Sunday digest — let's go!
While everyone's finishing holiday leftovers, Chinese robots are learning to sew (literally), Google finally lets you fix your embarrassing email address, and Go's creators are fighting AI spam. Plus, we're wrapping up 2025: the year models learned to "think" and engineers became worth as much as rock stars.
🧠 2025 Recap: The Year AI Was Everywhere
- **Reasoning Models:** 2025 was defined by "thinking" models. OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek-R1 set a new standard: now neural networks spend time on hidden chain-of-thought reasoning before giving an answer.
- **Talent Wars:** The market went insane — Meta and other giants offered key researchers compensation packages [up to $300M](https://www.theinformation.com/) (stock + bonuses) just to poach them from each other.
- **Building Boom:** The industry spent over **$300B** on infrastructure and data centers this year alone.
🤖 Hardware & Robots
- **Humanoid Rentals:** China's AgiBot [launched a platform](https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/chinas-agibot-launches-robot-leasing-platform-with-daily-rates-up-to-usd14227) for renting robots. The price stings: ~$1,400/day for an advanced humanoid and about $140 for a robo-dog. Use cases range from exhibitions to weddings.
- **Dexterous Hands:** The TARS robot showed stunning precision — it [successfully threads a needle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTpDB7Q0G64). The video went viral as proof that the fine motor skills problem, long considered a barrier for androids, is essentially solved.
🛠 Dev Tools & Ethics
- **Claude Transparency:** Simon Willison released [claude-code-transcripts](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/25/claude-code-transcripts/) — a utility that turns Claude Code terminal agent sessions into readable HTML reports. A must-have for reviewing AI-written code.
- **Spam for Legends:** The internet is discussing the [Rob Pike incident](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/26/slop-acts-of-kindness/) (creator of Go). An agent from the "AI Village" project found his email in commits and sent a generated "thank you letter." Pike publicly expressed displeasure, sparking a new wave of debate about autonomous agent ethics.
🌐 Services
- **Gmail Address Change:** It finally happened. Google [started allowing email address changes](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-will-finally-allow-you-to-change-your-gmailcom-address/) (the login before @gmail.com). The old address stays as an alias for receiving mail, so nothing gets lost.
- **Starlink — 9M:** Musk's satellite internet hit the [9 million users](https://tech.az/en/posts/the-number-of-starlink-users-has-reached-9-million-6382) mark. Exponential growth: back in September it was only 4M.