Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
✈️ Anduril completes first flight of its unmanned jet drone
🧠 First Neuralink patient could get a device upgrade
🛰️ Future Starlink satellites will become orbiting data centers
💰 The hidden debt behind the AI boom
🤖 Nearly 10% of US newspaper articles use AI
🛑 Nexperia allowed to resume exports from China following Trump-Xi talks
🎁 + 9 other news you might like
🔮 + 3 handpicked research papers and tools
✈️ Anduril completes first flight of its unmanned jet drone LINK
Anduril's jet-powered drone, the YFQ-44A, completed its first flight for the U.S. Air Force, which wants a "loyal wingman" to fly alongside fighter jets at a California testing site.
Flying semi-autonomously, the aircraft handled its own flight controls and throttle adjustment without direct human input, and it was designed to land just by pushing a single button.
Following the test, the company plans to increase manufacturing of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) model, with prototype production scheduled to begin at an Ohio facility next year.
🧠 First Neuralink patient could get a device upgrade LINK
Elon Musk stated that first patient Noland Arbaugh might be the first to receive a "Neuralink upgrade" or a "dual Neuralink implant" to further augment his mind-controlled abilities.
He predicts it will not be long before a Neuralink recipient can outperform most, and eventually all, humans at playing "fast reaction video games" with their thoughts.
Meanwhile, Arbaugh is studying neuroscience and pre-calculus with good grades and has also teased that "big news" regarding his progress is coming for his two-year update in 2026.
🛰️ Future Starlink satellites will become orbiting data centers LINK
SpaceX plans to create orbiting data centers by scaling up its V3 Starlink satellites, which have high-speed laser links, allowing them to host more computing power for AI training.
The satellites will overcome connectivity challenges using a built-in laser system that creates a mesh network in space, enabling data transmission between satellites at speeds up to 200Gbps.
A startup called Starcloud is also launching a test satellite with an Nvidia H100 GPU to create its own network of orbiting data centers designed to connect to Starlink.
💰 The hidden debt behind the AI boom LINK
Tech firms like Meta are raising tens of billions for AI data centers using off-balance-sheet debt, a method that keeps these enormous liabilities from appearing on their main financial statements.
This is done by creating a special purpose vehicle, a separate legal company that owns assets like Nvidia chips and holds the associated debt, while the tech giant simply pays rent.
The rapid debt buildup, with external financing needs pegged at $1.5 trillion, worries analysts who recall how similar off-balance-sheet vehicles were central to past financial crises like Enron's collapse.
🤖 Nearly 10% of US newspaper articles use AI LINK
A University of Maryland study using the Pangram AI detector found nearly 9 percent of US newspaper articles are AI-generated, with smaller local papers using these tools more than national outlets.
Transparency is nearly nonexistent, as only five of 100 flagged stories disclosed AI involvement, and some papers with public bans still published machine-written content without knowing it.
At top national newspapers, AI use in opinion sections grew 25-fold between 2022 and 2025, driven almost entirely by guest contributors rather than the publications' own staff journalists.
🛑 Nexperia allowed to resume exports from China following Trump-Xi talks LINK
China's Ministry of Commerce will now grant exemptions to its Nexperia export ban, allowing automakers with a waiver to resume orders for chips from the company on a case-by-case basis.
The policy change follows a meeting between Trump and Xi, where the White House agreed to postpone its 50-percent subsidiary rule that threatened Nexperia's access to U.S. components and software.
Despite Beijing's move, Nexperia's Dutch head office has now stopped shipping raw materials to its China factory, which is responsible for 70 percent of the chipmaker’s global output.
Other news you might like
- Microsoft and OpenAI set their own rules for AGILINK
- Bluesky hits 40 million users, introduces ‘dislikes’ betaLINK
- Closing Windows 11’s Task Manager accidentally opens up more copies of Task ManagerLINK
- Waymo accused of hitting cat shows why AI needs to be perfectLINK
- This is Google’s first AI-generated TV ad [Video]LINK
- Programmer installed and ran Doom on an orbiting European Space Agency satelliteLINK
- Hackers threaten to leak data after breaching University of Pennsylvania to send mass emailsLINK
- US team finds ‘super-polynomial’ problems that even quantum computers can’t crackLINK
- YouTube denies AI was involved with odd removals of tech tutorialsLINK
Latest research and tools
S.A.R.C.A.S.M: a 3D-printed robot that automatically scans and solves a Rubik’s Cube while providing sassy commentary.LINK
arXiv No Longer Accepts Computer Science Position or Review Papers Due to LLMs: due to a flood of submissions created with large language models, arXiv's computer science category now requires review and position papers to first be accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or conference.LINK
CharlotteOS: an experimental operating system kernel designed for flexibility that allows secure access to files and resources on other networked computers using web-like addresses.LINK
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