TLDR 2025-05-30
Tesla Robotaxi π, Perplexity Labs π, habits of exceptional startups π
Tesla Targets June 12 Launch of Robotaxi Service in Austin (3 minute read)
Tesla plans to launch its long-awaited robotaxi service in Austin on June 12. The date has only been discussed internally and could still change. The company this week operated a test vehicle on public roads in Austin with no one in the driver's seat for the first time. Elon Musk said earlier this month that Tesla would officially roll out a fleet of about 10 self-driving robotaxis in Austin before expanding to a thousand vehicles within a few months.
Perplexity's new tool can generate spreadsheets, dashboards, and more (2 minute read)
Perplexity Labs, a tool now available to Perplexity Pro users, can craft reports, spreadsheets, dashboards, and more. It is available on the web, iOS, and Android and will soon be available on Perplexity's apps for Mac and Windows. The tool is designed to help people complete a variety of work and personal projects. It can take 10 minutes or more to run and use tools like web search, code execution, and chart and image creation.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
China to visit Earth's βquasi-moon' and bring a chunk of it back home (3 minute read)
China's National Space Agency has launched an asteroid sample mission aimed at Asteroid 2016HO3, aka 469219 KamoΚ»oalewa, which orbits the Sun. The Tianwen 2 probe rode a Long March 3B rocket into orbit at 1:31 Thursday morning. 2016HO3 is estimated to have a diameter of 40 to 100 meters. It is an attractive target for exploration because it can be reached by a spacecraft traveling at a modest 7 kilometers per second. The probe will reach the asteroid in about a year and then orbit it for a while before landing and attempting to retrieve around 100 grams of material.
Hugging Face unveils two new humanoid robots (3 minute read)
Hugging Face has announced a pair of open source humanoid robots. HopeJR is a full-sized humanoid robot with 66 actuated degrees of freedom. It can walk and move its arms. Reachy Mini is a desktop unit that can move its head, talk, listen, and be used to test AI apps. There is no timeline for shipping these robots, but the company anticipates shipping the first few units by the end of the year. The waitlist is currently open. A video of HopeJR being demonstrated at an event is available in the article.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
What's launching at Plaid Effects? (Sponsor)
Plaid Effects is back on June 12. Tune in for a first look at new products to help you improve credit decisions, stop fraud earlier, and move fasterβplus live deep dives with the teams behind the products. Don't miss what's next in financial services.
Register now
Building a Distributed Cache for S3 (25 minute read)
Clickhouse built a distributed cache for cloud object storage - a shared, low-latency layer that gives all compute nodes fast access to hot data. This post looks at how hot data caching worked before, why object storage made it hard, and how the new architecture fixes it. It includes benchmarks.
Announcing TypeScript Native Previews (13 minute read)
Developers can now use npm to get a preview of the native TypeScript compiler. They can now also use a preview version of TypeScript editor functionality for VS Code through the Visual Studio Marketplace. These previews will eventually become TypeScript 7. They will be published nightly so that developers can easily try the latest developments. The VS Code extension should get automatic updates by default.
Pattern Matching 20 Habits of Exceptional Startups (11 minute read)
Exceptional startups do things very differently from the median startup. This post looks at habits that these startups tend to have. Exceptional startups beat and raise expectations, recruit top talent obsessively, ship product incredibly fast, and obsess over product quality. These traits, along with many others, make them great places to work and invest in.
Knowledge Work Is DyingβHere's What Comes Next (20 minute read)
Before AI, knowledge set people apart - knowing more meant earning more. AI models can swallow entire fields overnight. This makes it more important to have wisdom. This article looks at how to develop abilities in areas that AI can't replicate. It teaches leaders how to lead from a deeper place of wisdom.
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