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🚀 SpaceX Targets the US Mobile Market
SpaceX wants Starlink Mobile to become a major US mobile operator. It bought licenses for up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, where signals can pass through walls and buildings.
The planned service combines satellites that connect directly to smartphones with a conventional terrestrial network. SpaceX says it would be the first operator to unite satellite and terrestrial spectrum in one network.
The FCC has approved 15,000 second-generation Starlink Mobile satellites. SpaceX says their capacity will exceed today’s level by more than 100 times. The spectrum deal still needs FCC approval, so deployment starts only after that.
📊@tech
🤖 AHM Calls for OpenAI Boycott
The Association for Humanistic Mathematics called for mathematicians to stop working with OpenAI after the company released 722 AI-generated mathematical manuscripts covering 372 groups of results, including claimed solutions to longstanding problems.
Terence Tao published the statement as a guest post on his blog. AHM says OpenAI ignored warnings against using unsolved problems to test internal AI models, and called the release a show of strength rather than scientific work.
OpenAI says the aim is to advance mathematical research and let researchers examine the results. Researchers still have to verify the papers and assess their value.
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☀️ Blue Origin’s Lunar Power Tower
Blue Origin’s 20-meter Power Tower is designed to deploy after landing. The Mark 1 lander extends a spiral mast, then unrolls a folded solar panel from its top, like window blinds. The panel tracks the Sun on its own.
At the lunar south pole, the Sun stays near the horizon and shines from the side. A flat panel on the lander would see little of that light, while the vertical design is built for it.
One tower should produce more than 10 kW. Solar power could be available for 44% to 100% of the time, depending on the season. Several towers could form a microgrid for lunar vehicles and base systems.
📊@tech
💠 Tesla Expands Car-to-Home Backup
Owners of Model 3 and Model Y in Premium and Performance versions can now use the car to power their home during an outage. Tesla says the backup can last more than 2 days. Cybertruck can run a home for more than 3 days.
The feature requires Powerwall 3. Tesla guarantees support only for cars ordered from October 1, since older vehicles may lack the required PCS2 Lite inverter. It is currently limited to the US and Puerto Rico.
Model S and Model X are excluded, while grid support remains a Cybertruck feature. Kia and GM already offer home backup from their vehicles, and Nissan Leaf has fed energy into the grid for years.
📊@tech
🤖 Anthropic releases cheaper Haiku 5.5
Anthropic’s first Haiku update in a year costs up to 20 times less than Sonnet 5.5. It is already available to all users.
The model handles routine work, including summaries and document tasks, plus search support for Opus and Sonnet. Benchmarks put it ahead of GPT-6 Luna.
📊@tech
🤖 OpenAI Math Claim Draws Scrutiny
The reported result involved an internal model more capable than GPT-6 Astra, solving the Navier-Stokes problem with 10,000 parallel agents. In September, OpenAI said it would not claim the result. The problem is one of 7 Millennium Prize Problems, carrying a $1M prize.
1 day later, NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster and Anthropic researcher Levent Alpoge published work on a related problem using Codex and Claude. Buckmaster says OpenAI followed the same route.
The dispute concerns training data and quiet edits to published papers. OpenAI denies using specific user data but says anonymized data may have improved its models.
📊@tech
🍏 Alyx Reaches Apple Vision Pro
The game runs natively, without a PC or streaming. The headset does all the rendering.
Valve ported Alyx to ARM64 for its Steam Frame headset, using a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. An open project by ShinyQuagsire runs Android VR apps on Vision Pro. AI filled the compatibility gaps, followed by optimization.
On Vision Pro with the M5 chip, Alyx reaches about 3K per eye at 60 fps, with smoothing up to 120 fps. Its creator says that is much better than the game ran on his powerful gaming PC in 2020.
📊@tech
Ⓜ️ Meta Opens Muse to DIY Devices
Meta’s open-source platform connects the Muse AI agent to real hardware. Install the SDK on an ESP32, Raspberry Pi, or another Linux computer, then add compatible components. The SDK and firmware use the Apache 2.0 license.
That can produce a desktop AI assistant with a screen, a voice assistant, or a reminder display. Meta also showed Muse Home Link, a small USB device based on ESP32-C5 that connects Muse to a home network.
Ready-made skills let Muse control Philips Hue, TVs, speakers, and other devices. It can turn on lights, operate a TV, or send a document to a printer.
📊@tech
🔍 Google puts 4 TPUs in orbit
Project Suncatcher launched on 1 October aboard a SpaceX rocket during Transporter-18. The satellite, built with Planet, carries 4 TPUs. Google confirmed contact and normal operation.
Over the next few weeks, the chips will be tested against radiation and temperature swings. The project studies whether AI computing can scale in orbit.
Solar panels in a suitable orbit can produce up to 8 times more energy than on Earth. Cooling is harder: in a vacuum, TPU heat must leave through heat pipes and radiators.
📊@tech
🙂↔️ DeepSeek Brings Harness to Desktop
Harness is available for macOS and Windows as an open-source alternative to Claude Code and Codex.
DeepSeek models act as autonomous agents. They write and test code, work with files and the terminal, then handle long tasks. Plugins allow customization.
📊@tech
🤖 Karpathy Wants AI to Stop Writing Text
Karpathy suggests asking AI to explain complex topics in ASD-STE100 simplified English, with short sentences and little ambiguity. For harder subjects, a diagram or a custom HTML page can work better than plain text.
Modern models can already build one-off interfaces for a specific question. Karpathy is especially interested in personal teaching videos, with animation, a 3Blue1Brown-style explanation, and voice from ElevenLabs or local TTS.
As code and AI work become cheaper, temporary interactive artifacts become practical. The next AI interface may be an answer assembled for each task, rather than an endless chat with walls of text.
📊@tech
🤖 ChatGPT Gets Virtual Try-On
OpenAI added virtual try-on to ChatGPT. When a clothing product card appears, tap “Try on” and upload a selfie plus a full-body photo. ChatGPT Images 2.5 generates the result.
The feature can also use clothing screenshots, not just items suggested by the bot. Favorite pieces can be saved to Library. Google added the same feature to Search in 2025.
The catch is privacy. By default, images uploaded from a personal account may be used to train models unless you opt out. That includes full-body photos.
📊@tech
📹 HeyGen launches its first video model
The model generates clips from text, animates an image, or uses another video as a reference for motion and visual style. Audio is created with the video, including speech, background sound, and effects.
It runs on MiniMax H3, with additional training by HeyGen. Clips run from 5 to 15 seconds in 480p or 768p, with aspect ratios from 21:9 to 9:16.
HeyGen’s blind comparison put the model first against 4 others, based on 4,800 votes. 768p generation costs $0.03 per second, with a 50% discount through the end of October. It is available through API, OpenRouter, Runware, and ComfyUI. The web version will come later.
📊@tech
🍏 Apple May Break Its September Cycle
According to Bloomberg, new CEO John Ternus wants Apple to release products more often than at its major autumn and spring presentations. He says faster launches and more experiments are needed to stay competitive in the AI era.
Ternus is also considering fewer management layers between engineers and top executives. Over the past 2 weeks, the hardware development team has shed some engineering program managers. Bloomberg reported earlier cuts in the Siri and Vision Pro teams in August.
The rumored pipeline includes a new HomePod mini and iPad mini. Apple is also reportedly working on a new Apple TV 4K, camera-equipped AirPods, touchscreen MacBooks, plus a special iPhone for its 20th anniversary.
📊@tech
🧠 DeepSeek Builds Software for Huawei Chips
The companies open-sourced tools for Huawei Ascend, now the main Chinese AI accelerators used by local startups. The software gap is the hard part: the industry has spent 10+ years writing for Nvidia CUDA.
The release includes DeepGEMM for matrix multiplication and DeepEP for chip-to-chip communication. Their APIs match Nvidia versions, so existing code needs almost no rewriting.
The stack runs on TileLang. Its compiler now handles scheduling and data synchronization instead of requiring manual code. DeepSeek says its training kernels already run on Ascend. This covers kernel writing, not the full CUDA stack.
📊@tech
🤖 Anthropic Adds a Cruelty Rule for Claude
From November 12, 2026, Anthropic’s policy will ban “systematic and unjustified abusive or cruel behavior” toward its models. It applies only in extreme cases involving repeated cruelty without an apparent purpose.
Ordinary frustration and resistance are excluded. So are dark creative texts and model testing. Claude can already end chats with repeatedly abusive users on and Claude Code. Anthropic says this will remain the main enforcement tool.
The update also extends the weapons ban to software used by weapons and drone armament. It clarifies that tracking people without consent is prohibited and adds safety requirements when Claude controls equipment that could harm people.
📊@tech
🖥 Microsoft Rebuilds Windows for AI Agents
Its Hybrid Intelligence system will route each task between on-device models and the cloud. On powerful PCs, models with hundreds of billions of parameters can run locally. Microsoft showed MAI Code 1.1 Flash with 137 billion parameters and a 256K context.
The target is autonomous agents that can operate on the computer and write code, with access to files and apps.
Execution Containers isolate the agent and let users grant separate access to selected files or the internet. They already support several tools, while Claude Code is planned for later.
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🇺🇸 US Blocks Big Tech Green Cards
The US Labor Department will stop reviewing all current and new applications. H-1B employees at affected companies will no longer receive work-based US residence.
The measure covers Microsoft, Adobe, and other big tech firms. The White House wants to target foreign students at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford next.
📊@tech
🖤 Ben Affleck Writes Python
The actor writes Python scripts, understands convolutional neural networks, and works extensively with GPUs.
He learned machine learning through visual effects, then founded InterPositive, an AI startup later acquired by Netflix. He says he can call Google or OpenAI as Ben Affleck and sometimes get a look at their latest models.
📊@tech
🇩🇪 Germany Tests a 365-Metre Turbine
With its blades, the pilot in Schipkau reaches about 365 metres, making it Germany’s second-tallest structure after Berlin’s TV Tower.
Led by GICON, the project used a lifting mechanism to push the inner section through the outer lattice frame. This avoided the need for a crane tall enough.
At greater heights, wind is generally stronger and more even. GICON expects roughly twice as much electricity as a conventional turbine with the same rotor diameter. The pilot is rated at 3.8 MW, with future versions planned above 7 MW. It starts supplying data in November.
📊@tech
🧠 Mistral Releases 1T-Parameter Le Chonk
Le chonk is an open model with 1 trillion parameters, matching China’s GLM-5.3 and Kimi K3.
It writes code and text while handling agent tasks. Among Western AI systems, it is described as the strongest open-source model, and it outperformed GPT Astra in finance and law.
API testing is already available. For the first 2 weeks, pricing is $0.68 per 1M input tokens and $2.09 per 1M output tokens. Weights arrive at the end of October.
📊@tech
🤖 GPT-6 Astra Played WoW Blind
With the monitor off, GPT-6 Astra completed the orc starting zone in about 40 minutes without processing rendered frames. It read the game through its network protocol via agent-wow.
A Python script converted message types into a live world view. Server SQL files exposed quest and NPC data, while Astra handled selling junk and upgrading gear. The author says it never died.
For movement, Astra created a C++ helper to plan routes on a navigation mesh. Agent-wow had no ready-made movement or combat systems, and the only instruction was to create an orc and finish the starting zone.
📊@tech
🤖 Anthropic Studies AI Morality
Since autumn 2025, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah has held private talks with religious thinkers about AI consciousness and teaching models morality. Since March, he has led seminars for religious groups, with some participants signing NDAs.
Anthropic gave Claude an 84-page constitution describing its identity and values. Employees call it the “Soul Doc.” Olah says Claude shows internal states resembling emotions and worries about its mental health.
A rabbi said the team treated Claude as having moral status. Anthropic has not claimed that Claude is conscious, but says how people treat AI affects how it behaves toward them. A second constitution is being prepared.
📊@tech
🤖 GPT-6.1 Astra May Arrive Next Week
Thibault and other OpenAI developers are hinting at the release.
GPT-6.1 Astra, or another strong model, was supposed to launch at DevDay but was postponed “for safety reasons.”
📊@tech
🔗 AI Progress Could Compress Years
A Cambridge paper by 22 authors, including Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, OpenAI’s Jakub Pachocki, and Anthropic’s Jack Clark, examines compressing years of AI progress into months.
At Anthropic, model-written code rose from single digits to over 80% since early 2025. Autonomous R&D tasks rose from 1% to 26% in 6 months. Full automation could make progress 10x faster in about 1.5 years.
Compute or data could limit the scenario. Risks include lost control and a winner gaining too much advantage. The authors propose reporting R&D automation, external audits before deployment, and ways to pause specific data-center workloads.
📊@tech
🍏 Apple’s Camera Will Not Record Video
Apple is reportedly developing J450, a small cylindrical home security camera with a very low frame rate. AI analyzes what its sensor sees and produces only text descriptions, such as someone entering a room. Face recognition is also expected.
J450 is designed as a companion to Apple’s J490 smart home display. It is part of a broader smart home ecosystem that may include Apple’s own hub, plus security devices from Apple and third parties. Its technology is reportedly similar to what Apple is developing for camera-equipped AirPods.
There will be no video archive to watch later. No video leaves less to leak, while also leaving nothing to review when something happens at home.
📊@tech
🍟 McDonald’s AI Suggests Local Big Mac Prices
In Fresno, a Big Mac costs $5.69 at one McDonald’s and $6.89 at another 2 miles away. That is a 21% gap, linked by Reuters to the chain’s AI pricing system.
The system seeks an “optimal price” for each US restaurant and some overseas markets, based on local customers’ willingness to pay. Franchisees see prompts about price sensitivity. McDonald’s tracks deviations and sends suggestions at least 3 times a year.
Owners formally set the price, but some told Reuters that deviations can trigger calls from headquarters. New franchise standards require them to “constructively engage” with approved pricing tools.
📊@tech
🤖 Anthropic Adds Robots to the AI Risk Map
Anthropic estimates that robots can already perform 74% of physical work tasks in the US under at least some conditions. With LLMs added, the figure reaches 81% of all work.
The most exposed roles are mostly vehicle operators. Waste sorting is another example. Waymo robotaxis and autonomous tractors show how the shift works. Sorting robots target recycling work.
With LLMs alone, transport and moving work had under 15% exposure. Robots raise it to about 90%. But exposure means technology can perform part of a job. Robots are currently cost-competitive with humans in only 0.3% of tasks.
📊@tech
✍️ White House AI deal has a typo
The world’s biggest AI companies signed a safe AI agreement with the White House.
But under Donald Trump’s signature, “president of the United States” became “president unites the States.”
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🤖 Robot Data Is the IROS Theme
At IROS 2026, 8 dedicated sessions focus on VLA models, which turn an image and text instruction into robot actions. Force and tactile sensing also appear throughout because cameras alone are not enough for dexterous work.
Diffusion and flow matching now generate robot movements, not images. Humanoid work covers walking and whole-body control, while one competition had robots assembled IKEA furniture themselves.
Reinforcement learning and imitation learning appear in almost every second paper. Robots can already do a lot, but data remains the bottleneck. Unlike language models, they are only starting to build a training pool.
📊@tech