Robotics
Aurora’s Driverless Trucks Can Now Travel Farther Distances Faster Than Human DriversKirsten Korosec | TechCrunch
“Aurora’s self-driving vans can now journey nonstop on a 1,000-mile route between Fort Price and Phoenix—exceeding what a human driver can legally accomplish. The space, and the time it takes to journey it, gives up optimistic monetary implications for Aurora—and every other firm hoping to commercialize self-driving semitrucks.”
Computing
OpenAI Sidesteps Nvidia With Unusually Fast Coding Model on Plate-Sized ChipsBenj Edwards | Ars Technica
“The mannequin delivers code at greater than 1,000 tokens (chunks of knowledge) per second, which is reported to be roughly 15 occasions sooner than its predecessor. To check, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 in its new premium-priced quick mode reaches about 2.5 occasions its commonplace velocity of 68.2 tokens per second, though it’s a bigger and extra succesful mannequin than Spark.”
Energy
This State’s Power Prices Are Plummeting as It Nears 100% RenewablesAlice Klein | New Scientist ($)
“The unbiased Australian Power Market Operator’s (AEMO) newest report reveals that the typical wholesale electrical energy worth in South Australia fell by 30 per cent within the ultimate quarter of 2025, in contrast with a 12 months earlier. Consequently, the state had the bottom worth in Australia, together with Victoria, which has the second highest share of wind and photo voltaic vitality within the nation.”
Biotechnology
Gene Editing That Spreads Within the Body Could Cure More DiseasesMichael Le Web page | New Scientist ($)
“The concept is that every cell within the physique that receives the preliminary supply will make numerous copies of the gene-editing equipment and cross most of them on to its neighbors, amplifying the impact. Which means disease-correcting adjustments could possibly be made to the DNA of extra cells.”
Future
The First Signs of Burnout Are Coming From the People Who Embrace AI the MostConnie Loizos | TechCrunch
“The instruments give you the results you want, you’re employed much less onerous, all people wins. However a brand new examine printed in Harvard Enterprise Evaluation follows that premise to its precise conclusion, and what it finds there isn’t a productiveness revolution. It finds firms are liable to changing into burnout machines.”
Artificial Intelligence
ALS Stole This Musician’s Voice. AI Let Him Sing Again.Jessica Hamzelou | MIT Expertise Evaluation ($)
“[ALS patient Patrick Darling] was in a position to re-create his misplaced voice utilizing an AI instrument educated on snippets of previous audio recordings. One other AI instrument has enabled him to make use of this ‘voice clone’ to compose new songs. Darling is ready to make music once more.”
Artificial Intelligence
Chatbots Make Terrible Doctors, New Study FindsSamantha Cole | 404 Media
“When the researchers examined the LLMs with out involving customers by offering the fashions with the total textual content of every scientific situation, the fashions appropriately recognized situations in 94.9 % of instances. However when speaking to the members about those self same situations, the LLMs recognized related situations in fewer than 34.5 % of instances.”
Computing
LEDs Enter the NanoscaleRahul Rao | IEEE Spectrum
“MicroLEDs, with pixels simply micrometers throughout, have lengthy been a byword within the show world. Now, microLED-makers have begun shrinking their creations into the uncharted nano realm. …They depart a lot to be desired of their effectivity—however in the future, nanoLEDs may energy ultra-high-resolution digital actuality shows and high-bandwidth on-chip photonics.”
Future
Leading AI Expert Delays Timeline for Its Possible Destruction of HumanityAisha Down | The Guardian
“A number one synthetic intelligence skilled has rolled again his timeline for AI doom, saying it would take longer than he initially predicted for AI programs to have the ability to code autonomously and thus velocity their very own improvement towards superintelligence [and doom for humanity].”
Biotechnology
CAR T-Cell Therapy May Slow Neurodegenerative Conditions Like ALSMichael Le Web page | New Scientist ($)
“Genetically engineered immune cells generally known as CAR-T cells would possibly be capable of gradual the progress of the neurodegenerative situation amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by killing off rogue immune cells within the mind. ‘It’s not a strategy 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 Technology to Its Smart GlassesKashmir Hill, Kalley Huang, and Mike Isaac | The New York Instances ($)
“5 years in the past, Fb shut down the facial recognition system for tagging folks in pictures on its social community, saying it needed to search out ‘the correct steadiness’ for a expertise that raises privateness and authorized considerations. Now it desires to deliver facial recognition again. …The function, internally known as ‘Identify Tag,’ would let wearers of good glasses establish folks and get details about them by way of Meta’s synthetic intelligence assistant.”
Future
I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI StartupsReece Rogers | Wired ($)
“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 terms of gig work, and I’m completely OK with that.”
Artificial Intelligence
AI Is Getting Scary Good at Making PredictionsRoss Andersen | The Atlantic ($)
“At first, the bots didn’t fare too effectively: On the finish of 2024, no AI had even managed to put one hundredth in one of many main [forecasting] competitions. However they’ve since vaulted up the leaderboards. AIs have already proved that they will make superhuman predictions inside the bounded context of a board sport, however they might quickly be higher than us at divining the way forward for our total messy, contingent world.”
Artificial Intelligence
Meet the One Woman Anthropic Trusts to Teach AI MoralsBerber Jin and Ellen Gamerman | The Wall Avenue Journal ($)
“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 character and addressing its misfires with prompts that may run longer than 100 pages. The intention is to endow Claude with a way of morality—a digital soul that guides the tens of millions of conversations it has with folks each week.”
Space
This Startup Thinks It Can Make Rocket Fuel From Water. Stop LaughingNoah Shachtman | Wired ($)
“It’s an concept that’s been round because the Apollo period and has been touted lately 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 gas, not for a spaceship of any vital measurement. A startup known as Common Galactic, led by a pair of twentysomething engineers, is aiming to be the primary.”
