Overview
Today’s feed shows AI stepping further into daily life, from farms and shops to inboxes and 3D tools. There is hard-nosed talk about how to rank in AI answers and how platforms control traffic, plus a look at the money behind the boom. Space and culture offer balance, with a perfect ring galaxy, live light art, and a frank take on why poetry lost the crowd.
The big picture
Dyson grows 1.2m strawberries indoors
Dyson’s vertical farms use rotating wheels, robots, LEDs, recycled CO2 and UV to grow strawberries year-round, with a stated 2.5x yield per square metre. The thread notes an energy caveat from research that indoor farms can run 10-20x the energy of traditional methods without renewables. 🔗 Post link
Poland’s cashierless shops feel like 2030
Żabka Nano stores let you tap in, pick items, and walk out as computer vision handles billing. Poland now has dozens of these, with replies debating regulation and theft risks elsewhere. 🔗 Post link
Cybertruck tops IIHS safety list for pickups
Tesla’s Cybertruck earned Top Safety Pick+ in new IIHS results, with strong overlap, side impact and pedestrian tests. The clip shows low cabin intrusion and effective airbags. 🔗 Post link
Microsoft’s TRELLIS 2 turns images into 3D fast
TRELLIS 2 is a 4B-parameter open model for image-to-3D, producing high-res assets with PBR materials and varied topologies in under a minute on H100s. The demo highlights solid geometry and material range. 🔗 Post link
Visualising the trillion-dollar AI spend
A chart tracks cumulative AI investment toward $1T by late 2025, noting different definitions for “AI spend” across forecasts. Replies weigh long-run upside against overbuild risk. 🔗 Post link
Google Labs unveils CC, an agent inside Gmail
CC offers a “Your Day Ahead” briefing and on-demand help by email, tying into Calendar, Drive and the web. Early access opens in the US and Canada for paid users. 🔗 Post link
An automated pipeline for product videos
Firecrawl grabs images, Gemini Flash generates angles, and Veo 3.1 animates 360° loops. The maker claims tens of thousands of dollars saved per shoot and higher conversions, citing industry studies. 🔗 Post link
Dharmesh Shah on ranking in AI answers
HubSpot’s co-founder argues Answer Engine Optimisation is the new SEO. Keep concise, high-trust content that LLMs can use, track AI referrals, and avoid low-value output that harms reputation. 🔗 Post link
X auto-plays YouTube links in-app
Creators report that YouTube links on X now auto-play and are hard to open on YouTube itself, risking traffic and revenue. You can toggle autoplay off in settings. 🔗 Post link
A curious partial diffusion leak on mobile
A researcher shows that dragging a blurred refusal image on mobile can reveal a half-generated scene, hinting at backend steps before censorship. An odd corner case with safety implications. 🔗 Post link
Demis Hassabis: today’s AI is not self-aware
The DeepMind chief says current systems lack consciousness. Self-models could emerge as capability grows, yet any “awareness” may not look human. 🔗 Post link
Hubble’s perfect ring, Hoag’s Object
A rare ring galaxy with an ancient yellow core and a young blue ring across a vast gap. Data finds no merger traces, so formation likely followed a quieter path. 🔗 Post link
Starlink nears 10,000 satellites
An animation shows Earth wrapped in an “inverse Dyson sphere” of satellites as SpaceX pushes towards 10k by early 2026. Replies weigh broadband reach against orbital congestion. 🔗 Post link
Hand-led light, art by the Poet Engineer
Kat shares a short clip of responsive mandala projections that track gestures, merging code, performance, and colour into a living pattern. 🔗 Post link
Dana Gioia on how poetry teaching lost the crowd
The poet argues analysis replaced recitation and song, draining joy from the classroom. He calls for learning by heart to restore public appetite. 🔗 Post link
A Planck quote meets an optical trick
An illusion transforms simple lines into shapes as you move, paired with a quote often linked to Planck but popularised by Wayne Dyer. Perception sets reality’s frame. 🔗 Post link
Domino’s, the unsexy growth champion
From 2010 to 2019 Domino’s crushed returns by improving pizza, sharpening price and making ordering easy through tech, turning a local service into a scaled network. 🔗 Post link
Alex Karp’s take on un-fireable stars
A 2018 riff from Palantir’s CEO on hard-to-manage top talent sparks debate: brilliant contrarians can drive progress while straining teams. 🔗 Post link
TextSniper makes grab-anywhere text on Mac
A quick demo of an OCR utility that lets you select text from videos, images, and UIs, plus extras like QR scanning and text-to-speech. 🔗 Post link
Why it matters
AI is moving from hype to habit. Farms, shops, vehicles, inboxes and product pages are being rebuilt around computer vision, agents and automation. The gains are real, yet they hinge on energy sources, trust, regulation and UX choices that can help or hinder adoption.
Distribution is being rewritten. As users ask chatbots instead of searching, AEO becomes a new playbook. Platforms are asserting more control, seen in X’s treatment of YouTube links, so creators and brands need multi-home strategies and clear measurement of AI referrals.
The stack keeps scaling, from image-to-3D models to near-trillion investment. At the same time, a mobile diffusion quirk and Hassabis’ caution remind us that capability and safety must advance together.
Culture still anchors the story. Space awe, live-coded art and a case for learning poems by heart show what people notice and remember. For operators, the Domino’s lesson is simple: improve the core product, add convenience with tech, and hire people who raise the standard, even if they are hard to manage.
