✨ Silicon Shift, Open AI Rival, Insta's New Look
Good morning. It’s Friday, May 30. Today we are covering:
Rewriting the Californian Ideology
DeepSeek R1-0528 arrives in powerful open source challenge to OpenAI o3 and Google Gemini 2.5 Pro
Instagram isn't just for square photos anymore
YouTube will soon let viewers use Google Lens to search what they see while watching Shorts
Botnet hacks 9,000+ ASUS routers to add persistent SSH backdoor
Let’s dive in
Rewriting the Californian Ideology
By Nadia Asparouhova via American Affairs Journal
The article argues that Silicon Valley's ideology has evolved from its mythologized libertarian, anti-government roots into a more collectivist, institution-reforming force that prizes state capacity, speed, and social impact over personal freedom.
It documents the fracturing of tech culture into distinct ideological submovements—like progress, abundance, American dynamism, and effective altruism—which diverge in views on human nature, government, and change, yet share a common belief in overcoming stagnation through innovation and institutional reform.
Tech’s growing political influence under the Trump-Vance administration, along with its introspective reckoning, suggests that the sector is undergoing an ideological adolescence—experimenting with identity, values, and power, while steadily converging on a new vision of American renewal grounded in action, talent, and systemic transformation.
𝕏: Silicon Valley has not swung right, nor was it previously left, nor even that third thing (libertarian). By telling the wrong stories about its politics, we risk missing what tech really has to offer. - Nadia Asparouhova (@nayafia)
DeepSeek R1-0528 arrives in powerful open source challenge to OpenAI o3 and Google Gemini 2.5 Pro
By Carl Franzen via VentureBeat
DeepSeek-R1-0528, a powerful open-source update from Chinese startup DeepSeek, rivals OpenAI’s o3 and Google Gemini 2.5 Pro in reasoning performance, featuring significant gains in benchmark accuracy (e.g., 87.5% on AIME 2025) and enhanced capabilities for math, coding, and scientific reasoning.
Released under the MIT License and hosted on Hugging Face, the model offers function calling, JSON output, reduced hallucination rates, and an improved UX with simplified system prompts—making it easier for developers to deploy and customize.
A smaller variant, DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B, delivers strong results on limited hardware, while early reactions from AI influencers highlight the model’s near-parity with top-tier proprietary systems and hint at a forthcoming R2 frontier model.
𝕏: DeepSeek R1 0528 Q4 is on the Hugging Face MLX Community. Runs nicely with mlx-lm on an M3 Ultra - Awni Hannun (@awnihannun)
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Instagram isn't just for square photos anymore
By Jay Peters via The Verge
Instagram now supports 3:4 aspect ratio photos, allowing uploads to appear exactly as shot—matching the default setting on most smartphone cameras.
Unlike the previously available 4:5 format, 3:4 images won’t be cropped at the ends and are supported in both single-photo posts and carousels.
This update follows Instagram's January shift to rectangular profile grids, aligning with the trend that most uploaded content is now vertically oriented.
𝕏: Instagram isn’t just for square photos anymore. You can now upload photos with a 3:4 aspect ratio and they'll appear exactly as you shot them - Tom Warren (@tomwarren)
YouTube will soon let viewers use Google Lens to search what they see while watching Shorts
By Aisha Malik via TechCrunch
YouTube Shorts is integrating Google Lens, allowing users to visually search items within videos by pausing, selecting the “Lens” option, and tapping or highlighting elements on screen.
This feature enhances interactive search and discovery, offering functionality that TikTok and Instagram Reels currently lack, with a beta rollout starting this week and no ads shown in results during testing.
The Lens feature won’t support Shorts with YouTube Shopping affiliate links or paid promotions, aligning with YouTube’s broader strategy to compete in short-form video with tools like AI stickers and beat-syncing content.
Botnet hacks 9,000+ ASUS routers to add persistent SSH backdoor
By Bill Toulas via BleepingComputer
A stealthy botnet named AyySSHush has compromised over 9,000 ASUS routers—including models like RT-AC3100, RT-AC3200, and RT-AX55—by exploiting CVE-2023-39780 to install a persistent SSH backdoor that survives firmware upgrades.
The attack, discovered by GreyNoise in March 2025, uses brute-force logins, disables logging and security features, and mirrors elements of nation-state tactics, though attribution remains unconfirmed.
Users are urged to update firmware, check for unauthorized SSH keys, block associated malicious IPs, and perform a factory reset if compromise is suspected, as upgrades alone do not remove the backdoor.
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