Alibaba has unveiled a new version of its AI model, called Qwen2.5-Max, claiming benchmark scores that surpass both DeepSeek's recently released R1 model and industry standards like GPT-4o and Claude-3.5-Sonnet. The model achieves these results using a mixture-of-experts architecture that requires significantly less computational power than traditional approaches. The release comes amid growing concerns about China's AI capabilities, following DeepSeek's R1 model launch last week that sent Nvidia's stock. Read more ›
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Genetic diversity in animals and plants has declined globally over the past three decades, an analysis of more than 600 species has found. From a report: The research, published in the journal Nature, found declines in two-thirds of the populations studied, but noted that urgent conservation efforts could halt or even reverse genetic diversity losses. Dozens of scientists internationally reviewed 882 studies that measured genetic diversity changes between 1985 and... Read more ›
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Comcast is deploying "Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput" (L4S) technology across its Xfinity internet network in six U.S. cities, a system that reduces the time data packets take to travel between users and servers. Initial trials showed a 78% reduction in working latency under normal home conditions. The technology will first support FaceTime calls, Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming, and Steam games, with planned expansion to Meta's mixed reality... Read more ›
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Hackers linked to China, Iran and other foreign governments are using new AI technology to bolster their cyberattacks against U.S. and global targets, according to U.S. officials and new security research. WSJ: In the past year, dozens of hacking groups in more than 20 countries turned to Google's Gemini chatbot to assist with malicious code writing, hunts for publicly known cyber vulnerabilities and research into organizations to target for attack,... Read more ›
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The U.S. Copyright Office declared Wednesday that the use of AI tools to assist in the creative process does not undermine the copyright of a work. Variety: The announcement clears the way for continued adoption of AI in post-production, where it has become increasingly common, such as in the enhancement of Hungarian-language dialogue in "The Brutalist." Studios, whose business model is founded on strong copyright protections, have expressed concern that... Read more ›
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New Zealand has relaxed its visitor visa rules to attract so-called "digital nomads" in a bid to boost tourism and the economy. From a report: Visitor visas will now allow people to work remotely for a foreign employer while they are visiting New Zealand for up to 90 days. The visa can be extended up to nine months but visitors may need to pay tax during this time. Economic growth... Read more ›
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Virgin Money's AI-powered chatbot has reprimanded a customer who used the word "virgin," underlining the pitfalls of rolling out external AI tools. From a report: In a post last week on social media site LinkedIn, David Birch, a fintech commentator and Virgin Money customer, shared a picture of his online conversation with the bank in which he asked: "I have two ISAs with Virgin Money, how do I merge them?"... Read more ›
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A group of scientific integrity experts is calling for urgent action to combat "paper mills" -- companies that sell fraudulent research papers and fake peer reviews. In a Nature comment piece published January 27, the experts warn that at least 400,000 papers published between 2000 and 2022 show signs of being produced by paper mills, while only 55,000 were retracted or corrected during that period. Read more of this story... Read more ›
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OpenAI says it has evidence suggesting Chinese AI startup DeepSeek used its proprietary models to train a competing open-source system through "distillation," a technique where smaller models learn from larger ones' outputs. The San Francisco-based company, along with partner Microsoft, blocked suspected DeepSeek accounts from accessing its API last year after detecting potential terms of service violations. DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model has achieved comparable results to leading U.S. models despite... Read more ›
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A new update to CVS's mobile app includes a feature that allows some customers to access items on locked shelves using their phone -- "without having to summon an overworked employee to open it first," reports The Verge. The feature is currently being trialed in a handful of stores, but will be expanded to many more locations later this year if it goes well. From the report: According to The... Read more ›
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A team of biologists have found that it takes microplastics consumed by mice just a few hours to reach their brains. "Wondering if the plastic in their brains was causing any impairment, the researchers tested several of the mice and found that many of them experienced memory loss, reductions in motor skills and lower endurance," reports Phys.Org. From the report: In this new effort, the research team sought to learn... Read more ›
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Bolstered by Silicon Valley investment, scientists are making such rapid progress that lab-grown human eggs and sperm could be a reality within a decade, a meeting of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority board heard last week (PDF). In-vitro gametes (IVGs), eggs or sperm that are created in the lab from genetically reprogrammed skin or stem cells, are viewed as the... Read more ›
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sciencehabit shares a report from Science: Legend has it that if you walk along Old Light Road in Summerville, South Carolina, you might see an eerie glow hovering over an abandoned rail line in the nearby woods. Old-timers will tell you it's a spectral lantern held by the apparition of a woman searching for her decapitated husband's head. Susan Hough has proposed a scientific explanation that is far more plausible,... Read more ›
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Google has appealed a record $4.5 billion EU antitrust fine to the European Court of Justice, arguing that the European Commission's decision punished its innovation and imposed unfair penalties for agreements requiring pre-installation of its apps on Android devices. Reuters reports: Google's appeal to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union comes two years after a lower tribunal sided with the European Commission which said the company used... Read more ›
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During the first press briefing of Donald Trump's second administration, White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that the National Security Council was "looking into" the potential security implications of China's DeepSeek AI startup. Axios reports: DeepSeek's low-cost but highly advanced models have shaken the consensus that the U.S. had a strong lead in the AI race with China. Responding to a question from Axios' Mike Allen, Leavitt said President... Read more ›
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hill: Two federal employees are suing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to block the agency from creating a new email distribution system -- an action that comes as the information will reportedly be directed to a former staffer to Elon Musk now at the agency. The suit (PDF), launched by two anonymous federal employees, ties together two events that have alarmed... Read more ›
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During the first press briefing of Donald Trump's second administration, White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the mysterious drones spotted flying around New Jersey at the end of last year were "authorized to be flown by the FAA." "After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons," she said,... Read more ›
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The XB-1, a civilian supersonic jet developed by Boom Supersonic, successfully broke the sound barrier during a test flight over the Mojave Desert. It reached an altitude of 35,290 feet before accelerating to Mach 1.22, the company said in a press release. CBS News reports: It marks the first time an independently developed jet has broken the sound barrier, Boom Supersonic said, and the plane is the "first supersonic jet... Read more ›
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple-designed chips powering Macs, iPhones, and iPads contain two newly discovered vulnerabilities that leak credit card information, locations, and other sensitive data from the Chrome and Safari browsers as they visit sites such as iCloud Calendar, Google Maps, and Proton Mail. The vulnerabilities, affecting the CPUs in later generations of Apple A- and M-series chip sets, open them to side channel... Read more ›
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Hugging Face researchers are attempting to recreate DeepSeek's R1 artificial intelligence model in an open-source format, just days after the Chinese AI lab's release sent markets soaring. The project, called Open-R1, aims to replicate R1's reasoning capabilities while making its training data and code publicly available. DeepSeek's R1 model, which matches or surpasses OpenAI's o1 on several benchmarks, was released with a permissive license but keeps its underlying architecture private.... Read more ›
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30.06.2026 19:00
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