AT Protocol

A researcher has died after contracting bubonic plague at a Russian laboratory, and doctors studying the case say the circumstances 'don't add up'. The death has prompted questions about safety protocols and biosecurity at plague research facilities, with medical experts still working to establish how the infection occurred and whether containment measures were breached.

The open-source Tapo library, which lets developers control TP-Link smart home devices from Rust and Python, has been updated to speak TP-Link's newer TPAP protocol. Developer Mihai Dinculescu announced the change in a write-up, drawing attention from developers who use the library to automate smart plugs, bulbs and other devices programmatically.

A developer has launched a forum-style service on Nostr, an open social protocol where user identity is a cryptographic keypair rather than a centrally controlled account. The project revives the classic forum format—threads, boards, replies—while letting users own their identity and migrate across apps. Readers on Hacker News are debating the design, its use of public-key cryptography, and whether decentralized forums can attract everyday users.

Figma has restricted access to its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, allowing only whitelisted clients to connect and excluding Pi. The move means developers using unapproved tools, including Pi, can no longer tap Figma's MCP interface for AI-assisted workflows. Discussion online centers on how open the platform will remain as AI coding assistants increasingly rely on such integrations.

A new market forecast projects the global mobile internet protocol messaging market will surpass $195.94 billion by 2030. The figure points to continued strong growth in messaging services as businesses and consumers increasingly rely on IP-based communication over traditional SMS. Industry observers are weighing the forecast against rising demand for secure, cross-platform messaging and enterprise adoption of chat-based customer engagement.

New market research forecasts the global managed IP private branch exchange (PBX) market will exceed $43.74 billion by 2030. Managed IP PBX services route business phone systems over the internet, replacing traditional on-site hardware. The report points to steady demand from companies moving communications to cloud-based and managed platforms over the rest of the decade.

Developer Mihai Dinculescu has updated Tapo, an open-source Rust and Python library for controlling TP-Link Tapo smart home devices, so it now supports TP-Link's TPAP protocol. The news was shared on Hacker News, where it drew modest attention. The library is widely used to control Tapo smart plugs, bulbs and other devices outside TP-Link's official apps.

A developer has released a Google Maps Scraper built on the MCP (Model Context Protocol), allowing AI assistants to query business listings, locations and place data directly. The tool is being shared with the Hacker News community for feedback and adoption, sparking discussion among developers interested in connecting AI agents to real-world geographic and business data.

A presentation on Homa, a transport protocol designed to replace TCP in AI data center clusters, is drawing attention among developers. Homa aims to reduce network congestion and latency for machine learning workloads, where traditional TCP is seen as a bottleneck for large-scale distributed training across GPU clusters.