2026-06-30 08:05:45
METR: We are Changing our Developer Productivity Experiment Design
Based on conversations with study participants, we believe it is likely that developers are more sped up from AI tools now — in early 2026 — compared to our estimates from early 2025. However, because of the selection effects in our experiment, our data is only very weak evidence for the size of this increase.
Remember that study last year that showed that developers who used AI tools were 20% slower than those who didn’t? Of course you do, it was all over the place!
This update from back in February that I just found today is about how they had to change their methodologies for testing because so much had changed. Additionally, while they don’t have conclusive results, their early findings seem to indicate that the uptick in productivity is actually pretty significant now.
For some context, if you haven’t followed this closely, their original study was of developers using Claude Sonnet 3.5 through cursor while this new study would’ve been using Claude Code with Opus 4.5 anyone who’s worked with this tooling at all knows that that is night and day.
2026-06-29 07:48:05
2026-06-27 11:45:46
Mat Piscatella: Hardware - PlayStation hardware unit sales fell to…
PlayStation hardware unit sales fell to their lowest May total since May 2000, while Xbox hardware unit sales were the lowest ever recorded for a May month.
The data goes back to 1995, and May was the worst month for hardware unit sales for Sony in 26 years, and Microsoft ever.
Meanwhile, Nintendo had a solid month, closing out selling 6 million Switch 2 consoles in its first year on the market. Thats that most for any home console ever, or second most if you consider it a handheld (falling behind the GBA’s 6.5 million back in 2001).
It’s a good thing Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming out this November to juice PS5 and Xbox Series sales, otherwise these consoles would be positively cooked.
2026-06-27 06:07:00
Joe Skrebels on XBOX Wire, Micirosft's official Xbox (ahem…XBOX) blog (emphasis mine): Updated XBOX Console Prices
Last October, we increased XBOX console price by $20-$70 in the U.S. We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options. Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027. The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles. Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices, consoles are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make.
The optimistic take is that this indicates they have raised the prices enough to weather next year's doubling of costs. The pessimistic take is that we're in for another round of price hikes next year as well.
Their post also mentions how they're working to get more refurbished models available, and that you can pay over time with BNPL and financing options. I'm just saying we're not in a good place when console makers are actually encouraging people to buy refurbished devices.
As it turns out, the best time to buy an Xbox Series console was in 2020, and the next best time is now. oof.
In 2020, the 1TB Xbox Series X cost $499. In 2026 that exact same console costs $799. Lord knows what it will cost next year.
2026-06-27 05:45:21
We’re winding down the Notion Mail inbox across web, desktop, and iOS on September 22.
It's a bit of a bummer, but truth be told, this didn't quite hit the mark. It was kind of like "Superhuman, but for cheap" when it launched, but once they started charging for the AI features, it just became "as expensive as Superhuman, but not quite as good". Once the price advantage went away, I reverted to Mimestream, myself.
If they wind down Notion Calendar, someone better hold me back, though.
2026-06-25 23:06:33
Stephen Nellis and Aditya Soni quoting a statement they got from Apple: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket
"We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac."
9to5Mac has a good summery of the price changes, and they’re not pretty. The notables to me are:
I also can’t help but see that “we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac,” statement as implying more increases are coming. The iPhone price increase seems inevitable, and my money is on it starting with the new models in September. We’ll see what they manage there, but if prices go up $200 or so on those models, I’d expect this past year’s boom cycle in iPhone sales will come to an end.