Robotics
Aurora’s Driverless Vehicles Can Now Journey Farther Distances Sooner Than Human DriversKirsten Korosec | TechCrunch
“Aurora’s self-driving vans can now journey nonstop on a 1,000-mile route between Fort Value and Phoenix—exceeding what a human driver can legally accomplish. The gap, and the time it takes to journey it, affords up constructive monetary implications for Aurora—and some other firm hoping to commercialize self-driving semitrucks.”
Computing
OpenAI Sidesteps Nvidia With Unusually Quick Coding Mannequin on Plate-Sized ChipsBenj Edwards | Ars Technica
“The mannequin delivers code at greater than 1,000 tokens (chunks of information) per second, which is reported to be roughly 15 occasions quicker than its predecessor. To check, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 in its new premium-priced quick mode reaches about 2.5 occasions its normal pace of 68.2 tokens per second, though it’s a bigger and extra succesful mannequin than Spark.”
Power
This State’s Energy Costs Are Plummeting as It Nears 100% RenewablesAlice Klein | New Scientist ($)
“The unbiased Australian Power Market Operator’s (AEMO) newest report exhibits that the common wholesale electrical energy value in South Australia fell by 30 per cent within the ultimate quarter of 2025, in contrast with a 12 months earlier. In consequence, the state had the bottom value in Australia, together with Victoria, which has the second highest share of wind and photo voltaic power within the nation.”
Biotechnology
Gene Modifying That Spreads Inside the Physique Might Remedy Extra IllnessesMichael Le Web page | New Scientist ($)
“The thought is that every cell within the physique that receives the preliminary supply will make numerous copies of the gene-editing equipment and go most of them on to its neighbors, amplifying the impact. Which means that disease-correcting modifications may very well be made to the DNA of extra cells.”
Future
The First Indicators of Burnout Are Coming From the Individuals Who Embrace AI the MostConnie Loizos | TechCrunch
“The instruments be just right for you, you’re employed much less onerous, all people wins. However a brand new research printed in Harvard Enterprise Evaluate follows that premise to its precise conclusion, and what it finds there isn’t a productiveness revolution. It finds corporations are prone to turning into burnout machines.”
Synthetic Intelligence
ALS Stole This Musician’s Voice. AI Let Him Sing Once more.Jessica Hamzelou | MIT Expertise Evaluate ($)
“[ALS patient Patrick Darling] was capable of re-create his misplaced voice utilizing an AI instrument skilled on snippets of previous audio recordings. One other AI instrument has enabled him to make use of this ‘voice clone’ to compose new songs. Darling is ready to make music once more.”
Synthetic Intelligence
Chatbots Make Horrible Docs, New Research FindsSamantha Cole | 404 Media
“When the researchers examined the LLMs with out involving customers by offering the fashions with the complete textual content of every scientific state of affairs, the fashions appropriately recognized situations in 94.9 % of instances. However when speaking to the contributors about those self same situations, the LLMs recognized related situations in fewer than 34.5 % of instances.”
Computing
LEDs Enter the NanoscaleRahul Rao | IEEE Spectrum
“MicroLEDs, with pixels simply micrometers throughout, have lengthy been a byword within the show world. Now, microLED-makers have begun shrinking their creations into the uncharted nano realm. …They go away a lot to be desired of their effectivity—however sooner or later, nanoLEDs may energy ultra-high-resolution digital actuality shows and high-bandwidth on-chip photonics.”
Future
Main AI Professional Delays Timeline for Its Potential Destruction of HumanityAisha Down | The Guardian
“A number one synthetic intelligence skilled has rolled again his timeline for AI doom, saying it would take longer than he initially predicted for AI techniques to have the ability to code autonomously and thus pace their very own growth towards superintelligence [and doom for humanity].”
Biotechnology
CAR T-Cell Remedy Might Sluggish Neurodegenerative Situations Like ALSMichael Le Web page | New Scientist ($)
“Genetically engineered immune cells often known as CAR-T cells would possibly have the ability to sluggish the progress of the neurodegenerative situation amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by killing off rogue immune cells within the mind. ‘It’s not a method to remedy the illness,’ says Davide Trotti on the Jefferson Weinberg ALS Middle in Pennsylvania. ‘The aim is slowing down the illness.'”
Computing
Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Expertise to Its Good GlassesKashmir Hill, Kalley Huang, and Mike Isaac | The New York Instances ($)
“5 years in the past, Fb shut down the facial recognition system for tagging folks in photographs on its social community, saying it needed to search out ‘the appropriate steadiness’ for a know-how that raises privateness and authorized issues. Now it needs to convey facial recognition again. …The characteristic, internally known as ‘Identify Tag,’ would let wearers of sensible glasses establish folks and get details about them by way of Meta’s synthetic intelligence assistant.”
Future
I Tried RentAHuman, The place AI Brokers Employed Me to Hype Their AI StartupsReece Rogers | Wired ($)
“At its core, RentAHuman is an extension of the round AI hype machine, an ouroboros of everlasting self-promotion and sketchy motivations. For now, the bots don’t appear to have what it takes to be my boss, even in the case of gig work, and I’m completely OK with that.”
Synthetic Intelligence
AI Is Getting Scary Good at Making PredictionsRoss Andersen | The Atlantic ($)
“At first, the bots didn’t fare too properly: On the finish of 2024, no AI had even managed to put one centesimal in one of many main [forecasting] competitions. However they’ve since vaulted up the leaderboards. AIs have already proved that they’ll make superhuman predictions inside the bounded context of a board sport, however they might quickly be higher than us at divining the way forward for our complete messy, contingent world.”
Synthetic Intelligence
Meet the One Lady Anthropic Trusts to Educate AI MoralsBerber Jin and Ellen Gamerman | The Wall Road Journal ($)
“Because the resident thinker of the tech firm Anthropic, [Amanda] Askell spends her days studying Claude’s reasoning patterns and speaking to the AI mannequin, constructing its persona and addressing its misfires with prompts that may run longer than 100 pages. The goal is to endow Claude with a way of morality—a digital soul that guides the hundreds of thousands of conversations it has with folks each week.”
House
This Startup Thinks It Can Make Rocket Gas From Water. Cease LaughingNoah Shachtman | Wired ($)
“It’s an concept that’s been round for the reason that Apollo period and has been touted in recent times by the likes of former NASA administrator Invoice Nelson and SpaceX’s Elon Musk. However right here’s the factor: Nobody has ever efficiently turned water into rocket gasoline, not for a spaceship of any important dimension. A startup known as Basic Galactic, led by a pair of twentysomething engineers, is aiming to be the primary.”