Tesla's new $500M supercomputer

Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.

Tesla is bringing the Dojo supercomputer to its New York factory — hoping to crunch massive amounts of video data to advance the company’s self-driving vision.

But while Musk calls the project a long shot — Tesla continues speeding (and spending) toward an AI-dominated future. Let’s investigate…

In today’s tech rundown:

• Tesla brings Dojo supercomputer to New York

• Camera system captures animal vision perspectives

• 8 new products

• X opens new Trust & Safety office

• Google settles multi-billion patent infringement lawsuit

• Fossil pivots away from smartwatches

Read time: 3 minutes

TODAY’S HEADLINES

TESLA

🗽 Tesla brings Dojo supercomputer to New York

The Rundown: Tesla just announced a $500M plan to construct one of its Dojo supercomputers at its Buffalo, NY Gigafactory, a major new investment at the troubled facility.

The details:

• The Dojo supercomputer will process video data from Tesla vehicles, training AI to power its Full Self-Driving Beta software.

• Musk has called Dojo a ‘long shot bet’ and ‘not a sure thing at all’ but also says its success would result in payoffs at the multi-hundred-billion level.

• Tesla took over operations at the state-subsidized Buffalo plant after acquiring the struggling SolarCity in 2016.

• Musk called the $500M investment small compared to what the company is spending on Nvidia hardware and AI chips.

Why it matters: Tesla is ramping up spending in AI to continue scaling its self-driving car future. And while Musk calls Dojo a long shot — few are better equipped to bring this type of vision to fruition.

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The Rundown: Innovators who built on OpenAI are hungry for alternatives as their LLM-powered apps catch fire with users. Why?

• Inference costs on OpenAI are too high for new apps to become successful businesses.

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CAMERA TECH

📸 Camera system captures animal vision perspectives

The Rundown: Researchers just engineered a new camera setup and processing software that records footage from the visual perspective of a variety of animals based on their unique receptors.

The details:

• Hardware modifications allow the simultaneous recording of visible and non-visible wavelengths to emulate animal vision capabilities.

• Software then processes the multilayered footage to recreate a species' visual experience with up to 99% accuracy.

• The team has made both hardware specs and algorithms open source for nature filmmakers and researchers.

• Example videos showcase insect, avian, and even butterfly visions of the world, highlighting unique views.

Why it matters: This wild camera tech provides an unprecedented look at how other species perceive and interact with their surroundings — shedding light on animal behavior and potentially aiding conservation efforts.

NEW PRODUCTS

🤖 ChatGPT Teams- A personalized super assistant for each team member (link)

🗣️ Letterly- Convert your conversation into polished text with AI (link)

🎥 Kuasar Video AI- Analyzes social media videos using AI (link)

✅ Project Plan Generator- Create a detailed action plan for your project effortlessly (link)

📝 Opendraft- Craft extensive 2,000-word articles using AI (link)

✏️ Yaara- Use AI to write proven, high-converting copy (link)

🎵 Mubert- Soundtrack for your content made by AI (link)

🛠️ 60sec.site- Generates beautiful landing pages for you in under 60 seconds (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

SNIPPETS

X is set to establish a new trust and safety office in Austin with 100 full-time content moderators dedicated to combating child sexual exploitation.

X also confirms blocking searches for Taylor Swift's name to address the spread of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes of the artist.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records detailing Americans' website and app usage from data brokers.

Fossil has decided to stop producing smartwatches, focusing instead on other business areas, but will continue to support current models for now.

Google settled a multi-billion dollar patent infringement lawsuit with Singular Computing regarding AI-related technology used in its Tensor Processing Units.

The FAA is investigating an American Airlines flight that made a hard landing in Maui, resulting in six hospitalizations.

A team led by Faith Hawthorn at the University of Warwick used NASA's TESS data to identify 85 new exoplanets, potentially advancing the search for extraterrestrial life.

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THAT’S A WRAP

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