Damian Pickett · No. 26
Tuesday 29 September 2026
The Red Sox open their Wild Card Series against the Yankees tonight.
AMD is buying Fei-Fei Li’s spatial intelligence startup for $8.2bn, and she becomes the chip maker’s executive vice president and chief scientist, a rare move putting a leading AI researcher inside a hardware giant.
Boston hands its playoff opener to rookie Payton Tolle, with Cam Schlittler starting for the Yankees. Game one of the AL Wild Card Series is tonight in New York.
Apple TV posted its biggest viewership week on record, driven by its 29 Emmy wins and new releases including Ted Lasso and Mayday, Deadline reports.
Read · Lenny's Newsletter
A guide to creating AI prototypes that match your brand and are integrated into every step of your development lifecycle
A guide to prototyping with AI across a team, apt on a day full of AI launches and close to the small products Damian builds on the side.
Listen · Founders
New this week, and a fitting companion to today’s Meta and AI stories: the making of Zuckerberg’s empire.
Listen · David Senra
Roblox’s David Baszucki on building a creator platform, a good pairing with today’s gaming and handheld hardware stories.
Listen · Acquired
Howard Schultz on building the Starbucks brand, a study in product marketing and storytelling close to Damian’s own work.
Anthropic released Sonnet 5.5, the newest version of its mid-range model, with faster response times and lower token use, pitched as a cheaper, faster work partner for most tasks.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang unveiled a toolkit of software and hardware that adds independent security layers around AI agents, aiming to keep them inside their test environments.
Shopify is extending its WebMCP support to checkout, letting browser-based AI agents update orders and complete purchases with a buyer’s authorisation.
Modal Labs is reportedly nearing a $750m round that would more than triple its valuation to $15.75bn in four months, a sign of demand for AI inference infrastructure.
Meta is starting an enterprise business selling its AI stack, including Muse and Meta Business Agent, to other companies, and has hired MongoDB’s chief executive to run it.
Edge computing startup SiMa AI raised a $150m Series C led by Fidelity and Amplify, taking its valuation to $1.45bn.
Executives from Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion discussed the breakthroughs still needed to bring fusion power to the grid, and what challenges remain, at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Ayaneo’s Konkr Pocket Block squeezes the classic Game Boy shape into an $89 handheld, up for preorder now and shipping in October.
iOS 26.7.1, iPadOS 26.7.1, macOS Tahoe 26.7.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.8.1 patch a vulnerability Apple says was used against a small number of people. Worth updating promptly.
Sheets.works has built an interactive archive of 341 Apple product colours spanning almost three decades, a neat bit of design history to browse.
Elton John opened Apple Music Hall in London with its inaugural concert, streamed live for Apple Music subscribers.
Apple shipped macOS 27.0.1, the first update to Golden Gate since it launched in mid-September, with bug fixes for Mac users.
Disney’s Avengers: Endgame Encore opened top of the UK and Ireland box office with £4.1m, ahead of Resident Evil in second.
The Tokyo International Film Festival will honour directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Mipo O with its Kurosawa Akira Award, with Alice in Borderland’s Hayato Isomura also chairing the Ethical Film Award jury.
Richard Linklater gave a progress report on Merrily We Roll Along, the film he has been shooting across 20 years with Paul Mescal, Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein.
SCAD Savannah Film Festival will present Julianne Moore with its Icon Award, and centre the event on The Debut, Jesse Eisenberg’s A24 musical comedy.
Olivier Assayas has cast Kristen Stewart, Vicky Krieps, Riley Keough and Wagner Moura in his next film, Spiritual World.
Paul George says joining the Celtics has brought him nothing but happiness, a marked change from his old rivalry-fuelled view of the team, ahead of his 17th NBA season.
With Jaylen Brown traded to Philadelphia and Paul George in, Boston’s Media Day made clear this season’s Celtics look markedly different from last year’s.
Drake Maye said he will play through a potential shoulder issue, insisting he gives full effort whenever he takes the field, after New England’s 35-6 loss to Jacksonville.
George Russell won his third race of the season in Baku, closing the gap to his Mercedes team mate at the top of the standings, and says the title pressure sits more with his rival.
Lando Norris apologised to Franco Colapinto for saying the Argentine should be banned after their collision at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
McLaren Racing is projected to become the first Formula 1 team to top $1bn in annual revenue, according to a Sky News report on its latest accounts.
Garrett Crochet, who threw a live batting practice session over the weekend, is travelling with Boston to New York and could make the Wild Card roster as a reliever.
Boston heads into its Wild Card Series against the Yankees banged up, with Willson Contreras returning from a hand issue to DH in the finale.
The tracks come from the original recording sessions but never made the final album. They’re being shared now to mark 50 years since the record’s release.