Elon Musk's 'flying car' is here

PLUS: Google’s Universal Cart goes live in Gemini

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Tesla’s Roadster has finally cleared a major hurdle: several other Teslas.

Nearly nine years after its debut, Elon Musk put the thruster-equipped supercar through midair stunts in Texas yesterday — sticking the landing on its 2028 delivery target may be harder.

Also: Google wants to shop for you, Colossal recruits AI for a dodo comeback, and Amazon’s $75 Bee is all ears.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • Tesla’s Roadster goes fully airborne

  • Google turns Gemini into a checkout lane

  • Colossal’s dodo revivals get AI assist

  • Amazon debuts $75 wearable, $100 phone clip

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

TESLA

Image source: Tesla / X

The Rundown: Nearly nine years after its surprise debut, Tesla showed off the production Roadster outside Waco, Texas, on Thursday, and the white, SR-71-inspired supercar used SpaceX’s cold-gas thrusters to fly over the rest of Tesla’s lineup.

The details:

  • Fans and thrusters pushed the car up an inverted ramp, spun it midair, and landed it, then hopped it over five Tesla vehicles, did a corkscrew, and landed.

  • Ten thrusters run on 600 liters of rechargeable compressed air, stored in carbon-fiber tanks — the type behind several SpaceX rocket explosions.

  • Performance ($50K reservation) and Thrust ($250K, sub-1-second 0–60 mph) seat two; the invite-only Rocket seats one and gets all 10 thrusters. Every trim promises 300 miles of range, with a 230+ mph speed for the Rocket.

  • First shown in 2017 with deliveries promised for 2020, the Roadster now has a 2028 production target, while questions about road legality remain unanswered.

Why it matters: Musk concedes the Roadster won’t move revenue much, which makes it a halo car for a company now staking its valuation on robotaxis and Optimus. Tesla first promised deliveries for 2020, and it hasn’t said how a car carrying 10 thrusters and 600 liters of pressurized air will clear U.S. safety rules by 2028.

TOGETHER WITH MEMOKET

The Rundown: Your AI note-taker gives you disconnected notes. Memoket Gem changes that. It’s the lightest AI wristband that records your conversations with one press and turns them into instant summaries, action items, and full context across every meeting — on or off screen.

With Memoket Gem, you get:

  • Hands-free capture as a wristband, Apple Watch band, or pendant

  • One connected memory across conversations

  • Seamless sync with ChatGPT, Claude, Google Calendar, and Notion

  • AI agents to generate reports based on your actual context

For a limited time, get 10% off with code RUNDOWNMEMO

GOOGLE

Image source: Google

The Rundown: Google’s Universal Cart — first previewed at Google I/O in May — is now live for U.S. users, turning Search and Gemini into a single checkout lane for products scattered across the web.

The details:

  • Shoppers can save items through Search and AI Mode or mid-conversation in the Gemini app, and the cart holds products from multiple retailers.

  • Saved items trigger alerts when prices fall or stock returns, cutting down on the ritual of refreshing a product page until something changes.

  • Built on Google Wallet, it reads card perks like cashback and suggests which payment method to use, plus surfaces promo codes.

  • Checkout runs on Google’s UCP, an open standard launched earlier this year to let AI agents and retailers handle transactions together.

Why it matters: Google aims to link discovery, price tracking and checkout together to make Search and Gemini places shoppers keep returning to throughout a purchase. With Amazon and OpenAI also expanding into AI shopping, the race is to become consumers’ default destination for finding and buying products.

COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES

Image source: Colossal Biosciences

The Rundown: Colossal Biosciences is putting AI to work on the dodo’s comeback, unveiling GenoMorph, a platform that mines living birds’ genetics and anatomy to identify DNA changes that could help recreate the extinct bird’s distinctive features.

The details:

  • With a single high-quality dodo genome to work from, Colossal compared genomes and skull scans from 70+ bird species to narrow the search.

  • GenoMorph flagged ~2,300 regulatory elements linked to beak size and shape, with none yet shown to cause those traits.

  • Colossal is testing candidates by delivering gene-editing tools into bird embryos via lipid nanoparticles, skipping a full breeding cycle.

  • The endgame: engineer dodo traits into Nicobar pigeons, the dodo’s closest living relative; no hatching date has yet been announced.

Why it matters: GenoMorph could help identify which DNA differences shape an animal’s traits, even with limited data. Colossal says the approach could also support research on endangered birds, but its predicted links between DNA and physical traits still need experimental confirmation.

AMAZON

Image source: Amazon

The Rundown: Amazon’s Bee unveiled its first hardware since the July 2025 acquisition: a $75 wearable and a $100 phone attachment that turn what you say into summaries, to-dos, and, if you opt in, Amazon shopping suggestions.

The details:

  • Frontier is a mic you wear on your wrist or clip on clothes, available now; Eclipse is a credit-card-like mic that attaches magnetically to your phone, coming soon.

  • Summaries and 14 days of memory are free. The $11.99 monthly Pro plan adds suggested tasks, a chat assistant, and Alexa+, Amazon, and app integrations.

  • Amazon says audio is deleted after processing and transcripts are encrypted; both devices have an on/off button and a light indicating when they’re listening.

  • Security firm Trail of Bits’ Sept. audit confirmed the biggest flaws were fixed, but some issues remained unresolved, including deletion of unencrypted summaries.

Why it matters: From Plaud’s AI recorders to Meta’s Muse Charm, tech companies are turning everyday conversations into a market for personal AI. Amazon’s angle connects these conversations to Alexa and, if users opt in, its storefront, in a test of whether a searchable record of your day is worth letting a shopping assistant listen in.

QUICK HITS

Tim Cook reportedly said Apple Intelligence has been approved in China, with a beta due later in Oct, offering live translation and writing tools but not the new Siri AI.

Zuckerberg went on Stripe’s Cheeky Pint podcast to pitch Meta’s AI, but 15M+ viewers on X saw him wince as he took a sip of Guinness, which he later called “just my face.”

Big Pharma is betting billions on protein-degrading drugs that show promise against cancer, though broader safety and effectiveness remain uncertain.

Netflix is replacing content chief Bela Bajaria with former Disney and Fox exec Peter Rice as it faces its largest layoffs in years.

Meta now lets users describe in plain language what they want more or less of in their Feed and Reels through “Your Algorithm,” an AI feature first rolling out on Instagram.

YouTube is reportedly discussing an audiobook service with publishers for a possible 2027 launch, potentially bundled with Premium, though nothing is confirmed.

Xbox unveiled the $50 Nano Controller, a compact, rechargeable gamepad for consoles, PCs, and mobile devices, launching Nov. 4 in the U.S.

Withings now requires new users to pay $100 annually for automatic syncing with Apple Health and other apps, while existing users retain free access.

The leap second’s time is up: from May 20, 2027, timekeepers will stop nudging clocks to match Earth’s spin, sparing computers the potential glitches.

MIT startup LNK Energies wants to convert diesel trucks to run on hydrogen stored in an oil-like liquid, which an onboard reactor releases as needed.

NASA aims for ~70 Moon landings over the next decade to build a lunar base, but success hinges on private companies making costly missions routine and affordable.

A working Apple-1 signed by Steve Wozniak and accompanied by a Steve Jobs letter sold for $1.15M, setting an auction record for a commercially sold Apple-1.

That's it for today's tech rundown!

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team

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