Tootfinder

IAB announces a tool that lets device manufacturers confirm that ad impressions are associated with real devices; Google, Apple, and Amazon have signed on (Anthony Vargas/AdExchanger)
https://www.adexchanger.com/tv/ctv-manufacturers-have-a-new-t…

CTV Manufacturers Have A New Tool For Catching Spoofed Devices
The Open Measurement SDK now provides a scaled way for original device manufacturers to confirm that ad impressions are associated with real devices.

A look at US efforts to train workers for semiconductor manufacturing, led by Arizona, which has secured over 60 semiconductor expansion projects since 2020 (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/techn

US races to train tech workers for manufacturing, but will AI get the jobs first?
Immigration issues and China competition further complicate Trump's vision of an industrial revival

Agentic Additive Manufacturing Alloy Discovery
Peter Pak, Achuth Chandrasekhar, Amir Barati Farimani
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02567 https://arxiv.org/pdf…

Agentic Additive Manufacturing Alloy Discovery
Agentic systems enable the intelligent use of research tooling, augmenting a researcher's ability to investigate and propose novel solutions to existing problems. Within Additive Manufacturing (AM), alloy discovery remains a complex challenge, often requiring expertise in the various domains of materials science, thermodynamic simulations, and experimental analysis. Large Language Model (LLM) enabled agents can facilitate this endeavor by utilizing their extensive knowledge base to dispatch too…

Elon Musk Gambles Billions in Memphis to Catch Up on AI (Alexander Saeedy/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musk-xai-memphis-tennessee-power-dec4c70d?st=jRLE8S&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
http://www.memeorandum.com/251006/p83#a251006p83

For all of Donald Trump’s promises of an economic “golden age,”
a spate of weak indicators this week told a worrisome story as the impacts of his policies are coming into focus.
Job gains are dwindling.
Inflation is ticking upward.
Growth has slowed compared with last year.
More than six months into his term, Trump’s blitz of tariff hikes and his new tax and spending bill have remodeled America’s trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his own liking.

It's Trump's economy now. The latest financial numbers offer some warning signs
President Donald Trump's economic policies are facing scrutiny as weak indicators emerge. Job gains are dwindling, inflation is rising and growth has slowed compared to last year. More than six months into his term, Trump's tariffs and tax changes have reshaped the economy. On Friday, a bleak jobs report showed a decline in manufacturing jobs, and Trump fired the head of the agency responsible for the data. Critics warn that Trump's aggressive use of tariffs and tax changes could backfire. The …

There's actually a lot we don't talk about related to cars and the military industrial complex. My point that internal combustion engines align the citizens and the military (by forcing citizens to rely on the critical resource at the center or the military industrial complex) remains evergreen. But people also generally don't realize that the manufacturing infrastructure of cars is fungible, and can be shifted to aircraft and tanks when needed.
Car manufacturing capabilities are intimately related to militarism in a way that bicycles aren't. That's also worth thinking about.

Sources: Nvidia has struggled to monetize its Omniverse software and the company shuttered the Omniverse Cloud service in August 2025 due to lack of demand (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nvidias-big-ambitions…

Nvidia’s Big Ambitions to Solve Manufacturing Shows Slow Returns So Far
In the past two years, Nvidia’s business of selling chips for AI has rocketed into the stratosphere, lifting the company’s revenue to nearly $148 billion in the nine months through October, up from $27.5 billion for the same period in 2023. But CEO Jensen Huang isn’t satisfied. Perpetually ...

Here we go again ... Jared #Isaacman has been nominated for NASA Administrator a second time: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/04/trump-nominates-isaacman-nasa-administrator-00636497 and
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/trump-will-re-nominate-isaacman-for-nasa-administrator/. Also https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1985796145017471442 = a looong statement by him about his leaked document (the 'Athena' plan) mentioned e.g. in https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/11/capitol-hill-is-abuzz-with-talk-of-the-athena-plan-for-nasa/ and https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/03/jared-isaacman-confidential-manifesto-nasa-00633858

Source: xAI is set to spend $18B to acquire ~300K more Nvidia chips for its Colossus 2 project in Memphis; Elon Musk said in July it would have 550K chips (Alexander Saeedy/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musk-xai-mem

Lego unveils the Smart Play platform, with a brick powered by a custom chip that connects to compatible minifigures and tags for interactive lights and sounds (Jeremy White/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/lego-smart-brick-new-digital-brain/

Lego’s Smart Brick Gives the Iconic Analog Toy a New Digital Brain
The new sensor-packed Smart Play Brick will land this spring as part of a special Star Wars collection. The update adds interactive lights and sound to the Lego experience—including the Minifigs.