WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Markets, Trump v Fed, State Dept, Modi/Musk talks

• Companies to watch: Rebellions, Huawei, Slate Aut, Mechanize

• Feature: o3 Breaks the Internet + Grok 3 Updates

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Market Jitters — US stocks plunged & USD hit a 3-year low after Trump criticized Fed Chair Powell. Bond Markets saw a fifth straight week of outflows, losing $10.07B while $10.62B left equities and $131B+ fled money markets.

State Department Overhaul? — Trump proposed a draft for streamlining the State Department’s operations targeting a radical restructuring of its structure & functions.

Deportation Drama — Trump faces criticism for ignoring supreme court orders on deportations, and an AI doctoral student in California had his student visa revoked over pro-Palestinian views despite having no criminal record. Free speech?

Generational Shift in Politics — Calls for a generational change in the Democratic Party are intensifying as frustration with the establishment grows.

Antitrust Crackdown — Google has now lost two monopolistic practices trials which may lead to breakup, influence Meta, Apple, and Amazon cases.

Modi & Musk's Tech Talks — Prime Minister Modi and Elon Musk explored tech collaborations including Tesla, Starlink and strengthening U.S.-India tech ties.

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COMPANIES TO WATCH

Uber Sued — The FTC has sued Uber for allegedly charging users for subscriptions without consent and complicating cancellations.

Netflix — The streaming giant reported nearly $3B in profit with a strong operating margin. Analysts rate it "outperform" due to stable retention and economic resilience. Projected Q2 revenue exceeds $11B, with plans to explore new formats like podcasts.

Tesla — TSLA shares drop nearly 6% amid brand concerns over Musk's political activities and revenue decline from tariffs, Chinese competition and another delay to its low-cost EV model launch.

Rebellions — South Korea's first AI chip unicorn has merged with SK Telecom's Sapeon to enhance its global competitiveness, plans to launch a Nvidia-rival chip.

Huawei — Set to begin mass shipments of its 910C AI chip in May to Chinese customers. The chip, combining two 910B processors, aims to rival Nvidia amid US export restrictions, offering enhanced performance for AI applications.

Slate Auto — Bezos backed EV startup aims to revolutionize vehicle design with customizable features akin to a "Transformer" with over $100M in funding, may beat Tesla to a $25,000 base model.

Mechanize — Founded by renowned AI researcher Tamay Besiroglu, this startup aims to fully automate all work, aiming to foster economic growth and enhance human roles.

See more on SignalFires — Companies + Signals to Watch last week 

THE HOTTEST THING IN TECH

o3 Breaks the Internet + Grok 3 Updates

OpenAI’s latest reasoning model, o3, broke the internet this week, when it went public with users reporting both amazing performance as well as some pretty erratic, hallucinatory, and even spooky behavior. Prediction: Things are going to get a lot weirder as these models continue to develop in speed and capacity. 

Also this week, we got a new xAI reasoning model, Grok 3 Mini and updates to the primary Grok 3 model this week, making it an even more attractive option than before, competing with o3. We’ll break down where these updates sit in the wider context of the rapid pace of releases in the AI sector.

A “Deep Research-Lite” Generalist Model

O3 is a reasoning model designed to tackle complex problems with step-by-step logic, excelling in STEM fields like coding and math. It also boasts multimodal features—think image processing and web browsing—alongside a new “Flex processing” API for cost-efficient, asynchronous tasks. But there’s a catch: O3 struggles with a high hallucination rate, fabricating answers in 33% of queries on OpenAI’s PersonQA benchmark, according to TechCrunch. Pricing is steep too, at $10 per million input tokens and $40 per million output tokens, though Flex processing cuts costs by half.

Why o3 Matters

It’s agentic. It's basically like a deep research-lite mode. Set it to do a task, come back in 30 seconds or three minutes, and get a thorough answer. It can use tools like web search, code interpreter, reminders, and memory in a loop, answer complex research queries over long documents, and remind you of things daily like a PA. This also means some of the old GTP limitations don’t apply anymore. It performs far better on web search and you can even provide many files, or even books, and get coherent, complete answers.

It’s fast. o3 seems to be consistently faster than Anthropic’s and Google’s frontline reasoning models (3.7 Sonnet and Gemini 2.5 Pro, respectively).

It’s really smart. Early users report it solved expert-level Sudoku problems, which Gemini 2.5 Pro and 3.7 Sonnet both failed. Reports suggest it is also far more contextually, socially, and emotionally aware than o1.

It’s versatile. Unlike Deep Research or o1, o3’s strong ability as an agentic and multimodal model to handle images, browse the web, and integrate with tools makes it ideal for applications like automated customer support or data visualization. AI influencer Min Choi has highlighted its real-time visual assistant capabilities, which could streamline workflows in industries like e-commerce.

Grok 3 Mini

Grok 3 Mini is a lightweight version of the Grok 3 model, designed for speed and affordability while retaining strong reasoning capabilities. Built on the Colossus supercluster with 10x the compute of prior models, Grok 3 Mini excels in math, coding, and instruction-following. It’s integrated into the X platform and boasts features like “Think” mode for first-principles reasoning, a memory function for personalized responses, and Grok Studio—a tool for rapid prototyping of browser games and animations.

X user Min Choi showcased Grok 3 Mini’s versatility, pointing to examples like a Pac-Man game built in minutes, a Starship Mars landing simulation, and a solar system animation. Developers on X are praising Grok Studio’s ability to “vibe code” games directly in the platform, eliminating copy-paste workflows. Grok 3 Mini also powers real-time applications, with another user demonstrating an iPhone Shortcut that uses its API for on-the-fly visual assistance.

Why Grok 3 Mini Matters

Grok 3 Mini prioritizes raw reasoning and speed with efficiency. It is priced lower than Grok 3 and o3, but above Google’s Gemini 1.5 Flash. This makes it a solid cost-effective option for startups and SaaS companies unwilling to fork out for those more powerful models.

Grok 3 Frontline Model Updates

Additionally, the Grok 3 Frontline model has just received an update this week, enhancing its features with Memory, Studio, and API enhancements that significantly boost its utility. The Memory feature enables personalized, context-aware responses, ideal for productivity tools like real-time visual assistance on iPhones, while Grok Studio empowers rapid prototyping of games and animations, as seen with users creating Pac-Man or solar system models in minutes.

Enhanced API access importantly unlocks enterprise integration for applications like market analysis or fraud detection, positioning Grok 3 as a strong competitor to the new o3 offerings. It still beats everyone in transparency and benchmarks like CaseLaw, making it great for legal use cases. These updates all make Grok 3 a more versatile, imminently scalable solution, but it’s yet unclear to us where these updates place it in comparison with o3 overall.

Looking Ahead 

As the competition between Grok and ChatGTP rages on, we may see a sharper division in user preference based on cost sensitivity, speed requirements, and specific enterprise use cases. Grok’s deep integration with X suggests it will continue to dominate rapid prototyping and real-time applications. And OpenAI's strategy appears focused on pushing the boundaries of multimodal and agentic capabilities. The next frontier in the battle may revolve around how effectively each company can leverage user-generated data and feedback loops to optimize their models, a critical battleground neither has fully exploited yet. No surprises then that OpenAi announced last week that it is exploring launching a social media platform, while both are also moving towards fintech integration. 

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BUZZY TOOLS

Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

xAI — Grok 3 Mini, 20x cheaper, beats top reasoning models. Grok 3 enhanced with Memory, Studio, API.

OpenAI — Adds "Memory with Search", New o3 excels, but hallucinate 33%.

Gemini 2.5 Flash — Enhanced reasoning, strong price-performance.

IMAGGarment-1 — Fine-grained garment generation using GarmentBench.

Bluesky — Introduces blue check for account authenticity.

Espresso Pro 15 — Portable 4K monitor with 1.07B colors, brightness.

BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Robot Marathon — Humanoid robots complete first half-marathon.

Poxiao — Flash memory device erases/rewrites in 400 picoseconds, boosting AI.

Cell Energy — Discovery may aid cancer, diabetes, hair loss treatments.

Olo Color Vision — Device unlocks blue-green shade for color blindness.

Drone Carriers — Iran, China, Turkey unveil naval UAV carriers.

PHNX Materials — Fly ash replaces 30% cement, cuts concrete emissions.

CRYPTO WATCH

Crypto Banks — Circle and BitGo aim for bank charters as crypto firms deepen ties with traditional banking, an area formerly blocked to them under Biden.

Bank of Korea — The central bank will drive stablecoin regulations to protect monetary stability. Korea seeks a comprehensive framework post-initial crypto law, addressing transparency and classification.

OM Hack — MANTRA founder plans to burn $82M of OM tokens to restore trust supported by 81% community votes, the burn aims to boost staking APR by April 29.

Strategy's Bitcoin Boost — Strategy acquired an additional 6,556 BTC for $555M, increasing total holdings to 538,200 BTC, valued at $46.8B, funded by stock sales.

Bitcoin Spa — A Brooklyn spa innovatively uses bitcoin mining to heat pools and showers, repurposing heat from mining computers.

SPACE_RACE

Exoplanet K2-18b_Dimethyl sulfide suggests potential life, more data needed.

Lucy Spacecraft_studies Trojan asteroids to uncover solar system origins.

Jupiter_absorbs impacts, protecting Earth with immense energy release.

MEMETICS

Welcome to the Vibe Economy… Part ii

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