Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
💻 Apple plans a touchscreen MacBook Pro
🤝 TikTok buyers group to include Oracle, Silver Lake, Andreessen
🚫 China orders tech firms to stop buying Nvidia chips
🔍 Google launches experimental Windows search tool app
🛰️ SpaceX partners with chipmakers for Starlink phone service
👺 Anthropic's AI use limits frustrate the White House
🎁 + 16 other news you might like
🔮 + 6 handpicked research papers and tools
💻 Apple plans a touchscreen MacBook Pro LINK
Apple is reportedly planning its first-ever touchscreen for the Mac lineup, starting with a new OLED MacBook Pro model set to enter mass production sometime in late 2026.
This potential launch signals a major shift in Mac design philosophy, directly contrasting Steve Jobs' famous 2010 claim that vertical touch surfaces have terrible ergonomics and cause user fatigue.
The report suggests this new direction reflects long-term observation of iPad user behavior, indicating that touch controls can enhance productivity and the overall experience in certain specific scenarios.
🤝 TikTok buyers group to include Oracle, Silver Lake, Andreessen LINK
A group of US investors including Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake will own roughly 80 percent of TikTok's US business, with Chinese shareholders holding a minority stake.
The US government will reportedly get to choose one board member for the new "American-dominated" body, giving it direct oversight into the company's stateside operation.
TikTok engineers plan to re-create the app's algorithm with technology licensed from ByteDance, while partner Oracle is set to oversee all of the American user data.
🚫 China orders tech firms to stop buying Nvidia chips LINK
The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered top tech companies like Bytedance and Alibaba to stop testing and purchasing Nvidia's RTX Pro 6000D chips, a product designed specifically for that market.
Beijing concluded its domestic AI processors are now comparable to the downgraded Nvidia products allowed in the country, following discussions with local tech companies like Huawei and Alibaba.
A consensus among Chinese executives indicates that domestic supply can meet local demand, triggering an industry-wide push to build a self-sufficient system without relying on Nvidia's chips.
🔍 Google launches experimental Windows search tool app LINK
Google released an experimental search app for Windows that finds local files, installed apps, and Google Drive content with a simple keyboard shortcut, working much like the Spotlight feature on macOS.
It integrates Google Lens, allowing you to select anything on your screen to find information about images or text, but this requires permission to read the contents of your display.
An optional AI Mode provides deeper, AI-powered responses, but the program is currently experimental and only available to users in the US with their language set to English through Google Labs.
🛰️ SpaceX partners with chipmakers for Starlink phone service LINK
SpaceX is working with chip manufacturers to integrate satellite-connectivity hardware directly into smartphones, a key move for its plan to create a Starlink direct-to-device service for unmodified phones.
After acquiring wireless spectrum from EchoStar, SpaceX can now negotiate with global telecom carriers more independently, aiming to wholesale its satellite network capacity directly to their existing mobile customers.
The company plans to launch satellites needed for this direct-to-device business within the next two years and expects to begin early mobile phone testing with the system by late 2026.
👺 Anthropic's AI use limits frustrate the White House LINK
Hostility inside the Trump administration has deepened toward Anthropic after it refused to let federal contractors use its AI models for the surveillance of US citizens.
Anthropic's usage policy prohibits surveillance, preventing the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using its AI models for some of their official functions.
Officials believe the company uses vague terminology to make a moral judgment, unlike OpenAI whose policy has specific carveouts for legal monitoring by law enforcement.
Other news you might like
- Microsoft announces $30 billion investment in AI infrastructure, operations in UKLINK
- Jack Ma returns to Alibaba amid AI push, market challengesLINK
- YouTube adds generative AI to Shorts and podcastsLINK
- Tesla probed for potentially faulty door handlesLINK
- A new report finds China’s space program will soon equal that of the USLINK
- Figure reaches $39B valuation in latest funding roundLINK
- Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Universal file joint lawsuit against generative AI app HailuoLINK
- Meta created its own super PAC to politically kneecap its AI rivalsLINK
- Over 300 npm packages compromised by self-replicating wormLINK
- It’s ‘do or die’ for electric vehicle maker Rivian as it breaks ground on a $5 billion plantLINK
- Fiverr to cut 30 percent of workforce in AI pivotLINK
- Amazon introduces AI agent to help sellers with tedious tasksLINK
- Fiverr is laying off 250 employees to become an 'AI-first company'LINK
- Nothing will make its own OS for phones and beyondLINK
- Tesla’s board has a tiger by the tailLINK
- Mods react as Reddit kicks some of them out again: “This will break the site”LINK
Latest research and tools
LatencyMon: a tool that finds the root causes of computer performance problems, like audio stuttering or mouse freezes, by checking for system responsiveness issues.LINK
Determination of the fifth Busy Beaver value: the paper proves that the most productive 5-state Turing machine will run for 47,176,870 steps and write 4,098 ones before it halts.LINK
Notion API importer: a project for a plugin to import content using the Notion API, converting databases into a native format while preserving user files and attachments.LINK
AMD Open Source Driver for Vulkan: a now-discontinued project that provided an open-source driver for running Vulkan graphics applications on AMD hardware.LINK
Tabby: a highly configurable terminal for Windows, macOS, and Linux that also works as an SSH and serial client.LINK
A Survey on Retrieval and Structuring Augmented Generation with LLMs: this paper reviews how large language models can be improved by first finding and organizing external information before providing an answer.LINK
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