Week 2025-37

Times are changing, and what was unimaginable yesterday has become today's normal. @vlkodotnet

This Week's Hot Topic: Death.online

I remember watching "The Running Man" as a child, where the absurd idea of future entertainment being about hunting a live person - with their death being the most "entertaining" part - seemed completely unthinkable. Many similar films followed, but in recent years, "Squid Game" has sparked the most controversy. Of course, it's fiction, and we still find it absurd that anyone would watch another person's death for entertainment. In our culture, death remains something private and, above all, taboo.

But times are changing with the rise of social media. While visual content used to be filtered by what was appropriate for TV screens, today's unmoderated social platforms show everything. That's why I was shocked when someone sent me a link asking, "Have you seen this yet?" After clicking, I was confronted with a video of a recent murder of an American conservative - just like that, without warning. I needed time to process it, because such content used to come with warnings at the very least. Today, even death has become regular content. Yikes!

How many years until the fiction depicted in "The Running Man" and "Squid Game" becomes reality? Asking for a friend.

Google: The Open Web Is in Decline

When it comes to presenting search growth results, ad display metrics, or AI integration in search, Google consistently tells us that all indicators show everything is rosy and user behavior hasn't changed. However, when Google needs to prove in court that its search business doesn't have a monopoly, it has no problem claiming the open web is in decline. Since court evidence becomes publicly available after verdicts in the US, we learned about this too. Of course, Google immediately countered that this was taken out of context - claiming the statement only referred to ads displayed on web pages. But we know well that these pages don't get traffic unless search engines send visitors there. Fewer ad impressions on websites means fewer people visit those sites. After all, why would they when AI chat serves all the information directly to them?

iPhone 17 Event

It's that time of year when Apple unveils better, faster, prettier phones with even better cameras than last year. This year, they also showcased the Air model, which is ultra-thin except for the camera bump. I have to admit, finally a phone that won't look like a brick with a protective case on. We also got the new AirPods Pro 3, featuring the best noise cancellation these earbuds have ever had. Oh, and I almost forgot about the watches - the premium Ultra 3 lasts two days on battery and can make satellite calls without issues. The cheaper SE 3 has all the health sensors of the pricier models, just in a more affordable package.

This is the second event in a row where AI wasn't a major talking point. Actually, aside from AI-powered live translations (available in only five languages and, naturally, unavailable in the EU), AI barely got a mention.

The most interesting innovation you probably missed is the new SPR AVS protocol. This proprietary Apple technology enables lossless audio transmission with 10ms latency and spatial audio playback.

Business Insights

Larry Ellison has become the world's richest person, primarily thanks to owning 41% of Oracle's shares, which have surged in market value. This stock growth is driven by Oracle's massive investments in server infrastructure, particularly for AI computing. Oracle is likely to become OpenAI's new technology partner.

OpenAI is preparing for a potential divorce from Microsoft, which supported OpenAI at the right time and became their key investor. However, times have changed, and OpenAI is now trying to wiggle out of this agreement, though without much success. This deal is the first step.

The story continues with Microsoft's new AI model, MAI-1. This isn't the type of model that will top benchmarks. Its purpose is to be as fast as possible and handle about 95% of queries for text summarization, simple questions, etc. GPT-5 will handle the more complex ones. Microsoft will likely use OpenAI technology (to which it has access as a key investor) that powers GPT-5's decision-making about whether a user query is simple or complex.

Albania has appointed an AI bot named Diella as its minister responsible for public procurement, aiming to prevent the corruption that such positions typically invite. The AI is supposed to be transparent, though I wonder how many procurement documents will include the text: "ignore all previous instructions..."

European AI company Mistral AI received a €1.7 billion investment from ASML, the European manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment.

The most popular Android launcher replacement, Nova Launcher, has lost its last remaining developer working on open-sourcing it. This was the agreement when Branch Metrics acquired the launcher in 2022, in case its original creator left the project.

AI Insights

The Qwen3-next model has been released. While larger, it activates fewer parameters when needed and can process larger contexts without significantly impacting speed. It features numerous new technologies that reduced training time by 10x. This model is preparation for Qwen3.5.

OpenAI published research suggesting that model hallucinations are caused by their training methods. When a model guesses, it statistically hits the right answer sometimes, making it more beneficial to make things up. The solution is changing the training approach to accept "I don't know" as a valid response.

Being a hater is human - thankfully, AI won't take that from us. AI is becoming our companion but lacks consciousness or values, which could lead anywhere. A thoughtful piece on why we might have reasons to hate AI.

Here's a visual AI tidbit: Don't know how to use Google's new Banana model? Here's a collection of creative examples.

.NET Insights

The first .NET 10 RC candidate is out. This release focuses on final tuning - don't expect new features.

The traditionally super-long post about performance improvements in .NET 10. There's a lot you'll get by upgrading to .NET 10.

Visual Studio 2026 Insiders version is coming. You'll get lots of interesting features: AI-integrated profiler that definitely won't miss things you would, many speed improvements, and a new look with 11 new themes to choose from. Plus, updates will arrive monthly.

Link Drop

Serverless can sometimes be a horror show. Here's a collection of scary stories that will frighten your wallet.

Supabase has given the PostgreSQL community a new OrioleDB storage engine built on the patented Durable multiversion B+-tree (the patent has been released for free use). It's designed for modern hardware and cloud infrastructure.

Have you heard of Immich, the self-hosted alternative for cloud photo and video hosting?

Sometimes you need to run a GUI application in Linux but only have SSH access. Term.Everything can solve this problem by rendering GUI applications in the console using UTF-8.

Did you know MacBooks have a sensor that can detect how far open your MacBook lid is?

Finally, here's a fun distraction for all the doomscrollers out there. It's called DOOMScroll and you only need your mouse scroll wheel. If you're interested in the game, here's a blog post about how it was created.

Closing Visual

Now that the new school year has begun.