The Future This Week — Week 43 of 2024
Curing blindness, US chip manufacturing, AI releases, and Northwood Space on S3
Welcome to the first The Future This Week — a weekly curation of the most important breakthroughs in tech and science. Here’s a letter from Jason Carman on the “why” behind TFTW.
The Future This Week, this week, is sponsored by SBS Comms, a PR firm focused specifically on technology companies — from startups to industry giants, they speak the language, know the landscape, and deliver results that matter.
Alright, let’s get into it. Bear with us this week as we hone in our sources and style, this first issue will be a little light!
Space
Finally, we get to see what Bridgit Mendler and her team are up to at Northwood Space: aiming to revolutionize ground-based network needs for space connectivity, in Episode 61 of S3.
From Ashlee Vance, SpaceX hits peak operational efficiency this week, catching Falcon 9's booster with robot chopsticks, launching NASA's Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter's icy moon, and deploying Starlink + competitor satellites — all within 6 days.
Blue Origin completed their NS-27 mission, relanded Booster 5, and debuted their second human-rated vehicle delivering 12 research payloads to space.
AI & Chips
From Steve Jurvetson, TSMC's new Arizona fab is outperforming its Taiwan megafab by 4% at 4nm — a crucial win for US semiconductor independence considering Taiwan currently produces 37% of global logic chips.
From Anthropic, Claude can now interact with the internet, perceive screens, and control cursors and type.
From Runway, "Act-One" enables facial expression animation using generative AI.
Robotics
From Clone Robotics, a new upper body demo from their bio-inspired robot.
This section is a bit light this week… we’re looking into the best sources to pull from for this section. Let us know if you have any ideas or would to contribute by DMing S3Clips on X.
Research & science
From former Cofounder of Neuralink, Max Hodak, his company Science Corporation, had a major breakthrough: their PRIMA retinal implant restored vision in near fully blind patients, a historical breakthrough for BCIs and neural interfaces.
This section is a bit light this week… we’re looking into the best sources to pull from for this section. Let us know if you have any ideas or would to contribute by DMing S3Clips on X.
Startups & venture
From Y Combinator, they’re looking for more manufacturing in their next batch.
From Pirate Wires, Stripe acquires bridge, a big moment for decentralized payments.
Our favorite creators
From Packy McCormick at Not Boring, “Evaluation of the lithium resource in the Smackover Formation brines of southern Arkansas using machine learning,” among other news in Weekly Dose of Optimism
From Christian Keil at 1st Principles, a new interview with a YC backed company making a big impact in the Colombia telecom space.
From Arjun Kehmani, Episode 1 of a new documentary series featuring Naval Ravikant and David Deutsch.
From Casey Handmer, a new blog poster about desalination.
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