Category: General

Meta’s new AI agent Muse is powered by AMD EPYC Turin host systems, with each sandbox sporting two dedicated cores and 8GB of memory. Blogger Evan Hoffman and analyst Tae Kim both discovered that Muse will run some rudimentary Ubuntu commands if prompted, passing along the output to help identify things like the specs of the host system. More concerning is that Muse seems able to execute commands that might be unsafe, with Hoffman claiming that Muse offered to set up SSH to Muse’s private VM.

Both Kim and Hoffman asked Muse about the VM’s specs, and in both instances, Muse revealed that it’s running on AMD EPYC 9D25 CPUs, a high-density Turin chip with up to 128 cores (two of which are generally fused off or reserved). The VMs are running on Ubuntu 24.04 and using Linux kernel 7.0. The systems hosting Muse don’t include GPUs. The AI agent revealed that Meta uses separate GPU servers for inference, isolating the agent to CPU-only sandboxes.

Tower Semiconductor and the government of Japan plan to co-invest a total of $4 billion in the company’s Japanese operations to turn regional fabs into a massive manufacturing base for optical-connectivity semiconductors, reports Nikkei. The dual-track expansion will repurpose an idled fab, maximize output of an existing 300mm facility, and eventually add another 300mm fab, thus boosting Tower’s Japanese capacity to the equivalent of 45,000 300mm wafers per month by 2029.

Have you ever passed by an interesting residential building in New York City and wanted to know more about its history? In this series, Brick Underground teams up with Tom Miller, creator of Daytonian in Manhattan, a blog about Manhattan buildings and other historic architecture. Each week, we run an excerpt from the Daytonian’s archives with a link to the full article.

As laborers returned to New York City following the end of the Civil War, construction resumed and development spread to the Upper East and West sides of Manhattan. Around 1871, Nicholas McCool erected a dozen high-stooped brownstones at 103 through 125 East 78th St., between Lexington and Park avenues. 

Like its neighbors, 117 East 78th St. was just under 19 feet wide and rose three stories above a high English basement. The Italianate design included an arched entrance below a classical pediment supported by foliate-carved corbels. 

It appears that McCool originally leased the house to a series of tenants.

In 1881, George Frederick Seward and his wife, the former Kate Sherman, moved in.  The couple were married in 1870 and had four children. Born in 1840, George Seward was the president of the Fidelity and Casualty Co. and a director in several other firms.

George’s uncle, William H. Seward, had served as Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State. It may have been his influence that landed George’s appointment as United States consul to Shanghai in 1861. When he and Kate moved into 117 East 78th St., they had just returned to New York from Washington D.C. where he was the American Minister to China. He had held that post from 1876 until 1880. 

Around 1883, Martin Freeman and his wife, the former Henrietta Wise, purchased 117 East 78th St. Freeman worked in the clothing and men’s furnishings business of Henry Wise & Co. and had married the owner’s daughter. Martin’s brother, Joseph Freeman, also got a job with the firm and married one of Henry Wise’s daughters. Upon the death of Henry Wise, the firm was renamed Freeman Bros.

Martin Freeman suffered from heart disease. On the evening of May 26th, 1902, he died from a heart attack. He was 58.

On May 2nd, 1905, Henrietta Wise Freeman sold 117 East 78th St. to Philip H. Minis for $28,250, just over $1 million in 2026 terms.  

Before the Minis family moved in, they hired architect Henry Brooks Price and Hunt & Howells to make what the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide described as “extensive alterations.” The residence was enlarged by the addition of a fourth floor. It was likely during these renovations that iron stoop railings in a Classical Roman crosshatch design were installed. The remodeling cost the Minis family the equivalent of $554,000 today.

Philip Minis was born in Savannah in 1843 and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He came to New York City in 1871 and founded the brokerage firm P. H. Minis & Co. Among his most visible clients was William K. Vanderbilt.

He and his wife, the former Roberta Dudley, had one son, Robert B. Minis. According to the New York Herald, Minis was a founder of the Metropolitan Club and (ironically) a member of the Union Club. By the time he purchased 117 East 78th St., he was a partner in the brokerage firm of Minis & Davis.  

In October 1911, Philip H. Minis fell ill. His condition worsened to pneumonia and he died in the house on October 22nd, 1911 at the age of 68. In reporting his death, the New York Herald described him as “one of the oldest members of the New York Stock Exchange.”

For more on the property and the interesting people that lived here, check out the full article.

The end goal is finally in sight for Elon Musk, nearly two years after he announced plans to expand the Colossus supercomputer to over a million GPUs. The billionaire said on X that 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs will be operational by next week, with another 220,000 coming online in November. He also added that another 220,000 units will come online by late December “if we get lucky.”

These numbers would add to the 110,000 GB200 and 440,000 GB300 GPUs already operating at Colossus 2, plus the 150,000 H100, 50,000 H200, and 30,000 GB200 GPUs at Colossus 1. This would bring SpaceXAI’s GB300 GPUs to 1.1 million units, with its total GPUs in operation to 1,440,000 units. This is quite an achievement, especially given that the company is behind its rivals by several years — SpaceXAI is only three years old, while Anthropic and OpenAI are six and ten years old, respectively. Interestingly, the Colossus 1 site, which features a combination of Hopper and Blackwell GPUs, is inefficient for training Grok, so Musk rented it out to Anthropic for inference instead. On the other hand, Colossus 2 solely uses Blackwell GPUs, ensuring that there won’t be any bottlenecks.

Selling your house this fall is absolutely doable. But there’s something you need to know about this time of year. 

Buyer activity typically starts to slow while the number of homes for sale climb – and you need the right strategy to get attention in this type of market.

The good news? There’s a lot you can control.

From how you price and present your house to how you negotiate and respond to feedback. Here are four things you’ll want to get right this fall. 

#1: Price To Get Buyers’ Attention

In the fall, there are typically fewer buyers looking and more homes for them to choose from. So, you want to make the most of every buyer who comes across your house.

And your price is one of the first things that can make them stop and take a closer look – or keep scrolling. 

That’s why this isn’t the time to start high “just to see what happens.”

If buyers think your house is overpriced, they have plenty of other options to move on to. And that could leave you sitting and waiting.

So, if you want to sell before year-end, work with your agent to find the right price for your house and today’s market. That may mean listing at market value – or even slightly below it – to grab buyers’ attention.

Redfin explains how a seemingly small difference can change your buyer pool: 

“Buyers often search in round-number price brackets, so pricing at $499,000 instead of $505,000 can make your home appear in more searches and feel like a better deal.” 

#2: Make a Great First Impression

When buyers had very few homes to choose from, they were often more willing to overlook dated finishes or a house that needed some work. That’s harder to count on now.

With more choices, how your house looks online and in person can determine whether it makes a buyer’s shortlist at all.

That doesn’t mean you need a full renovation before you sell, but you should take care of essential repairs, do what you can to boost curb appeal, and make sure your house photographs well. Maybe that’s some light staging, maybe it’s swapping out faucets or lights, or maybe a fresh coat of paint. Small details can help a lot.

After all, you only get one chance to make that first impression. Make it count.

#3: Stay Open To Negotiating

Some sellers are still expecting the kind of leverage they had a few years ago. But in many markets, buyers have more negotiating power today and there’s a lot more give and take.

The latest data from Redfin shows 46.2% of sellers gave buyers some type of concession. So, consider throwing in a little help with closing costs or covering a repair. Almost half of sellers are.

The takeaway? Playing hard ball may not get you what you want. But being flexible might. The key is not getting so focused on “winning” every individual negotiation that you lose sight of the bigger goal: making your move happen.

Sometimes a small concession is what gets you to the closing table.

#4: Know When It’s Time To Adjust

Sometimes your house tells you when something isn’t working. Maybe you’re getting plenty of online views but very few showings. Or buyers are coming through, but you’re not getting offers. Or maybe buyer feedback has one recurring theme.

Pay attention to those signals. They can help you figure out what needs to change.

Let’s say your price is the most common point of feedback. Talk to your agent about a price drop. It doesn’t have to be a big change to make a big difference. The average price cut right now is 4% according to HousingWire Data. That’s normal.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should panic and slash your price after a week. It means you and your agent should pay attention to what buyers are telling you and adjust if you need to.

Sometimes the smartest move isn’t waiting for the right buyer. It’s making sure you’re giving that buyer a reason to act.

Bottom Line

Selling this fall is absolutely doable. And now you know four of the biggest things to get right.

If you want to sell before the end of the year, connect with a local agent to make sure you have the right strategy from day one.

Every Brooklyn move eventually comes down to one nervous question asked at the bottom of a stoop: is that going to fit? Brownstone staircases turn like corkscrews, prewar doorways were built for smaller furniture, and walk-up landings leave no room to pivot a sofa. The sectional that lived happily in a suburban living room can become a two-hour ordeal on a Park Slope staircase, or simply refuse to go up at all. Before you fall in love with a new couch or panic over an inherited armoire, here is how to figure out what will actually make it inside, and what to do when it won’t.

Measure the Whole Path, Not Just the Doorway

People measure the front door and call it a day, then get stuck at the second-floor turn. Measure the entire route from the truck to the room where the piece will live: the building entrance, the vestibule, every hallway width, each stair landing, the tightest turn, and the door into the apartment itself. Note the diagonal of your largest pieces too, since a tall bookcase often clears a low doorway only when tilted on an angle. If there is an elevator, measure the interior depth, the width, and the door opening, and remember that a long item may need to stand on its end to ride up. The rule movers live by is simple: if a piece is wider than the narrowest point on the path, it is not going that way, no matter how much muscle you throw at it.

Know the Brooklyn-Specific Obstacles

Brooklyn’s housing stock fights you in specific ways, and the building type decides your whole strategy. Brownstone stoops and interior stairs have tight winders and low ceilings that defeat long, rigid items. Classic tenement walk-ups often have no elevator at all, so everything goes up by hand, flight after flight. Newer condos may have a freight elevator, but they frequently require you to reserve it, move only during set hours, and hand over a certificate of insurance from your movers before anyone touches the loading dock. Co-op and condo boards can layer on their own rules as well. Figure out which building type you are dealing with, and exactly what it requires, well before moving day, because each one changes what is possible and how long it takes. None of this is unique to Brooklyn, though. The same tight staircases and freight-elevator headaches shape moves across the city, and experienced NYC movers have usually seen a version of your exact problem before.

Consider Disassembly First

Before you rig anything dramatic, ask whether the piece comes apart. Bed frames, sectional sofas, table legs, dresser mirrors, and modular shelving are often designed to break down, and a disassembled item clears a tight stair that an intact one never could. Keep the hardware bagged and labeled by piece, and photograph each step as you take it apart so reassembly is not a guessing game at the other end. Hold on to the manufacturer’s instructions if you still have them, since a diagram beats memory at eleven at night in an empty apartment. Most hard-won moving wisdom comes back to this: the piece that fits is the one you were willing to take apart.

When It Won’t Go Through the Door, It Goes Through the Window

This is the New York move you have seen stop traffic: a couch or mattress rising on ropes toward a third-floor window. Hoisting is a real, legitimate option for pieces that cannot be carried up, but it is emphatically not a do-it-yourself job. It takes proper equipment, someone who knows how to rig and balance a load, and a clear read on what the window frame and railings can actually take. There are also days and buildings where it is not permitted at all. This is one of the moments where booking movers in Brooklyn pays for itself, since a crew that hoists regularly can get a sofa through a window safely instead of turning your move into a viral video and a broken coffee table.

Protect the Building and Your Deposit

Getting a big piece in is only half the battle; getting it in without gouging a wall is the other half. Pad door jambs and banisters, lay floor protection over hardwood and marble lobbies, and take doors off their hinges when an inch or two would make all the difference. In a co-op or a rental, damage to common areas can come straight out of a deposit or trigger a fine from the building, so the few minutes spent padding a stairwell are cheap insurance. Movers who work these buildings every day carry this gear as a matter of course, which is one more reason a tricky piece is not the moment to save money on labor.

Know When to Let a Piece Go

Sometimes the honest answer is that a beloved item simply will not live in your new place, and forcing it costs more in damage, labor, and stress than it is worth. If a piece cannot be carried, hoisted, or disassembled, selling or donating it before the move is often the smarter call, and it spares you from paying to transport something that will only end up wedged in a hallway. A move is a natural moment to be ruthless, and there is a real freedom in arriving with only what actually fits your space.

Plan It Before Moving Day

The worst time to discover a sofa will not fit is with the truck double-parked and a moving crew’s clock running. Sort all of this out in advance: measure the full path, decide what disassembles, flag anything that may need hoisting, confirm your building’s rules, and keep a backup plan for each oversized piece. Do that homework before you book, and “will it fit?” becomes a question you have already answered rather than a gamble you take on moving day.

Compass and Zillow’s clash over private listings in the sales market has spilled into New York City rentals, according to a lawsuit filed last month. 

The class-action lawsuit, initially filed on Aug. 19th by two plaintiffs and then re-filed with a different plaintiff, claims that the monopoly Compass holds over the rental market in Manhattan has driven up rents and lowered the number of available apartments. 

The suit argues that Compass represents a monopoly after acquiring competitors, and claims that the company controls over 80 percent of rental listings in Manhattan. Plaintiff Charles Lieberman alleges that Compass caused rents to soar when its agents “delisted” apartments from publicly accessible sites such as StreetEasy and Apartments.com.

Removing listings from public sites, the complaint said, means renters can only access Compass listings on its own site by hiring an agent. “Today, Compass is a living, breathing real estate leviathan,” the complaint said. 

Compass did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. 

Blaming Compass for low inventory, high Manhattan rents 

According to the amended complaint, Lieberman used StreetEasy to find a Lower East Side two-bedroom apartment and initially signed a lease for $4,000 in August. However, he was told he had to pay a broker fee that had been added to his rent, despite not hiring an agent. His new rent was $4,850.

“Lieberman was deprived of a normal functioning market in the relevant market because of the dearth in supply caused by Compass in addition to its practical economic result: higher rent prices and the necessity to pay a brokers fee,” the complaint said. 

Compass, one of the country’s largest brokerages, recently went all in on a new private listings strategy for residential sales. The three-phase approach starts with sellers listing their properties privately, shared only with buyers represented by Compass agents. Sites like StreetEasy and its parent brand Zillow and some brokerages have pushed back, arguing that private listings reduce competition and allow for housing discrimination. Other firms have beefed up their private listings offerings.

In a statement regarding the renters’ lawsuit, a StreetEasy spokesperson said the company supports “efforts to bring accountability” to the industry. 

“When listings are deliberately hidden from public platforms, real consumers pay the price. This summer, New Yorkers have seen exactly that play out, with one dominant brokerage deciding which homes people get to see and further squeezing the NYC market during a housing crisis,” the statement said.

‘Dominant in a market’

The 80 percent rental market share cited in the lawsuit is an estimate from a study based on Compass’ sales market share. Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, said that 80 percent is an “inference,” not a certainty.

“They own basically the footprint in a dominant way,” he said of Compass, something he thinks is bad for renters and may have consequences for housing discrimination.

“When you have a monopoly or a near monopoly or just somebody that is overly dominant in a market, the monopoly gets particularly good at self-serving, and that costs the consumer,” he said.

Bess Freedman, CEO of brokerage Brown Harris Stevens, said she believes this lawsuit won’t be the last of its kind. 

“This will be the first of many lawsuits the industry will now face because transparency and open access to information are being threatened,” Freedman said in an email to Brick. She previously criticized Compass in an op-ed, invoking Bernie Madoff’s fraud as another example of consumers being sold a narrative that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. 

Hidden inventory 

According to the lawsuit, a Compass marketing playbook instructed agents to remove rental listings from StreetEasy and move them into REBNY’s RLS system with a “participants only” designation, making the rentals visible only to other agents in the network.

“I think any time information is actively hidden from consumers, it is problematic. Someone looking to rent a home in NYC will be missing out on hundreds of listings that have been siloed into this participants-only network, so they are compelled to hire an agent just to see what’s out there,” Freedman said.

While the FARE Act shifted responsibility for mandatory broker fees from renters to landlords, renters who hire an agent must pay the agent’s commission. Making listings only available to people who hire Compass agents is a way to incentivize working with an agent. 

Miller thinks this trend is bad for renters, who might have used publicly accessible listings sites to get an objective sense of the going rent for an apartment.

“Instead of doing your preliminary research, you have to call somebody who works for a commission, and only gets paid that commission if they find you a place,” he said. 

Rising rents

In August, Manhattan median rent hit $4,500 a month, a decrease from July’s median rent but a 6.5 percent uptick from the same time last year. Listings were down 45.3 percent from August 2025, the largest decline in inventory in over three years, according to The Real Deal Rental Report by Jonathan Miller.

Miller said other inflationary pressures such as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the war with Iran have also impacted median rents. 

High interest rates mean that some would-be buyers are opting to remain “camped out” as renters, increasing competition for apartments. 

“In many ways the consumer is trapped. You have record rents and you have rising mortgage rates, but limited inventory, which keeps housing prices elevated,” Miller said. “Then you have a company in the mix that has an 80 percent market share that’s hiding product” from consumers.

Have you ever passed by an interesting residential building in New York City and wanted to know more about its history? In this series, Brick Underground teams up with Tom Miller, creator of Daytonian in Manhattan, a blog about Manhattan buildings and other historic architecture. Each week, we run an excerpt from the Daytonian’s archives with a link to the full article.

Real estate was one of the few businesses in which women would thrive in the 19th century. In 1888, Mary J. Coar hired architect Edward L. Angell to design five upscale rowhouses on West 74th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues (renamed Columbus and Amsterdam in 1890). Mary Coar was not only the owner and developer of the project, but she was listed as the contractor as well.

Angell’s plans, filed in March, described five, four-story “brick, brown stone trimmed” dwellings. Each would cost $25,000 to construct, or about $902,000 in 2026. Designed in the popular Queen Anne Style, they were completed in 1889. Like the other four houses, the basement and parlor levels of 146 West 74th St. were clad in rough-cut brownstone and the upper floors in red brick. A dog-legged box stoop rose to the double-doored entrance, protected by a stone hood decorated with foliate designs and turret-like finials.

A charming three-sided bay above the entrance supported a small balcony to the third floor. The transoms at the first through third floors were filled with colorful stained glass, while the upper sashes of the top floor were divided into multiple panes, typical of the Queen Anne style.

The house was purchased by John and Catharine Brosnan. The couple had five children, John Jr., Loretto G., Mary T., Angela M., and Francis Xavier. Born in Ireland, John Brosnan listed his profession as “grocer,” however his business at 157 Fulton St. was more accurately described as a saloon and wine importer. 

An ardent Roman Catholic, he did not operate a rowdy, disreputable establishment. The New York Times would later say that he was “well known among wine traders throughout the United States” and that he “made a specialty of importing Spanish, Portuguese, and other wines not only into this country…but also to various countries of Europe.” He also supplied altar wine to many Roman Catholic churches.

A fire during a severe snowstorm on the evening of February 13th, 1899, badly damaged the upper two floors of the house. The New York Times reported the damages at $8,000 to the structure and $10,000 in furnishings. The total loss would translate to about $721,000 today.

There was more significant collateral damage. On March 7, 1899, the New York Herald wrote that John Brosnan died after a two-week illness. His death was attributed to “shock and exposure to the cold” on the night of the fire.

Like Mary J. Coar, who erected the Brosnan house, Mary and Angela Brosnan engaged in real estate operations. They bought and rented properties singly or together throughout the first decades of the 20th century. Their sister, Loretto G. Brosnan, died on March 1st, 1909.

In October 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which would usher in Prohibition. It meant the end of Brosnan’s on Fulton Street. The Brosnan siblings sold their lease and newspapers throughout the city lamented the barroom’s closing. 

By 1943, 146 West 74th St. was operated as a rooming house. A renovation in 1972 resulted in duplex and triplex apartments. Another remodeling in 1988, added a penthouse level, unseen from the sidewalk. Despite the unfortunate loss of the stained-glass transoms and the Queen Anne upper floor sashes, the Brosnan house survives remarkably intact.

For more on the property and the interesting people that lived here, check out the full article.

Paying for your new games or in-game content like new levels and skins might be about to get even easier if a newly published PlayStation patent is anything to go by. The patent, titled “Video Game Controller-Driven Information Transfer,” details a system that would allow a PlayStation controller to accept payments whenever a gamer taps it with their credit card or smartphone. It would work with gift cards, too.

The patent was first filed way back in March 2025, but it was only made public on September 17 this year before being spotted by Dexerto.