#26 The Weekend Download – Catching Up on What Matters
Essential insights you need to stay ahead
📩 Issue #26 – 16/08/2025
⚡ Quick Hits – What You Need to Know
🧠 Altman backs Neuralink rival
Sam Altman is co-founding Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup aimed at competing with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, with backing expected from OpenAI’s ventures team at an $850 million valuation.
Read More (TechCrunch)
🌎 TIME names ‘Girls of the Year’
Ten young innovators, athletes, and advocates aged 12–17 are spotlighted for reshaping the future.
Read More (TIME)
🤖 China’s ‘Robot Games’ show progress—and pratfalls
Beijing’s inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games put 500+ robots through boxing, football, and sprints
Read More (The Guardian)
🔥 Top Insights
📻 The 100 best podcasts ever
TIME’s definitive list spans news, true crime, and cultural storytelling.
Read More (TIME)
🎓 LinkedIn ranks top colleges for career success
Princeton, Duke, and UPenn lead LinkedIn’s first-ever list based on alumni outcomes, internships, and job placement.
Read More (Town & Country)
🔮 SXSW London 2025 Official Trends Report
The festival’s first report highlights the big shifts, from agentic AI at work to business with conscience.
Read More (SXSW London)
🗣 Gen Alpha slang explained
From “chopped” to “gyatt,” here’s what the youngest generation is saying online.
Read More (NYT)
📊 Numbers to Watch
💪 Wellness boom for men
Pinterest searches for “Pilates for men” are up 400% and “male skincare” 190%, as younger men embrace self-care.
Read More (Pinterest)
💸 GPT-5 pricing may ignite an AI price war
OpenAI’s GPT-5 API comes in at just $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens – substantially cheaper than competitors, potentially sparking aggressive price battles in AI.
Read More (TechCrunch)
💡 Something to Think About
🎥 TikTok turns manual labor into performance art
Livestreamers are monetizing everyday jobs, blurring the line between work and entertainment.
Read More (NYT)
✂️ Meet the “clippers” of social media
Creators are cashing in by cutting and repackaging viral moments from other people’s videos.
Read More (WSJ)
⏳ AI’s perception of time is alien to ours
Machines experience time through computation, creating challenges for human–AI collaboration.
Read More (IEEE Spectrum)
👨👩👦 Why everyone's parenting like it's 1999
Seeking calm amid chaos, millennial parents are ditching screen time for Blockbuster-style movie nights, board games, and the freedom of boredom – blending nostalgia with mindful, connection-first parenting.
Read More (The Guardian)
🧠 CS grads face a tougher job market
With Amazon, Microsoft, and others cutting jobs while embracing AI coding tools, new computer science graduates are finding it harder to break into tech.
Read More (NYT)
🌀 Offbeat & Unexpected
🌍 Life after deportation, one TikTok at a time
Creators are documenting the realities of rebuilding life in a new country after deportation.
Read More (The Cut)
🎨 Doodles hidden on silicon chips
Engineers turn microchips into tiny canvases, hiding intricate art on the hardware we use every day.
Read More (NYT)
🍫 Gene-edited cocoa to secure chocolate supply
Mars teams up with biotech to create disease-resistant cocoa plants amid climate and supply threats.
Read More (CNBC)
🧾 Delete emails, save water?
The UK urges people to clear inboxes to reduce water-hungry data center use during drought.
Read More (404 Media)