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Trump says H-1B visas will now cost 0,000 per-year

Trump says H-1B visas will now cost $100,000 per-year

All the fawning by tech CEOs wasn’t enough to convince Donald Trump to back off his crusade against immigrants. Yesterday the president announced that the government would be adding a $100,000-a-year fee on all H-1B visas in an effort to discourage their use.

While many industries make significant use of the H-1B program to attract highly skilled foreign workers, the tech industry is particularly reliant. Amazon has roughly 14,000 H-1B workers across its multiple entities, far more than any other company according to data from the federal government. But Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Tata Consultancy (a major IT services firm) each have more than 4,000 employees working on H-1B visas.

The fee will only apply to new applicants and it’s likely to face legal challenges, but even just the specter of this change appears to have some companies scrambling. There are reports that Microsoft and Amazon issued internal memos advising any workers currently abroad that operate on a visa to return to the US before the new fees kick in at midnight tonight. When asked, Microsoft declined to comment on the leaked memo or the changes to the H-1B program. Unsurprisingly, tech companies have already been warning those working on visas not to leave the US for fear that they might not be able to return.

Broadly when the White House talks about attracting the “top, top people” to the US, it seems they’re talking about wealth not skill. It also unveiled a so-called “gold card” program that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will replace the existing EB-1 and EB-2 visa programs. Those programs are for people of “extraordinary ability” (often artists, athletes, educators, and executives) or those with advanced degrees in competitive fields. The replacement program demands that applicants “prove [their] exceptional value to the United States of America by contributing a million dollars.”

Under the gold card potential immigrants would pay $1,000,000 as part of a fast-tracked application process, and that fee could climb to $2,000,000 if the person was sponsored by a company for employment. Clearly this new program would favor wealth over actual skills, though the Trump administration claims (without any data to back it up) that it will raise over $100 billion that it will use to pay down the debt and lower taxes.

Of course, with the national debt currently exceeding $37 trillion, and the federal government expected to add more than $2 trillion in 2025, any revenue raised by the gold card program or fees on H-1B visas would be insignificant.

Updated September 20th: Added response from Microsoft.

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The price of eggs has become a marker of the state of the economy. But how about the cost of making eggs? Sure, you might be able to do it for next to nothing in your kitchen with nothing but a pan and a burner. But you could also pay $400 for a robot that will do it for you—as long as you don’t want your eggs scrambled, that is.

A new Kickstarter project has finally given us a Juicero for the robotics era, and it’s called E.G.O.R. (that’s Efficient Gastronomic Operational Robot), brought to you by the startup Cheffy. It’s an automated egg maker that promises perfect cracks every time with no shell in the yolk. It has seven different ways that it can cook them up for you, or you can just use it to do the cracking. You can also pair it with a toaster so your eggs and toast finish at the exact right time.

This isn’t something anyone really needs. Cooking an egg over easy takes about two minutes, so calling this a time-saver is a stretch. And if you really don’t want to use the stove, you can buy a basic egg cooker for around $20 almost anywhere. Maybe you’re bad at cracking eggs, but $400 (well, $200 if you get in on the early bird deal) is a lot to pay to not have to pick the occasional shell pieces out.

But hey, the robotics era needed its Juicero moment. To the creator’s credit: it seems like they’re treating this more like a fun novelty (albeit a pretty pricey one) rather than something revolutionary. They also aren’t making you buy proprietary eggs that are required to make the machine work, so they’ve got the Juicero bros beat there.

We’re increasingly seeing robots positioned to do basic tasks. A company called Weave got attention earlier this year with an $8,000 robot that folds clothes. There’s a company in San Francisco offering house cleanings performed by humanoid robots. Last year, 1x made waves by introducing its Neo humanoid robot, which the Wall Street Journal reported “nearly toppled over” while closing a dishwasher and struggled to open the refrigerator.

All of these machines cost an inordinate amount of money to do things that do not cost the average person that much time or money to accomplish. They’re novel, sure. But you don’t have to pay a premium to be a beta tester.

#Robot #Revolution #Juiceroartifical intelligence,automation,Robotics">The Robot Revolution Gets Its Own Juicero
                The price of eggs has become a marker of the state of the economy. But how about the cost of making eggs? Sure, you might be able to do it for next to nothing in your kitchen with nothing but a pan and a burner. But you could also pay 0 for a robot that will do it for you—as long as you don’t want your eggs scrambled, that is. A new Kickstarter project has finally given us a Juicero for the robotics era, and it’s called E.G.O.R. (that’s Efficient Gastronomic Operational Robot), brought to you by the startup Cheffy. It’s an automated egg maker that promises perfect cracks every time with no shell in the yolk. It has seven different ways that it can cook them up for you, or you can just use it to do the cracking. You can also pair it with a toaster so your eggs and toast finish at the exact right time.  NEW: Cheffy just launched a robot that cracks and cooks your eggs. Egor automates breakfast by cooking eggs 7 ways, while Toastr syncs your toast so everything finishes together. -Automatically cracks eggs with no shells or mess-Cooks eggs 7 ways, from sunny-side up to hard… pic.twitter.com/auE3SnfrS3 — Ritwik Pavan (@ritwikpavan) July 30, 2026  This isn’t something anyone really needs. Cooking an egg over easy takes about two minutes, so calling this a time-saver is a stretch. And if you really don’t want to use the stove, you can buy a basic egg cooker for around  almost anywhere. Maybe you’re bad at cracking eggs, but 0 (well, 0 if you get in on the early bird deal) is a lot to pay to not have to pick the occasional shell pieces out.

 But hey, the robotics era needed its Juicero moment. To the creator’s credit: it seems like they’re treating this more like a fun novelty (albeit a pretty pricey one) rather than something revolutionary. They also aren’t making you buy proprietary eggs that are required to make the machine work, so they’ve got the Juicero bros beat there.

 We’re increasingly seeing robots positioned to do basic tasks. A company called Weave got attention earlier this year with an ,000 robot that folds clothes. There’s a company in San Francisco offering house cleanings performed by humanoid robots. Last year, 1x made waves by introducing its Neo humanoid robot, which the Wall Street Journal reported “nearly toppled over” while closing a dishwasher and struggled to open the refrigerator. All of these machines cost an inordinate amount of money to do things that do not cost the average person that much time or money to accomplish. They’re novel, sure. But you don’t have to pay a premium to be a beta tester.      #Robot #Revolution #Juiceroartifical intelligence,automation,Robotics

Kickstarter project has finally given us a Juicero for the robotics era, and it’s called E.G.O.R. (that’s Efficient Gastronomic Operational Robot), brought to you by the startup Cheffy. It’s an automated egg maker that promises perfect cracks every time with no shell in the yolk. It has seven different ways that it can cook them up for you, or you can just use it to do the cracking. You can also pair it with a toaster so your eggs and toast finish at the exact right time.

This isn’t something anyone really needs. Cooking an egg over easy takes about two minutes, so calling this a time-saver is a stretch. And if you really don’t want to use the stove, you can buy a basic egg cooker for around $20 almost anywhere. Maybe you’re bad at cracking eggs, but $400 (well, $200 if you get in on the early bird deal) is a lot to pay to not have to pick the occasional shell pieces out.

But hey, the robotics era needed its Juicero moment. To the creator’s credit: it seems like they’re treating this more like a fun novelty (albeit a pretty pricey one) rather than something revolutionary. They also aren’t making you buy proprietary eggs that are required to make the machine work, so they’ve got the Juicero bros beat there.

We’re increasingly seeing robots positioned to do basic tasks. A company called Weave got attention earlier this year with an $8,000 robot that folds clothes. There’s a company in San Francisco offering house cleanings performed by humanoid robots. Last year, 1x made waves by introducing its Neo humanoid robot, which the Wall Street Journal reported “nearly toppled over” while closing a dishwasher and struggled to open the refrigerator.

All of these machines cost an inordinate amount of money to do things that do not cost the average person that much time or money to accomplish. They’re novel, sure. But you don’t have to pay a premium to be a beta tester.

#Robot #Revolution #Juiceroartifical intelligence,automation,Robotics">The Robot Revolution Gets Its Own JuiceroThe Robot Revolution Gets Its Own Juicero
                The price of eggs has become a marker of the state of the economy. But how about the cost of making eggs? Sure, you might be able to do it for next to nothing in your kitchen with nothing but a pan and a burner. But you could also pay $400 for a robot that will do it for you—as long as you don’t want your eggs scrambled, that is. A new Kickstarter project has finally given us a Juicero for the robotics era, and it’s called E.G.O.R. (that’s Efficient Gastronomic Operational Robot), brought to you by the startup Cheffy. It’s an automated egg maker that promises perfect cracks every time with no shell in the yolk. It has seven different ways that it can cook them up for you, or you can just use it to do the cracking. You can also pair it with a toaster so your eggs and toast finish at the exact right time.  NEW: Cheffy just launched a robot that cracks and cooks your eggs. Egor automates breakfast by cooking eggs 7 ways, while Toastr syncs your toast so everything finishes together. -Automatically cracks eggs with no shells or mess-Cooks eggs 7 ways, from sunny-side up to hard… pic.twitter.com/auE3SnfrS3 — Ritwik Pavan (@ritwikpavan) July 30, 2026  This isn’t something anyone really needs. Cooking an egg over easy takes about two minutes, so calling this a time-saver is a stretch. And if you really don’t want to use the stove, you can buy a basic egg cooker for around $20 almost anywhere. Maybe you’re bad at cracking eggs, but $400 (well, $200 if you get in on the early bird deal) is a lot to pay to not have to pick the occasional shell pieces out.

 But hey, the robotics era needed its Juicero moment. To the creator’s credit: it seems like they’re treating this more like a fun novelty (albeit a pretty pricey one) rather than something revolutionary. They also aren’t making you buy proprietary eggs that are required to make the machine work, so they’ve got the Juicero bros beat there.

 We’re increasingly seeing robots positioned to do basic tasks. A company called Weave got attention earlier this year with an $8,000 robot that folds clothes. There’s a company in San Francisco offering house cleanings performed by humanoid robots. Last year, 1x made waves by introducing its Neo humanoid robot, which the Wall Street Journal reported “nearly toppled over” while closing a dishwasher and struggled to open the refrigerator. All of these machines cost an inordinate amount of money to do things that do not cost the average person that much time or money to accomplish. They’re novel, sure. But you don’t have to pay a premium to be a beta tester.      #Robot #Revolution #Juiceroartifical intelligence,automation,Robotics

The price of eggs has become a marker of the state of the economy. But how about the cost of making eggs? Sure, you might be able to do it for next to nothing in your kitchen with nothing but a pan and a burner. But you could also pay $400 for a robot that will do it for you—as long as you don’t want your eggs scrambled, that is.

A new Kickstarter project has finally given us a Juicero for the robotics era, and it’s called E.G.O.R. (that’s Efficient Gastronomic Operational Robot), brought to you by the startup Cheffy. It’s an automated egg maker that promises perfect cracks every time with no shell in the yolk. It has seven different ways that it can cook them up for you, or you can just use it to do the cracking. You can also pair it with a toaster so your eggs and toast finish at the exact right time.

This isn’t something anyone really needs. Cooking an egg over easy takes about two minutes, so calling this a time-saver is a stretch. And if you really don’t want to use the stove, you can buy a basic egg cooker for around $20 almost anywhere. Maybe you’re bad at cracking eggs, but $400 (well, $200 if you get in on the early bird deal) is a lot to pay to not have to pick the occasional shell pieces out.

But hey, the robotics era needed its Juicero moment. To the creator’s credit: it seems like they’re treating this more like a fun novelty (albeit a pretty pricey one) rather than something revolutionary. They also aren’t making you buy proprietary eggs that are required to make the machine work, so they’ve got the Juicero bros beat there.

We’re increasingly seeing robots positioned to do basic tasks. A company called Weave got attention earlier this year with an $8,000 robot that folds clothes. There’s a company in San Francisco offering house cleanings performed by humanoid robots. Last year, 1x made waves by introducing its Neo humanoid robot, which the Wall Street Journal reported “nearly toppled over” while closing a dishwasher and struggled to open the refrigerator.

All of these machines cost an inordinate amount of money to do things that do not cost the average person that much time or money to accomplish. They’re novel, sure. But you don’t have to pay a premium to be a beta tester.

#Robot #Revolution #Juiceroartifical intelligence,automation,Robotics

The prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.

In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.

Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.

“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.

Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.

Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.

Why Choose X?

One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.

Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.

#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek">Chinese AI Researchers Are Finding Their Voice on XThe prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.Why Choose X?One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek

Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.

In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.

Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.

“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.

Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.

Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.

Why Choose X?

One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.

Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.

#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek">Chinese AI Researchers Are Finding Their Voice on X

The prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.

In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.

Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.

“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.

Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.

Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.

Why Choose X?

One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.

Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.

#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek

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