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Oprisa's Journal
"The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine." Nikola Tesla
In today's weekly journal
THE MACRO
President Donald Trump announced he’s suspending trade talks with Canada in retaliation for a new digital service tax targeting companies earnings over $15M from Canadian internet users. The tax, set to begin collection Monday, could cost U.S. firms up to $3B. Trump said he’ll reveal new tariff levels within a week. As of now, Prime Minister Mark Carney has not responded
Science & Technology
Gemma 2n is Google’s latest on-device Ai model, designed to run fully offline on edge devices—even with just 2 GB RAM. It supports text, vision, and audio, bringing multimodal intelligence to phones, tablets, and laptops.
Core Details:
MatFormer architecture: Nested (“Matryoshka”) design lets smaller core submodels run alone—or activate more layers (up to ~4 B parameters) as needed.
PLE caching + conditional loading: Per-Layer Embedding stored off-heap, and modules loaded only on demand—so even big models can run in tight memory environments.
Quantization: Supports INT4, FP16, etc., boosting efficiency with little performance drop.
Multimodal input: Handles text, images, audio(preview), and video—able to do speech recognition, visual reasoning, and text generation.
32K token context and support for 140+ languages—on par with its desktop-grade Gemma 3 counterparts.
Why It Matters: Breakthrough for edge AI: brings powerful multimodal function to everyday gadgets—like instant image Q&A or on-device translation. Reduce latency, save bandwidth, and enhance user privacy—no more cloud uploading. Empowers developers to build AI into apps on any device, not just servers or high-end GPUs.
Tesla’s Robotaxi rollout in Austin hit a speed bump — and regulators are paying attention.
Core Details:
Launched over the weekend in Austin with ~ 10 Model Y robotaxxis (each with a safety driver), offering $4.20 flat-rate rides to influencers via invite-only.
Multiple videos have surfaced showing concerning behavior: speeding, abrupt braking, veering into the wrong lane-even driving briefly on the wrong side of the road.
The NHTSA has opened a safety investigation into the Robotaxi pilot and requested detailed driving data. Investigations are ongoing into Tesla’s FSD software after past incidents.
Critics noteTesla’s camera-only design — without radar or LIDAR — may falter in poor conditions or misinterpret road situations.
Why it matters: This pilot marks a major milestone for Tesla’s long-promised autonomous taxi service—potentially nationwide by 2026. But early missteps highlight how safety misjudgments could delay or derail broader deployment.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory just dropped its first cosmic snapshots — and they’re next-level.
Core Details:
Perched in Chile, Rubin’s 3,200-megapixel LSST camera is the largest digital eye ever pointed at the sky — about the size of a small car.
In a quick test run, it stitched together 678 exposures, revealing millions of galaxies, stars, and unknown asteroids.
Its field of view? 45x the size of the full moon — captured in a single shot.
Over the next 10 years, it’ll image the entire southern sky every 3-4 nights, building a time-lapse of the evolving universe.
Why It Matters: No more waiting in line for telescope time — Rubin’s always on. Scientists will now track supernovae, near-Earth asteroids, and even the shape of dark matter in real time. The era of slow space observation is over — this is cosmic surveillance at scale.
Cambridge and UCL researcher have unveiled a single-material electronic skin — a gelatin-based hydrogel — that gives robots a more human-like sense of touch, with potential to notice cuts and temperature changes, akin to pain.
Core Details:
The hydrogel is soft, stretchy, and electrically conductive, enabling it to transmit sensory signals throughout its surface.
Just 32 electrodes at the wrist can monitor signals from over 1.7 million datapoints and more than 860,000 internal pathways, capturing pressure, shear, temperature shifts, and physical damage.
A machine learning AI processes these signals, distinguishing between taps, temperature extremes, cuts, and multi-touch interactions in real time.
Unlike conventional sensor system that mix fragile, multi-component arrays, this solution uses one unified material that senses all modalities.
Why It Matters: This hydrogel skin is durable, flexible, self-healing(it can be re-melted and recast), and cost-effective a serious edge over complex traditional sensor. It brings robotic system closer to lifelike abilities, offering potential breakthroughs in humanoid robots, intelligent prosthetics, and safety-focused industrial robots.
China’s National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) has unveiled a tiny, mosquito-sized drone engineered for covert military reconnaissance — complete with flapping wings and hair-thin legs for perching.
Core Details:
Officially showcased on CCTV, the drone measures approximately 1.3 cm—about the size of a real mosquito—and is small enough to be held between two fingers.
It features two leaf-shaped, flapping wings and three ultra-thin legs, enabling it to fly discreetly and land or perch on surfaces.
Engineers packed miniaturised system—power, sensor, control circuits—into the drone’s frame, addressing the challenge of keeping it functional at micro scale.
It’s believed to be designed specifically for surveillance and reconnaissance in sensitive environments, offering an “insect-like” means to gather data covertly.
Why It Matters: Advances China’s leadership in micro-UAVs, joining a global race alongside systems like Norway’s Black Hornet 4 and U.S. micro-drone research. With its near-invisibility and silence, this drone could transform urban battlefield tactics, espionage, and search-and-rescue ops, filling gaps where larger drones can’t reach. Beyond military use, micro-drones like these pave the way for non-military applications—including environmental monitoring, disaster relief, Targeted drug delivery, and microsurgery—mirroring trends seen in Harvard’s RoboBee.
>Study reveals rare genetic mutation that delays the onset of Alzheimer’s works by tamping down inflammation in the brain; findings may lead to new treatments for the disease(More)
>Scientist capture the structure of explosive molecules in the moments after detonation; technique simulates explosions by using X-rays to exite molecules under cryogenic conditions(More)
>New study suggests babies born prematurely may feel pain before developing the brain circuitry needed to understand and react to the experience(More)
Market view
Bitcoin Miners
Bitcoin miners are earning the least they have all year, with daily revenue dropping to $34M—the lowest since April—due to falling transaction fees and Bitcoin’s price dip. The network hashrate has also slipped 3.5% since June 16, making the biggest drop since July 2024.
Despite lower earnings, miner selling remains minimal. Daily outflows have fallen from 23K BTC in February to just 6K now. Even long-term holders (Satoshi-era miners) have sold only 150 BTC in 2025—far less than the 10K sold in 2024.
In fact, many miners are increasing their holdings. Addresses with 100—1,000 BTC have grown reserves from 61K to 65K BTC since March, the highest since November 2024—showing no signs of sell pressure at current prices.
Still saving:
The U.S. personal saving rate dipped to 4.5% in June—below historical norms, but still a meaningful slice of a growing total. A steady portion of that money continues flowing into equities each month, regardless of market headlines.
Sentiment still has some catching up to do:
Stocks are back at all time highs, but investor sentiment, as measured by AAII, remains on the bearish side of neutral.
Moving out on the risk curve:
U.S. investors are leaning into risk, likely because stocks have held up well despite this year’s negative headlines. If the market feels less risky overall, taking bigger bets on higher-risk equities starts to look more reasonable.
The rest of the world is buying value:
According to Goldman Sachs, there’s a record-breaking gap between U.S. growth stocks outperforming(dark blue line) and value stocks leading elsewhere(light blue line). While global investors play it safe, U.S. markets are doubling down on growth.
Good or bad news for humans?
Fewer than 10% of companies surveyed by the U.S. Census bureau say the’ve used AI in the past two weeks. That could signal AI’s disruption of the job market is only just beginning—or it might suggest human workers remain more valuable than hype implies.
One less reason to worry:
The Cleveland Fed InflationNow model sees US prices, as measured by CPI, rising at an annual rate of just 1,6% in Q2.
Have a great Sunday.
Video to watch : The Rise & Fall Of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte