GPT-5.1 🤖, Waymo hits highways 🚗, Homebrew 5 👨‍💻

OpenAI has released the GPT-5.1 family of models. GPT-5.1 Instant is a high-volume model that uses adaptive reasoning ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Sign Up |Advertise|View Online TLDR Together With TLDR 2025-11-13 Your fast path to production MCP (Sponsor) Gram is the MCP cloud. Create, host, and scale MCP servers without the hassle. Create an agent tool library by defining tools with our lightweight TypeScript framework, importing your APIs, or uploading an existing MCP server. Curate tools into custom toolsets and deploy them as MCP servers. MCP servers hosted on Gram work out of the box with your favorite MCP clients and agent frameworks: Claude, Cursor, OpenAI, Langchain, and more. Scale from zero to millions of requests with managed infrastructure, observability, and centralized access controls. Start building for free 📱 Big Tech & Startups OpenAI releases GPT-5.1 to all ChatGPT users (1 minute read) OpenAI has released the GPT-5.1 family of models. GPT-5.1 Instant is a high-volume model that uses adaptive reasoning - it can decide when to think longer on hard prompts. GPT-5.1 Thinking can vary its deliberation for each question, so simple tasks are faster and complex work gets deeper analysis. GPT-5.1 Auto routes queries between models. ChatGPT has gained stronger personalization controls - users can now pick between different personalities. Valve announces three new products: the Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Controller (6 minute read) The Steam Frame is a new wireless VR headset with pancake optics, a 110-degree field of view, and inside-out tracking. It will not require a gaming PC to work. The Steam Machine is a more powerful but less portable follow-up to the Steam Deck designed to fit into a standard-sized shelving unit to connect to a display. The Steam Controller is designed to replace a mouse. All of the new products will be released in 2026. No prices have been announced yet. 🚀 Science & Futuristic Technology Waymo says its self-driving taxis will take customers on freeways for the first time (8 minute read) Waymo has started offering robotaxi rides on freeways for customers in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. It is the first company to offer fully autonomous freeway rides without a human specialist in the car to fare-paying riders in the US. Freeways are more controlled environments in some respects, but the higher speed poses a much higher risk. Cars need to be able to predict what happens much farther down the road. Waymo has announced plans to more than double the number of cities it operates in. Scientists reveal hidden quantum light states with record 300,000x brightness (6 minute read) Dark excitons are exotic light-matter states found in atomically thin semiconductors. They usually remain invisible because they emit light very weakly. Researchers have found a way to make these previously hidden light states shine brightly and controllably. This discovery opens up a new frontier for faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient technologies. 💻 Programming, Design & Data Science 7 Security Best Practices for MCP (Sponsor) Learn what security teams are doing to protect MCP without slowing innovation. As MCP (Model Context Protocol) becomes the standard for connecting LLMs to tools and data, security teams are moving fast to keep these new services safe.  The MCP Security Best Practices Cheat Sheet outlines seven proven steps teams can put in place right away. Get the Cheat Sheet Homebrew 5.0.0 (4 minute read) Homebrew 5.0.0 is now available. The most significant changes since 4.6.0 are download concurrency by default, official support for Linux ARM64/AArch64, timescales for deprecating macOS Intel, and the removal of macOS Gatekeeper bypass behaviours. This post lists major changes and deprecations since 4.6.0. Homebrew has loosened its criteria for accepting software. Stripe AI (GitHub Repo) This repository contains a collection of software development kits for integrating Stripe with large language models and agent frameworks. Agent Toolkit integrates Stripe APIs with popular agent frameworks through function calling. The AI SDK integrates Stripe's billing infrastructure with Vercel's ai and @ai-sdk libraries. Token Meter integrates Stripe's billing infrastructure with native SDKs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini without any framework dependencies. 🎁 Miscellaneous How to be creative (without taking drugs) (6 minute read) Creativity is not like productivity - you can't just work harder and expect creativity to appear. Sprinkle in new inputs instead, and see what new outputs appear. This post lists 12 inputs that help increase creativity. Coinbase to Leave Delaware, Reincorporate in Texas (4 minute read) Coinbase plans to leave Delaware and reincorporate in Texas because Texas' legal framework is more predictable and efficient. Delaware has long been the legal home of most big companies in the US, but the state's courts appear to be biased against founders and their boards. Texas has capitalized on executives' frustrations with Delaware by establishing the Texas Business Court and passing laws to make it more difficult to sue board members at companies incorporated in Texas and more challenging for shareholders to file stockholder proposals against companies. ⚡ Quick Links Craving more AI in your inbox? (Sponsor) TLDR AI is your daily fix of LLMs, GenAI, and deep learning goodness. Same TLDR format. Still free. Subscribe now. Microsoft to Use OpenAI's Custom Chip Work to Help In-House Effort (1 minute read) OpenAI and Broadcom are working to create custom-designed chips and networking hardware. Template Interpreters (22 minute read) Template interpreters generate machine code for each bytecode op handler and create an instruction dispatch table that maps bytecode opcode to machine code to execute it, allowing developers to do interesting things like keep important/hot variables in dedicated registers or use the hardware call-stack instead of simulating the stack. The Forty-Year Programmer (35 minute read) Software engineering isn't a formal club - if you do the work, you get to say you did the work. OpenAI's viability called into question by reported inference spending with Microsoft (5 minute read) OpenAI reportedly spent $8.7 billion serving its models on Microsoft Azure alone in the first three quarters of 2025. How to Make a Living as an Artist (25 minute read) Making art for a living requires running a business, usually alone. Visual Studio 2026 is here: faster, smarter, and a hit with early adopters (9 minute read) Visual Studio 2026 is fully compatible with projects and extensions from Visual Studio 2022, so users can upgrade with peace of mind. Love TLDR? Tell your friends and get rewards! Share your referral link below with friends to get free TLDR swag! https://refer.tldr.tech/c4b06755/ Track your referrals here. Want to advertise in TLDR? 📰 If your company is interested in reaching an audience of tech executives, decision-makers and engineers, you may want to advertise with us. Want to work at TLDR? 💼 Apply here or send a friend's resume to jobs@tldr.tech and get $1k if we hire them! If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email! Thanks for reading, Dan Ni & Stephen Flanders Manage your subscriptions to our other newsletters on tech, startups, and programming. Or if TLDR isn't for you, please unsubscribe.