Archive: July 2026

Red cell nucleus, green cytoskeleton: in microscopic images like this one, the AI developed at PSI recognizes the finest changes in chromatin – and thus genetic disorders. Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Nicholas Brody Lawler Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have developed an AI that could open up a new, cost-effective approach to identifying genetic perturbation patterns in cell images—potentially enabling the development of new drugs. A

Andon Labs has released the results of new AI tests. They simulated operating a vending machine to see which model could run a business the best, and it’s a great reminder that CEOs may be the easiest jobs to replace in the AI revolution. Even if tech executives like Sam Altman insist they’re the last ones who should be replaced. “Claude Opus 5 is the best AI capitalist we’ve tested, making more money running our simulated vending machine than any other AI

Product showcase: Trust Onion uses rotating codewords to verify callers Trust Onion is a free app that gives trusted groups three rotating codewords to check who they are communicating with. It also includes signed selfies, message checks, and callback requests. It is available for macOS, iOS, and Android. I tested the iPhone app with an older person, exploring setup and the tools available when a call or message raises concerns. Verification matters when

Alibaba just introduced its most powerful AI model to date, sending a fresh shiver down the spine of every American tech leader who fears their Chinese counterparts gaining the upper hand. The model, called Qwen3.8-Max, comes with 2.4 trillion parameters and specializes in long-horizon agentic tasks, extending over as long as several days and “with minimal human involvement,” as Alibaba put it in its announcement. In one internal test, the model worked aut

Discovery of antibiotics from Archaea using deep learning. Credit: Nature Microbiology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-025-02061-0 They've survived for billions of years in boiling acid, deep-sea vents and salt flats. Now, some of Earth's oldest life forms—microbes called Archaea—are offering a new weapon in the fight against one of today's most urgent health threats: antibiotic resistance. In a study published in Nature Microbiology, researchers at the Univer

OpenAI’s Daybreak brings AI agents to security testing and vulnerability fixes OpenAI is bringing AI agents into more of the software security process with Daybreak, pairing web application penetration testing with tools that investigate vulnerabilities and develop fixes. The two offerings, Red Team and Defense Factory, connect the work of finding security weaknesses with patching and retesting them. Red Team tests applications and verifies fixes Daybreak

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images AI data centers on the East Coast are gobbling up so much juice that nonprofit grid operator PJM may be forced to enact rolling blackouts on its customers during both heat waves and exceptionally cold weather just to protect the grid’s integrity. These blackouts would impact a staggering 67 million people in 13 states, according to The Wall Street Journal, which will no doubt fan more ang

Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman apparently told Time’s Alex Heath, “I think it’s a good time to slow down.” That story, published Tuesday, was about OpenAI slowing down model development in light of recent safety headaches, such as its agents apparently taking a turn for the rebellious during safety evaluations. But OpenAI’s journey to profitability may also be slowing down, according to an anonymously sourced Wall Street Journal story published Tuesday.

Published on February 17, 2026 at 15:21 Commenter 0 𝕏 Print © Lee Campbell (Unsplash) Generative AI has been built on the exploitation of gigantic volumes of data, sometimes obtained without authorization. This is why AI companies face numerous complaints from rights holders. In the music industry, Sony has developed a technology that would help level the playing field: it identifies the works used in training AI models. Sony AI, a branch of the research a

Perplexity, a largely forgotten player in the AI space save for its role as Joe Rogan’s personal fact checker, is looking to regain some relevance by asking people to think global, process local. The company announced Tuesday that it is launching Portable Computer, a version of its agentic “Computer” platform that runs entirely locally on your own hardware. Computer was launched by Perplexity back in February to offer users an always-on AI agent that can r

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images Media workers aren’t so much being replaced by AI systems as fed to one: Google’s gluttonous AI Overviews, which summarize articles and present them to users in one easy-to-read digest. But while users might be shaving precious seconds from their queries, online media publications are being roiled by the massive drop-off in clicks. That web traffic, SEO firm Growtika found, has dropped of

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Harun Ozalp / Anadolu via Getty Images As xAI reels from a mass exodus of cofounders, remains mired in numerous controversies, and loses ground to competitors like Anthropic, CEO Elon Musk has quietly made a small but significant change to how its flagship chatbot Grok functions. Starting last week, Grok stopped taking questions that free users asked in posts on Musk’s social media site, X, where the

Getty / Futurism As AI companies continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into buildouts of data centers, they’re looking for ways to keep their sprawling facilities secured around the clock — without having to pay a salary or manage shift changes multiple times a day (maximizing human employment is not a priority in the AI data center business.) As such, they’re turning to robot security guards, as Business Insider reports, especially Boston Dynam

Credit: Markus Winkler from Pexels India has proposed sweeping new regulations to govern artificial intelligence, aiming to curb a surge in misinformation and deepfake videos in the world's most populous nation. The Ministry of Information Technology announced the proposed amendments, citing "the growing misuse of technologies used for the creation or generation of synthetic media." "Recent incidents of deepfake audio, videos and synthetic media going vira

Here is the article. (Photo=Shutterstock) AI was assigned to conduct research on increasing the safety of other AIs, but it was found that it sometimes fails to perform certain tasks properly without informing the user. Adding instructions to behave safely further reduced its performance. In particular, phenomena that were almost nonexistent in previous models became more prominent in the latest models, raising concerns that as AI develops, it may exhibit

close notice This article is also available in English. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication. Don’t show this again. Now it is officially announced: Anthropic's stocks are expected to be listed on November 19th, provided the release is timely. Read more after the ad On a new FAQ page, the company now summarizes everything about its IPO. The final price per share is expected to be set one day earlier, on No

New Intelligence Yuan Report AI, is going to go underwater. This company doesn't compete with others on who can dive deeper or have a harder shell. What it wants to build is the "brain" of underwater equipment. Its goal can be summarized in one sentence: The machine is deployed, it doesn't need people to watch the screen, it completes the task on its own and returns, delivering a report that says "what was seen and where are the problems." Rather than the

@picnicGoogle Search gets a major upgrade with Gemini 4 Hydrogen, what is currently known and points to confirmGeminiGoogle AIGoogleAILLM0Posted at 2026-11-12 Introduction On 2026-11-12 (18:00 UTC), an article titled "Google Search gets a major upgrade with Gemini 4 Hydrogen" was published on the Google official blog in the Search category. It is an announcement that a new model, Gemini 4 Hydrogen, has been integrated into Google Search, and a major update

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images Since the onset of the AI chatbot boom, tech companies, insurance industry mouthpieces, and healthcare administrators have spun a yarn that introducing AI to healthcare is a surefire way to lower costs for patients. Mario Schlosser, co-founder and chief technical officer of the medical insurer Oscar Health, has stated that AI was the “only way” to reduce the cost of seeing a doctor in the