Join the AMD Open Robotics Hackathon
AMD, Hugging Face, and Data Monsters are launching the AMD Open Robotics Hackathon with in‑person events in Tokyo (December 5‑7, 2025) and Paris (December 12‑14, 2025). Teams of up to four participants will complete two missions—setting up the LeRobot development environment and creating a freestyle robotics solution—using AMD‑provided SO‑101 kits, Ryzen AI laptops, and MI300X GPU access on the AMD Developer Cloud. Cash prizes reward the top seven teams per city, with the first‑place team earning $10,000. Registration opens November 12, 2025 and closes early December.
Apple’s New App Review Guidelines Clamp Down on Apps Sharing Personal Data with ‘Third-Party AI’
Apple has updated its App Review Guidelines to require developers to disclose and obtain explicit user consent before sharing personal data with third‑party AI services. The amendment adds a specific clause mandating clear disclosure of data sharing with AI providers,...
2025: The Year Context Became King (And How Developers Are Wielding It)
The episode highlights the 2025 shift from raw AI model power to "context engineering," emphasizing how developers must manage persistent, high‑quality context for AI coding agents to avoid "agent drift" and costly rework. It introduces the Conductor methodology—a set of...
Baidu Unveils Proprietary ERNIE 5 Beating GPT-5 Performance on Charts, Document Understanding and More
Baidu announced ERNIE 5.0, a proprietary omni‑modal foundation model that the company claims matches or outperforms OpenAI’s GPT‑5‑High and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro on benchmarks for document understanding, chart reasoning, vision‑language tasks, and language coding. The model is delivered through Baidu’s...
Anthropic Details How It Measures Claude’s Wokeness
Anthropic unveiled new safeguards to make its Claude chatbot politically even‑handed, embedding system prompts that forbid unsolicited political opinions and using reinforcement learning to reward neutrality. The company also released an open‑source tool that scores Claude’s responses, reporting 95% even‑handedness...
Hackers Use Anthropic’s AI Model Claude Once Again
Anthropic disclosed that Chinese state‑backed hackers leveraged its Claude large‑language model to automate roughly 30 cyber‑attacks on corporations and governments in September, with 80‑90% of the operations driven by AI. The attackers used Claude to generate commands, craft phishing content...
Upwork Study Shows AI Agents Excel with Human Partners but Fail Independently
Upwork’s Human+Agent Productivity Index evaluated three leading AI agents—Gemini 2.5 Pro, GPT‑5 and Claude Sonnet 4—on more than 300 real freelance jobs under $500. Working alone, the agents achieved modest completion rates, with the best‑performing model finishing only 64% of data‑science...
OpenAI’s New LLM Exposes the Secrets of How AI Really Works
OpenAI unveiled an experimental weight‑sparse transformer, a tiny large‑language model built with sparse connections to make its internal logic observable. Though its performance is comparable only to early models like GPT‑1 and far below GPT‑5, the architecture forces features into...
Mozilla Announces an AI ‘Window’ for Firefox
Mozilla announced the development of an AI‑powered "AI Window" for Firefox, an opt‑in browsing mode that integrates an AI assistant and chatbot. The feature will sit alongside private and classic windows, letting users select the underlying AI model and providing...
Even Realities’ New Smart Glasses Ditch Cameras and Speakers
Even Realities unveiled its G2 Display Smart Glasses, a human‑centric wearable that forgoes outward‑facing cameras and external speakers, relying only on four microphones and a micro‑LED/gradient waveguide display that creates a layered 3D floating spatial view. The device bundles AI...
Google Gemini Live Gets Its 'Biggest Update Ever' With 5 New Upgrades – Here's How to Try Them
Google has rolled out the "biggest update ever" to Gemini Live, its real‑time conversational AI, on Android and iOS. The upgrade adds five new capabilities – adjustable speaking speed, automatic tone modulation, a storytelling mode with character accents, seamless multi‑language switching,...
How Do You Redefine Research Delivery For The AI Era? Start With Trust.
In this episode, Forrester’s CTO discusses how AI is reshaping research delivery, emphasizing that trust is the non‑negotiable foundation for any generative‑AI tool. He explains the development of Izola, a client‑facing AI that pulls exclusively from Forrester’s own IP and...
Google’s NotebookLM Adds ‘Deep Research’ Tool, Support for More File Types
Google is adding a new "Deep Research" tool to its NotebookLM AI note‑taking platform, allowing the system to act as an autonomous researcher that creates a research plan, browses the web, and delivers a source‑grounded report that can be inserted...
Google’s NotebookLM Will Now Do ‘Deep Research’
Google announced that its NotebookLM AI workspace will integrate Gemini’s Deep Research agent, giving all users access within a week. Users can choose a fast or deep research mode, with the deep option delivering in‑depth analysis, source citations, and the...
Google’s SIMA 2 Agent Uses Gemini to Reason and Act in Virtual Worlds
Google DeepMind unveiled SIMA 2, an embodied AI agent that leverages the Gemini 2.5 flash‑lite model to reason, understand language, and act in virtual environments. Compared with its predecessor, SIMA 2 doubled task‑completion rates, demonstrating complex, commonsense behavior in games like No Man’s Sky and...
LinkedIn Is Making It Easier to Search for People with AI
LinkedIn has introduced an AI‑powered people search that lets users describe the type of professional they need—e.g., “Northwestern alumni who work in entertainment marketing”—instead of relying on exact names, titles or companies. The system uses generative AI to surface and...
Inside LinkedIn’s Generative AI Cookbook: How It Scaled People Search to 1.3 Billion Users
LinkedIn has rolled out an AI‑powered people search that lets users pose natural‑language queries—e.g., “Who is knowledgeable about curing cancer?”—to a graph of 1.3 billion members. The system combines a 7‑billion‑parameter policy model distilled into a 1.7 B teacher and a 220 M...
LinkedIn Adds AI-Powered Search to Help Users Find People
LinkedIn is rolling out an AI‑powered people search feature that lets users enter natural‑language queries—such as “Find me investors in the healthcare sector with FDA experience”—to locate professionals more easily. The tool, initially available to premium U.S. members, expands on...
The Future of Disney Plus Could Involve AI-Generated Videos
Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company is "really excited about AI" and envisions Disney+ letting subscribers both create and consume short‑form AI‑generated videos. He also hinted at adding game‑like features through Disney’s partnership with Epic Games and turning the...
CDAO Responsibilities Are Evolving: Why AI Strategy Now Starts at the Top
The Chief Data and Analytics Officer (CDAO) is rapidly becoming a core C‑suite role as companies shift from data collection to AI‑driven operations. A recent survey shows 73.7% of firms now have a formal CDO/CDAO, up from 12% a decade...
Google DeepMind Is Using Gemini to Train Agents Inside Goat Simulator 3
Google DeepMind unveiled SIMA 2, a new video‑game‑playing agent that leverages the Gemini large‑language model to interpret text, voice or drawing commands and act on pixel‑level inputs across a range of 3D worlds, including Goat Simulator 3. Trained on human gameplay from...
Google Is Rolling Out Conversational Shopping—And Ads—In AI Mode Search
Google is rolling out conversational shopping in AI Mode search, letting U.S. users ask complex product queries and receive AI‑generated suggestions, guides, and tables powered by its Shopping Graph. The experience will include sponsored shopping content, while the Gemini app’s shopping...
Google Will Let Users Call Stores, Browse Products, and Check Out Using AI
Google is launching a suite of AI‑powered shopping tools for U.S. users ahead of the holiday season, adding conversational product search to Search’s AI Mode, an agentic "Let Google Call" feature that phones local stores on a shopper’s behalf, and...
Google Augments AI Shopping with Conversational Search, Agentic Checkout and an AI that Calls Stores for You
Google announced a suite of AI‑powered shopping tools ahead of the holiday season, including conversational search in AI Mode, enhanced Gemini app responses, agentic checkout that can auto‑purchase items via Google Pay, and a Duplex‑based feature that calls local stores...
Spotify’s New Audiobook Recap Feature Uses AI to Remind You of the Story so Far
Spotify is rolling out an AI‑driven "Recaps" feature in its iOS app that automatically generates a spoken summary of the portion of an audiobook a listener has already heard, after 15‑20 minutes of playback. The tool, initially limited to a...
The Download: AI to Measure Pain, and How to Deal with Conspiracy Theorists
AI-driven pain assessment tools like PainChek are gaining regulatory clearance across three continents and have recorded over 10 million evaluations, signaling a shift toward objective pain measurement. Social psychologist Sander van der Linden offers strategies for families to counteract the pull of conspiracy‑theory...
Microsoft’s Plan to Fix Its Chip Problem Is, Partly, to Let OpenAI Do the Heavy Lifting
Microsoft announced a revised partnership with OpenAI that grants it full access to OpenAI’s custom AI chip designs, which are being co‑developed with Broadcom. The deal also secures Microsoft’s rights to use OpenAI’s models through 2032 while excluding OpenAI’s consumer‑hardware...
DJI’s Neo 2 Selfie Drone Launches Globally, but Not in the US
DJI is rolling out its Neo 2 selfie drone to a broader set of markets—including Japan, Canada, the UK and other regions—after an exclusive launch in China, but the device will not be sold through DJI’s official channels in the...
Joe Hill On AI: 'It's Just Part Of The General Rot'
Horror author Joe Hill warned that AI, exemplified by OpenAI’s Sora video generators, is accelerating a wave of misinformation and reflects a broader "rot" in tech driven by billionaire‑run companies that evade regulation. In his new novel *King Sorrow* and...
Forget Blink – This Award-Winning Security Camera Is Half Price for Black Friday, and It's Subscription-Free
The Reolink Altas PT Ultra security camera is now priced at £119.99 on Amazon, a 50% discount from its original £239.99, as part of Black Friday. It delivers pan‑and‑tilt coverage, internal SD‑card storage, AI subject‑detection, ColorX full‑color night vision and...
One-Size-Fits-All AI Guardrails Do Not Work in the Enterprise
The piece warns that one‑size‑fits‑all AI safety filters, modeled on consumer parental controls, are ill‑suited for enterprise environments where users’ roles and data sensitivities vary dramatically. It proposes persona‑based access controls (PBAC) that tailor AI responses to a user’s department,...
Workers Are Getting Depressed by Everyday Tech Challenges - Could AI Be the Answer?
TeamViewer’s new "Impact of Digital Friction" report finds that 46% of UK firms blame IT inefficiencies for slowing work and 47% say tech frustration fuels employee turnover, with similar concerns in the US and India. One‑third of UK workers expect...
Building for an Open Future - Our New Partnership with Google Cloud
The post announces a deeper partnership between Hugging Face and Google Cloud aimed at making it easier for companies to build and customize AI using open models. It highlights integrated services such as Vertex AI Model Garden, GKE, Cloud Run,...
This ARM-Based Mini PC Sports a Full X16 PCIe Slot for Discrete GPUs - Minisforum Says "Desktop ARM" Starts Now,...
Minisforum unveiled the MS‑R1, its first ARM‑based mini PC built around a 12‑core Cixin P1 SoC (eight Cortex‑A720 and four Cortex‑A520 cores) that can boost to 2.6 GHz and includes an Immortalis‑G720 MC10 integrated GPU. The compact 1.7‑liter machine supports up to...
ChatGPT's Quiet Slump, Zuck's AI Bubble Warning
The episode examines OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar’s remarks that, despite overall growth, ChatGPT’s user engagement appears to be plateauing, signaling a potential slowdown in the model’s momentum. It also covers Mark Zuckerberg’s internal memo warning Meta staff about an emerging...
New Nvidia DGX Spark Competitor Shows Strong Benchmark Performance - and at Half the Price, Could It Be Enough to...
GMKtec’s EVO‑X2 mini PC is positioning itself as a low‑cost alternative to Nvidia’s DGX Spark, delivering faster generation speeds for medium‑to‑large models such as GPT‑OSS 20B and Llama 3.3 70B and lower first‑token latency in benchmark tests. The system leverages AMD’s Ryzen...
Data Breach at Mysterious Chinese Firm Reveals State-Owned Cyber Weapons and Even a List of Targets
A breach at Chinese security firm Knownsec exposed more than 12,000 classified files that detail state‑linked cyber weapons, internal AI tools, and a target list spanning over twenty countries, including Japan, India, the UK and Nigeria. The leak includes massive...
Watch This – the Latest Humanoid Robots Are Both Unnervingly Sassy and Comfortingly Error-Prone
Chinese EV maker XPeng unveiled IRON, a highly stylized humanoid robot with a feminine appearance that sparked a live demo where the foam skin was stripped to expose its metal frame. Days later, Russia introduced its first humanoid, “Idol,” which...
Court Rules that OpenAI Violated German Copyright Law; Ordered It to Pay Damages
A German court ruled that OpenAI’s ChatGPT infringed German copyright law by training its models on licensed musical works without permission, in a lawsuit filed by music‑rights collective GEMA. The court ordered OpenAI to pay undisclosed damages, though the company...
OpenAI Slams Court Order that Lets NYT Read 20 Million Complete User Chats
OpenAI petitioned a U.S. District Court in New York to overturn a November order that compels the company to provide 20 million de‑identified ChatGPT conversation logs to the New York Times and other news plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit. The firm contends the...
Microsoft’s Windows President Says Windows Is Becoming an ‘Agentic OS,’ and the Internet Is Having None of It
Microsoft Windows president Pavan Davuluri announced that the OS will evolve into an "agentic" platform, meaning it will incorporate more autonomous AI capabilities across devices, cloud, and productivity tools. The tweet sparked a wave of negative reactions on X, with...
Anthropic Will Invest $50 Billion in Building AI Data Centers in the US
Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment to build AI data centers in the United States, partnering with Fluidstack to launch facilities in Texas and New York with additional sites planned. The centers are slated to become operational throughout 2026 and are...
Waymo Is Hitting the Highway — but Can It Handle the Speed?
Waymo announced that its fully driverless robotaxis will begin offering highway routes in Phoenix, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, initially to early‑access riders, while extending its Bay Area service to San Jose with 24/7 curbside access at both...
Anthropic Announces $50 Billion Data Center Plan
Anthropic announced a $50 billion data‑center partnership with U.K. neocloud provider Fluidstack, targeting custom facilities in Texas and New York that will come online in 2026 to power its Claude AI models. The investment aligns with the company’s internal forecast of...
5 Things I Love About Amazon’s New Echo Shows — and 3 Things I Don’t
Amazon unveiled the new Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, featuring a sleeker design, faster AZ3 Pro processor, 13‑MP camera, Wi‑Fi 6E, Thread, Matter and Zigbee support, and a fabric‑wrapped speaker system. Both devices run the updated Vega OS with Alexa Plus, delivering more responsive...
Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs Speeds up the World Model Race with Marble, Its First Commercial Product
World Labs, the AI startup founded by Fei‑Fei Li, has launched Marble, its first commercial world‑model product, offering freemium and paid tiers that turn text, images, video or panoramas into editable, downloadable 3D environments. Unlike competitors that generate worlds on the...
I Founded an Intelligent Phone Startup and Here’s How AI Agents Are Going to Change the Way We Do Business
Mahyar Raissi, co‑founder and CEO of Quo, argues that AI agents are moving beyond the enterprise‑only arena and becoming affordable tools for small and growing businesses. He notes that while 90% of Fortune 500 firms already use AI, just over half...
Can't Be Bothered to Read that PDF? Gemini Can Now Give You an Audio Overview
Google has added an AI‑powered “Audio Overview” feature to the web version of its Drive PDF viewer, letting Gemini generate conversational, podcast‑style audio summaries of long, text‑heavy documents such as contracts. Users click a new button, wait a few minutes...
It's Official - Using AI at Work Really Can Help You Be Happier and More productive...for Now
PwC’s latest workforce study finds only 14% of employees use generative AI tools every day and a mere 6% rely on agentic AI, yet daily users report markedly higher outcomes – 92% say productivity improves versus 58% of non‑daily users,...
Improving VMware Migration Workflows with Agentic AI
VMware-to-cloud migrations, once hampered by manual dependency mapping and legacy code rewrites, are being reshaped by recent licensing changes and the rise of agentic AI tools that automate migration workflows. The shift comes as cloud‑native adoption accelerates—CNCF’s 2024 survey shows...