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China’s first reusable rocket reached orbit, looked heroic for 11 minutes, then exploded on landing—an aggressively on-brand metaphor for tech optimism—while Meta simultaneously recruits Apple’s UI king Alan Dye and cuts metaverse spending by up to 30%, which is basically hiring a celebrity chef as you remove half the kitchen appliances; meanwhile engineers now spend a third of their time “pair-programming” with AI (read: negotiating with an overconfident autocomplete) and AWS is handing out Kiro like Halloween candy.
Video pick: Why US Planes STILL Use 80s Tech
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Six bullets of updates
🚀 China’s first reusable rocket reached orbit but exploded during its landing attempt after a successful 11-minute flight.
🎨 Longtime Apple UI chief Alan Dye heads to Meta after a decade shaping the look and feel of iOS.
🕶️ Meta to cut its metaverse budget by up to 30% as interest in social VR platforms stalls .
🤖 A new study finds engineers now spend one-third of their coding time collaborating with AI—reshaping developer workflows.
🚀 Nexus keeps its new $700M fund balanced with India bets, not just AI, as it manages $3.2B across all funds.
🤖 Databricks and Perplexity co-founder Andy Konwinski looks to tackle trillion-dollar AI challenges with cutting-edge tech.
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AWS is handing out Kiro like Halloween candy
Photo by Taylor Foss on Unsplash
Amazon is offering VC-backed startups (pre-seed to Series B) a free year of Kiro Pro+ for up to 100 seats, announced at AWS re:Invent, with some country exclusions (including France, Germany, Italy, and much of South America) and a Dec 31 application deadline. It’s a straightforward “remove the price to get adoption” move in a crowded AI-coding market.
If Kiro genuinely plugs into real spec-to-production workflows and fits neatly into AWS pipelines, teams may stick around after the free year; if it doesn’t, they’ll drop it fast. Founders save on tooling now but could face lock-in or migration costs later, rivals risk losing seats to “free,” and AWS gets valuable usage data (and potentially more infra spend) either way.
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Why US Planes STILL Use 80s Tech
America moves nearly a billion airline passengers every year, yet the entire system still runs on Cold War–era technology. From floppy disks to ground radars that have been out for months, the FAA’s outdated infrastructure is a hidden risk inside a $12 trillion travel economy. Every delay, outage, and near-miss traces back to systems that should have been retired decades ago. In this video, we break down why the U.S. hasn’t modernized its air traffic control, the politics and budget traps that keep it stuck, and how Europe is already testing AI-assisted virtual towers.
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The AI Race Just Went Nuclear — Own the Rails.
Meta, Google, and Microsoft just reported record profits — and record AI infrastructure spending:
Meta boosted its AI budget to as much as $72 billion this year.
Google raised its estimate to $93 billion for 2025.
Microsoft is following suit, investing heavily in AI data centers and decision layers.
While Wall Street reacts, the message is clear: AI infrastructure is the next trillion-dollar frontier.
RAD Intel already builds that infrastructure — the AI decision layer powering marketing performance for Fortune 1000 brands. Backed by Adobe, Fidelity Ventures, and insiders from Google, Meta, and Amazon, the company has raised $50M+, grown valuation 4,900%, and doubled sales contracts in 2025 with seven-figure contracts secured.
This is a paid advertisement for RAD Intel made pursuant to Regulation A+ offering and involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. The valuation is set by the Company and there is currently no public market for the Company's Common Stock. Nasdaq ticker “RADI” has been reserved by RAD Intel and any potential listing is subject to future regulatory approval and market conditions. Investor references reflect factual individual or institutional participation and do not imply endorsement or sponsorship by the referenced companies. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.radintel.ai.
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🤝 An AI startup turned empathy and radical transparency into a trust moat that made its product stand out.
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WhatsApp to AI Startups: “it’s not you, it’s our API”
Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash
Brussels has kicked off an EU antitrust probe into Meta after WhatsApp changed its Business API rules in a way that could lock out third-party AI chatbots—basically putting a velvet rope up and keeping Meta AI as the VIP. The policy reportedly started blocking new AI providers from mid-October 2025 and is set to cut off existing ones starting January 15, 2026, which matters because WhatsApp is a huge distribution channel for anyone building WA-native assistants.
Now regulators will dig into whether this is “protecting the system from strain” or plain old gatekeeping, and if they think Meta abused a dominant position, the EU can push interim measures and fine up to 10% of global revenue—so for startups, it’s a loud reminder to treat messaging platforms like shifting sand and keep backup channels ready.