• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

Eating crabs ordered on your phone and delivered to your door in half an hour while scrolling through TikTok videos using the inbuilt gesture control on a Huawei phone. This is peak China 2019 pic.twitter.com/PL63fKQY2a

— Matthew Brennan (@mbrennanchina) September 30, 2019

• Amazon launches Amazon Care, a virtual and in-person healthcare offering for employees
• The Guardian: The 100 best books of the 21st century
• Grammarly gets a tone detector
• “…companies all have multi-class stock structures, meaning that some of their stock — usually that which belongs to the founders — has much more powerful voting rights than others and therefore much more impact when it comes to company decisions…”
• Paperspace adds machine learning model development pipeline to GPU service
• Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes
• Windows 10 is used on over 900 million devices
• How Amazon’s Ring is creating a surveillance network with video doorbells
• Car subscription service Cluno discloses €140M in debt financing
• Equinor wins opportunity to develop the world’s largest offshore wind farm
• Struggling Farmers See Bright Spot in Solar ($)…“…Farmers have two options for adding solar power on their farms: lease land for energy companies to generate power to funnel electricity into the grid, as the Nielsens are doing; or install their own solar panels to cut their electricity bills. Both methods can amount to more than $1,000 a month in improved margins, according to farmers and renewable-energy advocates…”
• Energy and food together: Under solar panels, crops thrive
• Generate income by generating power – Hong Kong homes close to selling solar power under new ‘feed-in tariff’ scheme
• Alibaba unveils self-developed AI chip for cloud computing services
• IKEA expects to offer home solar panels in stores across all its markets in 2025

• From Ben Evans
• Pinterest’s Lens can now recognize 2.5 billion home and fashion objects
• Facebook experiments with AI-powered styling program
• Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products ($)

• iOS 13 is now available to download
• CRISPR removes antibiotic resistance gene from bacterium
• Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian as part of going carbon-neutral by 2040
• Airbnb says it will go public next year
• Automattic raises $300 million at $3 billion valuation from Salesforce Ventures
• The man behind Tesla’s Powerwall is now pitching an all-in-one power management system for homes
• Amazon is bringing a cash-based checkout option, Amazon PayCode, to the US
• IBM will soon launch a 53-qubit quantum computer
• Amazon launches Amazon Music HD with lossless audio streaming
• Amazon/food sales: perdition postponed (FT: paywall)
• …And now scientists believe the changing climate may put our brains at risk. A new analysis predicts that by 2100, increasing water temperatures brought on by a warming planet could result in 96 percent of the world’s population not having access to an omega-3 fatty acid crucial to brain health and function…
• Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished…an overall decline of 29 percent from 1970.
• Mini Transformers: Scientists Have Created a Robot Made of Robots
• Fiat Chrysler will set up an experimental fleet of up to 700 electric cars to test vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, which allows power grids to use energy stored in car batteries to face demand during peak hours.
• Fintech Company Stripe Joins Silicon Valley Elite With $35 Billion Valuation (WSJ: paywall)

• Apple iPhone 11 event
• Disney CEO Bob Iger resigns from Apple’s board of directors
• Will Your Uploaded Mind Still Be You? (paywall)
• Yelp adds predictive wait times and a new way for restaurants to share updates
• The mainframe business is alive and well, as IBM announces new z15
• Apple hid a secret message in its latest YouTube video
• Electric cars are finally taking a (tiny) bite out of combustion engine sales
• A Swiss house built by robots promises to revolutionize the construction industry
• Six questions to ask yourself when reading about AI

• Modern applications at AWS
• Amazon 2018 Letter to Shareholders
• How Amazon’s Shipping Empire Is Challenging UPS and FedEx (paywall)
• Fraudsters Used AI to Mimic CEO’s Voice in Unusual Cybercrime Case (paywall)
• The Marketing Hype Cycle
• This DIY Implant Lets You Stream Movies From Inside Your Leg
• The next Apple Watch could feature sleep tracking
• UPS introduces hybrid, long-range trucks that change modes based on where they are
• Porsche expands on-demand subscription plans to four more cities
• Opportunities for the global semiconductor market…growing market share by embracing AI…[PWC PDF]
• YouTube launches a dedicated Fashion vertical
• The US government projects the number of workers over 75 will double in the next decade
• 60 Uses of Graphene – The Ultimate Guide to Graphene’s (Potential) Applications in 2019
• Samsung to Launch Smartphone Meant to Make Blockchain Friendlier (paywall)
• Revenue from recorded music in the U.S. rose 18% to $5.4 billion in the first half of the year (paywall)
• The Time Netflix Considered Selling Itself to Amazon for Peanuts…In 1998, Netflix’s co-founders made a trip to Seattle that could have changed the world as we know it (paywall)

• Netflix tests human-driven curation with launch of ‘Collections’
• Sphero has acquired littleBits
• Time: World Greatest Places: 2019 including Troy Museum 
• Microsoft Azure’s cloud regions in Switzerland are now open for business
• UPS invests in autonomous trucking company
• Rwanda to phase out gas motorcycle-taxis for e-motos
• Eero updates subscription plans.
• Fitbit is launching a $10 premium subscription service
• Lego is piloting audio and braille building instructions
• Duolingo is now offering a beta version of Latin courses
• Utility death spirals and energy communities
• What most Americans are looking for in a new home: solar panels
• Kids are becoming emotionally attached to robots
• Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment…”…From now, house style guide recommends terms such as ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating’…”
• Vaping-linked lung disease cases jump from 94 to 153 in 5 days, CDC says
• Australian Government invest 15 million in Evie ultra-fast EV charging network
• Coursera makes its first acquisition, Rhyme Softworks, to power new Coursera Labs offering
• SpaceX’s Starhopper Successfully Completes Final Test Flight…”Starhopper will never see space, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes its successor, called Starship, will eventually transport up to 100 people (and roughly 150 tons of cargo) to far-off destinations such as the Moon or Mars…”