TLDR 2025-08-29

Microsoft has started testing its MAI-1-preview model on LMArena. MAI-1-preview is a foundation model trained end-to-end in-house by Microsoft. The model will be rolled out for certain text use cases within Copilot over the coming weeks. Developers can fill in a form to request early access.

Elon Musk says that SpaceX will attempt to catch Starship on Flight 13, 14, or 15, depending on how well the V3 flights go. The V3 rocket is more powerful than V2 in terms of initial thrust and booster thrust, and it has a higher payload-to-orbit rating. V4 will likely be the first version to carry humans to space. Musk has previously said that SpaceX hopes to attempt a catch of Starship this year, but the company will need to launch two more flights before the end of the year to get to his expected first catch attempt of Flight 13.

Even if fully expendable, Starship already has an around 40% lower cost per kilogram than a mature Falcon 9. With reuse, Starship's cost per kilogram quickly falls towards a $60 per kilogram floor. Starship introduces a different cost regime that will transform the industry to be supply-rich, price-flexible, and capability-driven. For Starlink, this will mean faster scale, richer service tiers, and room to price for demand and margin.

Finnish Firm Polar Night Energy has built an industrial-scale sand battery in Pornainen, Finland. The battery is set to reduce carbon emissions from the local heating network by as much as 70%. At 42 feet tall and 50 feet wide, the battery can store up to 100 MWh, enough to heat the whole town for a week. The sand battery can hold a charge for months at a time, helping balance the energy grid during periods of high demand. A video of the battery being put together is available in the article.

grok-code-fast-1 is a speedy and economical reasoning model that excels at agentic coding. xAI built the model from scratch using a brand-new model architecture. The model has mastered the use of common tools like grep, terminal, and file editing. It is free for a limited time for users of select launch partners, including GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code, opencode, and Windsurf.

OpenAI's Realtime API, powered by gpt-realtime, enables developers to build reliable, production-ready voice agents. It supports remote MCP servers, image inputs, and phone calling through Session Initiation Protocol. OpenAI has released two new voices in the Realtime API, Cedar and Marin. OpenAI's most advanced speech-to-speech model yet, gpt-realtime shows improvements in following complex instructions, calling tools with precision, and production of speech that sounds more natural and expressive.

The West's big car manufacturers are facing an existential threat from Chinese manufacturers, which relatively recently began pushing the boundaries of performance, cost-efficiency, driver experience, and autonomy. Western carmakers have been content to innovate in a gradual way for far too long, and it could cease to be competitive. This could also happen to the biotech industry. There has been a steady rise in Chinese companies as a source of genuinely new drugs. Chinese companies are now responsible for about a quarter of new trial starts.

Many companies are making employees use AI tools, outsourcing responsibilities to a technology that often gets things completely wrong. AI is completely incapable of doing analytical work that requires creative and soft skills and a lot of experience. Large language models are language processing systems, so it shouldn't be surprising that they can only regurgitate generic advice. Workers stuck using AI tools need to document their use carefully so they are able to demonstrate how the tools cause problems, slowdowns, or other disappointing outcomes.

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The Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL) is a credibly neural and performant Layer 1 that enables Python-based smart contracts.

Most open source projects are maintained by independent individuals.

A lot of engineers try to design ideal systems instead of spending that time understanding the current system deeply, then doing the simplest thing that could possibly work.

Teams need people who can estimate how likely they are to be right and can communicate their level of confidence effectively.

Using AI for Continuous Test Improvement can make software better, higher quality, and more tested.

It's pretty incredible what HTML and CSS alone can achieve.