Startups & Ventures

💻 Laptops that literally unfold their ambitions Lenovo once again used CES to show that it’s willing to experiment where others hesitate, unveiling two concept laptops built around roll-out OLED displays each stretching in a different direction. 🔸 The Legion Pro Rollable targets gamers, starting as a standard 16-inch machine before expanding sideways to 21.5 inches and then into a 24-inch ultra-wide setup. 🔸 Under the hood, it’s specced like a true flagship: Intel Core Ultra processor paired with a top-tier mobile RTX 5090. 🔸 Lenovo frames it as a portable training rig for esports players, complete with named screen modes, Focus, Tactical, and Arena. 🔸 Early hands-on reports suggest it’s still rough: loud motors, uneven motion, fixed resolution that doesn’t scale cleanly, and visible gaps where the panel retracts. 🔸 The second prototype, ThinkPad Rollable XD, takes a more understated approach with a vertically expanding display. 🔸 It grows from 13.3 inches to nearly 16 inches, with part of the screen remaining visible on the outside even when closed, useful for widgets and notifications. 🔸 A tap on the lid subtly pushes the screen out to help with opening, and a transparent window reveals the internal mechanism. 🔸 The exposed portion is reinforced with Gorilla Glass Victus 2, blending durability with ThinkPad practicality. 🔸 Lenovo hints this tech could eventually be offered as a configurable option on standard ThinkPads rather than a standalone novelty.

Both machines remain concept-only for now, but with the rollable ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 already shipping, Lenovo is quietly signaling that flexible screens are moving from spectacle to strategy.

📊 @tech

🔥 Mac mini gets a 90s glow-up with iMac G3 vibes A small but delightful nostalgia hit: Spigen has released a transparent shell for the Mac mini that transforms it into a modern echo of the iconic iMac G3, the candy-colored machine that helped pull Apple back from the brink in the late 1990s. 🔸 The accessory, called Classic C1, wraps today’s Mac mini in semi-transparent plastic inspired by Apple’s most playful era. 🔸 It comes in two throwback finishes: Bondi Blue and Tangerine, straight out of the late-90s design playbook. 🔸 The enclosure isn’t just aesthetic, its layered build includes ventilation openings aligned with the Mac mini’s airflow design. 🔸 Vertical side cutouts nod to the Power Mac G4 Cube while also improving heat dissipation. 🔸 A raised base boosts airflow from underneath, and an internal dust filter adds a practical touch. 🔸 Spigen is clearly leaning into retro-tech affection, with more accessories planned in the same visual language.

It’s a reminder that good hardware design isn’t only about performance, sometimes it’s about joy, memory, and color.

📊 @tech

⚠️ A programmer outsourced his relationship to an AI. Instead of replying himself, he connected an AI agent that chats with his girlfriend on Telegram when he’s busy. The bot messages her directly, reacts to texts, tracks emotional tone, and keeps the conversation going. If things escalate into a “code red” moment, the system alerts the human to step in. 📊 @tech

🧱 LEGO teaches bricks to respond to play At CES 2026, LEGO introduced SMART Play, a new system the company calls its biggest leap since the minifigure era, physical blocks that react to what kids actually do with them, without screens or apps. 🔸 A responsive building system: SMART Play is made up of connected bricks, tags, and figures that give traditional LEGO builds awareness and feedback. 🔸 Electronics hidden in plastic: A regular-looking 2×4 brick contains a custom chip, motion sensors, LEDs, a speaker, and wireless charging components. 🔸 Meaning, not scripts: Small ID tiles and minifigures tell the system what a build represents, allowing behavior and sound to change as the story evolves. 🔸 Local intelligence: Using a Bluetooth-based network, bricks understand position, movement, and orientation relative to each other in real time. 🔸 Unlimited sound design: Audio is generated on the fly rather than stored, so the same brick can convincingly sound like engines, animals, or something far less heroic. 🔸 Long-term bet: The platform took around a decade to develop and is protected by dozens of patents. 🔸 First release: The system launches with Star Wars sets priced from $70 to $160, with pre-orders opening January 9 and shipping starting March 1. SMART Play doesn’t pull LEGO into screens, it quietly adds intelligence to the bricks themselves, keeping play tactile while making it adaptive. 📊 @tech

✅ Boston Dynamics unveils Atlas, now built for real factory work This isn’t a flashy lab demo anymore. Atlas has crossed the line from stunt videos to industrial hardware meant to replace manual labor on the factory floor. What makes it different: • Atlas recharges itself: it walks to the station, removes a depleted battery, inserts a fresh one, and keeps going. No downtime, no breaks, 24/7 operation. • AI inside: Boston Dynamics is working with Google DeepMind, bringing neural networks into Atlas so it can reason, adapt, and learn new tasks instead of following rigid scripts. Key specs: • Lifts up to 50 kg • Height: 2.3 meters • 56 degrees of freedom, enabling human-like (and sometimes inhuman) movement • Resistant to water and cold, ready for harsh industrial environments Production plans: • Serial assembly has already started in Boston • All 2026 deliveries are booked, first units go to Hyundai factories and Google DeepMind • Wider availability pushed to 2027 • A dedicated factory is planned with capacity for 30,000 units per year This isn’t a robot for demos, it’s a shift in how factories are staffed. And no, Atlas won’t work for $300 a month… even robots have standards now. 📊 @tech

🗣️Geoffrey Hinton on why cancer could stop being a death sentence Most deaths happen because tumors are found too late, not because medicine lacks treatments. Full-body MRI can catch changes early. The issue is scale. Humans can’t read that much data consistently, AI can. 📊 @tech

🔔 An EV startup thinks it can sell a $25k truck by doing the opposite of Tesla Slate Auto plans to ship a $25,000 electric truck in the US by end of 2026, without tax credits. The core idea: • 1 model, 1 configuration • 600 parts instead of 2,500 • Composite body panels, no paint shop or stamping • No built-in infotainment, phone or tablet instead • Manual windows, AC included Everything else follows from that. Simplicity keeps costs down, while customization and accessories provide margin. Slate isn’t chasing Tesla buyers. It’s targeting people choosing between a $27k used car and a new vehicle with a warranty. The bet is simple: Reduce complexity, lower capital costs, and reach profitability earlier by building less. 📊 @tech

🖼 AI-generated art moves to the wall At CES 2026, Fraimic unveiled Smart Canvas, an E-ink display in a picture frame that replaces traditional wall art with AI-generated images you can change by voice. 🔸 The Smart Canvas uses E-ink Spectra 6, designed to mimic the texture of real canvas and paint rather than a glossy screen, making it look closer to physical art than a digital display. 🔸 Images can be generated via voice commands, with a built-in AI powered by OpenAI, or uploaded manually through a web interface if you want full control over the visuals. 🔸 Power consumption is minimal: the battery is rated to last several years, since E-ink only draws power when the image changes. 🔸 The panel can be placed into any standard frame and mounted in any orientation, making it feel more like a modular art object than a gadget. 🔸 Two versions are available: a standard size for $400 and a large version for $1,000. Pre-orders are live, with shipping expected to start in June. 🔸 The concept works best for abstracts, patterns, and generative art, though there’s a real risk that day-to-day use exposes familiar AI flaws: warped lines, odd artifacts, and “same-y” compositions.

Smart frames won’t replace real art, but they hint at a new category where walls become programmable and this market is only just beginning to take shape.

📊 @tech

🤖 UBTECH showed Walker S2 playing tennis It’s a highlight-style demo, but still notable. The humanoid tracks the ball, adjusts its footwork, and returns shots in real time. Walker S2 is expected to enter mass production this year. 📊 @tech

🔥 An AI streamer just beat every human on Twitch Neuro-sama, an AI VTuber created by programmer Vedal, is now the most subscribed streamer on the platform. Around 162,000 active subs. Second place isn’t even close. Neuro-sama runs near 24/7, chats with viewers, sings, plays games, reacts to videos, and is powered by multiple custom AI systems, not a single prompt. At standard Twitch splits, subscriptions alone likely bring in over $400,000 per month. Ads, donations, and sponsorships are on top. An AI personality outperformed the biggest human creators. Streaming just crossed a line. 📊 @tech

🔔 Wild tweet by Elon Musk For anyone not deep in AI lore, the singularity means a point where AI improves itself faster than humans can understand or control. Systems start designing better versions of themselves. That’s when progress stops checking who’s in the room. 📊 @tech

⏱️ Pebble brings back the round watch. The revived Pebble brand keeps leaning into what made it special. After Pebble 2 Duo and Pebble Time 2, the round model is back with Pebble Round 2. 🔸 The original Time Round had one big flaw: a thick bezel around a tiny 1-inch screen. The new version fixes that completely. A 1.3-inch display now fills the entire front, with resolution doubled to 260 × 260. 🔸 Battery life is the real flex. Up to 2 weeks on a charge, thanks to a color e-paper display, the same tech used in e-readers. 🔸 The case is stainless steel, available in black, silver, and rose gold. Inside are 2 microphones for voice input. You can talk to AI assistants or дикtate replies to messages, with full support on Android for now. 🔸 This is not a sports watch, and Pebble is clear about that. It tracks steps and sleep, but serious training is not the goal. It’s a simple smart watch with character, built for people who miss that Pebble vibe. Preorders are open at $200. Shipping starts in May. 📊 @tech

🎥 Missed DeepMind’s The Thinking Game? The documentary tracing DeepMind’s journey is now available to watch at no cost. It premiered back in 2024, but the full version was released publicly in late November 2025 and quickly went viral, racking up 200M views on YouTube in just four weeks. 👉 Watch here 👈 📊 @tech

🗣️Sam Altman: “Most people don’t take enough risk”

“I think people have terrible risk calculus in general… almost always A) you’re wrong about what is risky and what is not risky, and B) most people don’t take enough risk especially early in your career. Being young, unknown, and poor, is actually a great gift in terms of the amount of risk you can take.”

Sam continues:

“I think what risk actually looks like is not doing something that you will spend the rest of your life regretting… So if you really believe in something if there’s an idea you’re super passionate about and you take a calculated risk to start a company realizing you may forego a couple of years of steady income and maybe people call you a failure, that’s a great risk to take. And if you don’t take that risk, I think you have a very high chance that you end up regretting that.”

Sam believes most people overrate the risk of reputation damage and embarrassment from trying and failing. It’s worse to not even try:

“One really important thing to strive for in your career is to be a doer, not a talker. And the reason that people don’t do stuff is 1) it’s hard, and 2) it’s risky. And so you have these people that want to dabble in a bunch of different projects, but never be all-in on one… I think that’s really bad. I think history belongs to the doers, and I think you should take a risk and actually do something.”

📊 @tech

✅ A BlackBerry-style phone makes a surprising comeback Clicks. known for physical keyboard phone cases has just unveiled its first standalone smartphone built around a full QWERTY keyboard and minimalist communication focus. 🔸 Physical keyboard at the center: The Communicator features a full QWERTY keyboard with larger keys and touch-sensitive functionality that can also act as a trackpad aiming to make typing and navigation faster and more tactile than on a typical touchscreen. 🔸 Standalone 5G Android device: It isn’t just an accessory, the Communicator has its own cellular connection, runs Android 16 with a stripped-back launcher to reduce distraction, and supports essential apps like Gmail, WhatsApp, Slack, and Telegram. 🔸 Retro-modern hardware: The phone packs a 4.03-inch OLED screen, front and rear cameras, a 4,000 mAh battery, a headphone jack, expandable microSD storage, and interchangeable back plates for personalization. 🔸 Design with everyday features: Clicks has included a physical mute switch and a customizable side LED key for notifications or shortcuts, little touches that mainstream phones have dropped. 🔸 Price and preorder: The Communicator is priced at about $499, but early reservations (with a $199 deposit) drop it to $399 ahead of general availability later this year. 🔸 Focus on communication, not consumption: With a minimalist interface and hardware built for typing and messaging, the phone targets users who want a less distracting alternative to traditional smartphones.

Clicks is betting that tactile control and focus-oriented design still matter in a world dominated by large, distraction-driven touchscreen devices.

📊 @tech

Google's CEO gets asked, "Does Google track you through your phone?" 📊 @tech

Ai is mysteriously learning things it was never programmed to know. 📊 @tech

🔥 These robots have moved a building! A team of 432 walking robots is carefully moving a 7,500-ton historic building in Shanghai. Instead of traditional machinery, these robots gently lift and “walk” the building about 10 meters per day. The area is densely packed with narrow alleys and old structures, making cranes and large machines unusable. These robots were chosen because they can operate in tight spaces and move precisely without damaging nearby buildings. In China robots are even moving existing buildings! 🤯 📊 @tech

The money talk every parent should give their kids. 📊 @tech

Happy New Year! Thanks for reading and staying curious. See you in 2026. 📊 @tech