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OUT OF THE BLUE

Jack Dorsey has made a Bluetooth-based messaging app that doesn’t require internet

At the weekend, the Twitter cofounder unveiled the beta version of “Bitchat” — an encrypted, decentralized messaging service built on... Bluetooth.

Millie Giles

7/9/25 7:03AM

However you spent your Fourth of July weekend, it probably wasn’t as productive as Jack Dorsey’s (or, for that matter, Joey Chestnut’s).

On Sunday, the Twitter cofounder and ex-CEO announced that he’d successfully completed his “weekend project” of learning about Bluetooth mesh networks — and created a beta version of “Bitchat,” a new encrypted messaging app able to function entirely via Bluetooth, without the need for internet connection, cell service, phone numbers, or emails.

Dorsey’s “personal experiment” works by connecting users’ phones via local Bluetooth clusters, allowing messages to be sent between devices. Then, “bridge” devices that connect overlapping clusters are used to stretch the mesh network over a greater distance.

Privacy, please

Dorsey has long been a fan of decentralized communications, playing a major role in the development of social networking apps Damus and Bluesky, and his new app’s peer-to-peer encrypted messaging will also rival Meta-owned WhatsApp — without the requirements of identifiable accounts or data collection.

What really separates Bitchat, though, is its use of Bluetooth to keep it functioning offline, similar to mesh messaging apps used during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, per CNBC. While Bluetooth technology isn’t anything new, it’s still impressively prescient in the modern tech world.

Bluetooth Device Shipments — Sherwood News

Long in the tooth

Based on developments made at Nokia-owned Ericsson in 1994, the first Bluetooth device hit the market in 1999 — the same year that the first camera phone was released.

With a name that started as a reference to King Harald, who united Denmark and Norway, and a logo resembling Nordic runes for his initials, Bluetooth connected computers, phones, and gadgets with wireless transfer capabilities at breakneck speed in the decades to come. In 2000, an estimated 800,000 Bluetooth-enabled devices were shipped; by 2020, this number had multiplied 5,125x over to 4.1 billion, per company reports.

There are very few technologies that are still growing after 30-plus years... but, despite contracting slightly in 2024, Bluetooth looks to have managed it, with the company projecting that shipments will near 8 billion by 2029.

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Rani Molla2/27/26

Meta reportedly strikes multibillion-dollar AI chip deal with Google as it struggles to design its own

Meta has signed a deal with Google to rent tensor processing units to develop new AI models and is in talks to buy the chips for its data centers, The Information reports.

The agreement comes on top of a recently announced “multi-generational” partnership with Nvidia and a chip supply deal with Advanced Micro Devices that could be worth more than $100 billion, as Meta scrapped its most advanced in-house AI training chip amid design challenges.

A Meta deal with Google, which has been rumored since November, would position the search giant more directly as a competitor to Nvidia in its core business of AI processors. Some analysts have said selling its custom chips to outside customers could become a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars for Google.

Google Strikes Multibillion-Dollar AI Chip Deal With Meta, Sharpening Nvidia Rivalry

Jon Keegan2/26/26

Delays in permitting, power, and zoning cause first drop in data center construction since 2020

Despite incredible demand, the number of data centers under construction in North America fell for the first time since 2020, according to new research from CBRE.

Total data center capacity under construction dropped about 5.6% year on year from 6.35 megawatts in 2024 to 5.99 megawatts by the end of 2025.

What’s causing the delay? Slow permitting, constrained supply chains, and growing public engagement with how deals are approved at the local level. Labor constraints also were cited in the report; a tight supply of skilled workers will increase costs.

US Data Center Construction Fell Amid Permit and Power Delays

-13%📱

Rani Molla2/26/26

Smartphone shipments are expected to decline 13% — the biggest drop ever — to 1.12 billion in 2026, according to new data from IDC, as the memory shortage drives up costs and prices for phones. The firm expects the average smartphone selling price to jump 14% to a record $523 this year.

The shortfall will mostly affect makers of lower-end smartphones, whose customers are more cost-conscious, while higher-end manufacturers like Samsung and Apple are likely to be more insulated from the pressure.

“The memory crisis will cause more than a temporary decline; it marks a structural reset of the entire market, fundamentally reshaping long‑term TAM (Total Addressable Market), the vendor landscape, and the product mix,” said Nabila Popal, senior research director with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. “We expect consolidation as smaller players exit, and low-end vendors to face sharp shipment declines amid supply constraints and lower demand at higher price points.”

Jon Keegan2/26/26

Google drops new Nano Banana

Google is hoping to recapture the viral boost it received when it released its Nano Banana image generation model. Nano Banana 2 arrives today, which Google has rolled into its Gemini app.

The new model promises more accurate text rendering and translation and “advanced world knowledge,” which “pulls from Gemini’s real-world knowledge base, and is powered by real-time information and images from web search to more accurately render specific subjects,” according to the company’s press release.

New creative controls let users keep groups of characters consistent across scenes, render images with higher resolution, and parse complex prompts.

The first version of Nano Banana became popular for making action figures out of users, and helped catapult the Gemini AI app to the top of the charts, bumping ChatGPT from its perch.

Nano Banana 2: Combining Pro capabilities with lightning-fast speed

New creative controls let users keep groups of characters consistent across scenes, render images with higher resolution, and parse complex prompts.

The first version of Nano Banana became popular for making action figures out of users, and helped catapult the Gemini AI app to the top of the charts, bumping ChatGPT from its perch.

Rani Molla2/26/26

Tesla’s ride-hailing service is looking a lot more like Uber’s than Waymo’s

Despite numerous promises about amassing a giant network of driverless cars, so far it seems like Tesla’s Robotaxis are a lot more similar to Uber’s plain old ride-hailing service than Waymo’s expanding autonomous fleet.

In California, where Tesla has its largest ride-hailing service, the company has taken no formal steps to gain approval for a truly driverless car service, according to Reuters. Throughout 2025, Tesla failed to log a single mile of autonomous test driving on state roads, and has not applied for the necessary permits to test or deploy vehicles without a human present. Currently, Tesla holds only a basic permit that requires a human safety monitor to remain in the driver’s seat at all times.

Currently, Tesla’s California Robotaxi service consists of roughly 300 Teslas operated by human drivers using the company’s supervised Full Self-Driving tech. In Austin, where the company has about 45 vehicles, Tesla made a big show earlier this year of announcing it was removing the safety monitors sitting in the front seats during rides. However, to date, only a handful of those vehicles have been reported to be actually operating without a safety monitor onboard.

In other words, it’s performing a service more akin to a tech-heavy Uber ride than the one operated by Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, which earlier this week announced it now has driverless rides available to the public in 10 markets. Even Uber is trying to put space between itself and the old driver-having Ubers of yore: this week its autonomous software partner said the company plans to launch a driverless service in London this year, with plans for 10 markets.

During its earnings report last month, Tesla said it planned to offer Robotaxi service in a half dozen new cities in the first half of this year, including Phoenix, Miami, and Las Vegas. Judging by Tesla’s progress so far, it’s likely those services will also feature a human in the front seat.

Tesla touts California robotaxis but does nothing to get permits

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