Robotics
Google Gemini Is Taking Management of Humanoid Robots on Auto Manufacturing facility FlooringWill Knight | Wired ($)
“Google DeepMind is teaming up with Boston Dynamics to offer its humanoid robots the intelligence required to navigate unfamiliar environments and establish and manipulate objects—exactly the sorts of capabilities wanted to carry out guide labor.”
Synthetic Intelligence
Distinct AI Fashions Appear to Converge on How They Encode ActualityBen Brubaker | Quanta Journal
“Is the within of a imaginative and prescient mannequin in any respect like a language mannequin? Researchers argue that because the fashions develop extra highly effective, they might be converging towards a singular ‘Platonic’ option to symbolize the world.”
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Flu Is Relentless. CRISPR Would possibly Be In a position to Shut It Down.
David Cox | Wired ($)
“They imagine CRISPR could possibly be tailor-made to create a next-generation therapy for influenza, whether or not that’s the seasonal strains which plague each the northern and southern hemispheres on an annual foundation or the worrisome new variants in birds and different wildlife which may set off the subsequent pandemic.”
Computing
Subsequent-Stage Quantum Computer systems Will Virtually Be HelpfulDina Genkina | IEEE Spectrum
“The machine that Microsoft and Atom Computing will likely be delivering, referred to as Magne, can have 50 logical qubits, constructed from some 1,200 bodily qubits, and needs to be operational by the beginning of 2027. QuEra’s machine at AIST has round 37 logical qubits (relying on implementation) and 260 bodily qubits, Boger says.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI Coding Assistants Are Getting Worse
Jamie Twiss | IEEE Spectrum
“In current months, I’ve seen a troubling development with AI coding assistants. After two years of regular enhancements, over the course of 2025, a lot of the core fashions reached a top quality plateau, and extra just lately, appear to be in decline. A activity which may have taken 5 hours assisted by AI, and maybe ten hours with out it, is now extra generally taking seven or eight hours, and even longer.”
ENERGY
Meta Unveils Sweeping Nuclear-Energy Plan to Gas Its AI Ambitions
Jennifer Hiller | The Wall Road Journal ($)
“Meta Platforms on Friday unveiled a sequence of agreements that might make it an anchor buyer for brand new and current nuclear energy within the US, the place it wants city-size quantities of electrical energy for its artificial-intelligence knowledge facilities. …Monetary particulars weren’t disclosed, however the preparations are among the many most sweeping and impressive to date between tech corporations and nuclear-power suppliers.”
Robotics
Even the Firms Making Humanoid Robots Suppose They’re OverhypedSean McLain | The Wall Road Journal ($)
“Billions of {dollars} are flowing into humanoid robotic startups, as traders wager that the business will quickly put humanlike machines in warehouses, factories and our dwelling rooms. For all of the current advances within the area, humanoid robots, they are saying, have been overhyped and face daunting technical challenges earlier than they transfer from science experiments to a alternative for human staff.”
SPACE
Former Google CEO Plans to Singlehandedly Fund a Hubble Telescope Substitute
Eric Berger | Ars Technica
“On Wednesday night, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his spouse, Wendy, introduced a serious funding in not only one telescope undertaking, however 4. Every of those new telescopes brings a novel functionality on-line; nevertheless, probably the most intriguing new instrument is a space-based telescope named Lazuli. This spacecraft, if efficiently launched and deployed, would provide astronomers a extra succesful and fashionable model of the Hubble Area Telescope, which is now three a long time previous.”
Robotics
Uber’s Not Carried out With Self-Driving Vehicles Simply But. It’s Designing a New Robotaxi With Lucid and NuroSasha Lekach | Gizmodo
“The businesses stated that on-road testing [in San Francisco] began on the finish of final yr, which isn’t stunning as Nuro already holds driverless testing permits by way of the California DMV. Ultimately, the trio plan to supply the Stage 4 robotaxi prototype in every single place Uber has a presence—if all goes effectively, that’s.”
Robotics
Kawasaki’s 4-Legged Robotic-Horse Car Is Going Into ManufacturingBronwyn Thompson | New Atlas
“What was introduced as a 2050 pipe dream by Kawasaki, the corporate’s hydrogen-powered, four-hooved, all-terrain robotic horse car Corleo is definitely going into manufacturing and is now anticipated to be commercially obtainable a long time earlier—with the primary mannequin to debut in simply 4 years.”
NASA’s Science Finances Received’t Be a Practice Wreck After AllEric Berger | Ars Technica
“On Monday, Congress made good on…guarantees [to fund most of NASA’s science portfolio], releasing a $24.4 billion funds plan for NASA as a part of the conferencing course of, when Home and Senate lawmakers convene to hammer out a remaining funds. The result’s a funds that requires only a 1 % lower in NASA’s science funding, to $7.25 billion, for fiscal yr 2026.”
Synthetic Intelligence
AI Is Being Used to Discover Helpful Commodities in Our TrashRyan Dezember | The Wall Road Journal ($)
“Murphy Street executives say the know-how permits them to type as much as 60 tons an hour of curbside recycling from round Connecticut and western Massachusetts into exactly sorted bales of paper, plastic, aluminum cans, and different supplies. The fabric is offered to mills, producers, and remelt services, which pay extra for cleaner bales.”
