Big Tech & Startups

SpaceX Showed Investors Prototype of Elon Musk's New AI Device (5 minute read)

SpaceX showed off a prototype for a handset-like device to investors prior to its IPO last month. Designed to run on a proprietary operating system and integrate AI technology from SpaceX's AI, the device would run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. Elon Musk has previously considered building a smartphone due to frustration over how Apple controls the distribution of third-party apps. A device could help Musk become less reliant on other companies.

OpenAI proposes 5% stake to Trump administration to ease Washington pressure (4 minute read)

OpenAI has proposed handing the US government a 5% stake, worth roughly $42.6 billion, to defuse mounting political pressure. CEO Sam Altman says that giving the public a financial interest in the company is the best way to share the upside of AI. The suggestion is part of a larger proposal in which the government would hold 5% of each of the leading US AI developers via a government vehicle. The proposal was first pitched directly to the Trump administration in early 2025.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

Rise of the Cheap Robots (4 minute read)

Several startups have announced general-purpose robots in the sub-$10,000 range. Nori Robotics is selling a bimanual robot for under $1,400 that's tall enough to reach the top of a table or countertop. The BracketBot is a wheeled robot manipulator with hoverboard-style drive wheels that will sell for under $3,000. Weave's Isaac 1 is a fully capable home mobile manipulator that can put away laundry and tidy a room. It will cost $8,000 or $450 per month.

For the First Time, a Cell Built From Scratch Grows and Divides (13 minute read)

Biologists packed nonliving components into a cell-like membrane piece by piece, and the bag of molecules started to behave like life. The lab-made cell grew, replicated its DNA, and divided. While the cell is not alive, it is the strongest demonstration yet that it is possible to generate life from nonlife. It can't survive without constant deliveries of food and ribosomes, and it has no defenses or a good waste removal system.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

Meta Build for Wearables (18 minute read)

Web Apps for Meta Ray-Ban Display use standard web APIs. This guide shows developers how to build optimized Meta Ray-Ban Display Web Apps. The easiest way to build Web Apps is using AI coding tools and app platforms such as Replit, Claude Code, and Cursor.

ZCode (1 minute read)

ZCode is the official development environment for GLM-5.2. It is available now for download on macOS, Windows, and Linux. GLM Coding Plan subscribers now have a 1.5x usage quota in ZCode.

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Miscellaneous

TLDR is hiring a curator for TLDR AI! (TLDR Curator, ~5 hrs/week)

Over 1M subscribers read TLDR AI to stay on top of the latest in AI models, research, engineering, and more. If you work in AI and want to help curate it, send your LinkedIn or resume to !

Meta Is Planning a Cloud Business to Sell AI Computing Power (6 minute read)

Meta is developing plans for a cloud infrastructure business that will sell access to AI computing power and models. The business will generate revenue from excess computing power from the data centers Meta built to fuel its AI ambitions. One potential plan is to sell access to various AI models hosted on Meta's infrastructure, similar to AWS Bedrock. Another option may be to sell access to raw computing capacity like CoreWeave.

The Anthropic Fable Ban Is Over. The Battle Over How to Tame AI Has Just Begun (5 minute read)

The debate over the degree to which the US federal government should control access to cutting-edge API tools is now heating up. There is a growing awareness of how powerful these new tools are, but little agreement on how they should be controlled. AI proponents say that bans and implementations would hurt the US in its efforts to stay ahead of China in the geopolitical AI race. Administration officials and advisers are attempting to balance innovation and security while addressing safety risks in the most minimally invasive way possible.

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Quick Links

Give your models real-world context. (Sponsor)

Your models are sophisticated, but they are still wrong when it matters most. Learn how Uber and Domino's are grounding AI with real-world context across their organizations. Download the guide.

Xbox working on a way to digitize your physical game collection as Sony abandons discs (2 minute read)

Xbox is testing out a disc-to-digital feature that will create a 'digital entitlement' for games that can be moved between Microsoft accounts and Xbox profiles.

Google Reader was building the wrong future (11 minute read)

Google Reader turned out to be the social network that people wanted all along.

Most AI Work Can Wait (3 minute read)

Design systems around routing, not models.

Introducing the 'usermedia' HTML element (7 minute read)

The 'usermedia' HTML element reduces boilerplate code, improves security, and provides a seamless recovery path for users who have previously denied access.

The economics of SpaceX (11 minute read)

SpaceX was worth about $164 per share at a market capitalization of $2.163 trillion at the end of June.

arXiv's next chapter: Updates on our spin out from Cornell University (2 minute read)

arXiv is becoming an independent nonprofit organization on July 1 after being part of Cornell University for the past 25 years.

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TLDR 2026-07-02

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

SpaceX phone 📱, OpenAI govt equity 💰, Meta Ray Ban apps 🕶️