<h2>Must know</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Google’s new Android policy is a big deal for developers</strong>: Google is making developer verification mandatory for all Android APKs installed outside the Play Store, starting in 2026-2027. This means if you distribute apps via alternative stores or sideload, you’ll need to submit personal ID to Google. While Google claims it’s for security—citing non-Play Store APKs are 50x more likely to contain malware—critics argue it undermines Android’s open ecosystem and could block independent apps, including those that offer ad blocking. Developers are already protesting, and an open-source library, FreeDroidWarn, has been released to warn users about potential compatibility breaks.</li>
<li><strong>AI agents are getting memory and business integrations</strong>: GibsonAI released Memori, an open-source memory engine for LLMs and AI agents, offering both short-term and long-term memory capabilities with broad database compatibility. This means your autonomous agents can finally remember what they’re doing. Meanwhile, Mistral AI launched a beta of ‘Memories’ for its Le Chat chatbot, allowing it to recall user conversations and preferences for personalization, boasting 86% accuracy. Both developments aim to make AI agents more practical for business applications by integrating with platforms like GitHub and Salesforce, but privacy concerns around sensitive data storage are already being flagged by The Register.</li>
<li><strong>NVIDIA’s revenue is booming, but from whom?</strong>: NVIDIA’s Q2 FY2026 report shows two unnamed customers accounted for 39% of its $46.7 billion revenue, with six customers making up 85% of the total. Industry analysts speculate these are major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, but NVIDIA isn’t saying. This revenue concentration highlights NVIDIA’s deep reliance on a few big players in the data center market, which now makes up 88% of their business. Goldman Sachs predicts a 50% increase in global data center capacity by 2027, driven by AI, but also warns of a potential ‘bubble’ if AI adoption doesn’t meet expectations.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Good to know</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Vite is crushing Webpack, Fresh 2.0 jumps on board</strong>: Vite has officially surpassed Webpack in weekly downloads, becoming the go-to JavaScript build tool due to its speed and simpler config, and Fresh 2.0 (Deno’s web framework) is now integrating Vite for faster boot times and HMR.</li>
<li><strong>PostgreSQL still outperforming MongoDB in benchmarks</strong>: New benchmarks show PostgreSQL consistently outperforms MongoDB in most read/write operations, even in JSON handling, with a 2-94x speed advantage in some read queries, despite MongoDB’s marketing claims about flexibility.</li>
<li><strong>Supply chain attack hits Cloudflare, Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks</strong>: A supply chain attack exploiting Salesloft Drift’s integration with Salesforce compromised Cloudflare, Zscaler, and Palo Alto Networks, leading to the theft of customer support and sales data, highlighting critical risks in SaaS integrations.</li>
<li><strong>GIMP gets major updates and AI integration</strong>: GIMP 3.1.4 introduces Link Layers (like Photoshop’s Smart Objects) and Vector Layers, while a new Dream Prompter plugin integrates Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash for native AI image generation, boosting GIMP’s capabilities.</li>
<li><strong>NVIDIA and AMD release new Linux drivers</strong>: NVIDIA’s 580.82.07 Linux driver fixes Vulkan issues on Wayland and adds ‘smooth motion’ for RTX 40 cards, while AMD updates its ‘sbtsi_temp’ driver for Linux 6.18 to accurately report CPU temps in freezing conditions.</li>
<li><strong>UX research is still king, AI is just a tool</strong>: A product team wasted four months building a feature without UX research, resulting in less than 3% adoption, proving that while AI tools can assist in UI/UX design, human-led research and empathy remain critical for product success.</li>
<li><strong>Python documentary and community updates</strong>: A new documentary chronicles Python’s journey from its 1990s origins to its current dominance in AI and data science, while PyCoder’s Weekly highlights new security tools, docstring best practices, and upcoming Python 3.14 features.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Bullshit police</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>AI in criminal justice: transparency optional?</strong>: The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is out here saying AI can improve justice systems, but then immediately warns about ‘black box’ AI and the need for transparency and accountability. So, we’re supposed to trust AI with people’s lives, but also acknowledge it’s a magic box that nobody understands? Sounds like a great plan for due process, or lack thereof.</li>
<li><strong>ICE reactivates spyware contract: because privacy is for suckers</strong>: ICE just reactivated a $2 million contract with Paragon for their Graphite spyware, which can bypass encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal. This was paused under Biden, but Trump’s administration brought it back. The Guardian and TechCrunch are pointing out the obvious privacy and civil liberty risks. Because nothing says ‘land of the free’ like government agencies using tools that can turn your phone into a listening device.</li>
<li><strong>AI-generated code: the fast track to technical debt</strong>: AI-powered ‘vibe coding’ lets anyone generate code fast, but apparently, the last 20%—debugging, error handling, and scalability—is where the magic dies. Experts are saying it leads to inconsistent architectures and a huge gap between generated code and production-ready systems. So, you can whip up a prototype in minutes, then spend weeks trying to make it actually work. Progress!</li>
</ul>
