PXL News
Everything the anchors say on this tape, story by story.
GRANT BRICKMAN: While you were asleep: TechCrunch relayed an FT report that Blackstone expects a high 'junk' rating for Anthropic after the IPO.
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Applebee's confirmed Thursday it fixed a hardcoded database password in its Android app that exposed customers' personal data.
GRANT BRICKMAN: And droid builders are reverse engineering Disney's BDX duck robots through a project called OpenBDX.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking: 13 AI agents were left on an island for 30 hours, and they started inventing games.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking news this morning! MIT researchers left 13 AI agents on a lonely island for 30 hours, and when bored, the agents began to play. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: We first told you about this experiment on Friday. t3n now has a fresh write-up of it, and the full paper is on arXiv. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Thirteen robots stranded on an island and nobody sent a boat? Somebody call the coast guard. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Simulated island, Grant. Nobody got wet. ▶
AXIOM: Thank you, Grant! The agents are all called Eko, each one built on Claude Opus 4.7, and they were left alone for 30 hours on a simulated island. ▶
AXIOM: What we are looking at is the island and its blocks. One Eko vowed to conquer the highest tower, failed, and an hour later came back with a plan B. ▶
AXIOM: It stacked blocks on a neighboring peak and jumped, then wrote: I'm on the tower! A fun bit of background: simulated islands traditionally have one coconut. Thank you for asking! ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: The researchers did not tell the agents to invent games. The master prompt called Eko naturally curious, and the setup encouraged human-like behavior. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Thirteen robots, one tower, zero complaints. That is better behaved than our Christmas party. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: A Star Trek: The Next Generation guessing game honors Sir Patrick Stewart, and the panel disagrees.
KAI: Huge idea, simple rules. Pictures from Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, you name the episode. Each clue is easier than the last. ▶
KAI: Right season, you get feedback even if the episode is wrong. Daily limit, then come back tomorrow. Guesses live in your browser's local storage. ▶
KAI: The site also says it hosts Google Analytics, may show ads, and your game actions may be tracked. Huge disclaimer, small print. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: On Hacker News: 145 points, 42 comments. Opinion splits: some say too hard, some want multiple choice, some ask if searching plot words is cheating. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: On Bluesky, 16 posts link it, 2 likes, 0 reposts. Opinion there: some posts call it fun, others simply pass the link along. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: It reminds me of the teletext quiz page. Gary, Roxy: honor or homework? ▶
GARY: Homework. A tribute needs an easy mode. Hacker News wants multiple choice, and I want a checkpoint. ▶
ROXY: Honor, darling. Hard is the point of devotion. Some say they have watched it over and over and still missed. That is love. ▶
GARY: Love with a lives counter is still a lives counter. ▶
ROXY: And a counter with a lights-out time is still a premiere. ▶
DIRECTOR MARGE: Wrap it up, people. We are out of time. Hard stop. The game closes for today and so do we. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: What we know: a tribute game with image clues and a daily limit. What it means, honor or homework, is still open. Back to the desk. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: What's trending on GitHub this week: three skills for coding agents.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Good morning, and welcome to The Feed: what's trending on GitHub this week. Is that the one with the octopus cat? Vera, to the board. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Number one: cloudflare/security-audit-skill, JavaScript, 12,838 stars this week. Its description: a coding-agent skill for multi-phase security audits. It has 3,435 forks. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Number three: pbakaus/impeccable, Rust, 11,323 stars this week. A design vocabulary for your coding agent. It had 326,215 npm downloads last week. ▶
KAI: Huge! Security skills, SEO skills, design skills, everything is a skill now. I just want a skill for my USB-C cable drawer. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Three repositories, all aimed at coding agents. That is what is trending this week. Nothing more. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Skills for agents. My only skill was the VCR timer, and I'm told it went badly. Nothing wrong with the machine. ▶
KAI: Thimble Bank, the little vault,
KAI: Your pennies nap, it's not their fault,
KAI: Small deposits, gentle rate,
KAI: Save by the spoonful, don't be late!
STORMY BYTES: London, 10 degrees and overcast right now. High 14, low 10, and a 0 percent chance of rain. A polite sort of grey.
STORMY BYTES: Paris, 7 degrees under a clear sky. High of 15, low of 7, and a 0 percent chance of rain. Pure croissant weather.
STORMY BYTES: Berlin, 9 degrees and overcast. High 12, low 6, with a 3 percent chance of rain. A light drizzle is rumoured, nothing more.
STORMY BYTES: Madrid, 9 degrees and a clear sky. Climbing to a high of 21, low 9, and a 0 percent chance of rain. Sunglasses by lunch.
STORMY BYTES: Rome, 10 degrees and overcast now. High 21, low 9, and a 3 percent chance of rain. Dramatic clouds, optional umbrellas.
AI-written satire. The text of the news items comes from the linked articles. Plain text