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Slate Auto is set to unveil pricing and start taking non-refundable preorders for its electric vehicle on June 24, with deliveries expected late this year. The company has raised $1.4 billion in funding, including a significant portion from TWG Global. Over 160k potential customers have already made refundable reservations since the vehicle was revealed last year. This move is crucial as Slate Auto aims to convert reservation holders into actual buyers.
Nintendo has launched Pictonico, a quirky mobile game where players experience rapid-fire microgames using their own photos. Each round consists of 10 unique mini-games played in quick succession, making it a fun and silly experience. The twist? Players can customize the games with faces from their camera roll, adding an extra layer of personalization. Pictonico is available for free download on iOS and Android but requires players to purchase two content packs priced at $7.69 and $5.99 each to access all 80 microgames. Let's dive deeper…
In today's ContentBuffer update:
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Faster, Cleaner, Smarter Responses
Asana Snaps Up Stack AI for $75M, Aims High in AI Space
Bluesky Expands to Long-Form Content via AT Protocol
Hackers Phish Signal Users for Backup Recovery Keys
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More tech news
Latest Development
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Slate Auto will reveal pricing for its $20K+ electric vehicle on June 24, with over 160k reservations already made. Late-year deliveries expected.
Key Points:
Slate Auto announces EV pricing and preorders on June 24; first deliveries late this year
$50 non-refundable reservation fee secures delivery window before non-reservers
Over 160,000 refundable $50 reservations made since vehicle reveal last year
Slate Auto has raised roughly $1.4 billion in funding, including TWG Global backing
Vehicle can be converted from a two-seater truck to a five-seater SUV for an additional price
Why it matters: If you're one of the 160k+ potential customers with a refundable $50 reservation, Slate Auto's pricing announcement on June 24 is crucial. The company aims to convert reservations into actual sales, impacting its financial viability and market position.
Image source: platform.theverge.com
Summary: Nintendo releases Pictonico: a mobile game with quick, personalized microgames using user photos. It's a reminder of Nintendo's ability to stay weird and innovative.
Key Points:
Pictonico features 10 microgames per round, each lasting just seconds
Players can choose which photos appear in the games for personalization
The full version includes 80 different minigames across two content packs
Content packs cost $7.69 and $5.99 respectively, with a free download option
Pictonico is available on both iOS and Android platforms
Why it matters: If you're a fan of Nintendo's quirky games like Tomodachi Life or WarioWare, Pictonico offers a fresh take with personalized microgames. The game's humor and customization options make it stand out in the crowded mobile gaming space.
Image source: platform.theverge.com
Summary: Microsoft just made Copilot twice as fast and more reliable. Developers using Microsoft 365 apps will love it.
Key Points:
Copilot loads twice as fast compared to its predecessor, improving user experience significantly.
Redesign includes 'progressive disclosure,' presenting tools based on user prompts for a smoother workflow.
Direct text formatting inside Copilot's prompt box enhances document editing efficiency.
Chat window can be opened from within paragraphs, spreadsheet cells, or slides for seamless integration.
Google recently launched a similar update to its Gemini AI app, highlighting the trend in AI-driven productivity tools.
Why it matters: If you're using Microsoft 365 apps with Copilot, this redesign means faster load times and more reliable responses. For teams working on large documents or spreadsheets, the ability to format text directly within Copilot's prompt box can save significant time. The progressive disclosure feature ensures that only relevant tools are shown based on user prompts, streamlining workflows.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Asana shelled out $75 million for Stack AI, aiming to lead in AI-driven workflows and compete with automation giants like Zapier. Why it matters: It's a big step towards integrating AI deeply into corporate systems.
Key Points:
Asana acquired Stack AI for $75M, part of its push into human-agent collaboration tools
Stack AI had raised just under $20 million in funding before the acquisition
The deal includes Stack AI's founders joining Asana to enhance their platform
Asana sees deep integration as a key advantage over competitors like Zapier and Anthropic
This move aligns with Asana's earnings announcement, showing steady revenue growth despite market challenges
Why it matters: If you're managing workflows in large enterprises, this acquisition could change how your team uses automation tools. Asana’s deep integration into existing systems positions it to offer more robust AI solutions than competitors like Zapier or Anthropic. However, the $75M price tag suggests a high bar for ROI; smaller teams might stick with cheaper alternatives.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Bluesky integrates with Standard.site for long-form content reading, expanding its reach beyond microblogs and allowing users to explore articles directly in the app.
Key Points:
Bluesky's new feature allows users to read full articles from AT Protocol-powered apps as dynamic link cards.
WordPress now has a plugin that publishes blog posts on the AT Protocol via Standard.site’s lexion records.
Users can switch between multiple PDS options, including Eurosky and Blacksky, within Bluesky.
Bluesky's integration follows the February launch of Germ, a private messaging service in the app.
The updated version (v1.122) includes improvements like a refreshed GIF picker and expanded moderation labeling.
Why it matters: If you're using Bluesky for microblogging, this update lets you read full articles directly from the app without leaving it. This is particularly useful if you follow blogs or newsletters that publish long-form content. However, smaller apps might struggle to compete with established platforms like WordPress.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Hackers are phishing Signal users to steal recovery keys for Secure Backups. Don't share your key with anyone claiming to be Signal support.
Key Points:
Phishing campaign targets Signal's 'Secure Backups' feature, launched last year.
Attackers pose as Signal support and warn of data loss due to sync issues.
Recovery keys are essential for accessing online backups containing older chats.
Signal warns users that they will never ask for registration codes or recovery keys.
This attack is a new tactic focusing on stealing backup access rather than account takeover.
Why it matters: If you're using Signal's Secure Backups, this phishing campaign could compromise your backups. Activists and community members should be especially cautious as they are primary targets. The recovery key is the only way to access your online backups; losing it means losing access to your data.
New Tools & Job
note.md - note.md is a private, local-first markdown workspace for macOS built for focused writing, research, and structured thought. It supports GitHub Flavored Markdown, complex tables, and LaTeX math, with bidirectional links and a visual graph to connect ideas. Smart citations and research-table extraction are powered by local AI models that keep your data on-device, and you can import scientific papers and PDFs directly. Markdown is the storage format - no proprietary lock-in.
Genpire - Genpire is an AI-native product design and manufacturing platform. It turns any idea, sketch, or prompt into factory-ready output in minutes - design visuals, technical specs, bills of materials, graded size specs, construction notes, materials, and manufacturer matching - all in one workflow. Built for fashion, apparel, and consumer-goods brands, it compresses development timelines that previously ran four to eight weeks.
PollyReach - PollyReach gives every AI agent its own phone number and the ability to make and receive real calls. Its human-like AI voice agents automate lead qualification, customer support, and appointment booking, and can serve as a 24/7 AI receptionist. Polly finds the number, dials, navigates phone menus, handles the conversation, and confirms bookings, syncing with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Calendly to check availability.
Contextberg - Contextberg is a local memory app for AI coding agents. It watches your screens, agent transcripts, and browser activity in the background, then serves both short-term and long-term memory to agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenClaw over the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It is privacy-first and Windows-first - your data never leaves your machine - and installs from the Microsoft Store.
Nota: AI Notes & Voice - Nota is an AI notes and voice app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Capture your way - type, dictate, sketch, scan, or upload images - and let built-in AI clarify, shape, and organize your notes. Its scanner extracts text from documents, whiteboards, business cards, signs, photos, and textbooks, and Apple Pencil support adds handwriting and drawing with tags, pins, search, and visual organization.
Software Engineer, Secrets Infrastructure (Remote) - Fully remote team building Stripe's internal secrets/credentials infrastructure.
Software Engineer, New Grad - New grad SWE role spanning Stripe's payments, money-movement and platform teams.
Applied Scientist / Research Engineer, AI4Engineering - Apply Mistral's models to coding, software engineering, and developer workflows.
AI Scientist - Research scientist role on Mistral AI's research org — onsite, hybrid or remote.
Research Engineer, Machine Learning - Build and optimize large-scale learning systems powering Mistral's open-weight models.
Machine Learning Engineer, Fast Optimized Inference (EMEA Remote) - Build the fastest open-source inference stack — quantization, kernels, serving — at Hugging Face.
Cloud Machine Learning Engineer (US Remote) - Build Hugging Face's cloud ML offerings — inference endpoints, training infrastructure, and customer-facing tooling.
SDE AI/ML II — ML Inference Apps, AWS Neuron - Performance tune and enable ML model families (Llama2, GPT-class) on AWS Neuron / Trainium inference accelerators.
Annapurna Labs at AWS — Early Career (US): ML Systems & Silicon Innovation - Multiple technical tracks across ML Systems & Compilers, Distributed Training Systems and ML Infrastructure on AWS's silicon team.
Machine Learning Research Engineer, Generative AI (Siri) - Build infrastructure, datasets and models that empower Siri across NLU, dialog generation, speech synthesis and multi-modal interaction.
AI Research Scientist — Safety Alignment Team - Research and develop safety-alignment techniques for Meta's frontier AI systems.
AI Research Scientist, Language — Generative AI - Conduct research on generative language models within Meta's GenAI org.
Senior Deep Learning Algorithm Engineer - Develop and optimize deep learning algorithms for NVIDIA's accelerated computing platforms.
Deep Learning Software Engineer, TensorRT Performance — New College Grad 2026 - Integrate TensorRT into open-source frameworks and implement graph compiler algorithms across NVIDIA's inference ecosystem.
Research Engineer, Pretraining - Build and optimize pretraining systems and pipelines for frontier models at Google DeepMind.
Research Engineer, World Models - Implement core infrastructure and conduct research to build generative models of the physical world.
Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Virtual Collaborator - Lead ML engineering for the Virtual Collaborator product line at Anthropic.
Research Engineer, Cybersecurity Reinforcement Learning - Safely advance model capabilities in secure coding, vulnerability remediation, and defensive cybersecurity.
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Pre-training - Develop the next generation of large language models on Anthropic's Pre-training team.
Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment Science - Contribute to exploratory experimental research on AI safety with a focus on risks from powerful future systems.
QUICK HITS
Anthropic Secures $65B at $965B Valuation - Anthropic just raised $65B at a $965B valuation, outpacing even SpaceX's ambitions. This could shake up the AI landscape and influence enterprise adoption of their models.
AI Tokens and GPU Futures: The New Market Frontier - Financial groups are building AI token markets while CME and ICE work on GPU futures contracts. Shanghai Futures Exchange is designing a derivatives market tied to AI service costs. Why you should care: This could reshape how businesses hedge against compute costs in the AI era.
CVS Leads $40M Round for H1 Data Provider - CVS Health Ventures led a $40M round into H1, showing that not all SaaS companies are being sidelined by the AI hype. Developers working with healthcare data should take note of this continued investment in traditional data providers.
Bond Game Tutorial Feels Like an Action Movie Montage - 007 First Light uses action movie tropes in its tutorial, blurring the lines between gaming and cinema. This isn't just about nostalgia; it signals a new era where games are as cinematic as they come.
300K Driver's Licenses Exposed on Azure Server - Pay Tel's Azure server exposed over 300K driver's licenses and inmate data. Another major security lapse for the company, which hasn't addressed the breach publicly.
Paris Emerges as Global AI Hub at VivaTech 2026 - Paris is stepping up at VivaTech 2026, positioning itself as a global AI hub, competing with Silicon Valley. Founders and policymakers are converging on the French capital to shape the future of artificial intelligence.
THAT'S A WRAP
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Artificial general intelligence (AGI) aims to create machines smarter than average humans across many tasks. OpenAI and Google DeepMind offer competing definitions, but both imply significant economic disruption.
Nintendo launches Pictonico, a mobile game featuring quick microgames that use your photos. Each round includes 10 games and costs $7.69 for the full version.
Ferrari unveiled its first all-electric vehicle, the Luce, priced at €550K in Italy. However, the launch was overshadowed by a significant stock drop of over 7%. The car is designed with help from LoveFrom and Jony Ive.