Oh great, here comes 6G

Oh great, here comes 6G

It brings me no pleasure to say this, but friends: The next G cometh. The standard formally known as 6G is still being established, but it’s going to be a major topic of discussion at Mobile World Congress 2026, which gets started today in Barcelona. 5G arrived back in 2019, but also, did it, entirely? … Read more

Jeffrey Epstein saw promise in Bitcoin — and its far-right supporters

Jeffrey Epstein saw promise in Bitcoin — and its far-right supporters

The tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails and files released on January 30th tie the infamous pedophile, sex trafficker, and influence peddler to elite figures across the tech industry. The world of cryptocurrency is no exception. Epstein’s connections are intriguing, disturbing — and worth mapping closely. With his interest first piqued as early as 2011, Epstein … Read more

The smart lock standard that could replace your keys is finally here

The smart lock standard that could replace your keys is finally here

Aliro has officially arrived. The smart lock standard, first announced in 2023, finally has a 1.0 spec, meaning companies can now get hardware certified and roll out support. Aliro is an open standard designed to let any smart lock be unlocked by any smartphone, regardless of manufacturer. It stores a digital key in your phone’s … Read more

If Big Tech cared about fighting AI slop, it wouldn’t be drowning us in it

If Big Tech cared about fighting AI slop, it wouldn’t be drowning us in it

As 2025 drew to a close, Instagram head Adam Mosseri ended the year by doom-posting about AI. “Authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible,” Mosseri lamented. “Everything that made creators matter — the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn’t be faked — is now accessible to anyone with the right tools.” … Read more

Why is AI so bad at reading PDFs?

Why is AI so bad at reading PDFs?

Last November, the House Oversight Committee had just released 20,000 pages of documents from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, and Luke Igel and some friends were clicking around, trying to follow the threads of conversation through garbled email threads and a PDF viewer that was, frankly, “gross.” In the coming months, the Department of Justice … Read more

Prediction markets want to eat the news

Prediction markets want to eat the news

Substack has updated its partnership with betting platform Polymarket, “introducing native tools that make it easier to share, discuss, and debate prediction market data directly on Substack.” Additionally, Polymarket will effectively pay “a cohort of creators,” including Matt Yglesias, to use its data though the newsletter platform’s pilot sponsorships program. This is just the latest … Read more

Can Democrats post their way to midterm victories?

Can Democrats post their way to midterm victories?

During the 2024 presidential election, @KamalaHQ was something of an alter ego for Vice President Kamala Harris — as Harris ran a buttoned-up campaign, the online accounts shared clips of her set to viral TikTok sounds, shitposted unflattering pictures of Donald Trump, and adopted a voice that was at times indistinguishable from the average 20-something … Read more