Damian Pickett · No. 47
Tuesday 20 October 2026
The Celtics’ season opens tonight against the Pistons.
Apple will unveil a second wave of new products on 28 October in an event called ‘Pro and Tell,’ following its 13 October ‘Welcome Home’ announcement. It won’t be a traditional keynote.
Two years before filming began, Jaafar Jackson wrote down a goal to beat ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and cross $1 billion at the box office playing his uncle in ‘Michael.’ He has done both.
Nvidia released new open models aimed at running AI agents in corporate data centres and locally on PCs, as it leans into the shift toward private, on-device AI agents.
Read · Lenny's Newsletter
Don’t kill the golden goose, maintain a sense of urgency to drive compounding growth, copy first, and more of their biggest growth lessons
Today’s Apple launch and the ‘Michael’ box-office win are both stories made bigger by marketing; Duolingo’s growth playbook is the sharpest guide to doing that deliberately.
Listen · Founders
Kelly Johnson’s secretive, fast-moving Skunk Works is the engineering culture Apple’s own product teams are often compared to.
Listen · David Senra
Scott Wu built Cognition’s AI coding agent, the exact shift in programming that Simon Willison’s linked essay mourns today.
Listen · Acquired
A masterclass in building a beloved, story-driven grocery brand without a single advert, pure product marketing territory for Damian.
Simon Willison points to Jeremy Scheff’s essay on how coding agents have taken away the puzzle-solving joy that drew many career programmers to the craft in the first place.
Amazon launched TorchNeuron, a tool meant to help developers run PyTorch, the free toolkit behind most AI apps, on its own chips rather than Nvidia’s, challenging Nvidia’s grip on the ecosystem.
Nvidia challenger Tenstorrent raised $1.5 billion to remain independent after fielding acquisition interest earlier this year, lifting its valuation to $6.2 billion as it scales open-weight AI chips.
Fed up with ads, tracking and sluggish interfaces, some smart TV owners are turning to AI agents to strip out bloatware and take back control of their sets.
Amazon and X-energy have struck another deal to bring nuclear power to the grid, this time funding 12 small reactors expected to generate nearly a gigawatt of electricity.
RJ Scaringe said he expects autonomous driving to let Rivian build vehicles radically different from the outdoorsy SUVs and trucks it currently makes.
University of Michigan spinout Laplace Intelligence uses AI agents and simulation to stress-test robots and self-driving vehicles before they reach the real world, and says it is already profitable.
A message on a mysterious plaque in Super Mario 64 has puzzled the internet for 30 years, and Engadget reports we may finally know what it says.
Apple bought Samplab, an AI audio editing app that converts audio to MIDI with desktop and plugin tools, according to a European Commission notice. The deal closed back in June.
Apple’s HomePod 27.2 update brings Sound Glow to the HomePod and HomePod mini, lighting up the speaker’s touch surface with colours that match the album art of what’s playing.
Apple is capping iPhone Duo purchases at two per customer in the US; attempting to buy more via the website or Apple Store app triggers a limit notice.
Oscar-winning composer Kris Bowers will score Disney’s upcoming animated film ‘Hexed,’ which stars Hailee Steinfeld, Rashida Jones, Jodie Foster and Walton Goggins.
Tom Hiddleston’s new 125-minute biographical film is drawing large audiences on Apple TV, where it has become the streaming service’s biggest hit right now.
A new restoration of Ken Russell’s ‘The Devils’ spotlights production designer Derek Jarman’s distinctive sets, which critics say remain unlike those of any other period film.
Richard Riehle, who played cynical manager Tom Smykowski in ‘Office Space’ and also appeared in ‘Bridesmaids,’ ‘Casino’ and ‘The Fugitive,’ has died at 78.
Boston will be at near-full strength as it opens its season against the Detroit Pistons, with only Devin Carter listed as out.
Morgan Moses has a chance of playing on Thursday night against the Bears, New England’s latest injury update ahead of the trip to Chicago shows.
New England placed wide receiver Romeo Doubs on injured reserve and signed defensive back Elliott Davison to the 53-man roster from the practice squad, among several roster moves.
Mercedes has dominated under F1’s new 2026 regulations, and driver Kimi Antonelli could technically clinch the drivers’ championship as early as this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
Christian Horner said building Red Bull’s in-house power unit from scratch was frightening, after the engine claimed its first race wins this season.
Willson Contreras and Ceddanne Rafaela impressed in 2026, while veterans Trevor Story and Jarren Duran left a lot to be desired, Boston.com’s season report cards found.
A software engineer built a Game Boy emulator that runs smoothly on a tiny e-ink display, impressive given how slowly e-paper screens normally refresh.
