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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

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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FT: Meta considering “tens of billions” in new capital to fund AI

Just days after Google announced a monster $85 billion upsized equity raise, the extremely profitable Meta is seeking to sell “tens of billions of dollars” in stock, according to a new report from the Financial Times.

Meta is planning on spending between $125 billion and $145 billion on AI capital expenditure this year alone.

Shares dropped more than 5% on the news.

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FT: Anthropic staff helping the NSA use Mythos for offensive cyberattacks

Anthropic’s Mythos AI model was deemed too dangerous to release to the public, with the company citing its ability to orchestrate novel cyberattacks.

And that’s just what the National Security Agency is doing, with the help of Anthropic staff embedded at the agency, according to a report from the Financial Times.

Only a small number of companies and US allies have been given access to the advanced model, which means America’s adversaries have not had the chance to shore up their defenses against the AI model’s new offensive capabilities.

The arrangement is especially unusual as the Pentagon has deemed Anthropic’s AI a national security supply chain risk — effectively blacklisting it for defense work — in response to the company’s refusal to allow its technology to be used for any legal application, which could include autonomous killing or mass surveillance. Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the determination.

Only a small number of companies and US allies have been given access to the advanced model, which means America’s adversaries have not had the chance to shore up their defenses against the AI model’s new offensive capabilities.

The arrangement is especially unusual as the Pentagon has deemed Anthropic’s AI a national security supply chain risk — effectively blacklisting it for defense work — in response to the company’s refusal to allow its technology to be used for any legal application, which could include autonomous killing or mass surveillance. Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the determination.

tech

Longtime Tesla bear JPMorgan upgraded Tesla and raised its price target to $475 from $145

For more than a decade, JPMorgan was Wall Streets most stubborn Tesla skeptic, anchored by auto analyst Ryan Brinkman’s strict focus on traditional car fundamentals and near-term delivery numbers.

But JPM recently handed coverage of the stock to a new analyst, Rajat Gupta, who is throwing that playbook out the window. In a note Friday, the firm upgraded Tesla to neutral from underweight and raised its price target 228% to $475 from $145. (The analyst consensus on FactSet is $403.) Instead of focusing on the company’s struggling vehicle business, the new analyst is orienting himself more toward Tesla’s idea of the future, now modeling Tesla’s physical AI and robotaxi fleets all the way out to the year 2040.

Here are the main reasons for the capitulation:

  • Looking past the car lot: Gupta argues that Tesla is at the forefront of physical AI, entering uncharted TAMs” and therefore deserves the benefit of the doubt to be valued on LT earnings potential rather than near-term speed bumps.

  • Unmatched vertical integration: Teslas control over everything from battery cells to custom silicon gives it a massive moat. JPM notes this starting point advantage is unmatched at an industrial level scale” and “still somewhat under-appreciated and misunderstood.

  • The AWS flywheel effect: Deploying Optimus robots inside its own factories should not only lower COGS for the base automotive business, but more importantly, help validate the product at an industrial scale.” Gupta called it “a classic flywheel effect, somewhat analogous to AWS and Kiva at AMZN.

For Tesla bulls who have argued for years that this is an AI company and not a carmaker, JPM’s sudden $3.9 trillion valuation model is the ultimate validation.

skynet terminator

Anthropic ponders self-improving AI

Anthropic says Claude already writes 80% of its code. A new post asks what happens when the models can improve themselves — and whether anyone could stop them.

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