💡 Meta’s Superintelligence, Windows Refresh, Apple Ends Intel Era

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💡 Meta’s Superintelligence, Windows Refresh, Apple Ends Intel Era

Plus: Inside XChat’s Crypto Risks and IBM’s Quantum Plan.

Jose Montes de Oca

Jun 10, 2025

Transcript

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, June 10. Today we are covering:

Meta Is Creating a New A.I. Lab to Pursue 'Superintelligence'
You can now try Microsoft's new Start menu for Windows 11
We've Finally Reached the End of the Road for Intel Macs
A bit more on Twitter/X's new encrypted messaging
IBM Has a Roadmap to a 'Fault-Tolerant' Quantum Computer by 2029

Let’s dive in

Meta Is Creating a New A.I. Lab to Pursue 'Superintelligence'

By Cade Metz via The New York Times

Meta is launching a new AI research lab focused on developing “superintelligence”, recruiting talent from OpenAI and Google and offering up to nine-figure compensation packages to bolster its efforts.
The initiative is part of a broader reorganization, including a potential multi-billion-dollar investment in Scale AI, led by Alexandr Wang, who is joining the lab along with other Scale AI employees.
Amid growing competition with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, Meta is doubling down on AI after mixed results with prior rollouts, internal friction, and staff churn—betting on open-sourcing tools like Llama, scaling Meta AI across its products, and leaning on leaders like Yann LeCun and Wang to regain momentum.

𝕏: Paying $$$ for top AI researchers is the name of the game but Scale seems like a weird choice here. Great business, but not really known as a research lab despite marketing. Fresh start is good but $10B for this versus OpenAI/Anthropic VPs is ... not an obvious slam dunk IMO. - Luke Metro (@luke_metro)

You can now try Microsoft's new Start menu for Windows 11

By Tom Warren via The Verge

Microsoft has unveiled a redesigned Start menu for Windows 11, now available for testing via the Dev Channel, featuring a larger, scrollable layout with all apps accessible on the top level—no second page required.
The menu introduces two new customizable views—Category, which groups apps, and Grid, which arranges them alphabetically—plus the option to disable the recommended section for greater visibility of apps.
Enhancements include adaptive scaling based on screen size, a Phone Link button to toggle mobile features, customizable lock screen widgets, and a Gamepad keyboard update enabling PIN logins via controller—catering to devices like the ROG Xbox Ally.

𝕏: Microsoft has started testing its new Gamepad keyboard update that lets you sign into a PC with a PIN code using a controller. This is part of Microsoft’s work to improve Windows 11 on handheld gaming devices like the new Xbox Ally devices - Tom Warren (@tomwarren)

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We've Finally Reached the End of the Road for Intel Macs

By Luke Larsen via WIRED

Apple has announced macOS Tahoe as the final major macOS update to support Intel-based Macs, specifically the MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports), iMac (27-inch, 2020), and Mac Pro (2019).
Apple Intelligence features will be exclusive to Apple Silicon Macs, and support for Intel models will shift to security-only updates for the next three years, formally ending Apple’s Intel era that began its wind-down five years ago.
Rosetta, Apple’s Intel emulation layer, will also be phased out after macOS 27, further nudging developers to complete the transition to native Apple Silicon app support.

A bit more on Twitter/X's new encrypted messaging

By Matthew Green via Cryptographic Engineering

XChat's encryption lacks forward secrecy and relies on long-term keys instead of key ratcheting like Signal; private keys are stored on X’s servers using a system called Juicebox, which splits keys across three servers but doesn’t guarantee security unless deployed securely.
Security of Juicebox hinges on deployment choices: Though designed to support Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) or multi-party trust, X’s implementation likely runs entirely in software under its own control, making it vulnerable to insider access or legal demands—despite unverified claims from an X engineer about HSM use.
Juicebox uses threshold OPRFs to derive strong cryptographic keys from weak passwords, enforcing brute-force protections via attempt counters; however, if improperly deployed (e.g., single-operator control or no HSMs), the system’s safeguards can be circumvented, weakening end-to-end encryption guarantees.

IBM Has a Roadmap to a 'Fault-Tolerant' Quantum Computer by 2029

By Belle Lin via Wall Street Journal

IBM announced a roadmap to build the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029, to be located at its Poughkeepsie, New York data center.
The machine, named IBM Quantum Starling, is projected to have 20,000 times the computational power of current quantum computers.
The initiative underscores IBM’s ambition to lead the next era of quantum computing, setting a new benchmark for scale and error resilience.

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