🧠 The silent keyboard

Today we’re covering Neuralink’s latest milestone — a paralyzed man typing with his mind — and what it signals for tech’s next frontier. We’ll also look at why real-world experience is overtaking degrees, how just two typos can quietly erode trust, and the growing shift from restaurants to home-cooked meals. Plus, new AI from Figma, smarter wearables, and a visa that lets you work from the beach. Let’s jump in!

OpenAI codes a $3B deal. ChatGPT’s maker just bought Windsurf to supercharge its AI coding capabilities.

Pinterest’s AI style hack. The app now turns outfit photos into shoppable text prompts. Your vibe, but optimized.

OpenAI walks back its for-profit pivot. After criticism from staff and investors, OpenAI dropped its plan to become a for-profit company. A nonprofit entity will stay in charge, with a new public-benefit arm handling future growth and partnerships.

Fastino makes AI cheaper and smaller. Startup Fastino raised $17.5M to train small, powerful AI models on gaming GPUs. The goal: beat big-name tools on narrow tasks, all while running on cheap, accessible hardware.

Figma’s “vibe‑coding” AI turns designs into apps. Figma just launched Make Beta, an AI prototyping tool that turns plain‑English prompts into interactive prototypes. Type “minimalist workout tracker in dark mode,” and Figma assembles screens, flows, and exportable assets—no code. Early access is free, and the team wants feedback to steer future releases, potentially rewriting product‑design roadmaps. Your imagination now drafts the UI—try it here for rapid spec reviews. It already plugs into FigJam and Dev Mode, so your prototype flows straight into hand‑off without rework.

Oura ring adds AI for meals & metabolism. The smart ring just got smarter: Oura’s new AI features, “Meals” and “Glucose,” track how diet influences sleep, energy, and recovery. Snap a meal pic, log ingredients, and Oura links nutrition to health patterns; a continuous‑glucose sensor is also in beta for even finer insights. Check out the update and harness real‑time nudges to optimize training, travel, and daily grind—especially on busy days. Beta testers already spot diet‑triggered energy dips they never noticed, turning lunchtime burritos into data‑backed tweaks.

Google’s WFH eviction notice. Remote employees near offices must return three days a week—or lose the job.

Skilled trades are back in demand. LinkedIn’s latest report says construction is now the fastest-growing industry for recent grads. High mortgage rates and energy incentives are fueling hiring across trades, eclipsing tech and finance in entry-level job growth.

Degrees out, data in. Tech hiring is changing fast: nearly half of listings now skip degree requirements, emphasizing portfolios and real‑world skill. Computerworld’s latest report shows database‑architect demand spiking 2,312% and statisticians up 382%. Companies crave people who can query, model, and automate—regardless of alma mater. Start the side project. Take the internship. Real-world experience beats transcripts. Show you can build, not just study — that’s what gets you hired.

Fed sits tight. Jerome Powell just paused rate hikes, but inflation and job losses loom.

Europe is test-driving a digital euro. The ECB launched a pilot with 70 partners—including Accenture and CaixaBank—to test use cases for a central bank digital currency. Retail payments, cross-border transfers, and regulatory oversight are all on the table.

Eyes on identity: $308 M in startup cash. Online identity is heating up. Persona raised $200 M and Veza $108 M for AI‑powered ID tools that separate humans from bots, while Sam Altman’s Worldcoin installs iris‑scanning orbs across U.S. cities. Expect passwordless logins, friction‑free fintech onboarding, and new privacy debates. For users, that could mean selfie sign‑ups, instant loan approvals, and wallets your face unlocks. Regulators are scrambling to draft biometric privacy rules before eyeball data becomes the next cookie. Investors say ID is the glue for autonomous AI agents.

Inflation diet. Rising prices have Americans ditching restaurants for home-cooked meals.

The wellness trend of 2025 is unplugging. Analog wellness is in. Flip phones, no-WiFi retreats, and digital detox cafes are surging. One study found 91% of unplugged participants felt calmer, more focused, and less anxious within just 48 hours.

Workcation, anyone? The Philippines just unveiled a one‑year digital‑nomad visa, letting remote workers legally “work from paradise” on 5G‑equipped beaches and inside trendy coworking cafés. Applicants need proof of $24 K annual income and health insurance—far lower than Portugal or Japan. Add English fluency, low costs, and 7,000 islands, and the archipelago rockets onto every laptop‑lifestyle shortlist. Visa holders can bring dependents, too, if income allows.

Brad Smith, a 37‑year‑old father of three with ALS, is now the third person to receive Neuralink’s brain implant — and the first to speak publicly. Though fully paralyzed and non‑verbal, he can type with his mind and chat through an AI recreation of his former voice. “Neuralink has given me freedom, hope, and faster communication,” he said. What sounded like pure sci‑fi a few years ago — a paralyzed user editing video by thought alone — is suddenly real.

Neuralink’s human trials won FDA clearance in 2023. During surgery, a robot removes a nickel‑sized skull disc, inserts 1,024 hair‑thin electrodes into the motor cortex, and closes the scalp with no external ports. Patients have since played video games, moved cursors, and now regained fluent speech — a live demo that has neurologists everywhere taking notes.

But breakthrough tech rarely travels alone. Elon Musk touts the chip as a step toward “universal language” and eventual human‑AI fusion. Critics aren’t fully buying the narrative. Harvard ethicists warn brain interfaces could enable surveillance or coercion. Scholars at Penn and UChicago note that Silicon Valley’s boldest ideas often outpace the guardrails meant to keep humanity safe.

Cost is the next friction point. While pricing remains secret, analysts on Fox estimate the chip, robot‑guided surgery, and hospital care could exceed tens of thousands of dollars. Access is limited to insured, pre‑screened volunteers — a preview of a two‑tier future where those who need neural tech most may be last in line. The FDA also requires long‑term monitoring of adverse events, so every spike and seizure will be logged for years. Meanwhile, insurers remain silent on whether they’ll ever pick up the bill.

And there’s a data wrinkle: no U.S. privacy law yet covers neural telemetry. If thoughts become packets, who owns them? Who’s liable if they’re hacked? Rivals like Synchron and Precision Neuroscience are sprinting up the same hill, promising safer implants or faster approvals, while analysts peg brain‑computer interfaces as a $5 billion market by 2030.

Neuralink is an interesting sign of what’s coming. As technology gets more personal and goes beyond current regulations, it’s worth investigating deeply.

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That’s how much trust you lose with just two typos in a 170-word post, according to a 2022 psychology study. More typos? Trust keeps dropping—linearly.

At Osaka Expo, researchers unveiled RoboCake: a dessert powered by edible batteries made of vitamin B2 and chocolate. The animatronic teddy-bear toppings even move—before you bite them.

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