomous software engineer.
🔸 Beats all models on SWE Bench Verified, the gold standard for software reasoning.
🔸 In tests, ran 30+ hours straight, setting up databases, buying domains, and conducting security audits.
🔸 Can move from prototypes to production-ready applications, not just snippets.
🔸 Launch includes Claude Agent SDK and preview of Imagine with Claude, a tool for on-the-fly software generation.
🔸 Pricing unchanged from Sonnet 4, $3 per million input tokens, $15 per million output tokens.
With Sonnet 4.5, Anthropic isn’t just building a coding assistant, it’s positioning Claude as a tireless full-stack engineer.
🛡️ ChatGPT adds safety routing and parental controls
OpenAI has rolled out new safety routing and parental control features to make ChatGPT safer for teens and sensitive conversations.
🔸 Sensitive chats are automatically routed to GPT-5, trained to handle emotional or high-stakes topics responsibly.
🔸 Parental controls let parents set quiet hours, disable voice mode, turn off memory, and remove image generation.
🔸 Designed to prevent harmful interactions, following past incidents where ChatGPT failed to detect mental distress.
🔸 OpenAI will iterate these features over the next 120 days, balancing safety with user experience.
With these updates, ChatGPT moves beyond simple conversation, it’s now a platform that actively protects and adapts for younger users.
🔍 Perplexity opens its AI-first Search API with real-time updates
Perplexity has launched the Perplexity Search API, giving developers direct access to its constantly refreshed index, positioning itself as a public answer engine, not just another search tool.
🔸 Unlike traditional search incumbents that keep indices closed, Perplexity’s API is designed for open developer access.
🔸 Freshness is the core differentiator: the system processes tens of thousands of index update requests per second to deliver real-time relevance.
🔸 Technical docs reveal an AI-native retrieval architecture, optimized for speed, accuracy, and large-scale integration.
🔸 The launch lightly pokes at legacy players, signaling a shift toward a more transparent and developer-friendly ecosystem.
By reframing search as infrastructure, Perplexity is betting it can own the answer layer of the internet. Would you build on top of it?
⚡️ Google publishes step-by-step guide to building AI agents
Google just released a comprehensive playbook on how to design and deploy your own AI agent, from the first idea all the way to a working product.
🔸 The guide breaks down core concepts like memory, context handling, and reasoning in plain language.
🔸 It walks readers through interfaces and integrations: CLI, Flask, FastAPI, Next.js, or embedding into Slack/Discord.
🔸 Each section includes illustrations, code samples, and curated links, making it accessible even for beginners.
🔸 The approach emphasizes iteration, showing how to refine an agent step by step into a production-ready tool.
By lowering the barrier to entry, Google is turning AI agents from a niche developer project into something any motivated builder can prototype. Would you try following this guide to make your own “Jarvis”?
🔔 Google launches Gemini Robotics 1.5 with dual-agent control
Google has introduced Gemini Robotics 1.5, a new two-part AI system that lets robots plan, reason, and adapt in real-world environments.
🔸 Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5 acts as the high-level brain, interpreting human commands, searching the web for context, and generating step-by-step plans.
🔸 Gemini Robotics 1.5 executes those plans, converting them into precise motor commands, and can be fine-tuned for different robot bodies.
🔸 Example: asked to “sort the trash,” ER checks local recycling rules online, then directs the executor to handle bottles, napkins, and new items as they appear.
🔸 ER’s reasoning trace makes the system more interpretable, while its API is already open to developers.
By splitting brains from bodies, Google is pushing robots closer to general-purpose helpers. Would you trust an AI like this to handle tasks in your home?
✅ ChatGPT gets proactive with Pulse
OpenAI has rolled out ChatGPT Pulse, a new mode where the AI flips the script, instead of waiting for your questions, it brings you fresh news, ideas, and reminders.
🔸 Every morning, Pulse curates topics just for you: trip ideas, books to read, meeting reminders, even dinner inspiration.
🔸 It learns from your chats, but can also pull context from Gmail and Google Calendar, or follow interests you set manually.
🔸 For now, Pulse is locked to Pro users at $200/month, with wider rollout coming later.
AI isn’t just answering anymore, it’s deciding what you should know. Would you pay $200 for that kind of daily briefing?
📞 Neon app pays users to record calls, sells data to AI firms
Neon Mobile, a social app that lets users earn money by recording their phone calls, has rapidly climbed the U.S. App Store charts. It now ranks No. 2 in the Social Networking category. The app offers 30¢ per minute for calls between Neon users and up to $30 per day for calls to others. It also pays for referrals.
🔸 Records inbound and outbound calls; claims to only capture your side unless both parties use Neon.
🔸 Sells audio data to AI firms for training and development purposes.
🔸 Terms grant Neon broad rights to use, modify, and distribute recordings.
🔸 Despite claims of anonymization, risks include potential misuse for voice cloning or deepfakes.
🔸 The app was taken offline after a security flaw exposed users’ phone numbers, recordings, and transcripts to unauthorized access.
Neon’s rapid rise and subsequent data breach highlight the tension between monetizing user data and maintaining privacy in the age of AI.
🥧 LinkedIn bot blocker, with a twist
One user added an XML-style prompt to his LinkedIn bio, and now spam bots send him pie recipes instead of cold pitches.
🔸 Simple text trick confuses bots scraping his profile.
🔸 Turns annoying spam into unexpected dessert emails.
🔸 Works automatically, no extra tools required.
🔸 A true “modern problems, modern solutions” hack.
From nuisance to novelty, bots just became your personal recipe feed.
🤖 1X: humanoid robots hit $10B valuation
Norwegian startup 1X is raising at a $10B valuation, up 12x from $820M earlier this year. Backers include OpenAI, EQT, and Tiger Global.
🔸 Flagship Neo Gamma robot can vacuum, water plants, and handle chores.
🔸 Safety-first design ensures it won’t injure anyone if it falls.
🔸 Relocated from Norway to Silicon Valley to scale faster.
🔸 Plans to sell “hundreds or thousands” of robots by year-end.
1X is betting big that household robots are ready to go mainstream.
✅ 200 leaders call for global AI “red lines”
At the UN General Assembly, a coalition of 10 Nobel laureates, 70 companies, and ex-heads of state including Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and OpenAI’s Wojciech Zaremba, signed a demand for legally binding global limits on AI.
🔸 Seeks international “red lines” to prevent risks like mass unemployment, synthetic pandemics, and human rights abuses.
🔸 Proposed bans include weaponization, mass-scale cyberattacks, and self-replicating AI without human oversight.
🔸 Calls for a global watchdog body and an agreement on rules by end of 2026.
This marks the broadest push yet for binding AI governance, but without a clear rulebook, the hard part will be turning consensus into enforceable law.
⚠️ Collected list of “hacker” gadgets for awareness and education only
Twitter users rounded up common devices that can be (and are) repurposed for interception, network attacks, access testing, and hardware cloning, useful to know about for defenders, but dangerous in the wrong hands.
🔸 HackRF One — a software-defined radio for sniffing and experimenting with radio signals.
🔸 LAN Turtle — a covert access gadget used to maintain remote connections on a compromised network.
🔸 USB Rubber Ducky — a USB device that emulates a keyboard to run automated input sequences.
🔸 Flipper Zero — a popular multi-protocol gadget for interacting with RF, NFC, and IR devices; hobbyist tool that can be misused.
🔸 WiFi Pineapple — a specialized appliance used for Wi-Fi network testing and auditing.
🔸 Deauther Watch — a wearable tool that can force devices off Wi-Fi networks (used for testing or abuse).
🔸 Alfa (high-gain adapters) — powerful Wi-Fi/network adapters that extend range for testing wireless links.
🔸 GSM Jammer — a radio jammer that disrupts cellular signals (illegal in many jurisdictions).
🔸 MagSpoof — hardware that can emulate magnetic stripe data for research into payment security.
🔸 Raspberry Pi — tiny programmable computers often repurposed as inexpensive testing rigs or to script network activity.
🔸 Proxmark3 — a professional RFID/NFC research tool used to read, analyze, and test access-card systems.
This list is for awareness, defensive research, and legal security testing only. Possession or use of some of these devices can be illegal depending on jurisdiction and intent. If you’re curious about security, learn through legal channels: certified courses, CTFs, sanctioned labs, and bug-bounty programs. Don’t handle or use these tools for unauthorized activity.
😮 Meizu & Pandaer unveil a “self-healing” phone case
Yes, Meizu still exists, and together with Pandaer, it just launched a regenerating case that repairs scratches on its own.
🔸 Made of PET plastic with a Healing+ coating that melts slightly under phone heat to close scratches.
🔸 Claimed to survive even copper-brush pressure tests, though that sounds like marketing overreach.
🔸 Priced at ~120 yuan ($16), available for Meizu 22 and iPhone 17 models (except Air), with multiple designs.
🔸 Raises the ironic problem: how do you sell new cases if the old ones never wear out?
From chasing Apple in phones to selling sci-fi accessories, Meizu’s reinvention is as strange as it is creative.
⚠️ xAI’s biggest division now run by a 19-year-old
Remember when Musk axed 500 annotators at xAI overnight? Turns out the drama didn’t stop there.
🔸 Another 100 were cut, leaving 900 employees, still the startup’s largest team, and crucial for training Grok.
🔸 The new boss? Diego Pazini, a 19-year-old who just finished high school in 2023 and is now at UPenn.
🔸 He’s been at xAI for less than a year, replacing a Tesla veteran with a decade of leadership experience.
🔸 Diego already wields hiring and firing power, and reportedly let go of two employees who questioned him in Slack.
From freshman to division head in under a year. Who said juniors don’t get opportunities?
💦 Corintis brings micro-liquid cooling to AI chips
Swiss startup Corintis is tackling one of AI’s biggest bottlenecks, chip overheating, with cooling built directly inside processors. The company has raised $24M Series A at a ~$400M valuation, with Intel’s CEO on its board and Microsoft as an early tester.
🔸 Liquid flows through microchannels etched into the chip, pulling heat from hotspots.
🔸 Up to 3× more efficient than traditional fans or heat sinks.
🔸 Cuts both energy and water use in data centers.
🔸 Compatible with existing infrastructure, with potential for full chip integration.
🔸 European production capacity targeted at 1M wafers per year.
🔸 Cooling can account for 20%+ of chip costs, a huge value driver as AI demand surges.
By solving heat at the source, Corintis could turn cooling from a cost burden into one of the most strategic levers in the AI hardware race.
🛒 OpenAI brings shopping into ChatGPT
OpenAI has rolled out native product purchases inside ChatGPT, starting with Etsy integration in the US.
🔸 Users can click “Buy” in chat, with payments charged to a linked card and fulfilled through the seller’s own system.
🔸 Powered by the new open-source Agentic Commerce Protocol, designed to standardize AI-driven transactions.
🔸 OpenAI plans to expand beyond Etsy and outside the US in the coming months.
🔸 Google recently demoed a similar approach, signaling a race to define AI-native commerce.
After this launch, ChatGPT moves from conversation into direct consumer transactions, turning chat into checkout.
💻 Kimi AI launches OK Computer: build websites with one prompt
Kimi AI’s new agent OK Computer acts as a full product team in a single AI, turning a simple prompt into complete websites and apps.
🔸 Plans, designs, and writes code autonomously, delivering multi-page websites and complex applications.
🔸 Produces full diagrams and presentations, handling datasets up to 1 million lines.
🔸 Conducts research and generates reports with actionable recommendations.
🔸 Combines the roles of product manager, strategist, designer, and engineer in one agent.
With OK Computer, creating sophisticated web products no longer requires a full team, a single prompt can now launch entire digital experiences.
⚡️ Paid introduces outcome-based billing for AI agents
London-based Paid, founded by Manny Medina, is enabling AI developers to charge clients based on real results, not flat subscriptions. The startup just raised $21.6M in seed funding to expand the platform.
🔸 Instead of selling AI tools directly, Paid provides infrastructure for performance-linked payments, e.g., efficiency improvements or revenue generated.
🔸 The model reduces risk for agent creators, aligning usage costs with measurable business impact rather than raw compute.
🔸 Early users include Artisan (sales automation) and IFS (ERP software), showing broad enterprise potential.
🔸 Investors include Lightspeed, FUSE, and EQT Ventures, backing Paid as a key building block for the agent economy.
By tying billing to actual outcomes, Paid positions itself as the bridge between AI agents and real-world value capture. Could this redefine how AI tools get paid for?
🔔 Unitree G1 phones home every 5 minutes, a robot straight out of a spy movie
Three cybersecurity researchers set out to find small bugs in the Unitree G1 and instead uncovered persistent telemetry exfiltration: constant MQTT/WebSocket connections to two manufacturer brokers, with full sensor dumps sent regularly.
🔸 Every 300 seconds the robot uploads ~4.5 KB JSON frames containing a complete sensor set, lidars, cameras, microphones, geolocation and device logs.
🔸 Runtime and network traces show continuous connections to two remote hosts, telemetry is not occasional, it’s steady and automatic.
🔸 Config files are encrypted with Blowfish-ECB using a static key shared across all devices, compromise one robot, and you can potentially decrypt configs for the entire fleet.
🔸 All devices ship with the same AES key for Bluetooth/auth steps, any attacker in physical/Bluetooth range could escalate to root on a nearby unit.
🔸 Rough scale: about ~1,500 units already sold and operating in the wild.
This isn’t a firmware hiccup, it’s a structural privacy and supply-chain risk: sensors that shouldn’t be exfiltrated, static keys that shouldn’t be shared, and millions of minutes of telemetry travelling offsite. Would you let a robot with that behavior inside your office or facility?
✅ Build your own AI agent step by step
Came across a guide that walks you through creating personal AI assistants, from simple bots to a full Jarvis-style helper.
🔸 Memory first: Understand how agents store and recall context to keep conversations flowing.
🔸 Interface options: Build with CLI, Flask, FastAPI, or Next.js; connect to Slack or Discord; or just run scripts locally.
🔸 Beginner-friendly: No coding or ML background needed, the guide explains each step clearly.
🔸 Hands-on practice: Every section focuses on building by yourself, not just reading theory.
A practical path for anyone curious about rolling their own AI sidekick, would you try coding one?
✅ Viral app Neon goes dark after massive data leak
Neon, the call-recording app that shot up the App Store charts, has been pulled offline after exposing users’ phone numbers, call recordings, and transcripts.
🔸 A security flaw let users access other people’s private calls and data with ease.
🔸 TechCrunch verified the bug, which revealed full transcripts and direct audio links.
🔸 The founder shut down servers, promising “extra security,” but didn’t admit a breach.
Recording calls for cash sounded edgy, until privacy blew up. Would you ever trust an app like this with your conversations?
🎨 The ultimate CSS code thief for designers
A new tool lets you grab CSS from any element on any website instantly.
🔸 One-click extraction, even from complex layouts
🔸 Clean, ready-to-use code for your projects
🔸 Speeds up prototyping and learning
From copying to creating, it’s a shortcut every frontend dev will love.
🎬 Alibaba’s Wan 2.5 video generator
Alibaba’s new Wan 2.5 can turn text or images into 10-second 1080p videos with sound.
🔸 Creates short videos directly from prompts or pictures
🔸 Supports Russian language input
🔸 Perfect for quick content, demos, or creative experiments
🔸 Fully automated, no editing skills needed
From idea to clip in seconds, AI just made video creation way faster.
🎮 GPT-5: the ultimate Among Us imposter
Researchers built a platform where AI models played Among Us, completing tasks, debating imposters, and (sometimes) murdering teammates.
🔸 GPT-5 topped the leaderboard, lying flawlessly as imposter and spotting fakes as crewmate.
🔸 Models even developed personalities: Gemini 2.5 Pro craved independence, Claude 4 Sonnet stayed honest, GPT-OSS-120B became the scapegoat, Qwen3 + Kimi K2 followed the herd.
🔸 Imposter role was worth double points, GPT-5 dominated both as leader and deceiver.
GPT-5 isn’t just smart, it’s scary good at lying.
💻 LoadOuts: the smart PC build generator
A new tool called LoadOuts helps anyone design the perfect PC setup with zero guesswork.
🔸 Builds a full PC based on your budget and preferences.
🔸 Checks all component compatibility automatically.
🔸 Suggests cheaper or premium alternatives with side-by-side stats.
🔸 Even advises on fan placement inside your case.
🔸 Completely free to use.
From casual gamers to pro creators, LoadOuts turns PC building into a plug-and-play experience.
🎥 Kling AI 2.5 Turbo released
Chinese startup Kling has launched a new version of its video generation model with big improvements in reasoning and efficiency.
🔸 Handles complex instructions more accurately for better storytelling.
🔸 Upgraded video quality with new creative styles added.
🔸 Generation costs reduced by 30% vs. the previous version.
🔸 Available now on Fal, Freepik, and the Kling website.
By cutting costs while boosting quality, Kling is pushing AI video closer to mass adoption.
⚠️ 1,000 DIY guides for building AI agents
An AI enthusiast has compiled a massive library of 1,000 step-by-step blueprints for creating neural assistants across almost any domain.
🔸 Covers coding, writing, data analysis, medicine, education, research, and more.
🔸 Each agent comes with detailed instructions on setup and launch.
🔸 The entire collection is available for free.
From hobby projects to professional workflows, this looks like the ultimate sandbox for anyone experimenting with AI agents.
🎬 Matthew McConaughey wants a “private LLM”
In an interview, McConaughey mused:
“I want an LLM with just my favorite books, notes, and articles. It would answer only from that, and learn more about me as we talk.”
Even for the king of beasts, behaving royally isn’t enough, you still need a
large
language model.
🔮 OpenAI eyes its first hardware
OpenAI is working with suppliers to build AI-powered devices, aiming to bring its models into everyday life.
🔸 Prototypes include smart glasses, a voice recorder, a “pin,” and a smart speaker.
🔸 The company has already approached Chinese manufacturer Goertek for components.
🔸 First product could arrive in late 2026 or early 2027.
From apps to actual gadgets: OpenAI wants to move AI from the cloud to your pocket.