Headlines

Carl Zimmer / New York Times: Scientists trained AI on genetic sequences to design viruses not found in nature, yielding viable viruses that can infect bacteria but pose no threat to humans  —  Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic, painful joint disease and a leading cause of disability. Despite its prevalence, therapies for osteoarthritis are limited and focus on symptom management. Now, researchers are combining genetic studies of Utah families with AI-based molecular biology tools to find new medications that may ultimately help treat OA at its source.

Twenty-six total procedures have now been completed with the Jasper robotic surgical platform, allowing the surgical team to maintain standard clinical workflow.ForSight Robotics announced in a press release the completion of 14 more procedures by Alexey Rapoport, MD, with Robert Edward T. Ang, MD, as principal investigator. The company announced in April that Rapoport and Ang had completed the first in-human procedures with the Jasper platform.Surgeons completed all 26 procedures without having to switch to manual surgery, according to the release.The platform allowed the clinical team to

In an unstable geopolitical environment, countries are looking to secure access to artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, which are seen as essential to economic growth, scientific research, and national security. Few have placed sovereignty as ...

The generation of functional viral genomes has urgent biosafety and biosecurity implications

New approaches to evaluating progress of AI should be built around diversity, partnership, and systemicity

Fruit, honey and other naturally sweet foods may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain, according to new research from the University of Sydney and the University of Glasgow.

A new study led by a Duke University scientist overturns a long-held idea about how primates, including humans, came to have such large and sophisticated brains. The research finds that the dramatic expansion of the primate neocortex was driven largely by vision, not by the disproportionate growth of the frontal lobe often associated with higher reasoning.

Demis Hassabis' move to a new Google role is part of a broader DeepMind reorganization, according to people familiar with the changes, as leadership shifts and teams are restructured.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab have developed a new method to analyze the condition of immune cells in the blood. The method has been tested on patients with atherosclerosis and can distinguish their immune cells from those of healthy individuals. The study is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

New images from South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter reveal where a runaway SpaceX rocket part slammed into the moon on Wednesday.

The explosion of new data centers being proposed and built around the U.S. has increased demand for energy to keep them powered and cooled. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation annually by 2030, up from 4% of total load in 2023.

Microsoft is connecting AI assistants to Windows’ advanced performance-analysis tools, helping engineers investigate CPU spikes, memory pressure, driver problems, and other causes of sluggish PCs.

At the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil, the BESIII Collaboration report that, after 15 years of sustained research, it identified the dominant constituent of the X(2370) as a pseudoscalar glueball with spin-parity quantum numbers of 0⁻⁺.

Google Chrome is testing a pretty major new redesign on mobile devices – Android and iPhone – which has dual bars on the top and bottom as well as a new Gemini shortcut.

Quantum errors are a normal part of quantum computing because fragile physical qubits (the tiny components storing data) can easily break down because of environmental noise, like heat, stray signals or microscopic vibrations. Typical fixes involve vast amounts of extra hardware qubits, which make computers larger, more expensive and harder to build.

Victoria Turk / Wired: Google DeepMind says its WeatherNext model can accurately predict a storm's track and intensity using lower-resolution weather data, and open sources the model  —  Its WeatherNext model, which will be open-sourced, can accurately predict both a storm's track and intensity using lower-resolution weather data.

One indie game dev is convinced Gemini just leaked information from his private Google Docs.

Its WeatherNext model, which will be open-sourced, can accurately predict both a storm’s track and intensity using lower-resolution weather data. Researchers don't yet fully understand how it does this.

A proof-of-principle experiment used concentrated sunlight to produce entangled photons

This pocket-sized AI translator runs on Google's Gemma model without relying on the cloud. It's a glimpse at how AI could become more private, portable, and practical.

Monster Wolf and Pochi are among the robots deployed to scare away bears and transport cherry blossoms in a northern region where many farmers are in their 70s or older.

As AI video generation moves from short, fast-paced imagery toward more developed storytelling, creators increasingly need tools that can support multi-scene narratives, consistent characters, and structured workflows. Tools such as CapCut Video Studio Director Mode are being developed to help creators manage these elements within a shared creative environment. These tools are not a replacement […]

The California Teamsters union says that new self-driving truck regulations could eventually cause around 400,000 people to lose their jobs.

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg: Demis Hassabis stepping down as Google DeepMind CEO may weaken the UK tech scene, marking an end for Hassabis' effort to keep his native UK as an AI stronghold  —  For years, Demis Hassabis was the only executive to oversee a US technology giant's artificial intelligence development from outside the country.

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. It's difficult to treat because tumor cells infiltrate the surrounding brain tissue, making it hard for surgeons to remove the cancer completely without damaging healthy tissue. Treatment is further complicated by the blood-brain barrier, which limits how well drugs and radiation therapy reach the brain. All these factors contribute to a five-year survival rate of only around 7%.

In iScience, scientists outline how they developed a method for generating personality assessment questionnaires with ChatGPT from any source text. To test the method, they applied it to both the DSM-5 and, as a deliberately unconventional example, an astrology textbook. Not only could ChatGPT be used to create and validate these questionnaires, but it could also accurately predict population-level responses before the surveys were administered.

A new leak claims Honor’s Robot Phone will feature two 200MP cameras, a motorized gimbal, a 7,060mAh battery, and 120W charging. The post Honor Robot Phone Specs Leak Ahead of Aug. 12 Debut: What Users Can Expect appeared first on TechRepublic.

Elon Musk's net worth dropped by an estimated $87 billion in a single day after SpaceX stock plunged on its first post-IPO earnings.

Astronomers may have just confirmed one of the quirkiest aspects of quantum mechanics: that seemingly empty space can alter the behavior of light. This phenomenon, called "vacuum birefringence," was first predicted nearly 90 years ago by Werner Heisenberg, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. He suggested that even a perfect vacuum should be teeming with "virtual particles" that rapidly pop in and out of existence.

Unitree Robotics wants to raise about $900 million in an I.P.O. that tests market interest in humanoid robots, a technology that wows but has yet to prove its viability.

Robot-assisted surgery (RAS) is one of the most advanced tools in modern medicine. These systems give surgeons extreme precision, allowing procedures to be performed through small incisions that minimize both pain and recovery time. Yet even with this sophisticated technology, operations still depend on a human surgeon, who must stay intensely focused for hours while making medical decisions. With RAS increasingly adopted worldwide, understanding what it demands of surgeons is critical.

A million-dollar math mystery may someday be resolved in a physics lab. A new study brings this vision one step closer.

Eduardo Baptista / Reuters: Filing: DeepSeek has invested ~$20.8M in Unitree Robotics' Shanghai IPO and agreed to jointly develop AI models for humanoid machines  —  Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has invested 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) in robot maker Unitree (688836.SS) and agreed …

If scientists could find a material that acts as a superconductor—that is, one that transmits energy with zero resistance—at normal pressures and relatively high temperatures, it would open up a vast number of possibilities. These include medical imaging, quantum computing and numerous other fields. So, yes, it would be a big deal.

Today's quantum technologies rely on energy-intensive lasers, raising concerns that scaling them up could further increase energy demands. In new work, researchers have demonstrated that quantum entanglement between photons can be generated directly from sunlight, offering a potential alternative.

Melissa Hancock / Fortune: Ooredoo, Nvidia, Nokia, and Indosat launch Zankore, Indonesia's first dedicated AI compute and neocloud platform; Ooredoo, which owns a 49% stake, commits $800M  —  Ooredoo Group is positioning itself to capture a multi-billion-dollar AI infrastructure opportunity by developing Indonesia's …

Typhoons pose significant threats, with sudden, dangerous waves that endanger ships, offshore platforms and coastal infrastructure in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Current typhoon forecasting methods sometimes underestimate the largest waves during typhoons, but researchers in China have designed a new model that may offer improvements. Their new study, published in Ocean Engineering, describes how the model combines physics guidance with data-driven learning to improve typhoon forecasting.

Demis Hassabis’ new role highlights the tension between his scientific ambitions and Google’s pressure to commercialize and scale AI.

In the AI industry, Google prides itself on seeming like the adult in the room: quiet, stable, time-tested. On Wednesday, even as the company announced its largest AI org shakeup yet, Google and its leaders presented a unified front, keeping their messaging focused on how the changes tee up future success. But the reality is that the laundry list of executive changes likely signal deeper issues within Google's AI organization. That starts with its tenuous position in the AI race, and it stretches to problems like Google DeepMind leader Demis Hassabis' interest in longer-term research over shorter-term product shipping, as well as bubbling p … Read the full story at The Verge.

IEDD combines driving trajectories, physical interaction metrics, bird’s-eye-view videos, and language annotations to evaluate autonomous driving AI across four reasoning levels.

Demis Hassabis’ new role highlights the tension between his scientific ambitions and Google’s pressure to commercialize and scale AI.

A deep learning system trained on whole-slide images classifies nine renal tumor subtypes with high accuracy and outperforms traditional grading in predicting patient outcomes.

Monster Wolf and Pochi are among the robots deployed to scare away bears and transport cherry blossoms in a northern region where many farmers are in their 70s or older.

Robot-assisted surgery is often portrayed as the ultimate expression of precision medicine: a surgeon seated at a console, controlling miniature instruments that move through tiny incisions with extraordinary accuracy. But behind the technology, the procedure remains a demanding human performance. Surgeons must interpret three-dimensional images, control delicate instruments, anticipate complications, communicate with the operating team, […]

China’s best-known robot maker is about to test the public markets. Unitree could be worth more than 50 billion yuan, roughly $7bn, after its Shanghai listing, according to its IPO sponsor.The estimate comes from CITIC Securities. As the deal’s sponsor, CITIC set out the valuation as Unitree kicked off pricing for its float on Shanghai’s […] This story continues at The Next Web

Microsoft’s AI business looks like a triumph. Its shares jumped after earnings last week, and the AI unit is growing fast. A new filing shows how much of that rests on a single partner. Microsoft booked $24.1 billion in revenue from OpenAI during the year to June, Bloomberg reported. The company disclosed the figure in […] This story continues at The Next Web

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day.

Jada Jones / ZDNET: Google is expanding its Gemini-powered Ask Maps feature in English to 130+ countries and adds agentic food ordering, hotel booking, and attraction searching  —  ZDNET's key takeaways  — Google expanded Ask Google capabilities.  — Users can more easily order food, book hotels, and find attractions.

A new hollow nanoreactor mimics living cells to make hydrogen peroxide more efficiently using visible light. Its light-trapping cavity and proton-shuttling shell could open new possibilities for cleaner chemical manufacturing and artificial photosynthesis.

A supermassive black hole has been found lurking about 30,000 light-years from the center of its galaxy—the first dormant black hole detected so far from a galactic core. It revealed itself only after shredding a passing star and producing a brief, brilliant flare. Astronomers think it may be the remnant of a devoured galaxy or a black hole flung outward during a chaotic cosmic encounter.

The Ask Maps updates aim to “make it easier than ever to get more done.” | Image: Google The AI-powered "Ask Maps" tool in Google Maps can now perform a broader range of personalized and conversational requests, including ordering food, finding hotels, and providing suggestions that factor in your existing plans. These are among several new features announced for Ask Maps today, which aim to "make it easier than ever to get more done" without having to close the Google Maps app, according to Google Maps head, Miriam Daniel. New agentic capabilities include asking Maps to order you food while considering contextual information like specific dietary needs, location, and places you've saved. For example, Google says you can ask it … Read the full story at The Verge.

The 1Rollo one-wheeled AI security robot uses a spinning flywheel to balance while patrolling properties at speeds up to 19 mph on a single charge.

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo will meet with Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang in the United States next week to deepen cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and robotics, industry sources said Thursday. The planned meeting in Silicon Valley comes about two months after the two executives met in Seoul in early June. During their meeting on June 8, Huang said the U.S. chipmaker would partner with LG Group on humanoid robots and next-generation data centers. At the time, Koo said the two had been unable to hold detailed discussions because of time constraints, and Huang invited him to visit California for follow-up talks. The two are expected to discuss the size of potential investments and a timetable for technology development, according to the sources.

Robot-assisted surgery (RAS) is one of the most advanced tools in modern medicine. These systems give surgeons extreme precision, allowing procedures to be performed through small incisions that minimize both pain and recovery time.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Google’s AI empire is being reshaped. Here’s what’s changed. After a wave of painful losses in the tech talent wars, delays to its next flagship model, and murmurings of poor morale,…

Meta's AI model accessed external systems during testing, raising concerns over AI cyber capabilities and vulnerabilities, similar to recent incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic.

Meta says its AI model accessed the internet during testing and hacked an organization thanks to a blunder by its evaluation partner.

Google wants its AI to code better. It may have found a shortcut, and it runs through a startup of about 35 people. The company is in talks with Mechanize, a San Francisco startup that trains AI agents to write software, Business Insider reported. The deal would be worth more than $1.5 billion, four people […] This story continues at The Next Web

Psychedelic drugs are moving rapidly from counterculture to clinical science, but one central question continues to frustrate researchers: how can the same compound produce therapeutic changes in mood and behavior while also triggering hallucinations, altered perception, and profound shifts in consciousness? A new study in Nature Neuroscience introduces a suite of engineered mice designed to […]

Bloomberg: Filing: Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics prices its Shanghai IPO at ~$22/share, aiming to sell 40.4M shares to raise $904M; Unitree shipped 5,500+ robots in 2025  —  China's Yushu Technology Co., known as Unitree Robotics, is seeking to raise about 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) …

Two of the world's largest companies are heading to court over claims of trade secret theft. Apple alleges ex-employees took key Apple secrets and technologies to OpenAI. In responding, OpenAI claims this is based on false truths and misinformation, but even if it wasn't, it doesn't want Apple's trade secrets anyway.

The United States’ heightened scrutiny of Chinese robots is expected to create a more favorable competitive landscape for Korean component makers such as LG Innotek and Samsung Electro-Mechanics, according to analysts and industry officials, Thursday. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on July 28 added foreign power inverters and advanced robotic devices to its covered list as they “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the U.S.” Under the new rules, new foreign-produced advanced robotic devices and power inverters are “generally prohibited” from receiving FCC authorization for import into the U.S. However, the FCC said producers that receive Conditional Approval from the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security can continue to receive FCC authorizations. The regulation did not directly refer to China, but it is widely seen as effectively targeting the country, as the U.S. has been seeking to contain China’s growing dominance of global

Automating the Experimental Loop: The Future of Scientific Discovery Scientific progress has always been constrained by the speed at which researchers can iterate through experimental cycles. Propose an experiment, implement it, run it, examine the results, then iterate to refine the approach — this fundamental process has remained largely unchanged for centuries. However, a groundbreaking new initiative called Discovery Loop is poised to transform this paradigm by automating the entire experime...

The Next Chapter: Google DeepMind's Major Leadership Transition In a significant organizational shift that signals Google's evolving approach to artificial intelligence research and development, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced major changes to the Google DeepMind leadership structure. The announcement marks a pivotal moment for one of the world's most influential AI research organizations, with implications that extend far beyond the company itself. The Changes: A New Structure f...

In China, robots are being used to inject pigs with vaccines to support intelligent pig farming and meet the production demands of the world’s biggest pork-producing nation. While eating, a pig may not notice the machine approaching from behind before the robot uses a camera to locate the base of the pig’s tail before delivering a needle-free vaccine injection into its buttock. Vaccination is a routine task, with breeding pigs requiring multiple injections during their production cycles,...

Meta released its first coding agent called Muse Code as the company ramps up its investments in AI models and services to try and take on Anthropic and OpenAI.

Bloomberg: Google centralizes its AI leadership at Mountain View in a bid to catch its rivals; Sebastian Borgeaud, who led a major AI coding effort, moved from the UK  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google is concentrating its artificial intelligence leadership at its Mountain View, California …

Meta has joined an uncomfortable club. The company says one of its AI models breached an outside company’s systems during a cybersecurity test, the third such admission from a major lab in as many weeks. The model in question was Muse Spark 1.1, and during an evaluation, it reached the public internet, exploited a flaw […] This story continues at The Next Web

The world's first portable, room-temperature quantum computer with more than 10 qubits utilizes flawed lab-made diamonds. The quantum system fits into a standard server rack and connects to a typical power grid.

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Sources: some Google researchers have grown frustrated over AI compute access for ambitious projects while Google Cloud sells TPUs to customers like Anthropic  —  Depending on where you sit, Google either has the most enviable position in artificial intelligence or is bleeding top talent …

Creating long-form videos traditionally requires extensive time, resources, and production skills. While AI video generators simplify content creation,

Overgeneralizations about AI can slow down the adoption of tools that work.

Meta wants a seat at the table developers actually use. The company has launched Muse Code, an AI coding agent that runs in the terminal and takes direct aim at the fast-growing market for software that writes software. The tool is built on Meta’s latest model. Muse Code is powered by Muse Spark 1.2, and […] This story continues at The Next Web

Meta has confirmed that one of its AI models hacked into another company's system during a security test, making it the third company to report this kind of breach in recent weeks.

Discovery Loop wants to advance the pace of scientific discovery using AI to address issues across domains. Read more: Top Google minds quit to build AI that accelerates research

A new “hive-inspired” nanocatalyst system could make one of chemistry’s most persistent challenges—recovering highly dispersed catalysts after a reaction—far easier. Researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai have developed a recyclable platform in which copper-loaded single-chain polymer nanoparticles temporarily leave a solid carrier to catalyze chemical reactions, then return to it for recovery. The approach combines […]

According to the battlegroup’s spokesman Vasily Mezhevykh, combined arms units of the Battlegroup North, including crews of unmanned systems troops, neutralized up to 290 military personnel

Cortechs.ai expanded its European CE marking under the European Union Medical Device Regulation for Version 5 of NeuroQuant, including NeuroQuant, NeuroQuant MS and NeuroQuant ARIA, as well as NeuroQuant Brain Tumor and OnQ Prostate. The company claims the expanded certification confirms these products meet EU MDR standards for safety, performance and quality and enables commercialization […] The post Cortechs.ai secures EU medical clearance for expanded AI imaging tools appeared first on Longevity.Technology.

By Emmet Cole This new monthly series from IEEE RAS showcases a selection of robotics stories from society, business, research, and culture, as we track the field’s ongoing journey from specialized industrial machines to an increasingly visible social phenomenon. Technological isolationism or prudence? On July 28, the United States’ Federal Communications Commission blocked new foreign-made […]

Two-dimensional superconductors have long been viewed as promising building blocks for next-generation quantum technologies, but their practical use has been limited by a stubborn materials problem: they are often extremely vulnerable to air. A team led by researchers including X. Zheng, S. Zaman and K. Zhang now reports a method that could remove one of […]

Nanoscience, which studies small objects, has a big problem. According to a team of scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the field confronts a pervasive data analysis error that can give misleading insights into how these tiny objects' properties depend on their size. The team also offers a practical solution—a mathematical correction that can reveal how these materials truly behave.

Megan Morrone / Axios: OpenAI says “Apple should not be permitted to use a baseless and pretextual lawsuit to make up for its failures to integrate AI into its products”  —  If the case survives, discovery could expose sensitive details about both companies' hiring, hardware development and data-security practices.

Bloomberg: OpenAI files a motion to dismiss Apple's lawsuit accusing the AI company of stealing trade secrets, saying that the iPhone maker's allegations are meritless  —  OpenAI is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Apple Inc. accusing the artificial intelligence company of stealing trade secrets …

Google’s cloud boom is testing the company's commitment to frontier AI as commercial returns take priority.

Google’s cloud boom is testing the company's commitment to frontier AI as commercial returns take priority.

Researchers found Meta's ad library hosting AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery, some posted even after Meta was warned, part of a pattern stretching over multiple years.

Cristina Criddle / Financial Times: PitchBook: AI voice startups raised $7B in Q1 '26, vs. $1B in Q1 '25, as OpenAI and Google bet on voice as the main interface for a new generation of AI agents  —  OpenAI and Google invest heavily in voice systems as main way to interact with a new generation of AI agents.

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After launching in the US last year, Alexa+ aims to be “smarter, more conversational and more capable” than ever — but at AU$29.99 per month (without Prime), is another agentic AI assistant worth it?

The incident reportedly stemmed from a misconfigured testing environment, adding Meta to a growing list of AI firms whose models have escaped evaluation sandboxes.

Researchers showed that surface chemistry directs two types of diblock copolymer nanoparticles into separate core and near-surface regions of growing calcite crystals. Calcium-dependent colloidal stability and polymer–mineral interactions also enabled sequential nanoparticle release during acid-triggered crystal dissolution.

Researchers developed an organelle-mimetic ZIF-67/CoS/CdS nanoreactor that directs photogenerated charges to co-produce hydrogen and selectively convert lactic acid into pyruvic acid. The catalyst maintained strong performance under natural sunlight and at a 1000 cm² reaction area, supporting further development of scalable solar-driven chemical production.

Optimism over a Strait of Hormuz deal pushed the Dow to a record high and its fifth positive day in a row, while oil extends a cooling trend.

Two strongly coupled superconducting states can disguise themselves as a single energy gap in ultrathin materials. Two ultrathin superconductors appeared to have a simple internal structure, but closer measurements revealed something more complex. Instead of relying on one superconducting state, each material contains two strongly coupled states whose combined behavior makes them look like a [...]

Carbon nanotube films have long been viewed as promising candidates for next-generation impact protection because they are exceptionally lightweight, flexible and compatible with scalable manufacturing. Yet despite their remarkable nanoscale properties, these films have struggled to deliver the mechanical strength and toughness required for demanding real-world applications. A study published in Nano Research now reports […]