Latest / Connecting the Dots / Meta’s New Smart Glasses, AI Detects Earthquakes, and Chaos at the CDC

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Meta’s New Smart Glasses, AI Detects Earthquakes, and Chaos at the CDC · Connecting the Dots

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  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snrful Solutions
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  Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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  hosts. Welcome to Connecting the Dots, your weekly
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  exploration of the technology that is actively
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  reshaping our future. We are coming to you from
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  the Snrful Solutions Group headquarters here
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  in Sacramento, California. And it is Friday,
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  October 10th. 2025. Happy Friday. Happy Friday.
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  Indeed. We have three really enormous tech stories
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  today. Feels like they fundamentally change how
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  we look at the world, doesn't it? Absolutely.
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  From, you know, the tiniest vibrations under
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  our feet all the way out to space. But before
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  we dive into those, maybe a quick check on the
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  environment we're in. Sounds good. So here in
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  Sacramento, it's shaking up to be a beautiful
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  California day, becoming sunny, expecting a high
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  around 74 degrees Fahrenheit. Nice. Nationally,
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  though, it's a bit more dramatic. We're seeing
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  real extremes. There's heavy rain, flash flood
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  concerns still happening in the southwest, the
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  Four Corners area. Right, that tropical moisture.
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  Exactly. And then on the East Coast, there's
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  a pretty strong coastal storm bringing flooding
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  and some really gusty winds. So yeah, definitely
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  stay vigilant if you're out there. OK, let's
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  shift over to the markets as the week wraps up.
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  Generally an upbeat day, actually. Yeah, seemed
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  pretty positive. The Dow Jones saw a daily change.
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  0 .19%. The S &P 500 also closed up just slightly,
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  adding 0 .04%. Okay. And Bitcoin. Always curious
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  about crypto heading into the weekend. A little
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  bump there, too. Bitcoin gained 0 .22%, closing
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  the day just over $121 ,991. Okay. Holding steady
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  mostly now before we get into the big tech stories
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  We want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor
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  sandases .com. Go check them out. Alright, so
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  let's get into it. The Morningstar Tech article
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  report. Our mission today really is to connect
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  these three seemingly very different tech leaps,
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  right? AI sensing tiny things, AR getting right
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  in our faces, and rockets getting, well, huge.
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  Yeah, let's start right here on the ground, or
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  maybe in the ground, this revolution happening
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  with AI and earthquake detection. Right, so traditionally,
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  you know, humans looked at seismograms, it was
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  manual. Now, machine learning tools, basically
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  computer imaging analysis, have almost completely
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  automated that job. And it's not just faster,
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  is it? The key thing is the sensitivity. That's
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  exactly it. The AI is achieving a level of sensitivity
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  that was just impossible before. We're talking
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  about finding seismic events, earthquakes, so
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  small that, well, humans never felt them, and
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  older programs just couldn't pull them out from
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  the background noise. Like that example they
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  mentioned, the magnitude negative 0 .53 quake
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  in Calipatria, California back in 2008. Negative
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  magnitude, I mean, what does that even mean?
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  Kind of wild, right? It basically means the energy
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  released was just incredibly tiny, barely registered
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  above a truck driving by. And that's the key
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  insight. The AI is getting really good at separating
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  that faint earthquake signal from all the other
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  noisy environment stuff, cities, construction,
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  traffic. Which brings us to that quote from Kyle
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  Bradley. He said, adopting these new techniques
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  is like putting on glasses for the first time.
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  Suddenly, seismologists can see the leaves on
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  the trees, even looking back at old data. I love
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  that. Seeing the leaves, not just the big trees.
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  So it's not just about the big destructive quakes
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  anymore. We're understanding the Earth's constant
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  microchatter. Precisely. And that gives us way
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  more information about the Earth's structure,
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  how stress builds up on faults, all that good
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  stuff. For you listening, this eventually means,
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  hopefully, much more accurate hazard mapping.
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  But there's always a but, right? Well, yeah.
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  We have to keep perspective. The sources are
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  clear. Detection is revolutionized. Fantastic.
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  But the next big step, the sort of holy grail
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  of earthquake forecasting. Yeah. And that's still
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  very much ongoing. We can see the small stuff,
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  but predicting the big one, still a huge challenge.
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  OK, that makes sense. And you know, that idea
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  of putting on glasses for the first time is actually
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  a perfect transition to our second story. Ah.
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  Meta's new glasses exactly the meta ray -band
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  display glasses. This seems like a pretty significant
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  step It really is they unveiled these at their
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  connect event. They cost 799 dollars, which isn't
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  cheap But the big deal is this tiny screen inside
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  the right lens visible only to the person winning
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  them It's their first real push towards well
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  actual augmented reality And the goal they say
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  is to get us looking up from our phones more,
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  right? keep your head up, you can supposedly
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  glance at messages, scroll Instagram reels, why
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  you'd want to do that, I don't know, but also
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  get navigation maps overlaid on your view, see
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  translations, live captions, even take video
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  calls. And the way you interact with it is also
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  pretty futuristic. Yeah, this part's interesting.
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  It uses a new neural wristband. So instead of
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  yelling, hey, meta, or poking the frames, you
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  make subtle hand gestures, like maybe just twitching
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  a finger slightly. Wow. The band reads. the electrical
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  signals in your wrist muscles to control the
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  display. Pretty seamless if it works well. OK,
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  technically impressive, but let's talk about
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  the social side because, you know, we all remember
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  Google Glass and the whole glass hole thing.
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  Oh, yeah, that did not go over well. Right. So
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  if I'm talking to you and you sort of glance
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  off to the side for a second, checking the screen,
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  I can't see. I mean, doesn't that feel, I don't
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  know, kind of rude, like you're not really present?
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  I think that's the core tension, absolutely.
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  It introduces this possibility of hidden distraction.
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  You wouldn't even know if I was checking a text
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  message, which maybe feels even worse than just
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  quickly pulling out a phone. Yeah, it breaks
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  the feeling of shared presence, even if you're
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  only looking away for a second. But Metta's defense
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  from their director of AI glasses, Ankit Bramhot,
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  is that the goal is actually to protect presence
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  by making it just a quick... Glanceable display
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  something you only need for a few seconds at
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  a time. So you stay heads up and engaged in the
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  real world more. Hmm It's a compelling argument
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  framing it as better integration not more intrusion
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  I guess we'll see public adoption how people
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  actually feel using these and seeing others use
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  them That's going to be the real test starting
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  this one. Yeah the court of public opinion Okay,
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  let's leave the messy world of social etiquette
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  on earth and Look much much further out to space
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  to space Our final story today SpaceX Starship
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  just completed its 10th flight test and this
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  one was a big success Huge and crucial is definitely
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  the right word because this came after was it
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  three previous test flights seven eight nine
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  that all failed pretty spectacularly right they
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  didn't complete their missions so this was kind
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  of a make -or -break moment for them to show
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  their whole approaches working absolutely to
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  validate the strategy so what did they actually
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  achieve this time what went right Well, pretty
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  much everything they set out to do, it sounds
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  like. The upper stage, the Starship itself, reached
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  space. It deployed a payload, for the first time
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  ever, eight mock -up Starlink satellites. Okay,
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  payload deployment? Check. Yep. They tested relighting
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  an engine in the vacuum of space, which is critical
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  for maneuvering. Check. And then, the really
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  big one, both stages, the upper stage and the
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  massive super -heavy booster, performed controlled
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  splashdowns. Controlled splashdowns, so they
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  didn't just fall randomly. Exactly. The upper
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  stage came down as planned in the Indian Ocean,
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  the booster in the Gulf of Mexico. They met every,
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  quote, major objective. Wow. OK, so this really
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  highlights that whole Silicon Valley fail fast,
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  learn fast thing, right? But applied to rockets,
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  which seems risky. It is risky and expensive
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  when things go boom. But it's also revolutionary
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  for space exploration, which has always been
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  super conservative, engineering -wise. They explicitly
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  noted, yeah, there was some damage near the engines
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  during the flight, probably expected, but it
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  doesn't matter, because the core functions worked.
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  They learned from the failures of tests 7, 8,
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  and 9 fixed things and nailed test 10. That relentless
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  iteration, even with dramatic failures, is how
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  they're moving so much faster than traditional
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  aerospace. And the implications here go way beyond
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  just launching more starlings, right? Oh, absolutely.
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  This is fundamental for NASA. Starship is the
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  vehicle NASA plans to use to land the Artemis
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  III astronauts on the moon, hopefully by 2027.
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  Right, the lunar lander. Exactly. So NASA needed
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  to see this success. And of course, for Elon
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  Musk's bigger vision... This is a major step
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  towards making that Mars colonization goal seem,
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  well, slightly less science fiction. Yeah. From
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  seeing the tiniest details on the Earth's crust
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  to potentially enabling human life on another
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  planet, it really has been a week of just radical
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  technological ambition across scales. It really
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  connects, doesn't it? It's all about embedding
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  intelligence into the physical world, whether
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  it's analyzing seismic waves, integrating displays
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  into our glasses, or building reusable interplanetary
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  rockets. Well, before we wrap things up, we also
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  want to thank our other sponsor today, Skoni.
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  you can find them at scony .com. That's S -K
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  -O -N -I .com. Okay, so let's quickly tie these
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  threads together again. What do we connect today?
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  First, AI is essentially giving seismologists
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  these incredible new glasses, letting us understand
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  the stresses and strains on our planet in way
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  more detail than ever before. Right. Then Meta
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  is pushing the boundaries of social interaction
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  with these $800 display glasses, really forcing
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  us to think about what presence means when computing
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  gets that close to our eyes. Can we be heads
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  up without checking out? Yeah, that's the question.
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  And finally, SpaceX's Starship success. It's
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  not just a win for SpaceX. It validates that
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  high -risk, iterative approach to engineering
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  complex systems, and it keeps both NASA's moonshot
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  and, you know, those longer -term Mars ambitions
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  on track. So from microquakes to Mars colonies,
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  hopefully connecting these dots helps you see
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  where technology might be taking us next, both
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  in your daily life and out there in the bigger
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  professional landscape. We hope it gives you
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  that shortcut to staying informed about the world
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  of tomorrow that's unfolding today. We're here
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  to help at SNARFL, so reach out on our website
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  if you have any more questions. That's a wrap
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  on today's top stories. Remember, tech doesn't
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  have to be complicated, and we're here to help
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  connect the dots. If you've got questions or
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  want to learn more, visit us at snarful .com.
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  Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next
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  time.