ROBOTICS
Man vs. Machine: DeepMind’s New Robot Serves up a Table Tennis Triumph
Benj Edwards | Ars Technica
“On Wednesday, researchers at Google DeepMind revealed the first AI-powered robotic table tennis player capable of competing at an amateur human level. The system combines an industrial robot arm called the ABB IRB 1100 and custom AI software from DeepMind. While an expert human player can still defeat the bot, the system demonstrates the potential for machines to master complex physical tasks that require split-second decision-making and adaptability.”
BIOTECH
Engineered Virus Steals Proteins From HIV, Pointing to New Therapy
Carl Zimmer | The New York Times
“Scientists have developed a new weapon against HIV: a molecular mimic that invades a cell and steals essential proteins from the virus. A study published in Science on Thursday reported that this viral thief prevented HIV from multiplying inside of monkeys. The new therapeutic approach will soon be tested in people, the scientists said.”
ETHICS
OpenAI Warns Users Could Become Emotionally Hooked on Its Voice Mode
Will Knight and Reece Rogers | Wired
“During the red teaming, or stress testing, of GPT-4o, for instance, OpenAI researchers noticed instances of speech from users that conveyed a sense of emotional connection with the model. For example, people used language such as ‘This is our last day together.’ Anthropomorphism might cause users to place more trust in the output of a model when it ‘hallucinates’ incorrect information, OpenAI says. Over time, it might even affect users’ relationships with other people.”
ROBOTICS
Figure 02 Robot Is a Sleeker, Smarter Humanoid
Evan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum
“This thing looks slick. I’d say that it’s maybe a little too far on the sinister side for a robot intended to work around humans, but the industrial design is badass and the packaging is excellent, with the vast majority of the wiring now integrated within the robot’s skins and flexible materials covering joints that are typically left bare.”
ENERGY
More Than Half of All New Cars Sold in China Last Month Were Electric Vehicles
William Gavin | Quartz
“Sales of what China calls new energy vehicles (NEVs)—any vehicles that mostly use or are entirely dependent on electricity for their operation—increased by 37% year-over-year in July, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). Thanks to that growth, and an overall decrease in sales in the world’s largest auto market, NEVs accounted for 50.7% of new car sales last month. That’s a major jump compared to sales just three years ago, when NEVs made up just 7% of overall vehicle sales in China.”
TECH
Breaking Down the Tech Giants’ AI Spending Surge
Nate Rattner | The Wall Street Journal
“Big technology companies deepened their commitments to artificial-intelligence efforts in the latest quarter, pouring billions of dollars into capital-spending projects and telling investors more is on the way. In earnings statements over the past two weeks, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, and Google parent Alphabet each reported jumps in purchases of property and equipment, a measure of capital spending. For all but Meta, the latest quarterly figure was the highest in years.”
SCIENCE
Watch a Video Showing What Happens in Our Brains When We Think
Jessica Hamzelou | MIT Technology Review
“In this video, which I’ve converted to a GIF, you can see the pattern of electrical activity in the man’s brain as he recites numbers. Each dot represents the voltage sensed by an electrode on the array on the man’s brain, over a region involved in speech. …The video has been slowed down 20-fold, because ‘thoughts happen faster than the eye can see,’ says Rapoport.”
FUTURE
The Search for Alien Life Just Hit a Depressing Setback
Adam Kovac | Gizmodo
“The search for alien life just got a bit more complicated. Red dwarfs, young and dim stars thought by many astronomers to be the most likely hosts for life-sustaining planets, come with a significant drawback: They frequently emit deadly ultraviolet radiation flares, which are much more powerful than astronomers previously thought.”
COMPUTING
Quantum Cryptography Has Everyone Scrambling
Margo Anderson | IEEE Spectrum
“While the technology world awaits NIST’s latest ‘post-quantum’ cryptography standards this summer, a parallel effort is underway to also develop cryptosystems that are grounded in quantum technology—what are called quantum-key distribution or QKD systems. As a result, India, China, and a range of technology organizations in the European Union and United States are researching and developing QKD and weighing standards for the nascent cryptography alternative.”
TECH
Californians Are Getting Apple Wallet Drivers Licenses This Year
Florence Ion | Gizmodo
“My household has a saying that anytime we leave for the outside world, we should have ‘keys, wallet, phone.’ It helps remind us of the basics that should be in hand before the door gets locked from the outside. If you’re in California, you can look forward to cutting down the list to two simple items: keys and a phone. A leak reveals that official digital California drivers licenses and identification cards are coming to Apple Wallet.”
Image Credit: Norbert Kowalczyk / Unsplash
