Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.

In today's Techpresso:

🚀 NASA might drop SpaceX from upcoming Moon landing mission

🤖 Amazon plans to replace 600,000 workers with robots

🎬 OpenAI cracks down on deepfakes after backlash in Hollywood

💻 Anthropic brings Claude Code to the web

👁️ AI eye implant helps blind people read again

✅ Amazon identifies the issue that broke much of the internet, says AWS is back to normal

🎁 + 16 other news you might like

🔮 + 4 handpicked research papers and tools

FROM OUR PARTNER

• NASA may open its Human Landing System contract to competition due to concerns that SpaceX's Starship vehicle is behind schedule, creating a new race to return Americans to the moon.
• The agency's acting administrator cited a "space race against China" as the motivation, saying that SpaceX's pushed timelines are a problem for getting to the lunar surface before other nations.
• Major technical hurdles for Starship include the need for in-orbit refueling and increasing its current lift performance from a lackluster 35 tons to the expected 100 to 150 tons.

• Amazon plans to significantly scale up its robotics to meet future demand, a move that could prevent the company from needing an estimated 600,000 new hires by the year 2033.
• Internal documents reportedly reveal a long-term goal to automate 75 percent of all company operations, which would save Amazon 30 cents for each item it packs and delivers.
• The report claims executives are being advised to avoid using terms like "automation" or "AI," suggesting they instead use phrases such as "advanced technology" or even the word "cobot."

• OpenAI has released new policies for its Sora generative video model after actors and unions protested that the tool was creating their likenesses in videos without consent, credit, or compensation.
• Actor Bryan Cranston prompted action from the SAG-AFTRA union after his AI-generated image appeared online, with the group calling the incident a "massive misappropriation" of a performer's identity.
• In response, the company promised to strengthen its guardrails around such abuse, stating that all artists now have the right to determine how and whether they can be simulated.

• Anthropic's Claude Code assistant is now available through a web app for Pro and Max subscribers, who can create and manage several AI coding agents directly inside their browser.
• The launch moves the product beyond its command-line interface (CLI) origins, representing Anthropic's effort to encourage developers to create autonomous coding assistants in a wider variety of places.
• Pro and Max plan users can now access the AI assistant by navigating to the main claude.ai website and clicking on a dedicated new "Code" tab to start their work.

• Patients with age-related macular degeneration received a tiny photovoltaic retinal implant that gets zoomed-in images from smart glasses using near infrared light to send electrical signals to the optic nerve.
• A clinical trial found 26 of 32 participants could read books and complete crossword puzzles after a year, although the restored vision is blurry and only appears in black and white.
• Science Corporation, a company from Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak, acquired the retinal implant technology from its developer Pixium Vision after the French medical device firm ran out of money.

• Amazon's widespread outage was caused by a problem with DNS resolution for its DynamoDB API endpoints, which specifically affected the data centers in the N. Virginia (us-east-1) Region.
• The disruption took down major apps like Coinbase, Fortnite, and Zoom, and even knocked out Amazon's own Ring surveillance products along with third-party cooling pods made by Eight Sleep.
• After several hours of downtime across the internet, the company confirmed that the underlying DNS issue was fully mitigated and that all AWS services had returned to normal operations.

Other news & articles you might like

• Apple iPad Pro (2025) review: fast, faster, fastest LINK

• One of Google's New York offices needs literal debugging LINK

• Apple vs EU war of words continues - 'intrusive burdens' v 'locked-in users' LINK

• Anthropic launches Claude for Life Sciences to speed up drug discovery LINK

• New Deepseek model drastically reduces resource usage by converting text and documents into images LINK

• Apple adds a new toggle to make Liquid Glass less glassy LINK

• WhatsApp bans AI chatbots from using its business API LINK

• Regulators probe Waymo after its robotaxi drove around a stopped school bus LINK

• Meta AI's app downloads and daily users spiked after launch of 'Vibes' AI video feed LINK

• China claims NSA hacked its national timing systems using 42 "special cyber weapons" LINK

• Automattic CEO calls Tumblr his 'biggest failure' so far LINK

• Intel has secured Microsoft as a major foundry client for its 18A process, sources say LINK

• A Record Share Of Startup Funding Is Going To $100M+ Rounds LINK

• AI catches irreversible 'brain rot' from social media LINK

• Junior bankers might soon lose their jobs thanks to OpenAI LINK

• It's Official: Xbox Has a Full-Blown Identity Crisis LINK

Trending research and tools

Want to get the latest news differently?