Startups & Ventures

Documentary: non-technical founder discovers Claude Code 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

🤖 EPFL builds a robotic hand that breaks past human limits EPFL engineers designed a robotic hand that does not copy human anatomy. It uses up to 6 identical fingers that bend in both directions. Any pair can form a pinch grip. There is no fixed palm or back. The hand supports 33 human-style grasps and actions people cannot do. It can hold an object on the back of the hand while manipulating another. Two outer fingers can shift position and act as opposing thumbs from either side. The hand can also detach and move on its own. Each finger works independently, letting it crawl into tight spaces. Lab head Aude Billard calls this “loco-manipulation”. This is a shift from imitation to function-first robot design. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

🔫 Painkiller RTX uses AI to update a 2004 game at scale Painkiller is being reworked through the Painkiller RTX project without a traditional remaster. Instead of manually redoing thousands of assets, the team relies on generative AI to upscale old textures into physically based materials with depth, roughness, and light behavior. The AI handles bulk processing fast and consistently. Human artists stay in the loop, reviewing scenes, fixing failures, and adjusting mood where realism breaks the original feel. Most routine asset work is automated. Creative control stays manual. Painkiller RTX is less about nostalgia and more about workflow. Old games no longer face a binary choice between being forgotten or getting an expensive remake. Small teams can now revive legacy content using AI-driven pipelines at a fraction of the cost. 📊 @tech

Now you can mass unsubscribe from emails from within the Gmail app. This is the first really good gmail feature release since they killed Inbox. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

🔈 JLab sells headphones you are not meant to wear JLab released Blue XL for $100. It looks like oversized headphones, but it is actually 2 speakers connected by a fixed headband. Each side has a 2.5-inch driver plus a same-size passive radiator for bass. The unit can sit on a desk like a portable speaker. The cups cannot be detached. One side has a volume wheel. Battery life is rated at 20 hours. Charging takes about 3 hours. Formally, it fits on a head, but the intended use is around the neck, not over the ears. It is sold only on JLab’s site, in a limited run, in one blue color. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

🧪 OpenAI links GPT-5 to an autonomous lab and cuts protein costs by 40% OpenAI connected GPT-5 to a fully autonomous laboratory. The setup reduced the cost of producing the sfGFP protein from $698 to $422 per gram. Human involvement was limited to preparing reagents and monitoring. GPT-5 designed experiment batches. The lab executed them. Results were fed back into the next cycle. There were 6 iterations in total, covering 36,000 reaction compositions. The system identified cheaper reaction mixes that had not been tested before. Protein yield increased by 27% after optimization. This is a full closed-loop setup. At this stage, it is large-scale automated trial and error, but done faster and cheaper than manual lab work. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

⏫ SanDisk raises SSD prices American SSD maker SanDisk sharply increased prices across its lineup. Some models went up by as much as 4x. A flagship 8TB SSD now costs over $2,500. At that price point, the drive alone costs more than a full PC did not long ago. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

A guy just cooked with code and robotics, and made a machine move like it has rhythm. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com 📊 @tech

🧠 OpenAI ships GPT-5.3 Codex as a new coding model OpenAI released GPT-5.3 Codex. Sam Altman described it as a response to Opus 4.6. No direct benchmarks were shared. According to Altman, the model codes better than earlier Codex versions. It holds longer context and lets users change task conditions mid-execution. He also claims faster execution compared to previous models. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com

🧠 The man who invented AI In 1956, one mathematician asked a question that sounded like science fiction at the time: “What if a machine could think?” That question gave birth to the term Artificial Intelligence. That man was John McCarthy. And that moment quietly started the AI story we are living inside today. McCarthy did not build startups or pitch investors. He did something riskier. He defined ideas decades ahead of their time. 🔸 He argued that intelligence is not magic or “human essence”, but a formal system that can be described with logic 🔸 He created Lisp, the language used for AI long before Python or neural networks 🔸 He believed real AI should reason, set goals, and draw conclusions, not just predict the next token When we talk today about AI agents, reasoning models, or autonomous decision systems, we are mostly catching up to ideas outlined 60 to 70 years ago. The irony is that McCarthy was a skeptic. He did not believe in black-box magic and would likely be very strict with modern LLMs. But his focus on logic, goals, and agency is exactly what is becoming relevant again. 💧 Sponsored by @rainbetcom - rainbet.com

🎥 Logitech brings AI framing to large meeting rooms Logitech unveiled Rally AI Camera and Rally AI Camera Pro, priced at $2,500 and $3,000. Both target large conference rooms where speakers drift out of frame and faces get lost. The cameras use Rally optics with RightSight 2. The system switches automatically between a wide shot, a close-up of the speaker, or a balanced grid view for all participants. The Pro version adds a dual-camera setup with a 115° wide lens plus a separate optical camera with 15x hybrid zoom and a 1-inch sensor. It supports multi-camera layouts in Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with automatic switching. This is purpose-built hardware for big rooms, not everyday meeting spaces. 📊 @tech

⏰ LEGO clock tracks time up to a galactic year A YouTube creator built a fully mechanical LEGO clock that measures time from seconds up to a galactic year. The system works continuously and includes a scale reaching 1 billion years. A galactic year is one full orbit of the Solar System around the Milky Way’s center. It lasts about 225–250 million Earth years. The clock places the universe at roughly 61 galactic years old, with the Solar System around 20 and currently mid-way through the 21st. The mechanism uses a classic pendulum with an escapement and a weight on a string. When the weight reaches the bottom, an electric motor rewinds it through a differential so the pendulum keeps swinging. Power comes from a built-in solar panel that rotates with the Sun. 📊 @tech

🎮 GTA VI confirmed for November 19 release GTA VI is still scheduled to launch on November 19. Developers and publisher Take-Two Interactive said there are no plans to delay the release. The company also confirmed a major marketing push starting this summer. More ads, announcements, and official materials are coming. The timeline is now locked around a heavy promo cycle. 📊 @tech

📺 Anthropic runs Super Bowl ads taking aim at ChatGPT-style monetization Anthropic aired a series of Super Bowl ads that mock advertising inside AI chatbots. The jokes are pointed. In one spot, a man asks an AI how to do pull-ups and gets an ad for height-increasing insoles. In another, someone asks for help repairing a relationship with his mother and is shown a dating app ad “to meet other adult women.” Every clip ends the same way: ads appear in AI, but not in Claude. The target is clear. The ads ridicule the idea of chatbots blending help with contextual ads. Sam Altman publicly pushed back. He said Anthropic is attacking ad formats OpenAI does not plan to use, calling the campaign misleading. He framed the disagreement as a choice between broad access to AI and a tightly controlled, premium-only model. AI rivalry has moved from product posts to prime-time TV. 📊 @tech

🤚 China bans hidden door handles on EVs China will ban flush and retractable door handles on electric vehicles. From Jan 1, 2027, all new EVs must have mechanical door opening inside and outside. Approved models get a delay until Jan 2029. The rule follows fatal crashes where electronics failed and doors could not be opened, including cases linked to Xiaomi EVs. About 60% of top-selling EVs are affected, including models from Tesla. BYD and Geely are already switching back. China is now setting EV safety design rules at scale. 📊 @tech

🧹 YouTube removes 2 major AI slop channels with 6M subs each YouTube deleted the channels CuentosFacianantes and Imperio de Jesus. Each had about 6M subscribers and around 1B total views. Another 16 large AI-driven channels lost all published videos. Both channels focused on low-quality, mass-produced AI content. YouTube had already promised a crackdown on this type of material last year, starting with fake movie trailer channels. At the same time, YouTube is expanding its own AI tools for Shorts. Users will soon be able to generate Shorts with custom avatars. 📊 @tech

📼 xAI releases Grok Imagine 1.0 video model xAI released Grok Imagine 1.0 for video generation. The update improves audio quality and overall visuals. The model outputs videos up to 10 seconds at 720p. Free access is limited to 480p and 6 seconds. Higher resolution and longer clips require paid access. 📊 @tech

🧠 OpenAI releases the Codex app with parallel agents OpenAI launched a Codex app built on top of its CLI agent. It adds a visual interface and support for multiple isolated agent threads. Agents can now work in parallel without stepping on each other. The app supports worktrees for conflict-free testing. It also ships with curated extensions for tools like Figma, Linear, Vercel, GPT Image, and Jupyter. Custom skills can be added on top. Another addition is task scheduling. Codex can run background jobs on a timer, including CI-style checks. Free and Go users get temporary access. Paid users received higher usage limits. 📊 @tech

🤖 Unitree robot completes 130,000 steps at −47°C The trial took place in China’s Altai region. The robot was sent to walk roughly 100 km across snowy terrain, logging about 130,000 steps. It was fitted with protective outerwear during the test. This marks one of the first documented cases of a humanoid robot operating for long duration in such extreme cold. 📊 @tech

🍏 Apple tests a flip style iPhone after its first fold Apple is already testing a compact flip style iPhone while the first foldable iPhone has yet to launch. The report comes from Bloomberg via Mark Gurman. The idea is to use the first fold to create demand for the category, then expand into multiple sizes and formats. The flip model would target users who prefer smaller devices. The first foldable iPhone is expected to sit at the top of the lineup and be more compact than rival devices. The outer display is said to be around 5.5 inches, with launch still months away. Apple is also exploring a larger book style foldable. Work on a foldable iPad has reportedly hit development issues. 📊 @tech