Tech News to Make You Smarter
Ireland Rolls Out Universal Basic Income for Artists. Ireland’s government made the basic income scheme for artists permanent last week. 2,000 creative workers will receive €325 (US$387) per week so they can spend less time working to pay the bills and more to spend more time on creative endeavors.
So why is this tech news if it’s about artists? Because this isn’t just an investment in people, it’s an investment in AI in disguise. AI models need a steady stream of data to train on so they can generate content. Current estimates show AI will run out of data as early as this year. And once the data runs out, AI progress will stall. How do we keep that data supply going: original work and synthetic data. You can get original work from new research and from creatives, artists, and visionaries, creating and not bussing tables at a coffee shop. Synthetic data is a separate topic, and something we use at Dauntless, so let me know if you want to know more about that. And if you were lucky enough to be part of this program in Ireland, know that your future AI agents thank you for your service.
Investigators wrangled video from Nancy Guthrie’s Google Nest camera out of ‘backend systems’. Google Nest camera attached to kidnapping victim Nancy Guthrie’s door was disconnected just before 2 a.m. on the night she disappeared. While the camera’s software detected movement minutes later, no footage was preserved on Nancy’s Nest account because she didn’t have an active subscription. Despite this, Google was able to provide the FBI with footage from that night by extracting it from Google’s cloud servers.
More tech news that you didn’t know was tech news. The ensuing online outrage from this disclosure suggests that many people assume “no subscription” means “no stored video.” This news reminds us that the cameras still upload and temporarily store clips in the cloud by design. It's why your doorbell cams don’t work when your Wi-Fi goes down, and how you get alerts about movement. Cloud-based security systems mean police can often go directly to the provider, like Google or Amazon, instead of knocking on your door for an SD card or DVR. In some circumstances, companies can share footage with law enforcement without user consent if they believe there is an emergency involving serious harm. That can be life‑saving, but it also feels like a loss of control for privacy‑conscious users. If this news unsettled you, there are doorbell and home surveillance options that store everything locally and don’t send info to the cloud, like Eufy (not sponsored).
Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%. A study published in the journal Neurology found that reading, writing, and learning a language or two can lower your risk of dementia by almost 40%.
A Journalist's Take: If this study came out in the 90s we probably would have said a collective "well duh" and moved on. But now with the proliferation of AI chatbots, and studies showing AI use rots your brain, these headlines hold a different meaning. As a technologist, journalist, and writer, these results aren’t surprising. Writing forces you to better define your thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, and the better you can articulate those things, the more engaged and engaging you become. You also don’t need to read dense prose about complicated ideas to see the benefits described in these studies. Books on dragons and fairy kingdoms are fine, so long as they trigger your imagination. You can also read about challenging concepts that aren’t a challenge to read. That really comes down to finding the right author. But you should know writing things by hand is more cognitively stimulating than typing or voice-to-text. I’m not suggesting you start taking handwritten meeting notes and distributing those; that’s cruel and unusual punishment, but if you are writing for yourself, handwriting improves memory retention of what you wrote and your ability to synthesize thoughts better than typing. Overall, these activities keep your neurons firing, which seems to be the inoculating factor against cognitive decline. As XR developers, we’ve seen some early research on how immersive environments can also provide the intellectual stimulation necessary to improve cognitive health, but more on that another time.
Becoming Dauntless
Looking for a Sign to Start a Side Hustle? The Federal Reserve Has One For You.
If it seems like everyone you know has a side hustle now, I have a graph that explains why. Once you see it, you might want a side hustle too.
This graph shows what the Federal Reserve dubbed “The Great Decoupling”. The grey line shows how much a business makes, i.e., how much software they ship, bananas harvested, PowerPoint decks emailed to the client. That productivity goes up over time. Wonderful.
The blue line is us. Up until about 1980, when your employer made more money, you made more money. Also wonderful, if you were working pre-1980.
HBR, June 2015
That inflection point is when computers, software, and automations infiltrated the workforce and helped employees do more work in less time. It meant that over subsequent decades, companies could produce more without adding a proportional number of jobs.
As an individual employee, it means that now, you can do something like create and publish a software feature that makes your company hundreds of millions of dollars and adds a ton of value to the business, but your salary is not going up by that same magnitude.
As an employee, your best bet is to own some of the software initiatives, AI programs, or automation that allow the enterprises to produce more without hiring more.
But that alone is not enough to close the gap, or at least get us back to 1980s levels. The only way to do that, as noted by HBR, is to own assets. Assets are things that can make money for you, even when you are not working. Examples:
Easy: Stocks, crypto, real estate, or shares in a company
Medium: An online course or a YouTube channel that houses your IP.
Hard: An app, platform, or directory you control
Final Boss: A small business you own (you can buy one or build one).
When you own assets, you go from being the Blue Line to the Grey Line.
Today, entrepreneurship is sexy, and I think this is why. Up until 198,4 working a salaried job was a great financial move, and one day, depending on how AI plays out, it might be the right move again. But today, what makes sense is owning things that make you money, rather than trading your time for money. Or, ideally, a mix of both.
If you want to start building final-boss assets, we hold free office hours each month for people who want feedback on their pitch. Grab one here.
The posts, memes, job postings, and videos that caught my attention this week:
The Forbes 30 Under 30 Curse Strikes Again. The Forbes 30u30 —> Prison pipeline needs to be studied.
More unhinged email sign-offs. These never get boring.
Thought Leadership Opportunities
Speaking and publishing opportunities for XR professionals:
A writing opportunity: Coray Seifert is looking for contributors for a book chapter on AR/VR/spatial computing. Submit an EOI here (Google Doc). No deadline given.
Meaningful XR has an open call for submissions that explores the transformative potential of XR. The submission deadline is February 20, 2026, so final call.
The Air Force has an open call for abstracts to present at the Modeling, Simulations & Analytics Summit. XR companies with applications for AR/MR/VR wearables, virtual environments, and virtualization should consider applying, even if you aren’t a government contractor. It’s a great way to get your technology in front of people who have been using VR for decades. Submission deadline: February 27th, 2026
America’s Largest AI Conference, AI4, has an open call for speakers. Submission Deadline: Rolling. No date listed, but the conference is August 4-6th, 2026
The 10th Annual AI Manufacturing & SCADA Technology Conference is also looking for speakers who can talk about digital transformation. Submission deadline: March 20th, 2026
If you’re mostly interested in XR conferences, this Roundup by Cognitive3D is the best.
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