This teacher captured the broader moment in education. Over the past several years, schools have been urged to respond to the rapid emergence of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT with limited information and a lot of hype and horror stories. Some have framed the technology as potentially transformative for teaching and learning, while others claim the opposite. Yet in many classrooms, adoption has been slower and more selective than the surrounding hype might suggest.
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That hesitation is often interpreted as resistance to innovation, but conversations with educators suggest a different interpretation. In many cases, teachers behave as experts in most fields do when encountering a new technology, evaluating whether it solves a real problem. When professionals encounter a tool that is widely marketed but still evolving, they ask a basic question: What does this actually help me do better?
For many educators, that question remains unresolved when it comes to classroom instruction, and that’s what our research project aimed to answer: What are teachers experiencing with generative AI in their classrooms?
In fall 2024, EdSurge researchers facilitated discussions between a group of 17 teachers from around the world. We convened a group of third to 12th grade teachers, and some of them designed and delivered their own lesson plans, either teaching with or about AI.
Overall, our participants’ responses reflect a few major themes, with the most prominent sentiment being an air of indifference. In particular, a fourth grade math teacher participant attempted to use generative AI in her instruction. However, before adoption, she asked how AI could help her elementary students learn math. Her question captured what several participants were thinking, aligning with 2024 data from the Pew Research Center that shows educators were split on whether student AI use was more harmful than helpful.
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A Technology Arriving Faster Than Schools Can Unpack
A high school computer science teacher from Georgia describes her fears about generative AI’s widespread push into classrooms:
One of my biggest fears is actually Arthur C. Clarke’s rule: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic…we have students, parents, and teachers looking at AI as if it’s magic.
A high school library media specialist from New York described the same tension from a different angle:
There’s a fear about not being able to keep up with how things progress…the new tools and the impact it has on education.
Schools typically adopt new technologies through deliberate cycles of experimentation, professional development and evaluation. Generative AI has entered classrooms through a different pathway. Consumer tools became available to teachers and students simultaneously, often before schools had developed policies or instructional frameworks for using them.
The result is a situation in which educators encounter the technology while they are still trying to understand its implications.
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Where AI Is Already Providing Value
In conversations with teachers, the pattern that appears consistently is a classic user design case. The most immediate use cases for generative AI have little to do with student learning. Instead, an engineering and computer science teacher in New Jersey addressed workload:
I have a running discussion with some of my colleagues about how to use AI to lesson plan. I use it routinely to lesson plan. I don’t really use the lessons, but we have to produce all this stuff for admin that no one reads… AI will just roll it off.
Another teacher described similar experimentation among colleagues:
It’s really great that so many people have kind of scratched the surface and are using it to support their productivity and efficiency… lesson planning and newsletters and stuff like that.
These examples reflect a pattern seen across many professions: Generative AI is particularly effective at drafting, summarizing and generating text. In contexts where professionals face time pressure and administrative demands, those capabilities can be immediately useful.
Teachers experience those same pressures. Beyond instruction, many juggle grading, lesson planning, parent communication, extracurricular supervision and administrative reporting. In that environment, a chatbot that helps compress routine tasks can feel genuinely helpful.
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Recent research, as well as national survey data from RAND’s American Educator Panels, suggests that teachers are adopting generative AI primarily as a productivity tool rather than a core instructional technology, a pattern that mirrors how educators in this study described their own early experimentation.
However, instructional discretion is different from a teacher’s administrative workload.
The Instructional Use Case Remains Unclear
When teachers consider introducing AI tools to students during class time, the calculations they make change. The relevant question becomes: What student learning problem does this tool solve? Many educators are still trying to answer this question, even after several years of exposure to generative AI in some capacity.
Some teachers are experimenting with AI in limited ways, such as using it as a revision partner in writing. A science teacher from Guam said:
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Students write a first draft and then feed it into ChatGPT for a second draft… but I push them not to use it for research.
Others are designing lessons where the technology itself becomes the subject of inquiry. A high school special education teacher in New York shared how she removes the veil from the magic of chatbots.
We purposely trained [a chatbot] wrong, so students could understand the data is only as good as how and who trains it.
Learning science research suggests that students benefit most when technology supports reflection and revision, rather than replacing the productive struggle of critical thinking and problem solving, a principle that many teachers in this study have applied. In these cases, AI becomes a tool that students analyze and critique. The participants do not attribute AI as a source of authoritative knowledge.
AI Literacy as a Practical Classroom Entry Point
Many teachers see the most promising instructional opportunity in AI literacy, as it may feel most appropriate to teach students about the tools they’re hearing about and encountering daily. International guidance from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) increasingly frames AI literacy as a foundational skill for students, encouraging schools to help young people understand how algorithmic systems generate information, rather than incorporating AI tools into everyday classroom tasks.
An elementary teacher from New York state describes focusing on helping students understand how these systems produce information and where they fail:
For me it starts with literacy — [teaching] students how to prompt, and then how to fact-check the information that’s generated to make sure there’s no bias in it.
A middle school teacher from New York uses simple analogies to illustrate how machine learning systems work:
We used an exercise about making the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The ingredients were the dataset, the procedure was the algorithm, and the output depended on how it was designed.
These lessons treat AI less as a productivity tool and more as a window into how digital systems generate knowledge.
Hallucinations, Bias and the Question of Trust
Teachers also raised consistent concerns about the reliability of generative AI outputs. An elementary library media specialist from New York said:
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You ask ChatGPT to write a paper on something and it makes something up totally imaginary.
To illustrate the risks, some educators point to real-world examples. A high school French teacher shared:
I tried ChatGPT. I think it’s very useful if you know your content very well. IIf you don’t know your content, it’s hard to tell whether or not it’s accurate.
Others connect these issues to broader discussions about algorithmic bias, explaining why they fear that students will become reliant on these tools. A high school computer science teacher in New Jersey shares her concerns about the increased use of AI by students. She works at a school with large populations of African American, Latino and Black newcomer families from African and Caribbean countries:
When we talk about bias, we look at hiring data and incarceration data… and facial recognition systems where error rates vary depending on who the system is trying to recognize.
In these contexts, AI becomes less a tool for answering questions and more a case study of how technological systems shape information.
The “Air of Indifference”
Taken together, these conversations reveal a stance that is not often captured in public discussions of AI in schools. What initially appeared to be an insignificant factor in keeping teachers interested in robust discussions about AI turned out to be a prominent theme aligned with both existing and emerging research.
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By and large, teachers are not rejecting the technology. But they are also not reorganizing their classrooms around AI.
Instead, many are adopting a posture that might be described as pragmatic indifference:
“I use it for lesson planning… but I don’t really use the lessons.”
“I push students not to use it for research.”
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In other words, teachers are using AI where it clearly saves time while maintaining boundaries around core learning tasks. This posture reflects professional judgment, rather than resistance to inevitable technological innovation.
Schools exist partly to create conditions in which students practice complex cognitive work, such as deep reading, methodical writing, reasoning through problems and evaluating evidence. If a tool primarily reduces the need to perform that work, teachers have reason to question whether it advances or undermines learning.
And that brings us back to the fourth-grade teacher’s question: What can I use this for with fourth-grade math?
If the instructional use case for AI remains unclear, what should students be learning instead?
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That question leads to a deeper conversation about the kinds of skills that remain valuable even as technologies change.
OPPO India has announced a major expansion of its service network across the country. The company is rolling out its Service Center 3.0 Pro to over 150 locations in India, going beyond its earlier plan of 110 centers. OPPO aims to launch more than 50 new service centers by June 2026 as part of this growth.
As smartphones continue to play a major role in everyday activities, the importance of strong after-sales support has increased. OPPO India is working to improve its service quality while making support easier to access for users across India. The brand is clearly focusing on delivering a smoother and more reliable customer experience.
To improve the service experience, the Service Center 3.0 Pro model brings several user-friendly features. OPPO India includes digital check-ins, real-time updates, and clear communication throughout the visit. Customers can see the repair process directly, making it more transparent. The centers also offer a cleaner layout, product display zones, and relaxing waiting spaces.
OPPO is strengthening its service quality by training staff and offering multilingual support, making interactions smoother for users. Customers are often attended to within minutes of arrival. As per Counterpoint Research, the brand is among the top performers in repair transparency, which builds greater trust among users.
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Furthermore, the company provides assistance in 19 languages, making it easy for users across regions to interact without difficulty. Additionally, the company provides free pick-up and drop-off services for any repairs. This adds another layer of convenience for customers, especially if they are unable to reach the service center.
The company provides service for most repairs within a day, so customers do not have to wait long to start using their devices. This expansion by OPPO reinforces its dominance by ensuring customers receive reliable, convenient service.
Systemd now includes a user date-of-birth field for age verification purposes
Garuda Linux refuses to enforce age checks, citing no legal obligation
TBOTE Project claims Meta contributes significant funding to push age laws
Recent changes within the Linux ecosystem suggest that age verification could move closer to the operating system level.
An update to systemd introduces a new field for storing a user’s date of birth, designed to support compliance with laws in regions including California, Colorado, and Brazil.
The addition is intended to enable age verification requirements and may also support upcoming parental control features linked to application frameworks.
Article continues below
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Age data will be stored
The feature stores user birth dates within system records, with modification restricted to users holding root privileges.
While the change has been merged into the codebase, its long-term role depends on adoption across distributions and whether it remains in future releases.
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Reactions across Linux distros have been inconsistent, reflecting differing legal obligations and technical philosophies.
Developers associated with Garuda Linux stated that the distribution will not introduce age verification measures, citing the absence of legal requirements in its jurisdictions.
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The maintainers also described the wider discussion as contentious, noting that “some of us have honestly been quite shocked at the way this conversation has been moving in the Linux community as a whole.”
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They added that “distribution developers are being hounded at every corner for complying with these laws,” pointing to growing tension between compliance and community expectations.
The response illustrates how decentralized development models complicate unified approaches to regulatory changes.
The introduction of age-related features follows new legislation aimed at enforcing online safety requirements.
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Reports linked to research from the TBOTE Project claim that lobbying efforts behind these laws are backed by substantial financial resources.
The research suggests that Meta has contributed funding toward initiatives such as the App Store Accountability Act, although these claims remain part of ongoing public debate.
Additional pressure is attributed to advocacy groups such as the Digital Childhood Alliance, which has reportedly influenced policy discussions despite its relatively recent formation.
These developments indicate that regulatory changes affecting operating systems may continue to expand beyond application-level controls.
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The shift has broader implications for distributions that rely on systemd, as well as those that deliberately avoid it.
Some projects, including GrapheneOS, have publicly stated that they will not require personal data or identification for use, even if this limits availability in certain regions.
The integration of age-related data into system components may also affect related technologies, including application packaging systems and parental control frameworks.
As discussions continue, Linux distros will likely adopt different responses depending on legal exposure and community priorities.
The Meadow slips into a pocket without a second thought. Measuring just 1.3 by 2 by 0.4 inches and weighing four ounces, it feels closer to a good luck charm than a conventional smartphone. The recycled polycarbonate shell has a smooth, understated feel that should hold up well to everyday use, and the three inch square display sits centered in that compact body, clear enough for a quick glance but small enough that lingering on it for too long simply isn’t that appealing. That last part is rather the point.
Setup takes under five minutes and works with your existing phone number, no new SIM required. Calls go to your main phone first, and if that is unavailable Meadow picks up automatically. Messaging works on a similar principle, with one deliberate restriction: only 12 contacts you have approved can reach you by text. Anything from outside that list simply does not come through, which cuts spam and unwanted pings entirely. Leave your main phone behind and an auto-reply lets people know you are unreachable for the time being.
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The app selection is deliberately minimal but covers what most people actually need day to day. You get calls, messaging, a camera, a clock, maps, notes, and weather. Spotify and Apple Music handle music streaming, with local playback and a dedicated app available for podcasts and audiobooks. Strava covers fitness tracking and Uber handles rides. That is the full list, and there is no app store to tempt you into adding more. For anyone who has grown tired of their attention being pulled in a dozen directions at once, that simplicity feels less like a limitation and more like a breath of fresh air.
The hardware is more than capable of handling the lean app selection without any lag, with 6GB of memory and 128GB of storage on board. A single 13 megapixel rear camera is there when you need it, and the absence of a front facing lens is a deliberate trade-off rather than an oversight. Battery life stretches to a day or two of mixed use depending on how you are using it, and USB-C fast charging keeps top-ups quick. Bluetooth handles headphones and speakers without issue, though there is no headphone jack. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, and 4G are all supported, with connectivity managed through a monthly service that costs $10 after the first nine months of free service included with purchase.
Pre-orders are open now at $399, with the price rising to $449 once stock arrives. US customers can expect delivery around June 2026, with each unit coming bundled with a beach pouch, an activity case, and a charging cable. [Source]
Riders in one European capital will soon be able to summon a self-driving car and pay for it using a familiar app. Uber is collaborating with Pony.ai, a Chinese autonomous car technology startup, and Verne, a Croatian company familiar with the local scene. On March 26, 2026, the three firms revealed their plans, and they’ve decided to kick things off in Zagreb.
You can already witness test vehicles driving around Zagreb as part of the real-world testing procedure. They’re all powered by Pony.ai’s latest autonomous system, Gen-7 technology, which provides them with more than enough intelligence to navigate from A to B without the need for a human driver. They are all Arcfox Alpha T5s, and after the final checks are completed, fare collection will be only a few weeks or months away.
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It all works relatively simply: Pony.ai provides the self-driving technology and software that allows the cars to traverse routes on their own. Given their local experience and presence in Zagreb, Verne owns the cars and manages the day-to-day operations, while Uber integrates the rides into their worldwide network, allowing anybody with the app to order one alongside a regular ride or bike, all from the same app.
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Pony.ai has already launched commercial robotaxis in a number of Chinese cities, and the data show that they are covering costs and turning a profit. That track record gives the partners great confidence that they can replicate this success in Europe as well. Verne understands the local roads and rules, as well as client expectations across Europe. Together, they want to avoid the lengthy delays that have hindered other autonomous initiatives throughout the continent.
Next, the partners discuss expanding their fleet to thousands of vehicles and several cities in the coming years. For the time being, Zagreb serves as a proving ground. Success there will be the key to expanding into other European markets, and even beyond. Meanwhile, Verne is working with regulators to ensure that their safety standards remain similar no matter where the service ends up.
Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, says the goal is to make autonomous rides more accessible by combining great technology with a thorough grasp of the local market. James Peng who founded Pony.ai pointed to the same idea noting that proven systems work best when paired with operators who understand each market. Marko Pejkovic who leads Verne put it simply that Europe has waited long enough for real autonomous service instead of endless tests. [Source]
The first day of the BGIS final has just curtailed. Today, we saw some amazing battle action not just from the top teams but from almost everyone. Still, we had winners and also losers. The biggest winner of today was Soul, which topped the rankings, followed closely by Godlike and VS. At the bottom was Nebula, who had a horrible run of matches. Here’s what the standings look like after day one of BGIS Grand Finals.
BGIS 2026 Grand Finals Standings After Day 1
Teams
WWCD
Position Points
Finish Points
Total Points
SOUL
1
18
48
66
GODL
2
21
42
63
VS
1
23
34
57
WF
1
23
32
55
GENS
0
10
44
54
VE
1
17
31
48
RGE
0
17
25
42
RNTX
0
6
29
35
OG
0
7
21
28
NINZ
0
8
18
26
K9
0
10
14
24
MYTH
0
10
14
24
WELT
0
8
13
21
TT
0
5
15
20
LEFP
0
5
11
16
NBE
0
4
10
14
Day 2 awaits us tomorrow, and it’s historically a day of comebacks in BGMI. We hope to see similar top-tier action. If you missed today’s games, check out our highlights of day 1.
The DJI Mini 3, priced at $299 (was $419), is the type of drone that keeps people coming back for more, and the reasons why are undeniable. With a weight of just under 249 grams, it falls under the FAA registration radar in the United States, allowing you to pull it from your backpack and fly in no time, with no paperwork or licensing to come in the way. That kind of spontaneity transforms a last-minute trip to the park into a legitimate aerial photography opportunity.
Its camera is a true show stopper, especially for an entry-level drone. It has a 1.3-inch sensor that captures 4K footage at 30 frames per second and has enough range to handle both brilliant sky and dark shadows in the same shot – all while maintaining a three-axis gimbal that keeps everything smooth and stable whether you’re banking, ascending, or making fast bends. With just one swipe to switch to vertical mode on your phone, you’re ready to go without having to fool around with cropping.
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The battery life is quite impressive for a drone this small. Standard packs will last 38 minutes in calm conditions, but in the actual world, you’ll get about 25-30 minutes, which is no small feat. Even when the wind comes up, the Mini 3 can withstand gusts of up to 24 mph, which is a huge advantage when you have smaller drones that are prone to getting blown off course. If you lose signal or sight of it, the Mini 3’s built-in hover hold and return to home functions will safely return it to you.
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Getting off the ground is easy. Simply switch it on, connect your phone or tablet to the controller, and it will be linked within seconds. The software walks you through the basics in a matter of minutes, and then you can experiment with the automated flight modes; circles, spirals, and all that jazz are just one tap away, making it an excellent choice for beginners who are still learning the controls. The capacity to simply replace parts when necessary alleviates the burden of long-term ownership.
Over the last 5 years, the number of S Pass and EP holders grew by just 400
In debates over foreign labour in Singapore, one claim often surfaces: that foreign professionals are stealing well‑paid, high-skilled jobs from Singaporeans.
But data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) figures paint a more nuanced picture that challenges the assumptions behind this narrative. According to provided stats, the number of foreign professionals barely budged between 2020 and mid-2025, and the best-paying sectors are still overwhelmingly held by locals.
Here’s what the numbers actually show.
There are at least 4 locals for every foreign professional
Among Singapore’s foreign workforce, not all passes are created equal.
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The ones Singaporeans are particularly worried about are Employment Pass (EP) holders—high-earning professionals cleared to work here based on salary and qualifications—and S Pass holders, the mid-skilled technical workers one rung below.
Together, they’re the foreign hires competing directly with locals for PMET (Professionals, Managers, Executives, and Technicians) jobs, or positions that typically offer higher wages and career progression.
According to online outrage, you might expect this group to have grown significantly over the years, but surprisingly, MOM’s latest Local Employment Outcomes report, released last month, shows otherwise.
From 2020 to 2025, the total number of S Pass and EP holders increased by only 400. That’s not a typo.
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From 378,500 in 2020, the total number of these pass holders had actually dipped to 331,200 in 2021, rose slightly to 338,000 in 2022, and then gradually climbed to 378,900 in 2025.
Source: Local Employment Outcomes, Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower
At the same time, the resident workforce, comprising Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents, is gaining ground. The proportion of PMETs (Professionals, Managers, Executives, and Technicians) among employed residents rose from 1.3 million in 2020 to 1.5 million in 2025.
This growth outpaced the combined increase in EP and S Pass holders, showing that locals are not being crowded out. They are, instead, expanding their presence in high-skill roles.
Moreover, there are at least four times more local PMETs employed than foreign S Pass and EP holders in comparable roles—a clear sign that Singaporeans still dominate professional and managerial positions across industries.
The best-paying sectors remain primarily held by locals…
Industry-level data reinforces this picture.
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According to MOM’s Job Vacancy report released last year, across all major industries, there is no sector where foreign workers make up more than 25% of PMET roles.
The vertical axis shows the proportion of local PMETs to foreign ones (meaning the higher the dot, the greater the number of locals employed compared to foreign pass holders). The horizontal axis shows the percentage share of all PMET vacancies in each industry, so the further to the right, the more opportunities there are. Source: Job Vacancy 2024, Singapore Ministry of Manpower
The best-paying sectors still remain dominated by locals. In finance, foreign pass holders account for less than 15% of PMET roles, while Health & Social Services, which includes doctors and specialised healthcare technicians, shows a similar proportion.
Only three sectors—Food & Beverage Services, Construction, and Administrative Services—have the highest foreign employment shares, with foreigners accounting for 40–50% of PMET roles.
The data makes it very clear: while foreigners do fill some PMET roles, locals remain firmly in control of Singapore’s high-paying, high-skilled jobs.
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It is worth noting, though, that the data does not distinguish between Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents, which means some of these roles may be held by foreigners.
However, this distinction does little to change the broader picture. SCs and PRs are both part of the resident workforce, with similar access to opportunities and responsibilities, making them a meaningful measure of local participation.
Resident Singaporeans may only strengthen their hold on high-paying, high-skilled roles in the years ahead.
In Budget 2026, the Government announced further tightening of the foreign workforce criteria, including raising the minimum qualifying salary for Employment Pass holders to S$6,000 (and S$6,600 in finance), and increasing S Pass thresholds as well, to S$3,600 (and S$4,000 in finance).
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These changes are not just technical adjustments. They are part of a broader strategy to ensure that foreign hires remain high-quality and complementary, rather than substitutes for local workers. As Prime Minister Lawrence Wong put it, Singapore will remain open to global talent, while ensuring that Singaporeans “remain firmly at the centre of our workforce and our policies.”
In other words, the data already shows that locals dominate the country’s most desirable jobs—and policy is moving in a direction that will prioritise them even further.
Read other articles we’ve written on Singapore’s current affairs here.
Featured Image Credit: TK Kurikawa/ Shutterstock.com
joshuark shares a report from BleepingComputer: The TeamPCP hacking group continues its supply-chain rampage, now compromising the massively popular “LiteLLM” Python package on PyPI and claiming to have stolen data from hundreds of thousands of devices during the attack. LiteLLM is an open-source Python library that serves as a gateway to multiple large language model (LLM) providers via a single API. The package is very popular, with over 3.4 million downloads a day and over 95 million in the past month. According to research by Endor Labs, threat actors compromised the project and published malicious versions of LiteLLM 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 to PyPI today that deploy an infostealer that harvests a wide range of sensitive data.
[…] Both malicious LiteLLM versions have been removed from PyPI, with version 1.82.6 now the latest clean release. […] If compromise is suspected, all credentials on affected systems should be treated as exposed and rotated immediately. […] Organizations that use LiteLLM are strongly advised to immediately:
– Check for installations of versions 1.82.7 or 1.82.8 – Immediately rotate all secrets, tokens, and credentials used on or found within code on impacted devices. – Search for persistence artifacts such as ‘~/.config/sysmon/sysmon.py’ and related systemd services – Inspect systems for suspicious files like ‘/tmp/pglog’ and ‘/tmp/.pg_state’ – Review Kubernetes clusters for unauthorized pods in the ‘kube-system’ namespace – Monitor outbound traffic to known attacker domains
The RAI Institute has just unveiled Roadrunner, a compact robot no heavier than a medium sized dog that moves in ways that catches you off guard. It glides across flat ground on wheels, shifts its stance to tackle a staircase, rides down a ramp with the kind of casual ease you would expect from something with years of practice, backs down another set of steps with equal confidence, and caps it all off by balancing on a single wheel while the rest of its body stays completely still.
The team behind this project is based in Massachusetts and has an amazing track record, having been created by Marc Raibert, the former CEO of Boston Dynamics. This new venture is continuing the same emphasis on robots that can handle complex motion without appearing like complete clowns, and Roadrunner is their latest research platform built to test out all sorts of ideas that most legged robots can only dream of.
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At 15 kilograms the robot is light enough to move quickly without sacrificing structural integrity. Each leg ends in a wheel and has a knee joint that works equally well facing forward or backward, a symmetry that lets the machine adjust its stance instantly to sidestep an obstacle or line up for the next step. A single control system handles every movement style, from rolling side by side like a small cart to lining up like a scooter to taking actual walking steps. That same software has learned to get the robot back on its feet from almost any position on the ground and keep it balanced even when only one wheel is making contact with the surface.
Approaching a staircase, the robot slows, lifts a leg, and places the wheel onto the first step, repeating the motion steadily until it reaches the top, with the wheels only spinning when the terrain actually calls for it. Coming back down it simply turns around and descends with the same unhurried control, never losing its footing. None of this required additional fine tuning in the real world. The team refers to it as a zero-shot transfer, meaning the robot learned everything it needed entirely in simulation and carried that info straight into the physical world without any further adjustment. [Source]
SiliconRepublic.com spoke with experts at Amgen to explore how early career guidance can set the foundations for a happy and productive career.
The last decade has brought significant change to the working world and it is fair to say that in many cases, advancements have worked to reduce and even eliminate organisational silos. That is to say, in 2026 there is no real reason for employees – remote, hybrid or in-person – to feel isolated in their work or limited in how they might progress professionally.
That is where planned mentorship often comes in. For many professionals, mentorship can be the factor that enables them to upskill quickly, learn the ropes on the job, develop a network, move beyond their own expectations and even take up the mantle of mentor, eventually. But for that to happen, guidance has to be a key element of an organisation, not a box-ticking exercise every now and then.
“Mentorship has multiple benefits,” explained Michelle Somers, the senior director of facilities and engineering at Amgen. “One of the first things for an organisation to do, to encourage mentorship as a core pillar, is to set up some structured mentorship.
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“Once that is there, the structure is there. You know, the questions are there, the pathways are there and then people get really familiar with it. Then mentorship really becomes a natural thing.”
For Somers, in establishing a system that supports mentorship publicly, organisations not only showcase their goals to empower career progression, but also make it clear that career guidance is not an anomaly, but part of a company’s ethos.
“I had a colleague come to me recently who said, ‘I know you’ve mentored a colleague of ours, any chance I can avail of your services?’ That turned into just a couple of coffee conversations, where I was able to be a sounding board on her potential career path.
“The structured programme sets up an expectation that people are available for help and support and then it happens quite naturally and fluidly, especially like what we do here in Amgen.”
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Plan in action
Lauren Moore, a manufacturing manager at Amgen, is one such person to benefit from having a mentor take an interest in her career. As Moore’s career progressed at the organisation, she was promoted to a leadership role, which she took in her stride, however, roughly two months in, she began to face some of the challenges that naturally come with a change in expectations.
She told SiliconRepublic.com: “I was facing some challenges with the additional level of responsibility. So, I sat down with my mentor at the time, who was a leader in the manufacturing area. For me that was incredibly impactful at that early stage in my career. And it really enabled me to build confidence, to build resilience and ultimately to succeed in that position.”
Moreover, she is of the opinion that, in developing a positive attitude and adopting a strong sense of company culture, she, alongside Amgen, can better deliver medicines and vital treatments to the patients who depend on the organisation’s services.
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For Amgen’s senior director of quality control, Claire Shaw, to achieve the best results for employees and for the people using Amgen’s services, companies have to prioritise inclusivity, especially at the induction level.
She said: “I would consider it very collaborative. There’s a strong sense of teamwork and a strong sense of belonging. Organisations can support a happy work environment that ensures that we serve our patients through developing their staff, and ensures each colleague is valued and can contribute to our daily mission to serve patients.”
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