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Bandai revealed a functional Tamagotchi shrunk down into a finger ring, complete with a color display and over 30 raisable characters, controlled via two side buttons rather than its decorative front buttons. Priced at roughly $48, it launched pre-orders in Japan on August 27 that quickly sold out through international resellers, with a release slated for February 2027 and no confirmed plans outside Japan.
A leader who recently moved from Monzo to Engine by Starling describes a structured approach to starting a new role: first listening and gathering context, then synthesizing findings into categorized opportunities, and only then taking decisive action. The framework argues that quick wins should come after understanding stakeholders and legacy processes, not before.
Vijay Pande, who built Andreessen Horowitz's biotech investing practice into a nearly $4 billion operation, has departed to co-found a much smaller firm called VZVC with longtime investor Zach Werner. The new fund makes only a handful of concentrated investments each year instead of dozens, forgoes associates, and leans heavily on AI tools to run its operations.
The piece explains how Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), built for AI workloads in data centers, differ from GPUs and NPUs. TPUs are now replacing NPUs in Google's upcoming Pixel 11 phones, with Google claiming up to 3.5 times faster AI processing at up to 3.5 times less energy use. GPUs, meanwhile, remain versatile chips handling gaming, 3D rendering, AI training and crypto mining.
A veteran engineering manager with over 13 years in the industry argues that the tech world's obsession with AI tools is overshadowing a more fundamental driver of productivity: workplace culture. Drawing on personal experience with both toxic and healthy team environments, the author contends that AI adoption alone cannot fix dysfunction like interdepartmental blame or poor collaboration. The piece warns against narratives suggesting fewer engineers are needed simply because AI makes building software easier.
Researchers at UCLA's RePL lab are developing Prela, a query language that replaces SQL's multi-column tables with simple binary relations of just two columns. A tutorial shows how a wide table, such as one listing movie IDs, titles and years, can be broken into three binary relations, each pairing a row number with a single column's value, and demonstrates a movie-search query that takes 11 lines in Prela versus more than 20 in equivalent SQL.
Meta AI has begun appearing as a CarPlay-compatible app on iPhone, joining ChatGPT, Perplexity and Grok as third-party chatbots available in Apple's car interface. However, many users currently see a 'not supported' message when launching it, suggesting the rollout is still in limited testing, and a paid Meta AI account doesn't unlock access either.
Rockstar Games released a 26-minute gameplay preview of Grand Theft Auto VI, ahead of its November 19th launch, drawing nearly 10 million YouTube views in a day. The footage also aired on Netflix, where traffic was so heavy some viewers hit error messages, and Twitch reported bandwidth strain from fans reacting to the clip. Sensor Tower estimates the game already has roughly 4.6 million preorders.
Andy Moliski, working with brothers Adam and Alex, built A Trail Tale, a web-based interactive journal chronicling his Appalachian Trail hike through pixel art styled after 1990s adventure games. Alex composed an original score blending nature sounds with acoustic instruments, and the site uses an Oregon Trail-like interface tracking Andy's fortitude, morale, and daily encounters with landmarks and weather.
In 1981, UCSF cardiologist Melvin Scheinman performed the first catheter ablation on a human patient, guiding a catheter into the heart and delivering an electric shock to interrupt an abnormal rhythm. The procedure offered a non-surgical alternative to treating arrhythmias, which previously relied on medication or open-heart surgery. UCSF is now recognizing the 40th anniversary of this breakthrough and its lasting impact on cardiology.
Anbernic will begin selling its RG 55G1 retro gaming handheld on August 31 at 6AM ET, starting at $150. The device closely resembles Nintendo's Switch Lite in shape but runs Android 14 with a Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 chip, marking Anbernic's first use of Qualcomm silicon, and is built for emulating consoles up to PS2 or Wii.
Roku TVs can freeze, stop responding to remotes, drop Wi-Fi connections or fail after software updates, prompting the need for either a simple restart or a full factory reset. A restart is quick and preserves settings, while a factory reset wipes all personal data, accounts and apps, returning the TV to its original state. Users are advised to have their Roku account credentials, Wi-Fi details and any PINs ready before attempting either fix.