People have been attempting to turn Kindles into more than e-readers since the first devices came out nearly two decades ago. The e-ink displays are low-power and great for displaying information that doesn’t refresh too often, and with Amazon continuing their trend of bricking their older devices there will be more of these devices available. [Hemant] built a weather dashboard with one of his, but since then had requests for other types of e-reader dashboards and has a guide for making more general-purpose use of an old Kindle.
The first approaches outlined here involve the installation of a dashboard client on the Kindle and pointing it at a server that hosts a PNG image of whatever information needs to be displayed. The client simply displays that image and refreshes it at predetermined intervals. There are a number of options for creating that server as well, including using Home Assistant for those who already have a home automation system deployed. The benefit of using Home Assistant is that it’s much more straightforward to gather data for the dashboards from sensors and other peripherals that are already installed.
Installing a client like this might seem straightforward, and it can be, provided that the Kindle involved is jailbroken or capable of being jailbroken. An Amazon update recently broke many modern devices’ ability to execute the jailbreak, so not every Kindle can do this anymore. But [Hemant] goes into detail about this and also outlines some methods for using generic e-ink displays instead, and also dives into the hardware and software behind building a server to host the dashboard images for those without Home Assistant already running. It’s a great overview for those who have always wanted something like this but never knew where to start.
Eight months in, they’re looking to set up a physical stall to meet growing demand
When brothers Gary Wong, 32, and James Wong, 31, were growing up, food was always part of their lives.
They were born into a family of cooks who ran dim sum and zi char stalls, though those ventures never quite took off. While F&B was, as Gary put it, “in our blood,” their family actively discouraged the brothers from entering the industry.
That changed at the start of 2026, when the brothers and their wives launched Hippopotato, a home-based rösti business operating out of their mother’s executive flat in Tampines.
We spoke to Gary and his wife, Yiying Tan, about how the family scaled the business to sell around 150 rostis a day, generating between S$30,000 and S$35,000 in monthly revenue, with plans to open a physical store soon.
Advertisement
Starting out as a canteen stall
Image Credit: Ashley Tay, Lim Xin Yi via Google Reviews
James holds a degree in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America—one of the world’s most prestigious institutions for aspiring chefs—through a joint programme with the Singapore Institute of Technology.
Before Hippopotato, he worked as the head chef at a café, giving him a firsthand understanding of the industry’s demands: long hours, capped pay, and little upside working for someone else.
That convinced him he wanted to build an F&B business of his own.
For Gary, who had spent years in private equity and venture capital, the motivation was different. He saw Hippopotato as a side project at first—a chance to test whether the idea could work before committing to it fully.
Gary and James’s wives would eventually join the business, but in its early days, Hippopotato looked very different. The brothers weren’t selling rosti yet.
Advertisement
Image Credit: Hippopotato
Their first venture was a cai fan (mixed economy rice) stall at a local junior college, which they secured in Jul 2025, selling a rotating menu of up to 16 dishes daily.
While schools mandate that canteen vendors stay open until 2PM, the food was almost always sold out by noon. Faced with a choice between going home and cooking another batch, they’d top up, but doing so came with a risk: anything that didn’t sell by closing time would go to waste, eating directly into their already-thin margins.
For every dollar of sales we made from the cai fan stall, 60% was just food cost. If you don’t sell, you’re screwed.
Gary Wong
The waste problem pushed them to rethink. Instead of preparing food in advance, what if they sold something made to order? Ideally, it would also appeal to junior college students without requiring them to cook 16 different dishes before dawn.
The answer came from one of James’s earliest F&B jobs: a brief stint at Marché’s rosti station nearly a decade earlier. The brothers decided to give the Swiss potato dish a shot at their canteen stall.
Advertisement
Image Credit: Hippopotato
And it was the right call. Students started queuing almost immediately, with lines growing long enough that the school principal joined in.
To manage volume, the brothers capped sales at 30 portions a day, first-come, first-served—and even that wasn’t enough.
“It was similar to the scene at those Pokémon card queues at Plaza Singapura,” Gary said.
Escaping the limits of the school calendar
The Wong’s home kitchen./ Image Credit: Hippopotato
The school canteen proved successful for the rosti concept, but it came with its own problem: schools would close for holidays. Long breaks meant canteens would be empty of customers, and there was no income to be made.
To fill those gaps and to avoid being entirely dependent on a school calendar, Gary and James decided to launch Hippopotato as a home-based business in Nov 2025, while continuing to operate the canteen hall.
Although business was slow in the first week or two, with only one or two orders a day, business picked up gradually after that.
Advertisement
By the new year, momentum had built. Media coverage followed, while new menu items kept customers coming back. Orders climbed steadily from just a handful a day to an average of 100 to 150 rostis daily.
Hippopotato operates out of Gary and James’s mother’s 1,500 sq ft executive flat in Tampines, which the family shares. As Gary put it, the business is very much a family affair, with his wife, James’s wife, and their 70-year-old mother all playing a role in its day-to-day operations.
Even so, Gary has not left his full-time job, saying he still sees Hippopotato as a business in its early stages.
What makes a good rosti?
Besides rostis with various toppings, Hippopotato offers other dishes like mushroom ragout and Har Cheong Gai bites (prawn paste chicken wings)./ Image Credit: ruixian via Google Reviews
James’s culinary training shaped everything about how Hippopotato approaches the product, from the ingredients to the cooking process. They only use 100% USA Russet potatoes, and everything, even the sauces, is freshly made on the same day.
“If we want to do it, we will do it right,” Gary said.
Advertisement
Using Russet potatoes gives the rostis a crispy, golden crust while keeping the inside moist and fluffy, Gary said. Just as importantly, the brothers have kept prices deliberately accessible: a chicken schnitzel with rosti costs S$12.50, compared with around S$35 for a similar dish at Marché.
The brothers have also experimented with flavours such as the Salted Egg Chick rosti and Okonomirosti—a rosti topped with okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayo, and bonito flakes—which have become customer favourites.
(L to R): The Salted Egg Chick rosti and okonomirosti./ Image Credit: Hippopotato
There are more flavours the brothers want to explore, but the constraints of a shared home kitchen have kept the menu tightly curated for now.
Every new item adds prep work, ingredients, and storage requirements, while Singapore’s Home-Based Business Scheme means they can’t hire staff from outside the household to cope with the extra workload.
That said, for a business still finding its feet, the numbers made financial sense.
Advertisement
Without rent or significant overheads, the main cost is ingredients, and those margins are covered quickly. Compared to the cai fan stall’s punishing 60% food cost and pre-dawn starts, running Hippopotato from home five days a week gave them the room to breathe, refine the product, and build a customer base before committing to a commercial space.
Forging the road ahead for Hippopotato
Image Credit: Hippopotato
Taking all this into account, it only made sense to the Wongs to close the canteen stall.
Running both simultaneously—the cai fan stall from the early hours of the morning until 2PM, followed by Hippopotato’s evening service and the prep work in between—was burning the family out.
The final confirmation came during the Mar school holidays, when the canteen closed, and the team focused solely on Hippopotato. The experience reinforced what they had already suspected: the rosti business delivered stronger returns, generated less waste, and made better use of their time.
With that, the family decided not to renew the cai fan stall’s lease when it expired in May, choosing instead to focus entirely on Hippopotato.
Advertisement
But Hippopotato’s home-based model was always meant to be a stepping stone, not a destination. The constraints of a shared domestic kitchen have a ceiling, and the brothers are aware of it.
Thus, Hippopotato has plans to open its first physical store later in 2026, with a potential second location to follow. The customer base it has built makes a compelling case for the expansion: the business has amassed more than 200 five-star Google reviews, while customers travel from across Singapore for its rostis.
For the Wongs, it’s a sign that Hippopotato has outgrown the home kitchen where it all began.
Naval warships, even if they aren’t sunk in battle, don’t remain in service forever. There are several ways the United States disposes of decommissioned ships, one of which involves sinking them in the ocean. This is what recently occurred with the decades-old USS Juneau, designation LPD-10, which was decommissioned back in 2008. After being thoroughly cleaned and picked apart to minimize its environmental impact, the USS Juneau’s last act saw it take part in a Valiant Shield exercise: a multinational series of drills involving scenarios likely to unfold during a real conflict.
This particular Valiant Shield exercise took place near the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam and involved forces from the U.S., Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The USS Juneau was sunk just off the coast of Guam. Lieutenant Commander Katie Koenig, director of the Combined Joint Information Bureau, explained to Task & Purpose that the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, and special operations were tasked with doing initial damage to the Juneau. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force delivered the final blow with a torpedo, sending the vessel into the depths and concluding the ship-sinking exercise.
Advertisement
After years of service, the USS Juneau went out with a bang, helping to train the next generation of military personnel. It leaves behind a storied history that encompasses some of the most notable conflicts and historical moments in recent decades.
Advertisement
The history and legacy of the USS Juneau
This particular USS Juneau isn’t the first U.S. ship to bear the name. The original USS Juneau, designated CL-52, served for roughly eight months during World War II and met its end in November 1942. It was sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Guadalcanal. A second USS Juneau, CL-119, was commissioned in 1946 and later served during the Korean War as the first U.S. Navy cruiser to take part in the conflict. Ultimately, though, it was decommissioned in 1959 and sold for scrap in 1962.
From here, it didn’t take too long for this most recent USS Juneau to hit the water. It was officially commissioned in 1969, just in time for it to take part in the latter half of the Vietnam War. Decades later, it served as a command center and portable housing for cleanup crews during the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, and also featured in Operation Desert Storm. As noted previously, the Juneau was decommissioned in 2008 and moored in the Naval Sea Systems Command Inactive Ships On-Site Maintenance Office at Pearl Harbor.
It may not rank among the most historically significant warships to ever hit the open ocean, but the third USS Juneau clearly saw a lot of action during its nearly 40 years of active service. Though it now calls the floor of the Pacific Ocean home, its military contributions aren’t likely to sink into obscurity anytime soon.
Emer Dooley, site lead for Creative Destruction Lab in Seattle, moderates an accelerator program session alongside mentors and startup founders. (CDL Photo)
Startups innovating across advanced manufacturing and computational health made up the latest cohort of the Seattle accelerator run by Creative Destruction Lab (CDL).
The nine-month, nonprofit program based at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business graduated 17 early stage companies. It’s the fifth cohort since CDL launched its Seattle hub in 2021.
CDL, which runs startup programs around the world, does not take equity from companies and relies on funding from founding members such as the UW and Microsoft. Founders in the cohort get access to mentors including startup founders, investors, and other leaders from across the Pacific Northwest.
Startups that have participated have collectively raised more than $330 million in follow-on venture capital funding since 2022, according to CDL.
The list below includes the companies that just graduated, with descriptions provided by CDL. See past graduates here.
Advertisement
Manufacturing
3D Spark — An AI-powered B2B platform that lets engineering, procurement, and sales teams rapidly evaluate and compare manufacturing methods for custom parts by analyzing manufacturability, cost, lead time, and CO₂ footprint.
Outrun Robotics — An industrial automation company that builds and deploys capable, flexible, intelligent robotic workstations to automate stationary, repetitive work in factories.
Xronos — Empowers developers to rapidly and confidently design, test, and deploy software to automate the physical world.
Loadsters — A lightweight, rechargeable, modular conveyor-belt system that makes it easier for ramp agents to load and unload cargo and luggage in narrowbody aircraft, for airlines and ground handlers.
Velodex Robotics — Building general-purpose robotic manipulation, initially targeting high-volume production in the food industry.
AILOS Robotics — Builds the gearboxes robots need at every joint, making modern robotics lighter, faster, safer, more sustainable, and more affordable.
R2 Labs — Redefining industrial automation with the R2 Autonomy Controller (RAC), bringing vision, AI, and real-time intelligence to existing PLC-based systems.
Neuramill — AI tools for high-precision manufacturing; the copilot for CNC, sitting between CAD and CAM.
Computational health
Navis Bio — Software and AI tools for highly-customized intelligence on biopharma assets.
Cubtale — The first parenting platform integrated with healthcare systems, delivering AI-powered, personalized care guidance and rich behavioral data analytics from birth to early childhood.
Vocxi — A breath-based diagnostic platform that enables rapid, noninvasive detection of multiple diseases.
EloraHQ — The operating system for frontline care: 90% less paperwork, 10x clients, and full revenue capture.
Vivo Surgery — A cloud platform that captures and organizes surgical video into AI-ready data, accelerating precision training, connected operating rooms, and the future of autonomous robotic surgery.
LIND AI — Helps health systems accelerate trial accrual by automating screening and surfacing the most eligible patients, with source-verified evidence at their fingertips.
Adentris — An AI-powered platform that integrates with EHR systems to continuously scan for quality-measure adherence and documentation issues before they lead to patient-safety risks or financial losses.
Exin Therapeutics — Develops gene therapies to repair circuit dysfunction, powered by an AI drug discovery platform.
Therassist.AI — Helps psychotherapists close the quality gap by automating notes and guiding expertise in evidence-based psychotherapy.
Applications are now open for the 2026-27 cohort, with a July 24 deadline to apply. The program is conducted virtually with three in-person session days in October, February, and April. Founders can apply here or reach out to CDL Seattle venture managers: cdl-seattle@creativedestructionlab.com.
Makers assembled a compact handheld unit that listens to standard wireless network signals and converts subtle shifts in those signals into a real-time radar display of nearby human activity. The entire system fits comfortably in one hand and comes together for roughly fifty dollars in parts. Movement registers even when walls or other barriers stand between the device and the person. No camera, no infrared sensor, and no dedicated motion detector appears anywhere in the build. Instead the unit taps into Channel State Information (CSI) carried by ordinary Wi-Fi traffic in most homes and offices.
CSI contains a wealth of information on signal intensity and phase across several sub-channels, acting as a unique fingerprint that is written into the air by every surface, item, and person in its vicinity. Then there’s human tissue, where the water reacts with radio waves in a way that makes it stand out from everything else in the room. Of course, motion alters this distinct pattern, allowing the device to detect it. After calibrating the device with a quick empty room scan, the firmware can set a baseline and compare new data to it. Any continuous changes that exceed a specific threshold will trigger a detection and leave a mark on the radar display. One processing core is constantly collecting data, while the other maintains the screens responsive, with no lag.
【AC1200 Dual-band Wireless Router】Simultaneous dual-band with wireless speed up to 300 Mbps (2.4GHz) + 867 Mbps (5GHz). 2.4GHz band can handles…
【Easy Setup】Please refer to the User Manual and the Unboxing & Setup video guide on Amazon for detailed setup instructions and methods for…
【Pocket-friendly】Lightweight design(145g) which designed for your next trip or adventure. Alongside its portable, compact design makes it easy to…
Building it all begins with an M5Stack Cardputer ADV board, which already has an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, a small screen, a keyboard, and a battery. Then you simply slap an extra display onto the board and place it in a simple 3D printed frame above the primary unit, and you’re ready to go. Dual displays are no problem, and because it reuses existing Wi-Fi networks rather than creating its own, the parts list is kept to a minimum.
When it first powers up, it scans for available networks; select one, input your password, and you’re ready to go. Connection is confined to the networks you manage, which prevents the unit from spying on other people’s traffic. Once the connection is established, the radar activates and the smaller screen displays all connection details, a scrolling graph of recent activity, and options such as a clear or presence banner, as well as the sensitivity setting. The larger screen displays the real radar image, which is a sweep line slowly traveling across a circular view with fading trails indicating where earlier movements were identified, and as the marks emerge, they grow or shrink depending on how much the signals shifted at the time.
Of course, there are keyboard shortcuts for things like triggering a fresh calibration, adjusting the detection threshold, and navigating to the settings menu. The entire machine can run totally on battery power or a USB connection when necessary, and because it just uses Wi-Fi signals that are already floating around, it can work in the dark and through most interior walls. With some furniture around, readings can be thrown off as reflections bounce off everything, causing your gadget to go berserk, but with careful positioning and tweaks, you can generally keep the false triggers under control. The problem is that the current design just provides you a general sense of movement in the area and does not provide precise direction or distance.
Because the code, build files, and enclosure designs are now public on Github, anybody can recreate or adapt the project to meet their own requirements. The same Wi-Fi signals that make life so convenient also allow you to utilize this device to determine whether anyone is in the room or if there’s any unusual activity going on someplace. As a result, it has a variety of helpful uses, such as automatic lighting control when you enter a room and simple notifications when someone does something unexpected. The only issue is attempting to completely avoid using it without blocking Wi-Fi connections. [Source]
Glasgow-headquartered FullProxy provides cyber consultancy services to public and private sector organisations across the UK.
Irish telecoms and IT company Viatel Technology Group has acquired Scottish cybersecurity consultancy FullProxy for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition – which is backed by investment from Macquarie Capital – is designed to expand Viatel’s presence in the UK and its cyber capabilities, according to the company.
FullProxy was founded in 2015 by CEO Ewan Ferguson and CTO Chris Templeton and provides cyber consultancy services to public and private sector organisations across the UK.
Advertisement
The company, which is headquartered in Glasgow, has particular expertise in network design and implementation, cloud authentication and endpoint security, and counts customers in data-sensitive sectors such as healthcare, local government, financial services and critical infrastructure with clients including the NHS, Scottish government, Virgin Money and FNZ.
As well as being recognised as an Expert Fortinet Partner and elite F5 Gold Tier partner, FullProxy has also been featured in TechUK’s Tech200 Growing Companies, and shortlisted twice for Scottish Cyber Security Company of the Year at the Scottish Cyber Awards.
“Over the last decade we’ve built FullProxy around a deeply felt principle: helping customers solve complex cybersecurity challenges and achieve ROI through expert advice, deep technical capability and long-term trusted relationships,” said Ferguson. “The growth we’ve achieved in recent years is a testament to the quality of our people, the trust of our customers and the strength of our partnerships. We are incredibly proud of what the team has built.
“Joining Viatel gives us the opportunity to build on that success.”
Advertisement
Viatel said the acquisition will further strengthen its “core cybersecurity capabilities” at a time when organisations are under growing pressure to secure complex digital infrastructure while preparing for wider AI deployment.
“As clients adopt AI and manage increasingly complex digital estates, the need for deep cybersecurity expertise has become more urgent,” said Paul Rellis, CEO of Viatel Technology Group. “FullProxy strengthens our position as an integrated technology partner with expertise across security, networking and digital services and enhances our ability to deliver solutions that are aligned to customer priorities.
“It also represents a strong endorsement of our cyber division and our long-term strategy to help organisations build resilience today and grow securely for the future.”
FullProxy is the latest in a series of tech companies to be acquired by Viatel in recent years.
In 2024, Viatel acquired the technology division of managed print services provider MJ Flood in a deal reportedly valued at €30m, while in 2023, it snapped up US-headquartered cloud-connected infrastructure provider Sungard Availability Services – its eighth acquisition since 2020.
Nvidia competitor Etched announced this week that TSMC had manufactured its first chip earlier this year. While the four-year-old startup valued at $5 billion is getting ready to ship systems powered by that chip to customers later this summer, scaling production may prove challenging. Like other chip designers, Etched must compete for limited capacity at TSMC’s Taiwan factories.
Copper Sky Capital, one of Etched’s early investors, is hopeful that the chipmaker will find a solution to its manufacturing constraints by eventually producing chips at Arizona’s TSMC facility. When the four-year-old VC firm invested in Etched’s $120 million Series A two years ago, founder Jack Selby secured an allocation in part by promising to help the startup eventually reshore its chip fabrication to Arizona.
Selby, a former PayPal exec and longtime managing director to Peter Thiel’s family office, Thiel Capital, founded Phoenix-based Copper Sky in 2021 (formerly known as AZ-VC). The firm’s first $115 million fund focused primarily on startups based in Arizona and the Southwest. Selby’s thesis was that most coastal startups, particularly those based in California, Massachusetts, and New York, are grossly overpriced compared to companies popping up in his region. However, Selby saw an opportunity to bridge the gap in the other direction by helping California-based hardware startups move their production to Arizona.
Selby credits Copper Sky’s investment in Etched — an otherwise hard-to-access startup — to his influential role in Arizona’s economy. As a board member of the Arizona Commerce Authority, Selby is deeply involved in recruiting out-of-state businesses to set up manufacturing operations in the region.
Advertisement
“When Copper Sky invested with Etched, the company clearly understood our connectivity to the Arizona semiconductor industry, and in particular the local TSMC GIGAFAB,” Selby told TechCrunch.
While Copper Sky has recently expanded its focus beyond the Southwest to include nontraditional venture hubs nationwide, Selby said that the firm is also interested in backing hardware companies, including in the defense sector, that can set up manufacturing operations in Arizona.
The firm is expected to soon have more capital to invest in those higher-priced coastal companies, and those throughout the United States. Copper Sky is currently raising a $300 million second fund, according to a regulatory filing.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a real challenge. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Supportive emotions.
Advertisement
Green group hint: Totally tubular would be another one.
Blue group hint: Gifts no one wants.
Purple group hint: Earl Grey, hot.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Positive feelings.
Advertisement
Green group: Retro expressions of approval.
Blue group: Bad things to give someone.
Purple group: What things pronounced “T” might refer to.
Jon Prosser has formally responded to Apple’s lawsuit over alleged iOS leaks, claiming that he is entirely innocent and that colleague Michael Ramacciotti is solely responsible for any alleged trade secret theft.
Apple’s now year-long case against Prosser had initially seen the YouTuber repeatedly ignoring court deadlines. He began responding in April 2026, and his lawyers have now formally filed his rebuttal to Apple’s accusations that he and Ramacciotti conspired to steal trade secrets from Apple employee Ethan Lipnik.
“Ramacciotti’s is [sic] responsible for all harm caused to Prosser and should indemnify him for all harm caused,” says the filing. “Ramacciotti’s act of displaying the features was not induced by Prosser and, as such, Ramacciotti is completely responsible for the disclosure of Apple’s alleged trade secrets, if any.”
Prosser specifically denies offering money in return for the information Ramacciotti showed him. He also denies knowing how his co-defendant got his information, or conspiring ahead of time to gather it.
Advertisement
Ramacciotti unlocked Lipnik’s iPhone, which had an early release of what was then called iOS 19, and shared confidential details. Prosser claims no knowledge of whose iPhone it was, and denies knowing that Ramacciotti was in the Apple employee’s apartment.
Prosser does admit to sharing with Ramacciotti a portion of the revenue his YouTube video brought in, and said this was to secure exclusivity. “Once Prosser learned how Ramacciotti acquired the proprietary information, he disconnected communication with Ramacciotti,” says the filing.
At one point the filing says that Prosser “has not [sic] knowledge if iOS 19 was in fact ‘unreleased’.” But later it says “Prosser admits that the information was unreleased software.”
That contradictory claim appears to mean that it was during the demonstration of iOS 19 that Prosser did not know it was iOS 19 that he was being shown.
Advertisement
Prosser’s filing, as first spotted by MacRumors, requests trial by jury.
Apple has not responded publicly to the filing.
Separately, Michael Ramacciotti has been cooperating with the courts since at least October 2025, and provided Apple with his emails, computers, and archives. Ramacciotti’s lawyers have claimed that he did not appreciate the value and nature of what he showed Prosser.
Now, Matthew Haiken, who owns that Polestar dealership along with three other (non-Polestar) dealerships in the Prestige Collection Auto Group, faces another and more serious challenge. Polestar said in late June that the US Commerce Department had denied an authorization that would have allowed the brand to continue selling cars in the US despite a federal rule restricting the sale of vehicles with Chinese-made connected-vehicle technology. The company, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding and its founder Li Shufu, says it will stop selling Polestar vehicles in the US beginning with the 2027 model year.
“It’s so unfortunate,” Haiken says. “It’s hard for my customers who have been reaching out; it’s hard for my staff.” He says he and the owners of the US’s other 31 Polestar dealerships have invested “many millions” in selling the cars and called the authorization decision “a shock to me and all the dealers.”
Advertisement
Volvo, which is also majority-owned by Geely, received authorization from the Commerce Department in March, allowing it to continue selling its vehicles in the US, despite its Chinese connections. Volvo said at the time that it held “constructive discussions” with the department about the automaker’s “governance, technology and data security.” (When asked about the discrepancy, a Polestar spokesperson said that the company “cannot comment on how legislation applies to other manufacturers.”)
“I am very frustrated in Polestar, globally,” Haiken says. “I think they really dropped the ball, and I blame them. I don’t blame the government.”
The Commerce Department under the Biden Administration officially approved the connected-vehicle rule in January 2025, after government officials argued that a ban on Chinese- and Russian-made automotive hardware and software was necessary for national security reasons. The federal government said that internet-connected automotive cameras, microphones, and GPS equipment threatened US safety. “It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how a foreign adversary with access to this information could pose a serious risk to both our national security and the privacy of US citizens,” Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo said at the time.
The US Commerce Department did not respond to WIRED’s questions.
Advertisement
Polestar said in a statement last week that US dealerships would sell “existing stock” of the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4, and that a US service network would “continue to support customers.” It framed the move as “increasing its strategic focus on Europe,” and said that 94 percent of Polestar’s first quarter 2026 sales took place outside of the US.
Haiken calls that statistic misleading because the brand’s newest offering, the Polestar 4 coupe, went on sale in Europe in January 2024 but wasn’t available in the US until December 2025.
Some Polestar dealerships handle service issues through Volvo centers, but Haiken said his stand-alone Polestar service center will continue fixing and servicing the EVs. “We have the volume to justify it,” he says. “We have to be around to perform that work.” Not all dealerships might make the same decision, he said, though vehicles will likely be sent to the closest service center for tune-ups and fixes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX showed investors an early prototype of a slim, “handset-like” AI device running a proprietary operating system and integrating xAI technology. Elon Musk, however, denied the report, calling it “utterly false.” TechCrunch reports: SpaceX, alongside sister company Tesla, does have the manufacturing expertise to pull off mass-producing a bunch of AI devices — not to mention access to the chips needed to power any on-device compute. SpaceX has also signaled that it’s keen to expand into wireless, with Starlink Mobile as a potential competitor to Verizon and AT&T. One analyst even went as far as to speculate that T-Mobile or AT&T would make fine acquisition targets for the rocket builder, though such a purchase would, undoubtedly, be pricey.
It’s also not clear if SpaceX is just throwing spaghetti at the wall or if it will attempt to really mass-produce and market such a device. But one thing that seems clearer is that if OpenAI is doing it, Musk would, perhaps, want to try to do it better. […]
Like OpenAI, SpaceX’s prototype is reportedly designed to run on a proprietary operating system and integrate technology from xAI, Musk’s AI company that SpaceX acquired earlier this year. This would prevent these new devices from being trapped inside another company’s platforms (like Google’s Android). But the intent also appears to be to create something new, with native AI interfaces. That said, the graveyard is crowded with the unsuccessful launches of AI devices from companies like Humane and Rabbit. A company wanting to sell an AI device does not equate to consumers wanting to buy such a thing. Yet.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login