Robotics
How Pokémon Go Is Giving Delivery Robots an Inch-Perfect View of the WorldWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($)
“Niantic Spatial is using that vast and unparalleled trove of crowdsourced data—images of urban landmarks tagged with super-accurate location markers taken from the phones of a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of Pokémon Go players all over the world—to construct a type of world model, a buzzy latest technology that grounds the smarts of LLMs in real-world environments.”
Future
A Roadmap for AI, if Anyone Will ListenConnie Loizos | TechCrunch
“The newly published document, signed by a whole bunch of experts, former officials, and public figures, opens with the no-nonsense statement that humanity is at a fork within the road. One path, which the declaration calls ‘the race to interchange,’ results in humans being supplanted first as employees, then as decision-makers, as power accrues to unaccountable institutions and their machines. The opposite results in AI that massively expands human potential.”
Computing
Startup Is Constructing the First Data Center to Use Human Brain CellsAlex Wilkins | Latest Scientist ($)
“Data centers use huge amounts of energy and chips are in high demand—could brain cells be the reply? Australia-based start-up Cortical Labs has announced it’s constructing two ‘biological’ data centers in Melbourne and Singapore, stacked with the identical neuron-filled chips that it has demonstrated can play Pong or Doom.”
Robotics
Why Do Humanoid Robots Still Struggle With the Small Stuff?John Pavlus | Quanta Magazine
“‘I asked each researcher: Can your flagship robot—Boston Dynamics’ Atlas or Agility’s Digit, two of probably the most credible and pedigreed humanoids on Earth—handle any set of stairs or doorway? ‘Not reliably,’ Hurst said. ‘I don’t think it’s totally solved,’ Kuindersma said. …It’s 2026. Why are humanoids still this…hard?”
Future
AI Isn’t Lightening Workloads. It’s Making Them More Intense.Ray A. Smith | The Wall Street Journal ($)
“Considered one of the nice hopes for artificial intelligence—at the very least, amongst employees—is that it is going to ease workloads, freeing people up for more high-level, creative pursuits. Up to now, the alternative is occurring, latest data show. In actual fact, AI is increasing the speed, density and complexity of labor slightly than reducing it, in response to an evaluation of 164,000 employees’ digital work activity.”
Future
Karpathy’s March of Nines Shows Why 90% AI Reliability Isn’t Even Near EnoughNikhil Mungel | VentureBeat
“The ‘March of Nines’ frames a standard production reality: You may reach the primary 90% reliability with a robust demo, and every additional nine often requires comparable engineering effort. For enterprise teams, the space between ‘normally works’ and ‘operates like dependable software’ determines adoption.”
Computing
The Race to Solve the Biggest Problem in Quantum ComputingKarmela Padavic-Callaghan | Latest Scientist ($)
“Quantum computers are already here, but they make far too many errors. That is arguably the largest obstacle to the technology really becoming useful, but recent breakthroughs suggest an answer could also be on the horizon. ‘It’s a really exciting time in error correction. For the primary time, theory and practice are really making contact,’ says Robert Schoelkopf at Yale University.”
Robotics
Modular Yard Robot Mows Lawns, Plows Snow, Gathers Leaves and Trims GrassMaryna Holovnova | Latest Atlas
“Homeowners normally find yourself with a garage full of various equipment: a lawn mower, snow blower, shovels, and tools for clearing fallen leaves. Currently available on Kickstarter, the Yarbo M attempts to mix all those individual tools into one compact robotic platform that may routinely do all of the yard work.”
Robotics
These Self-Configuring Modular Robots May One Day Rule the WorldTom Hawking | Gizmodo
“Each unit has multiple points to which one other unit can attach itself: 18 of them, to be precise, which implies that just two units could be combined in 435 ways. The variety of possible configurations explodes because the variety of units increases, and by the point you get to 5 units, there are a whole bunch of billions of possible combos.”
Space
This SpaceX Veteran Says the Next Big Thing in Space Is Satellites That Return to EarthTim Fernholz | TechCrunch
“The reusable rocket has transformed the space industry within the last decade, and a brand new startup led by a SpaceX veteran desires to do the identical for satellites. Brian Taylor, who helped construct satellites for networks like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Leo, founded Lux Aeterna in December 2024 to develop satellite structures with a built-in heat shield that may allow them to return to Earth with their payloads intact.”
Tech
Almost 40 Latest Unicorns Have Been Minted So Far This Yr—Here They AreDominic-Madori Davis | TechCrunch
“Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the VC-backed startups that became unicorns in 2026. While most are AI-related, a surprising number are focused on other industries like healthcare and even a number of crypto corporations.”
Space
SETI Thinks It Might Have Missed a Few Alien Calls. Here’s WhyMatthew Phelan | Gizmodo
“A brand new study published by researchers on the SETI Institute, short for the Seek for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has tested the likelihood that ‘space weather’ could render strong premeditated alien broadcasts into the type of fainter radio signals that SETI typically ignores.”