Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
🤖 Jony Ive and Sam Altman have an AI hardware prototype
📍 X feature shows many political accounts operate outside the US
📈 Alibaba Qwen hits 10 million downloads in debut week
📱 iOS 27 will prioritize AI and performance
🛰️ Amazon starts testing satellite internet for businesses
🚶 Chinese robot walks over 100 km for world record
🎁 + 7 other news you might like
🔮 + 1 handpicked research papers and tools
🤖 Jony Ive and Sam Altman have an AI hardware prototype LINK
Sam Altman and Jony Ive confirmed at Emerson Collective’s 2025 Demo Day that they are currently prototyping their mysterious OpenAI hardware and expect the device to arrive in less than two years.
Little has been revealed so far, but the unit is rumored to be screen-free and roughly the size of a smartphone, marking a clear shift away from the screens we use every day.
Altman described the design as playful enough to take a bite out of, while Ive said he wants sophisticated products that appear almost naive in their simplicity and can be used carelessly.
📍 X feature shows many political accounts operate outside the US LINK
X rolled out an “About This Account” feature revealing that several right-wing “America First” accounts appear to be posting from countries like Japan, Pakistan, and Thailand based on their geographic location data.
Left-wing influencer Micah Erfan shared a gallery of these apparently foreign MAGA users to claim the exposure is armageddon, noting that while many suspect profiles are small, others have hundreds of thousands of followers.
Director of product Nikita Bier admitted the results were not totally reliable for older sign-ups, suggesting errors likely come from legitimate travel, VPNs, global teams, or just using old IP addresses.
📈 Alibaba Qwen hits 10 million downloads in debut week LINK
Alibaba’s Qwen App surpassed 10 million downloads just one week after its public beta launch on November 17, quickly securing a top-three spot among free apps on the Apple App Store in China.
Built on the Qwen3 model, the tool handles complex tasks like AI-assisted coding, voice call interactions, and generating an entire research report or multi-slide PowerPoint presentation with a single command.
The company plans to transform the assistant into an operational hub by integrating lifestyle services such as digital maps, food delivery, and travel booking directly into the system for daily use.
📱 iOS 27 will prioritize AI and performance LINK
Apple engineers are reportedly combing through the operating system to cut bloat and eliminate bugs, aiming to fix specific user complaints about overheating, battery drain, and the pervasive jank distributed across the previous update.
The release includes a paid health focused AI agent and a chatbot app known as Veritas, which acts as a proving ground for the re-architected Siri as the company is still playing catch-up.
Mark Gurman claims this cycle resembles the Snow Leopard era by prioritizing stability, though the software will still contain adjustments to the new styling associated with the Liquid Glass vibe for the next few years.
🛰️ Amazon starts testing satellite internet for businesses LINK
Amazon Leo is shipping Leo Ultra terminals to business customers for an enterprise preview, offering download speeds up to 1 gigabit per second and upload speeds reaching 400 megabits per second.
The service uses a custom silicon chip inside 20-by-30-inch antennas to connect directly to Amazon Web Services, allowing companies to move data securely from remote assets without touching the public internet.
Partners like JetBlue and Hunt Energy are installing the hardware to test in-flight Wi-Fi and infrastructure monitoring, even though Amazon has only launched 153 production-grade satellites compared to thousands for Starlink.
🚶 Chinese robot walks over 100 km for world record LINK
Agibot A2 earned a Guinness World Record title after walking 106.286 km from Suzhou to Shanghai over three days, officially making this the longest journey ever reported for a humanoid machine.
The mass-produced commercial model navigated highways and city streets using dual GPS modules, built-in lidar, and infrared depth cameras to handle changing light conditions within complex urban environments without falling.
This 5.74-foot-tall unit weighs 55 kg and processes text, audio, and visual information, leading it to joke that it might need a new pair of shoes after finishing the trek.
Other news you might like
- Malaysia may ban users under 16 from social media starting next yearLINK
- Google quietly confirms when it's pulling the plug on AssistantLINK
- Meta halted internal research suggesting social media harm, court filing allegesLINK
- Major insurers seek to exclude AI-related risks from corporate policiesLINK
- Hobbyist solo miner scores a full Bitcoin block worth $270,000 despite 1 in 180 million oddsLINK
- Valve makes almost $50 million per employee, raking in more cash per person than Google, Amazon, or Microsoft — gaming giant's 350 employees on track to generate $17 billion this yearLINK
Latest research and tools
protondrive-linux: a utility that mounts your Proton Drive cloud storage as a local drive on Linux systems for easy file management.LINK
Want to get the latest news differently? Find us on:
See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ Techpresso!
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}