Tech companies continue the acquisition spree of the summer when Vercel announces it’s hired the creators of NuxtLabs, the folks who build metaframework Nuxt and server runtime Nitro.

Figma returns to the newscycle with the introduction of its Dev Mode MCP server. This server allows agentic coding tools to pull in design context directly from Figma designs. Think: getting code, image, or variable context for a specific design selection or even porting over Figma designs directly into a code base for use.

The AI browser race heats up as both OpenAI and Perplexity make news with announcements and early access for their own AI-powered web browsers. Details are limited but both companies are putting their AI search engines front and center to try and steal some Google Chrome’s market share.

In this week’s Lightning News, there’s a new framework for building and shipping MCP applications called Xmcp. Focused on developer experience, Xmcp claims you can bootstrap an MCP server from scratch or plug it into an existing Next.js or Express app with one simple command. 

Finally, the Fire Starters section is back this week with the debut of CSS conditional if() statements in Chrome v137. Out of the box, if() works with style(), media(), and support() queries, and unlocks things like state-based styling with very straightforward syntax that uses a series of condition-value pairs, and even allows for an else statement at the end.

Timestamps:

• 1:13 - Vercel acquires NuxtLabs
• 5:54 - Figma releases an MCP Server
• 13:41 - OpenAI and Perplexity announce browsers
• 26:08 - Xmcp framework
• 29:06 - CSS conditions with if()
• 33:05 - What’s making us happy

Links:

• Paige - NuxtLabs joins Vercel
• Jack - Figma Dev Mode MCP server 
• TJ - Upcoming web browsers from OpenAI and Perplexity. 
• Xmcp framework for building MCP applications
• CSS conditionals with if() statements
• Paige - Somebody Feed Phil TV series
• TJ - Murderbot

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