James Altucher:

You Could Soon Control an iPhone With Your Thoughts, Using Apple’s New Accessibility Option

Apple is getting into the brain-computer interface (BCI) business, reveals a press release from New York-based startup Synchron. The idea is to enable people with limited mobility to use iPhones, iPads, and the Vision Pro headset by transmitting commands through their minds.

Synchron, which was founded in 2016 by neurologist Dr. Tom Oxley, is a biomedicine outfit that's exploring an endovascular approach to connecting devices to the human brain. The startup, which is backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, uses a proprietary piece of hardware to detect brain signals without requiring open brain surgery to install – as is the case with Elon Musk-fronted Neuralink's tech.

The company's 'Stentrode' consists of a tubular metal mesh with electrode sensors; it's designed to be threaded through a blood vessel that reaches the brain. When it detects motor signals there, it sends those to a small transmitter at the other end of its wiring, which is worn by the user. The transmitter then beams the signals to a wireless processor, which appears to be the size of a smartphone, to interpret and deliver them as commands in real time to a personal device like an iPhone.

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Ray Blanco:

After Back-to-Back Failures, SpaceX Tests Its Fixes on the Next Starship

SpaceX fired six Raptor engines on the company's next Starship rocket Monday, clearing a major hurdle on the path to launch later this month on a high-stakes test flight to get the private rocket program back on track.

Starship ignited its Raptor engines on a test stand near SpaceX's Starbase launch facility in South Texas. The engine ran for approximately 60 seconds.

SpaceX hasn't officially announced a target launch date, but maritime warnings along Starship's flight path over the Gulf of Mexico suggest the launch might happen as soon as next Wednesday, May 21.

The next flight is important: SpaceX's last two Starship test flights ended prematurely when the rocket's upper stage lost power and spun out of control, dropping debris into the sea near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

With Flight 9, SpaceX hopes to get the Starship program back on track. Near-term goals beyond Flight 9 include returning Starship from low-Earth orbit to the launch site, with a tower catch similar to the one SpaceX used to recover the Super Heavy booster.

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Davis Wilson:

I Made a Huge Mistake

Think back over the last few weeks. Stocks got crushed. Volatility spiked. Bears got loud. Your portfolio most likely plummeted in value. Mine certainly did. Then (just like so many times before) stocks ripped higher. A “V-shaped” recovery, once again.

Now the S&P 500 is officially positive for the year after another sharp rally – this time sparked by easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China. This isn’t a new pattern. In fact, it’s one of the most consistent traits of the modern stock market.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen at least five major market drawdowns of 10% or more. Every single one of them has followed the same playbook: A sharp, scary decline that sends retail investors fleeing for cover… a short-lived bottom… and a face-ripping rally that recovers losses faster than anyone expects

I’ve had a solid track record of calling great setups – especially when fear is in the air. But I’ll be honest: I didn’t take full advantage of the recent rebound with options.

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