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Waymo's vehicles are now fully driverless in Nashville Feb 11, 2026

Show notes

The company plans to offer rides to the public in Nashville sometime this year.

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Elon Musk's satellite catapult on the Moon, Discord will soon require age verification, and Meta, TikTok and Snap are participating in an online safety ratings system Feb 11, 2026

Show notes

-In an xAI meeting with employees, Musk said the company needed to build an AI satellite factory on the moon with a gigantic catapult to launch them into space, according to audio heard by The New York Times.

-Discord will require all users to have a "teen-appropriate experience" by default by March.

-Numerous major social platforms including Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap say they will submit to a new external grading process that scores social platforms on how well they protect adolescent mental health.

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Lyft rolls out teen accounts with enhanced safety protections Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

This is similar to Uber's toolset.

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The DOJ may face an investigation for pressuring Apple and Google, SpaceX pivoting to focus on a moon base, and disabling Ring's creepy Search Party feature Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

-House Judiciary Committee member Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, has asked the US Department of Justice to turn over all its communications with both Apple and Google regarding the companies' decisions to remove apps that shared information about sightings of US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers.

-Elon Musk says SpaceX has shifted its near-term priorities from Mars settlement plans to building what he called a “self-growing city on the Moon,” arguing the lunar target is faster and more achievable.

-Ring is advertised as a way to reunite missing dogs with their owners, a noble cause indeed, but Search Party does this by turning individual Ring devices into a surveillance network.

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DOJ is investigating if Netflix used anticompetitive tactics as part of its merger probe Feb 09, 2026

Show notes

A report from The Wall Street Journal said the probe will include looking into Netflix's potentially monopolistic practices.

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NY lawmakers introduce bill that aims to halt data center development for 3 yrs, Apple's new iPads and MacBooks may be here soon, and Lyft rolls out teen accounts with enhanced safety protections Feb 09, 2026

Show notes

-On Friday, New York State Senators Liz Krueger and Kristen Gonzales introduced a bill that would stop the issuance of permits for new data centers for at least three years and ninety days to give time for impact assessments and to update regulations.

-Apple is gearing up for a slew of hardware announcements that will include upgrades for the entry-level iPad, iPad Air, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, according to Mark Gurman's Power On newsletter.

-Lyft has officially introduced teen accounts for ages 13 to 17. This is a rideshare feature in which teenagers can request their own rides, which is similar to Uber's pre-existing platform.

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NVIDIA reportedly won't release new graphics cards this year Feb 06, 2026

Show notes

Gamers, schmamers. We have AI data centers to power!

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X's Community Notes will allow AI to write the first draft, Meta is giving its AI slop feed an app of its own, and the CIA will stop publishing The World Factbook Feb 06, 2026

Show notes

-The company started a pilot program last year to allow developers to create dedicated AI note writers. X’s Keith Coleman told Engadget that AI writers are “prolific” and that one has contributed more than 1,000 notes that were rated as helpful by other contributors.

-Vibes was introduced as a feature in the Meta AI app in September 2025. Similar to OpenAI's Sora app, Vibes lets users prompt Meta AI to create TikTok-style vertical videos.

-The US Central Intelligence Agency is ending one of its popular services, The World Factbook.

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Anthropic says it won't bring ads to Claude Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

The company said that integrating advertising would 'work against' the core principles of the chatbot.

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A new bill would crack down on fraudulent ads, X's 'open source' algorithm isn't a win for transparency, and Valve pushed back its Steam Machine launch Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

-The backdrop to the SCAM Act is a Reuters report from last November. Meta reportedly estimated that up to 10 percent of its 2024 revenue came from scam ads. The company is said to have calculated that as much as $16 billion of its revenue that year was from scams, including "fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos and the sale of banned medical products."

-While it's true that X is the only major social network to make elements of its recommendation algorithm open source, researchers say that what the company has published doesn't offer the kind of transparency that would actually be useful for anyone trying to understand how X works in 2026.

-As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, the AI industry has been hoovering up manufacturers’ available memory chips and hard drives for its infrastructure developments.

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