Weekly#347

  • AWS Customers Rack Up Hefty Bills for Moving Data (paywall)
  • Google Claims a Quantum Breakthrough That Could Change Computing
  • Tesla Returns To Profitability, Smashes Analyst Estimates
  • “The Last of Us Part II” is now scheduled to arrive on PlayStation 4 on May 29, 2020
  • Some of the universe’s heavier elements are created by neutron star collisions
  • Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.8) mobile-only monthly plan in India
  • An Uber boss insists its flying taxis will be fully functional by 2023, and says the company is talking with NASA to find a way to manage air traffic
  • The think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative reported that four in five coal plants in the European Union were unprofitable and utilities faced losses of nearly 6.6 billion euros this year.
  • Apple Pay Overtakes Starbucks as Most Popular Mobile Payment Platform in the US
  • No one expected The Athletic could get people to pay for sports news. Now it has 600,000 subscribers.
  • ‘Whoa, it worked!!’: Elon Musk successfully tweeted using a Starlink satellite for the first time…SpaceX plans to start offering Starlink broadband services in 2020
  • “If you’re creating a paid-for product, you have to start charging from day one.”
  • AI Weekly: In China, you can no longer buy a smartphone without a face scan
  • Archive of memos
  • Gartner’s top 10 strategic predictions for 2020

Weekly#346

  • SpaceX seeks permission to launch 30,000 more satellites
  • Rocket Lab successfully launches fifth Electron rocket this year
  • Generation Z doesn’t always want to hear from you, they’re less likely than millennials to be okay with being reachable at all times.
  • University of Artificial Intelligence launched in Abu Dhabi
  • Few aeroplanes land automatically but new systems could make this the norm
  • Netflix Q3 earnings exceed estimates, despite disappointing US subscriber growth
  • Volvo unveils its first electric car, the XC40 Recharge
  • Canva, now valued at $3.2 billion, launches an enterprise product
  • Google Maps adds more Waze-like features, including driving-incident reports
  • Nintendo announced Thursday that they had sold 15 million units of Switch console in North America
  • HBO Max scores all 21 Studio Ghibli films


Weekly#345

  • Virgin Orbit plans to launch first commercial small satellites to Mars
  • Uber’s newest feature alerts drivers that pets will be joining the ride
  • (Pivot) Dyson kills its electric car project and turns to solid-state batteries…Dyson  said it will end its electric vehicle project after determining it could not make the car commercially viable or find a buyer…
  • NASA Administrator ‘very confident’ SpaceX crew launch could happen in early 2020
  • Steam will soon let you play local-only multiplayer games with far off friends
  • Amazon Music arrives on Apple TV
  • Get ready to see more looping videos on Spotify, as Canvas launches into beta
  • Yandex introduces an Echo Dot-style smart speaker
  • Chinese citizens will soon need to scan their face before they can access internet services or get a new phone number
  • Elon Musk says that NASA is free to share all SpaceX IP with ‘anyone it wants
  • Autonomous vehicles won’t save cities without sharing
  • Nanoscale 3D printing technique is 1,000 times faster
  • Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan
  • Robots to Replace 200,000 Banking Jobs: Report

Weekly#344

  • NASA’s first all-electric experimental X-plane is ready for testing
  • Maisie Williams’ startup Daisie is preparing for new partnerships, funding
  • HTC stopped innovating on smartphones, new CEO admits
  • NASA shares 3D Moon data for CG artists and creators
  • PayPal is the first company to drop out of the Facebook-led Libra Association
  • Amazon’s video app is back in Apple’s App Store. But get ready to see more streaming fights.
  • 3D-printed rocket company to begin commercial launches in 2021
  • The Netherlands Surpasses Wildest Predictions For Tesla Model 3 Sales
  • Nasa invites bids from firms to build lunar lander for 2024 mission
  • The rise of the financial machines (Paywall) “…Funds run by computers that follow rules set by humans account for 35% of America’s stockmarket, 60% of institutional equity assets and 60% of trading activity…”
  • “…Rising precious metals prices are luring criminals to target  catalytic converters which use platinum, palladium or rhodium…”
  • Text-generating AI is getting better and better — but it’s not yet contest-winning good.
  • Watch the Open Future Festival