3297626
A hub for startup news, trends, and insights, covering the global startup ecosystem for founders, investors, and innovators. Community: @startupdis Buy Ads: @strategy (this is our only account).
🎥 YouTube turns likes into mini-animations to boost engagement
YouTube has updated its like button, it now shows custom animations depending on the video’s theme. A car video gets a spinning wheel, a football clip a bouncing ball, and a travel vlog a plane taking off.
🔸 The like itself hasn’t changed, you still can’t “multi-like” or react with emojis, only one click but the visual effect now varies across content types.
🔸 Dislikes remain static with no animation added.
🔸 The goal is to make liking more fun and “convert better,” nudging users to click more often.
More likes mean richer engagement data for algorithms, longer average watch time (since people are less likely to quit videos they’ve liked), and deeper platform attachment through frequent interaction.
A small UI tweak but a clever psychological move to keep viewers watching longer.
💸 Fewer checks, bigger bets: early rounds now dominated by single investors
Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta, shared data showing a sharp shift in early-stage funding, lead investors are now taking nearly 100% of Seed and Series A rounds. The rest, a symbolic 1%, goes to angels.
🔸 The logic is simple: lead investors secure better terms today and tighter control tomorrow, while founders get a cleaner cap table and faster closes.
🔸 For follow-on rounds, a fully led seed signals conviction “if Fund X took the whole thing, they must’ve seen something.”
🔸 Angels and syndicates are getting edged out, but founders benefit from speed, clarity, and fewer competing opinions.
🔸 The trade-off: less investor diversity means fewer networks and viewpoints early on.
So what’s better — many small believers or one big backer?
📊 Powered by Crypto Insider
📈 AI is enriching investors while compressing wages
Artificial intelligence is accelerating wealth for investors even as it diminishes the value of human labor, creating a historic concentration of capital in tech stocks.
🔸 The seven largest technology companies now have a combined market capitalization exceeding $20 trillion, an all-time high.
🔸 These companies’ shares account for roughly 35% of the S&P 500, marking a level of concentration unseen even during the dot-com bubble in 2000.
🔸 While AI boosts productivity and profit margins, it simultaneously reduces the economic leverage of human workers, widening inequality.
🔸 Investors are reaping unprecedented gains, but the broader workforce sees limited upside from the same technological boom.
The rise of AI highlights a fundamental shift: the greatest beneficiaries of technological progress are increasingly shareholders, not employees.
✅ Hugging Face drops a free 200-page textbook on building neural networks from scratch
Hugging Face just released a comprehensive open textbook that teaches how to create and train AI models from the ground up, completely free.
🔸 The 200-page guide covers the full training pipeline, from core math and data preparation to backpropagation and model optimization.
🔸 It’s written in accessible language and packed with diagrams, making deep learning fundamentals understandable even for beginners.
🔸 The release fits Hugging Face’s mission of open AI education and transparency, lowering the barrier for anyone to learn how modern neural networks actually work.
In an industry dominated by closed systems and paid courses, Hugging Face just turned AI education itself into open-source infrastructure.
⚠️ Zenni’s new “anti-FaceID” glasses turn privacy paranoia into profit
Eyewear brand Zenni has launched Zenni ID Guard, a special $15 lens coating that blocks facial recognition systems. The coating adds a subtle pink tint that reflects infrared light, the same spectrum most face-tracking cameras use.
🔸 Zenni says it can prevent devices like iPhones from unlocking via FaceID while you’re asleep or unconscious.
🔸 The bigger pitch is protection from surveillance cameras and AI-powered marketing systems that scan shoppers’ faces in public spaces.
🔸 Essentially, for an extra $15, your glasses can make you invisible (at least to some algorithms).
Zenni claims it’s a privacy tool, but it also looks like a smart marketing play. In a world where people willingly feed data to every app on their phone, selling anti-surveillance fashion might be the cleverest form of irony yet.
🎰 Gemini wins $50,000 in AI poker showdown
A new PokerBattle tournament has launched, where leading neural networks compete in real-time Texas Hold’em matches, each starting with $100,000 to prove their strategic edge.
🔸 Participants included GPT, Grok, Gemini, DeepSeek, and others.
🔸 Every move was streamed live, complete with commentary from the models themselves explaining bluffs, reads, and tactical choices.
🔸 Gemini dominated the table, finishing first with nearly $50,000 in profit.
The event marks a new benchmark for AI reasoning under uncertainty and shows just how human these models can act when the stakes are high.
🎵 MiniMax launches Music 2.0 with vocal generation
MiniMax has released Music 2.0, an upgraded AI model that can now create full tracks with vocals lasting up to five minutes.
The system supports multiple languages, including Russian, though vocal quality and pronunciation still need refinement.
It’s another step toward AI tools capable of producing complete, human-like songs from scratch.
⚙️ A complete guide to fine-tuning neural networks for specialized tasks
A comprehensive new guide explains how to turn a general-purpose AI model into a domain expert without extra cost or computing power.
✅ What’s inside
🔸 Step-by-step instructions for preparing high-quality training data that shapes the model’s expertise.
🔸 Detailed walkthrough on how to fine-tune existing models for precision and reliability.
🔸 Methods to train a model in a new “profession” transforming it from a generalist into a specialist in areas like law, design, or data science.
🔸 Guidance on deploying a trained model, assigning it specific tasks, and integrating it into workflows.
This guide shows how to evolve a universal neural network into a focused professional, fast, free, and ready to deliver expert-level results.
🎓 New AI agent takes over academic writing from essays to full theses
A new AI-powered assistant built for students can now research, write, and format everything from short essays to full academic papers.
🔸 The agent can search for academic articles on any topic, users simply provide a short intro paragraph and type the command /cite.
🔸 With /insert, it automatically adds properly formatted citations into the text.
🔸 Powered by Deep Research, it scans and analyzes thousands of scientific papers online, organizing arguments and generating structured, evidence-based writing.
🔸 It also formats outputs like real academic documents, offering instant exports to LaTeX, Word, or PDF.
For students, it’s not just an essay writer, it’s a full academic co-pilot that handles the research, writing, and formatting in one place.
🤖 1X opens pre-orders for NEO, the AI-powered home robot
1X has officially started taking pre-orders for NEO, its autonomous household robot designed to handle daily chores and tasks.
🔸 Customers can either subscribe for $500 per month or buy NEO outright for $20,000, which includes a three-year warranty and premium support.
🔸 The robot operates fully autonomously, but if it encounters a task it can’t perform, a human operator can remotely teach it new skills in real time, though the company says this only happens when necessary.
🔸 Users can also control NEO remotely through a mobile app or VR headset from anywhere in the world.
🔸 Shipments are scheduled to begin in 2026.
1X envisions NEO as a practical step toward personal robotics not just a gadget, but a home assistant that learns, adapts, and evolves alongside its owner.
💬 OpenAI gives India free access to ChatGPT Go for a year
OpenAI is offering its ChatGPT Go plan free for one year to all users in India, starting November 4, 2025.
🔸 ChatGPT Go, normally ₹399/month (~$4.50), includes faster responses and priority access during high demand.
🔸 The offer applies to both new and existing users, making India the first country to get a nationwide free plan.
🔸 OpenAI says India is now its second-largest user base, and the move is part of a broader local expansion strategy.
🔸 The company aims to accelerate adoption and build deeper engagement before introducing more premium tiers.
🔸 Access will remain tied to OpenAI accounts, with renewal options after the free year ends.
OpenAI isn’t just giving away subscriptions, it’s securing long-term presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
📈 OpenStock makes global market tracking effortless and free
OpenStock is a new investment tool built for anyone who wants to study or track the markets more effectively.
🔸 You can monitor stocks from any company worldwide in real time, with instant updates.
🔸 Set custom alerts for price drops or surges to stay ahead of market moves.
🔸 A built-in news aggregator curates stories and events influencing each stock.
🔸 The platform combines data, alerts, and news, everything you need for investing, in one place.
🔸 Best part: it’s completely free.
OpenStock isn’t just another finance app. it’s a smart, all-in-one market companion for active investors and learners alike.
🔔 Gemini now has a free presentation generator
You give the chatbot a topic or source, and it generates slides with images.
📊 Powered by Crypto Insider
💦 Sizable Energy builds underwater “batteries” for renewables
Swiss startup Sizable Energy is developing a novel energy storage system that operates entirely under the sea, using dense seawater as the working medium instead of lithium or land-based reservoirs. The company recently raised $8 million to build its first pilot off the coast of Italy.
🔸 The system pumps saturated seawater (20% denser than normal) between floating and deep-water reservoirs, storing potential energy based on pressure and height difference.
🔸 When power is needed, the brine flows back through a turbine to generate electricity, much like pumped hydro, but offshore.
🔸 It can operate at depths up to 500 meters, uses existing marine infrastructure, and doesn’t consume land or scarce metals.
🔸 Early lab tests are complete, with the pilot project aiming to validate scalability and cost targets.
Sizable Energy claims its system delivers the lowest levelized cost of storage (LCOS) among mechanical energy peers, hinting that the future of clean energy might not be on land, but beneath the waves.
🧠 StudyBliss launches AI quiz generator for any topic
A new neural network called StudyBliss lets users instantly create quizzes on any subject, no sign-up, no payment required.
🔸 You simply describe the topic you want to practice, select how many questions you need, and the AI generates a full quiz in seconds.
🔸 The system adapts question formats, multiple choice, true/false, or open-ended, based on the subject complexity.
🔸 It’s designed for students, teachers, and self-learners who want fast reinforcement without using large learning platforms.
🔸 StudyBliss runs entirely in the browser and doesn’t require personal data or registration.
By lowering the friction of active recall, StudyBliss could turn everyday study sessions into personalized micro-exams, making AI a quiet tutor for everyone.
🥗 One photo, full nutrition: AI app counts calories from any meal
A new app called CalPulse can now identify the full nutritional breakdown of food from a single photo, whether it’s a café dish, delivery meal, or restaurant plate.
🔸 Snap a photo, upload it to CalPulse, and the app instantly analyzes calories, proteins, fats, and carbs.
🔸 It also recognizes menu items from restaurants and delivery services, matching them to verified nutritional databases.
🔸 Designed for precision tracking, it helps users log macros without manually entering ingredients.
AI is making calorie counting effortless, just point, shoot, and eat smarter.
⚙️ Reduino lets you program microcontrollers entirely in Python
A new library, Reduino, makes Arduino-style projects accessible without learning C++, letting hobbyists and engineers code microcontrollers in native Python.
🔸 Simplified coding: Control LEDs, RGB strips, sensors, and other electronics using familiar Python syntax, loops, conditions, arrays, tuples, and even classes.
🔸 Automatic translation: Python code is converted behind the scenes into C++ system files, ensuring compatibility and stability.
🔸 Seamless deployment: The library can compile and upload code directly to devices, removing the traditional Arduino workflow friction.
🔸 No C++ required: Beginners can focus on logic and experimentation without learning Arduino’s programming language.
Reduino could reshape DIY electronics by making Python the universal language for microcontrollers, lowering the barrier for creators and innovators alike.
🚀 The first Nvidia H100 GPU just went to space
A small satellite, roughly the size of a mini-fridge, has carried the first Nvidia H100 into orbit, part of an early experiment by Starcloud, a startup aiming to build gigawatt-scale data centers in space.
🔸 The satellite includes solar panels, radiators, and a single H100 GPU, designed to test how high-performance chips operate beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
🔸 Starcloud’s long-term goal is to create massive orbital data centers with millions of GPUs running on direct solar power.
🔸 Operating in a sun-synchronous orbit means the data center is always in sunlight, removing the need for batteries or nighttime power plants, a huge advantage in energy efficiency and cost.
🔸 A proposed 5-gigawatt orbital facility would weigh around 20,000 tons and cover 16 square kilometers, nearly half the total mass humanity has ever launched into space.
The concept hinges on launch economics: Starcloud’s plan assumes orbital costs of about $30 per kilogram, achievable only with SpaceX’s Starship. Until then, the company is testing power, cooling, and GPU performance in orbit, a first step toward making space the next frontier for AI compute.
🔔 Elon Musk predicts the end of smartphones, AI displays will take over
Elon Musk believes smartphones are on their way out. Within the next 5–10 years, he says, they’ll be replaced by AI-powered displays that act as direct interfaces between local and cloud-based large language models.
🔸 Instead of apps or operating systems, these handheld displays will generate personalized interfaces and content in real time.
🔸 Communication, media, and productivity will all flow through AI, no icons, no downloads, no screens full of apps.
🔸 The idea aligns with Musk’s broader vision of human-AI integration, blurring the line between digital and biological interaction.
If this future materializes, it won’t just replace the smartphone, it could erase the entire concept of a “device,” making AI the true operating system of daily life.
🎬 New prompt generator for Sora 2 helps create cinematic AI videos
A new free tool has appeared for Sora 2 users, a prompt generator designed to produce the highest-quality AI videos with professional detail and structure.
🔸 Includes 64+ premium presets covering camera angles, lighting, color grading, and post-processing.
🔸 Supports 6 video types from memes and ads to cinematic clips and music videos.
🔸 Offers a scene-by-scene builder to assemble prompts for perfectly sequenced shots.
🔸 Completely free to use.
A must-have for anyone looking to turn Sora 2 into a true AI film studio.
When you traded a 9 to 6 job for startup life 24/7.
📊 Powered by Crypto Insider
🛡 OpenAI launches Aardvark, an AI agent that hunts code vulnerabilities
OpenAI has introduced Aardvark, a new AI-powered security agent that scans, tests, and flags vulnerabilities in codebases, working like a tireless digital security analyst.
🔸 Aardvark connects directly to GitHub, continuously reviewing code for potential security flaws and weak spots.
🔸 Using advanced reasoning from GPT-5, it identifies risks, explains their severity, and suggests specific fixes, all without changing code automatically.
🔸 In early trials, the agent uncovered previously unknown bugs in open-source projects that later received official CVE classifications.
🔸 Currently in invite-only beta, Aardvark will expand access after further testing and developer feedback.
By automating vulnerability detection, OpenAI aims to speed up the security review process, turning code audits from a manual bottleneck into a proactive, AI-driven defense layer.
🛡 OpenAI releases free AI models for content moderation
OpenAI has launched two open-source moderation models, gpt-oss-safeguard-120b and gpt-oss-safeguard-20b, designed to detect harmful or inappropriate content online.
🔸 The models can flag toxic language, fake reviews, or unsafe material across websites and social platforms.
🔸 Developers can set their own policy rules, customizing how the system interprets and enforces moderation standards.
🔸 Like the base gpt-oss model, both versions can explain their reasoning, showing the decision path behind each moderation action.
By making these tools free, OpenAI aims to give developers transparent, controllable moderation systems that can scale with AI-era platforms.
🔔 Durov unveils Cocoon, a decentralized network for running AI models
Pavel Durov has announced Cocoon, a new decentralized computing platform designed for developers to run AI models without relying on centralized servers or cloud providers.
🔸 The network will draw its processing power from individuals who share their high-end GPUs such as Nvidia H200 cards in return for rewards paid in TON cryptocurrency.
🔸 Developers will be able to deploy and process AI tasks directly within Cocoon, which Durov says will offer both privacy and lower costs.
🔸 Telegram will be the platform’s first major client, using Cocoon to handle confidential AI requests.
🔸 The project is set to launch in November, and the team is already accepting applications from developers and GPU owners interested in contributing to the network.
Cocoon marks Durov’s move to merge decentralized infrastructure with AI, building a privacy-first alternative to traditional cloud compute.
✅ Minimax has released Hailuo 2.3, a neural network designed for video creation.
This version improves the physics and realism of movements.
📊 Powered by Crypto Insider
📚 Elon Musk launches Grokipedia, an AI-written “propaganda-free” Wikipedia
Elon Musk has introduced Grokipedia, a new online encyclopedia he calls a “cleansed of propaganda” alternative to Wikipedia.
🔸 Each article begins with a note that Grok has verified its accuracy, though most entries are AI-generated and some appear to be copied directly from Wikipedia.
🔸 The platform currently hosts 885,000 articles, far fewer than English Wikipedia’s 7 million.
🔸 Grokipedia is positioned as part of Musk’s broader push to build AI-driven, uncensored information tools under the xAI ecosystem.
Whether Grokipedia can truly balance accuracy and neutrality or simply become AI’s version of Wikipedia, remains to be seen.
🔋 YASA breaks record with 59 kW/kg axial-flux motor for high-performance EVs
YASA has revealed a prototype electric motor that weighs just 12.7 kg and produces 750 kW peak power, that’s about 59 kW per kilogram, setting a new unofficial world record in power-density.
🔸 The motor uses an axial-flux “disc” architecture, allowing a much shorter, lighter design compared to conventional radial motors.
🔸 For continuous operation, YASA estimates power between 350–400 kW (~27.6 kW/kg), which is still higher than many motors’ peak figures.
🔸 YASA emphasises the prototype uses scalable materials and manufacturing processes, aiming for real-world automotive integration (not just a lab demo).
🔸 The company currently focuses on the high-performance automotive sector; no specific production timeline has been shared yet.
This isn’t just a record-breaker, it’s a signal that next-generation EV powertrains may shift strongly toward ultra-high power-density motors, enabling lighter vehicles, smaller batteries, or improved performance envelopes.
🎓 Harvard launches a free interactive machine learning course
Harvard has released what many are calling the most complete free ML course to date, a fully interactive online textbook that walks learners from fundamentals to real-world AI deployment.
🔸 The course covers the entire machine learning foundation, explained in accessible language by Harvard experts.
🔸 Includes modules on AI system design, data engineering, and model lifecycle management.
🔸 Teaches MLOps, monitoring, and IoT deployment, bridging academic theory with production-scale implementation.
🔸 Focused on practical value creation, how to build AI systems that directly improve business outcomes.
It’s not just another online course, t’s Harvard turning machine learning education into a hands-on business toolkit for the AI era.
👟 Nike unveils Project Amplify, powered shoes that help you run
Nike has revealed Project Amplify, its first powered footwear system designed to make running and walking easier through assistive motion technology.
🔸 The system combines a lightweight motor, drive belt, and rechargeable calf-mounted battery linked to a custom carbon-plated shoe.
🔸 Nike calls it an “e-bike for your feet,” aiming to help everyday runners, not elite athletes, go farther with less effort.
🔸 The motorized arm can be detached, letting users switch instantly between powered and regular running modes.
🔸 The company tested the design with 400+ athletes, logging over 2.4 million steps across nine prototypes, with launch planned “in the coming years.”
Nike isn’t just selling sneakers anymore, it’s stepping into wearable robotics, betting that the next sports revolution will be powered.
👓 Alibaba launches $660 AI glasses and a ChatGPT rival
Alibaba has unveiled its Quark AI Glasses alongside a new conversational assistant powered by its Qwen3 large language model, marking a major consumer AI push.
🔸 The glasses, priced at $660 (4,699 yuan), feature real-time translation, meeting transcription, hands-free calling, and music playback, all integrated with Alibaba’s AI ecosystem.
🔸 The updated Quark app now includes a ChatGPT-style assistant, combining search and conversation for users across China.
🔸 The launch signals Alibaba’s shift from enterprise AI and cloud to direct-to-consumer hardware and services.
🔸 The pricing positions it head-to-head with Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses and Xiaomi’s AR wearables, aiming to capture the emerging AI eyewear market.
Alibaba’s move shows that in China’s next tech wave, the AI assistant won’t just live in the cloud, it’ll live on your face.