Damian Pickett · No. 34
Wednesday 7 October 2026
French lab Mistral released Mistral Large 4, a trillion-parameter model with 49 billion active parameters, aimed at matching the best of OpenAI, Google and Chinese rivals.
Bloomberg reports Apple is working with LG on devices, sensors and cameras for its coming smart home push. It is a report, not yet confirmed by Apple.
Jaguar has unveiled the Type 01, an electric car with thin headlights, a long bonnet and a rear-leaning stance designed to stand apart from homogenous EVs.
Read · Lenny's Newsletter
Ten strategies and 49 examples of successful buzz making
With Mistral and Jaguar both launching big today, this back-catalogue piece on making buzz at launch is squarely in Damian’s lane.
Listen · Founders
Ferrari is all over today’s F1 news, from the Singapore livery to Hamilton’s F40 restoration, so Enzo’s own obsession feels timely.
Listen · David Senra
A founder building a trillion-dollar company from a Y Combinator sketch fits a day full of AI labs racing to launch and scale.
Listen · Acquired
The full Ferrari story rounds out the day’s thread, alongside Founders’ take on Enzo and this morning’s F1 news.
OpenAI published new results on open problems in mathematics from an internal frontier model, sharing Lean proof formalisations and research details on GitHub.
Anthropic says the benefits of AI will reach most people through companies building on top of models, not the models alone, hence the free year and credits for startups.
Google DeepMind released EmbeddingGemma 2, a small multimodal embedding model under the Apache 2.0 licence, a notably permissive choice for this kind of model.
Hark’s new personal assistant is designed to compete with Muse, Dots and Instinct by putting privacy first.
Bluesky is working on letting users claim their own domain as a handle, though the company says the process will still take 18 to 24 months.
A developer ported Doom to the 1982 Vectrex console, rendering the classic shooter as glowing vector line art, with some processing caveats.
The Emmy Awards will shift from broadcast television to Prime Video from 2027, letting non-Amazon-Prime subscribers watch via the platform too.
MapQuest’s mapping service is now available as a beta on Android Auto, giving the once-dominant navigation brand a small comeback.
Counterpoint Research reports Apple overtook Samsung in the second quarter of 2026 to lead smartphone sales through Europe’s carrier channel.
Apple TV’s Formula 1 coverage gains Dolby Atmos sound on supported devices from the US Grand Prix weekend on October 23.
Three years after Apple added an 80 percent charge limit option to extend battery lifespan, MacRumors looks at how well it has actually worked.
MacRumors says clues in the macOS 27.2 beta point again to a touchscreen MacBook, expected to be unveiled next month. This is a hint from software code, not a confirmed product.
The team behind Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 fantasy film has restored it for a new theatrical run in 3D and Dolby Atmos, looking and sounding better than ever.
For her first role since winning Best Actress for ‘Anora’, Madison told IndieWire she was drawn to the restraint of Aaron Sorkin’s take on a real person, unlike her past volatile roles.
Garfield’s turn in Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial’ is building an awards narrative: from corporate martyr in ‘The Social Network’ to corporate menace here.
Director Zhang Yimou gave a glimpse of his Chinese film adaptation of ‘The Three-Body Problem’ at Busan’s star-packed festival opening.
Tatum says he has a different kind of joy heading into his tenth season than he did in his first nine.
Conley discusses joining the Celtics, his bond with Payton Pritchard, and what he has learned about being a good teammate since childhood.
New England will celebrate Adam Vinatieri’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction at halftime against the Raiders on October 11.
Edelman praised rookie Efton Chism’s breakout catch against the Bills, saying it is the kind of play that can launch a career.
The seven-time champion has released the full video of his Ferrari F40 restoration, first revealed ahead of this year’s Italian Grand Prix.
Ferrari has dropped its usual red livery for a special-edition look on Leclerc’s car, designed exclusively for the Singapore Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen has been in immense form all year, and his Sepang win showed Red Bull now has the car to match, says former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer.
Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery and Chase Meidroth, all acquired by Chicago in the Garrett Crochet trade, are now making a major playoff impact for the White Sox.
A Red Sox rookie has been named to MLB Pipeline’s All-Rookie Team.
Lim’s sculptural snuff bottles draw on an ancient Chinese text and her British-Singaporean heritage, a quiet piece of craft worth a look.
