Startups & Ventures

🔍 Trevor Noah to Host Pixel 11 Event

Google will hold its Made by Google event on August 12, hosted by comedian Trevor Noah. Other hosts include podcaster Alex Cooper, cricketer Shubman Gill, actress Ayami Nakajo, and NBA star Stephen Curry.

The event will showcase the new Pixel 11 smartphone and watch, with previous teasers hinting at Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro Fold models. Google aims for a broad audience rather than just tech enthusiasts.

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6️⃣ New GTA VI teaser trailer released

The full gameplay trailer arrives August 27.

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🤖 OpenAI’s Astra solves 10 hard math problems

An internal version of OpenAI’s Astra model solved or advanced 10 complex math problems that had stumped researchers for years. These include proving the existence of non-sofic groups, refuting the Connes conjecture, new bounds on sphere packing and codes, and solutions to three Erdős problems.

Astra also made progress in quantum complexity theory, lattice cryptography, geometry, and graph theory. OpenAI estimates the compute cost was about $2000 using the Sol API pricing.

Humans prepared the results for publication and formalized each proof in Lean for machine verification. OpenAI says the mathematical ideas came from the system, while people handled manuscript prep, formalization, and checks.

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Ⓜ️ Meta unveils Muse Code and Spark 1.2

Meta launched Muse Code for long tasks, able to work hours on large repos, edit many files, verify results, and run background subagents. It ran nonstop for 24 hours in tests, making 1000+ tool calls and optimizing NVIDIA Hopper GPU cores.

Muse Spark 1.2 has more compute and supports more dev environments. It improved code generation, debugging, repo handling, and autonomous exploration. Both models were trained together to boost synergy.

All actions are logged locally for exact reproduction and continuation after restarts. A multimodal mode lets users upload videos, which Muse Code converts into full websites with visuals and booking features.

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🚀 SpaceX and Nvidia build AI satellite hardware

SpaceX and Nvidia are creating hardware for the Starmind AI1 satellite to run AI tasks in low Earth orbit without ground servers. It uses Nvidia's Vera processors and Rubin GPUs, with the Space-1 Vera Rubin module offering up to 25 times the AI power of the H100. Commercial launches are planned by the end of the year.

SpaceX aims to build a network of up to a million satellites, forming a space-based supercomputer linked by petabit-scale lasers. The FCC filing proposes deployment between 500 and 2000 km altitude, making it the largest space project to date compared to about 15,000 active satellites now.

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🍏 Apple caps AI-driven bug reports

Apple has set a limit on the number of vulnerability reports submitted through its internal security portal. This change comes after a surge of AI-generated submissions overwhelmed the team, causing real bugs from human researchers to get lost in the flood.

The company’s bug bounty program rewards those who find system flaws. But the volume of AI-discovered issues became unmanageable, forcing Apple to add a 30-day cooldown period and require special approval for excess reports.

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🤩 Cloudflare Launches Wallets for AI Agents

Cloudflare opened name reservations for Cloudflare Wallets, letting users secure permanent payment addresses like yourname-cloudflare-pay to manage AI agent funds.

Users fund a main wallet and create virtual wallets for each AI agent with spending limits and approved recipients. Agents pay for APIs and digital content within set limits.

Payments use the x402 protocol in HTTP requests, linking transactions to digital identities without manual card handling. Sellers can identify agents and their organizations.

These wallets provide AI agents with clear authority and accountability. Payment features will launch after name reservations close.

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🚘 BMW Plays Spider-Man Ads Instead of Music

BMW owners in 70 countries hear ads for "Spider-Man: New Day" instead of music for a week after starting their cars. A screen banner triggers a video and interior lighting if tapped.

This affects nearly all BMW cars made after July 2020. BMW partnered with the film for the in-car promotion.

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🎸 Arduino Robot Plays Your Guitar via Wi-Fi

A Reddit user named MegCell built a robot that attaches to almost any guitar in about 3 minutes and plays it via smartphone control. It uses an Arduino to operate servos that press strings and strum, all housed in a complex 3D-printed frame around the guitar body and neck.

The robot reads MusicXML files sent over Wi-Fi, so it can theoretically play any song with a digital score. The creator plans to release 3D models and firmware for a true DIY version and improve the playing technique and noise from the servos.

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🧪 Scientists Propose Cutting Earth’s Population to 4 Billion

Scientists suggest reducing the global population to 4 billion by 2200, about half of today’s 8.3 billion. The planet’s population grew from 2 billion a century ago and could reach 11.5 billion by 2100 according to optimistic forecasts.

In the last 50 years, CO₂ emissions doubled, energy consumption tripled, and biodiversity halved. Resources on Earth won’t be enough for everyone if trends continue.

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💻 Pocketbyte: Modular Computer the Size of a Card

Pocketbyte is a tiny portable computer measuring about 75 × 55 mm, roughly the size of a credit card. It runs on an ESP32-S3 processor with 8 MB PSRAM, has a 2.8-inch IPS screen, 1500 mAh battery, microSD slot for up to 32 GB, a mono speaker, and a 3.5 mm jack.

Its key feature is a modular pin connector that lets you attach hardware like a gamepad for retro emulators, a BlackBerry-style QWERTY keyboard, or a development board to control other electronics. The software is open source, based on FreeRTOS, supports Arduino, and apps can be installed via Wi-Fi from a built-in store.

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🇨🇳 China's Market for Renting Human Faces to AI

In China, people rent out their faces for AI ads, games, and microdramas, earning between $15 and $700. Producers select faces by age, gender, and type, from "ordinary neighbor" to "supermodel."

This trend follows a surge in AI content: over 95% of 128,000 Chinese microdramas in the first three months of the year used AI. Real faces help characters avoid looking identical.

Lawyers warn that sharing biometric data risks losing control over how one’s appearance is used later.

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💫 NASA funds exoplanet surface imaging concept

NASA has backed a concept to capture images of continents and oceans on exoplanets many light years away. The challenge is the star’s brightness, about 10 billion times stronger than the planet’s reflected light, and their close proximity in the sky.

Physicists propose two solutions: a dynamic hierarchical nuller that cancels out starlight by combining light from multiple apertures, and a virtual telescope formed by two instruments spaced 100 km apart to achieve a giant effective aperture.

This approach could finally move exoplanet observation beyond single points of light to actual surface details, overcoming fundamental limits of telescope size and star glare.

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🤖 OpenAI launches Presence for real-world AI agents

OpenAI introduced Presence, a product that puts AI agents directly into customer support and internal company workflows instead of keeping them hidden in demos or internal GPTs.

Presence is tailored for business use, with OpenAI engineers customizing setups when standard configurations fall short. Access is limited as companies are selected manually, with no clarity on compliance with the European AI Act.

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🤖 Gravity Falls Creator Trolls Sam Altman

Sam Altman shared a ChatGPT hack to connect the bot to family calendars and create daily podcasts about kids' interests and events.

Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls, replied suggesting it’s better to just talk to your kids instead.

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🚘 Audi unveils largest SUV with ChatGPT system

Audi introduced the Q9, its biggest SUV ever, larger than the BMW X7 and Mercedes GLS. It features a media system with built-in ChatGPT and will launch in Europe from €108,000 by the end of the year.

The base model has a V6 engine with 429 hp, reaching 100 km/h in 4.9 seconds. The top SQ9 version uses a V8 with 591 hp and does 0-100 km/h in 3.8 seconds. A hybrid with a V6 and 48V electric motor is also available.

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