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AI
Apple starts rationing its engineers' AI budgets
Apple has cut the daily cap on what its engineers can spend on AI tools, from $300 to $200 per day, with some allowances headed as low as $100 and non engineering staff maybe $25, Bloomberg reports. The token rationing comes as companies question what AI spending actually returns.
Why it matters: Even the world's most valuable company is trimming AI usage costs, a signal that the tokenmaxxing era is ending.
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TechCrunch
Meta buys AI coding startup Conductor
Meta has acquired Conductor, a year old startup whose tool runs multiple AI coding agents in parallel workspaces, the startup's CEO confirmed. Its cloud service winds down as the team joins Meta's Superintelligence Labs.
Why it matters: Big Tech is buying up the agent coding tools that are quickly becoming the default way software gets written.
Dive deeper → TechCrunch
Tech
Switch 2 sales plunge 41% as memory costs bite
Nintendo sold 2.67 million Switch 2 consoles in the September quarter, down 41 percent year over year, after price hikes driven by soaring memory costs. Investors are now looking to the Ocarina of Time remake to lift holiday sales.
Why it matters: The memory shortage is now visibly denting consumer hardware, not just data center budgets.
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CNBC
Kremlin linked hackers weaponized copies of real websites
Security firm Sekoia says a group likely tied to Russia's foreign intelligence exploited already patched iOS and Android flaws by injecting code into lookalike sites, including a clone of the America250 anniversary site. Visitors had cookies, Wi-Fi passwords and device data quietly harvested.
Why it matters: It shows how n-day flaws and cloned sites remain a cheap, effective spy tool against ordinary phones.
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Ars Technica
Business
CVS will split its pharmacy empire in two
CVS Health announced it will separate its roughly 9,000 store pharmacy business from Aetna and Caremark, forming two public companies by the first half of 2028. Analysts say a two year turnaround finally makes the breakup viable after CVS shelved the idea in 2024.
Why it matters: It unwinds the megamerger era bet that insurers, pharmacies and PBMs belong under one roof.
Dive deeper → CNBC
Amazon drops Grubhub, hands Prime delivery to Uber Eats
Uber Eats is now Amazon's official restaurant delivery partner for US Prime members, replacing the Grubhub deal signed in 2022. Prime members can order without an Uber account and skip delivery fees on orders over $25.
Why it matters: The Prime perk war is consolidating around a few giants, and Grubhub just lost its biggest pedestal.
Dive deeper → TechCrunch
Science
FDA approves the first functional cure for hepatitis B
The FDA has cleared bepirovirsen, a GSK drug that suppressed chronic hepatitis B to undetectable levels in 19 percent of phase 3 participants, with control persisting after treatment stopped. It is administered as weekly injections alongside existing pills, which patients can then quit.
Why it matters: A silent killer driving over a million deaths a year finally has a shot at a real off ramp.
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ScienceAlert
Physicists peer into the zeptoverse for the first time
CERN researchers have confirmed an ultra rare decay of a neutral B meson into a muon and antimuon, an event expected only once per 10 billion decays and predicted for four decades. It opens a window onto scales about 100 billion times smaller than an atom.
Why it matters: The rarest decays are where new physics tends to hide, and this one is finally in reach.
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WIRED
World
Hong Kong jails Joshua Wong for 10 years
Pro democracy activist Joshua Wong, the teenage face of the 2014 Umbrella protests, was sentenced to 10 years after pleading guilty to foreign collusion under the national security law. He is the only activist prosecuted twice under the law and has been in prison since 2020.
Why it matters: The sentence shows how far Hong Kong's crackdown now reaches into its most recognizable moderates.
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The Guardian
France braces for a national strike day
Five unions joined forces for a day of strikes and marches expected to draw 500,000 to 700,000 protesters, demanding higher wages and protected public services. More than 250 actions are planned, with refinery stoppages forcing France to import power.
Why it matters: Cost of living pressure is pushing European governments toward concessions or confrontation, possibly both.
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BBC News
Culture
Bob Dylan, hood up, visits the Pope
Pope Leo XIV granted Bob Dylan a private Vatican audience, with photos showing the famously private songwriter in a black hoodie. The Pope even quoted an obscure 1963 Dylan lyric in his new peace anthology.
Why it matters: Two of the least predictable cultural institutions of the last century keep finding each other.
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Pitchfork
Christine and the Queens returns with a double single
Chris returns with his first new music in three years, releasing Rendez-vous avec toi and an English counterpart, Rendez-vous in your arms. Both tease an untitled album due in the spring, plus four European shows in December.
Why it matters: One of pop's great shape shifters is back, and the album now has a launch pad.
Dive deeper → Pitchfork
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