Notes on AI, tools, and tech.
A design task that runs $1.61 on GPT-6 Astra costs about 2.3 cents on DeepSeek’s new model. Same brief, same output, one bill sixty times smaller. That single number is the whole pitch. DeepSeek widened that gap on purpose, and it did it three days after teaching its chatbot to talk out loud. Vision is … Read more
Ask a friend in the US to name the biggest phone brands in the world. You’ll hear Apple, Samsung, maybe Google, maybe Motorola. What you almost never hear is Xiaomi, which is strange, because by shipment numbers Xiaomi is the third-largest phone maker on the planet. It outsells almost everyone, and a typical American has … Read more
DeepSeek dropped a new model yesterday. No warning. No teaser campaign. Just a quiet API update and a bunch of benchmark numbers that made me do a double take. Here’s the thing about DeepSeek: they always do this. You’re sitting there, minding your own business, and suddenly they launch something that makes everyone else look … Read more
Google dropped Gemini 3.7 Flash on August 13. That’s three weeks after 3.6 Flash came out. Three weeks. I had to double-check that date the first time I saw it. Here’s what actually matters: it’s better at coding, better with AI agents, and it costs half of what 3.6 Flash originally cost. That last part … Read more
Apple’s about to raise the price of the iPhone 17 lineup. Maybe as soon as August 10. That’s the word from supply chain chatter, and honestly, it’s not that surprising. Memory chip costs have been climbing for months, and Apple already bumped up prices on most of its other hardware back in late June. The … Read more
On August 6, DeepSeek dropped a short announcement that sent ripples through the developer community: they’re planning a “significant” price increase for their API. No numbers. Just a warning that the hike is coming, and it’s going to be big. Honestly? I wasn’t surprised. Pricing isn’t the only thing shifting. WorkBuddy is pushing an expert-level … Read more