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16 Of The Coolest BMW Designs Of All Time
The blue and white badge that has represented BMW for over a century has been one of the most recognizable in the industry for almost as long. From making some of the most luxurious pre-War European cars to its most recent successes, BMW has continued to establish itself as one of the best examples of putting the driving experience first.
Choosing the very best of all BMWs ever made is an incredibly hard task, but if we’re basing it primarily on looks, there are some nameplates that stand head and shoulders above the rest. The German brand has managed to experiment with quite a few different design philosophies over the years, with some prioritizing uninterrupted curves and others going all out on functional aerodynamics. Still, the following 16 models all perfect their individual styles, all while fitting perfectly with BMW’s image. Here’s a closer look at some of the coolest BMW cars ever designed.
BMW M1
While the car officially broke cover in 1978, the foundations for the BMW M1’s design were set in 1972 with the Turbo Concept. For the production car, though, BMW hired Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro to ensure the car was just as effective on the race track as it was stunning to look at. As a homologation car intended for the Group 4 series, Giugiaro put aerodynamics at the forefront of the car’s philosophy. The defining element of the M1 is the super low-slung, wedged front end with sharp angles and tiny kidney grilles to remind you that it’s still a BMW at its core.
Moving down the side and to the rear, the sleek, minimal panels echo what was already seen in prior BMWs, but the continuation of the wedge design makes for what’s still one of the most unique rear ends. The 277-horsepower 3.5L six-cylinder sits under Italian-esque slats between the pillars, rounding off what might be the most Italian-looking BMW ever built (for all the right reasons).
BMW 1 Series M Coupe
Since the M1 was released in the ’70s, BMW’s performance division has come quite a long way. Cars like the M3 and M4 cemented the manufacturer’s place at the top of the industry, eventually adding cars like the 1 Series M Coupe to the lineup. The idea behind the relatively limited car was to create a compact version of the larger M-division performance cars to allow raw driving dynamics to take center stage.
The result was not only one of the most beloved driver’s machines of the 2010s, but the most eye-pleasing M-division cars of the decade by quite some margin. BMW heavily pushed how different the M Coupe was to any of the other 1 Series trims at the time, and you only have to look at it to see why. At the front, the grille is the only aspect that really looks similar, with the ultra-aggressive triple intake and carefully positioned openings in the bodywork on either side used to maximize aero efficiency as well as cooling. Wider archers can be found at both ends of the car, being one of the ways BMW used the M Coupe to honor the E30 M3.
BMW 507 Roadster
In the 1950s, buyers had no shortage of elegant cars in the market to choose from, with so many of the major names in the industry opting for simple, timeless designs that let natural, swooping curves throughout the body do all the work. The era-defining Ferraris and Mercedes-Benz, like the 250 GT and the Gullwing, tend to get the attention, at least until the BMW entered the two-seat grand touring segment with the 507 Roadster. Today, it’s still one of the most stunning European cars ever built.
At first glance, it’s easy to see the design elements typical of the ’50s. For the 507, Albrecht Graf Görtz used front fenders that stretched from the headlines down to the side of the car, creating the classic drop down to the sleek hood. However, compared to other European tourers of the time, the 507 really exaggerates the curves to create one of the smoothest, most elegant silhouettes from this era. Thanks to being a roadster, a similar effect is created with the rear fenders flanking the compact truck, which also has a curved design of its own. Only 259 examples were ever built.
BMW E9 3.0 CSL
Back to the 1970s, the M1 wasn’t the only car from the decade that spearheaded the direction BMW would go down in the following decades. In 1968, the E9 was released as the newest iteration of the two-door luxury grand touring philosophy introduced by the 503. It fell much more in line with BMW’s staple boxy style that the New Class models used earlier in the decade, but this time with a low-slung, aggressive stance.
While a great-looking car in its own right, the base model isn’t what we’re focusing on here. Over the following few years, BMW released different variants of the E9, with the last iteration aptly nicknamed the “batmobile”. Alongside getting a power boost to 206 horsepower, this particular homologation spec got the distinct aero kit comprising of small fins on the hood, a solid air dam under the shark nose front end, a roof spoiler, and the distinctive main wing at the rear. The race cars take the philosophy to the extreme, but even the road-going car’s aggression is incredibly hard to match.
BMW E31 8 Series
The 8 Series may now have been completely discontinued, but the largest of the two-door BMWs was a staple part of the manufacturer’s lineup throughout the late 20th century and into the 21st. Its roots can be traced back to 1989 with the first-gen E31 models, and it is still, without a doubt, one of the best-looking entries into BMW’s grand touring lineup ever.
BMW once again put aerodynamics at the forefront of the first 8 Series to make sure it performed as well or better than its key rivals at the time, subsequently giving it close relations to the M1. It features a wedge design with the same flat grille and small kidney grilles as the M1, but using interrupted lines stretching from the front all the way to the raised rear end. You’ll definitely prefer this take on the wedge front if you’re looking for something more understated. The E31 doesn’t do anything flashy, but that’s what makes it so special.
BMW M3 E30
The car that started it all for the iconic M3 nameplate. So much E9 DNA can be found in the top-spec E30’s design, but BMW made sure to still give it its own raw personality. Another homologation car from the Munich Manufacturer, the 1985 M3 doesn’t pay much attention to the grand touring elegance of its predecessor, earning its spot on this list for its all-out aggression instead.
Gone is the shark nose front fascia, replaced by a completely squared front end. In fact, pretty much every section a swooping curve should be is instead closed off by sharp angles, with the widebody-type arches being the main way the E30 M3 gets some shape. But it’s the simplicity of the first M3 that makes it so easy to love, with its design being proven effective time and time again as one of the most ground-breaking race cars of the 1980s.
BMW M2 CS
Given the overwhelming demand for the 1 Series M Coupe, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see BMW bring the two-door coupe design back on a more permanent basis. The base 2016 model could easily feature on this list by itself, essentially being a curvier, more compact version of the M3 of the time. Only a few years later, though, the 2020 M2 CS took the coupe even further than the Competition trim.
Visually, the CS model looks very similar to the first-gen Competition, but it adds a few pieces, like the larger splitter and central air vent on the hood, to evoke some more aggression. At the rear, the carbon fiber ducktail spoiler is another small addition that actually makes a massive difference to the back-end profile, once again making the car look more visceral without disrupting the perfectly proportioned curves and edges that complete the wide stance. While the all-new M2 CS is stunning, it’s also the perfect example of how blending aggression with the sleekness of the first iteration makes for a great looking vehicle from every angle.
BMW E52 Z8 Roadster
Almost 50 years after the 507 took BMW into new territory, the manufacturer decided to honor the car with what was essentially a modern iteration of the grand tourer in 1999. The Z3 helped to keep the philosophy alive, but the short-lived E52 Z8 Roadster blended performance with luxury on the same level as the 507. Like the ’50s roadster, the Z8 had a noticeably long hood to house the engine, in this case a 400-horsepower V8. Further forward, the double grille design makes a return, but in the sleeker manner that you’d expect with a late ’90s GT car.
The arches of the Z8 still bulge up slightly, but not as much as the 507, resulting in what’s almost one continuous curve covering the entire front end. The sides are also a touch flatter, but the side vents that featured on the 507 perfectly complement the minimalistic approach. The rear of the car also swoops down, but the more muscular, defined bumper helps the Z8 to achieve its modern take on the classic design style.
BMW M3 Touring
There may not be a lot of choice, but we want to include a wagon on this list. Considering how few of these cars BMW has built compared to sedans over the segments, there aren’t actually that many to choose from. But in recent years, the manufacturer has started to expand its presence in the segment, with the likes of the M5 Touring. However, the best-looking of the touring models has unfortunately been left out Stateside.
The M3 Touring is essentially the same car as the sedan M3. The once-controversial vertical kidney grille design introduced in 2020 does look great on the sedan, but the much larger dimensions of the Touring complement the larger openings up front perfectly. Hard lines and edges throughout the rest of the car also stem from the centerpiece grille, allowing them to flow uninterrupted from start to finish.
BMW M8 Competition
The first iteration of the M8 is one of the best-looking BMWs ever built, and the same can be said for the latest. Particularly in its Competition form, the most recent G15 model manages to retain some of the core design aspects of the original, all while implementing the modern BMW philosophy in all the right places, whether it’s the coupé or convertible model.
The main element that calls back to the E31 is using a wedge-style design, which, while not quite as aggressive as the original, gives the M8 Competition an imposing stance that’s missing elsewhere in the recent lineup. By using the wedge design, the M8 can keep the traditional kidney grille, retaining the minimalism that other new BMWs didn’t quite manage to replicate. Looking over the roof and to the back, the flow of the M8 Competition is never broken, achieving an ideal balance between performance and luxury.
BMW E36 Z3 Coupe
At the complete opposite end of the 8 Series stood once the Z3. In more recent times, we’re more familiar with the Z4 representing BMW within the two-door sports car segment, but in the late ’90s and early 2000s, the Z3 was the ultimate compact car from the brand. The first and only E36 generation didn’t just offer the standard roadster model, but a highly unique and spectacular ‘coupé’ model that uses a wagon-style shooting brake design.
While essentially a hatchback, the dimensions and proportions were unlike anything else you could buy at the time. As it’s still a two-door sports car beneath the new roofline, the front-end stays super low-slung. The “clown shoe” nickname may be accurate, but that somehow isn’t a bad thing. The new shooting brake rear combined with the long front end actually worked perfectly as far as proportions go, adding plenty of muscle without anything feeling out of place.
BMW E24 6 Series
Directly after the E9 led the grand touring segment, BMW replaced it with the first-ever 6 Series: the E24. When parking both side by side, the two do share quite a few similarities, but the latter puts much more of a focus on the luxury side of the GT, building what’s still one of the sleekest executive cars from the 1970s. This was one of the first BMWs to use hard lines and angular corners, similar to what’s still used today, deviating slightly from the emphasis on flowing curves that the E9 used.
Similarities between the two include the return of the shark nose, which might actually look more at home on the E24 due to the sharp angles and flatness. The protruding bumper adds some visual interest, almost creating symmetry from a side view with the roofline and long rear deck. The small ducktail spoiler is also spot on for rounding off the sporty yet functional design style.
BMW 2000 CS
We’ve briefly mentioned the New Class BMWs (Neue Klasse in German) that led the company through the mid 1960s and early 1970s. The Neue Klasse name is attached to very different cars today, but at the very end of the original New Class run came the 2000 CS, which helped establish the design approach that so many other cars on this list would subsequently follow. While nowhere near as imposing as some of the later models, the 2000 CS was still the top-spec performance model, but it opted for a much simpler, classy design to ensure it appealed to those wanting luxury.
The 2000 CS is another older BMW to utilize the shark nose, but it’s not as aggressive as the likes of the E9 or E24 6 Series. The drop-off from the hood is still noticeable, but the front fascia has much more of a gentle curve to match the rest of the car’s proportions. To divide the top and bottom halves, a single silver strip runs from the rear bumpers and around the top of the headlights, which is a subtle yet hugely important aspect adding some needed contrast.
BMW E46 M3 Coupe
A very nostalgic car for anyone born in the 1990s and the early 2000s, the 2000 E46 M3 was one of the defining performance cars for a generation. Like so many others, it wasn’t trying to be bold or flashy, rather reliable on a smooth, understated appearance that has aged better than so many of its rivals of the time. Particularly in its Coupe form, the E46 easily has one of the most recognizable silhouettes from the blend, essentially being a mixture of so many M division cars that came before it.
While it has a very distinct, aggressive stance that makes it look like a powerhouse before you even look at the renowned S54 engine, the E46 does a great job of softening its edges without deviating too far from the classic boxy proportions. BMW purposefully made the windshields steeper to make it look more tight-knit. To subtly break things up, though, BMW includes subtle lines and dividers, most notably with the “powerdome” hood, to help push the aggressive image further.
BMW M4 GTS
For quite a while now, the M3 and M4 have been mechanically identical, while also sharing plenty of visual traits as well. In 2016, though, the M4 got a special track-focused, street legal trim named GTS that the M3 never got. The coupé body style definitely made it the easy option, and the result is the best-looking version of the first-gen models.
As soon as the standard M4 was released in 2014, the coupe body style couldn’t have fitted better with the F82 philosophy. This is another BMW that uses curvature around its relatively simple, raked shell to create one of the sleekest-looking cars in the segment, but the GTS model uses a pretty extreme aero kit for the standards of BMW, allowing it to tackle any circuit with ease. The prominent front splitter and rear wing are the selling points here, contrasting the flowing lines with harsh carbon fiber at both ends.
BMW 2002 Turbo
In the 1960s, BMW offered more compact versions of its New Class models, with one of the most prominent being the 02 sedan. Given its body shape, the 02 was much closer to a sedan rather than a coupé, being more functional but inherently sportier thanks to its smaller size and coupé-esque design. Then, in 1973, BMW took the industry by storm with the legendary 2002 Turbo.
The core foundations of the 02 model can still be seen in the 2002 Turbo, but BMW took every opportunity to make it look as fast and capable as possible. The shark nose was less prominent here compared to the likes of the E9, but the new, giant air dam creates one of the most distinct, angular front fascias BMW has ever come up with. Better yet, the splitter connects to the bolt-on arches. It didn’t get much more rugged than that in the early ’70s. At the rear, the ducktail spoiler is also one of the most prominent in any BMW, stretching from the wraparound chrome trim and deeper into the rear deck.
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A new Dolphin X remote access trojan claims to use an AI-powered profiling feature to score and rank infected users, helping cybercriminals identify which victims should be targeted first.
The malware was analyzed by Varonis Threat Labs researcher Daniel Kelley, who spotted it being advertised on a cybercrime forum by a vendor using the alias “Kontraktnik,” promoting it as an all-in-one remote access trojan.
According to Varonis, the operator panel lists 329 features across ten categories, including a credential-stealing feature that claims to target more than 300 applications.
However, one of its notable features is an “AI Profiler” that analyzes information collected from infected computers and assigns each victim a risk score.
“Beyond credential collection, the panel includes a surveillance tab containing the AI Profiler. The seller describes it as an ‘AI behavioral profiler with app usage tracking, risk score, and daily summary,’” explains Varonis.
Varonis obtained the Dolphin X operator panel and analyzed it in an isolated lab, noting they examined the malware builder and its network traffic rather than executing a live Dolphin X agent on an infected computer.
AI Profiler ranks victims for attackers
Credential-stealing malware can allow attackers to steal credentials for hundreds, if not thousands, of online accounts, making it difficult to manually review them all for high-value targets.
Dolphin X’s AI Profiler claims to automate this process by acting as a sorting system that scores, categorizes, and ranks infected computers so that the attackers know which are the most high-value to target further.
The operator panel claims that the AI Profiler can process victims’ application usage, risk scores and tags, browser domains, and installed software to produce ranked profiles.
Source: Varonis
These scores are given to attackers in daily summaries containing ranked victim profiles, allowing them to prioritize machines that may provide access to valuable accounts, cryptocurrency, corporate networks, cloud environments, or production systems.
“In practice, the feature appears designed to help operators triage victims,” explains Kelley.
Varonis researcher Daniel Kelley confirmed to BleepingComputer that the AI Profiler is present in the operator panel and discovered technical strings supporting the profiling workflow, including Auto-Start AI Profiler, ProfilerStart, ProfilerGetData, risk_score, risk_factors, and categoryusage.
The researcher said these strings indicate that the profiling workflow is actually included and that the panel can process the data needed to rank victims.
However, Varonis could not determine what artificial intelligence engine is being used to produce the rankings without analyzing a live Dolphin X malware sample.
The malware also operates as a credential stealer, with the operator panel showing that it targets more than 300 applications, including 9 Chromium and Gecko browsers, 100 cryptocurrency wallet extensions, 65 desktop crypto wallets, 10 password managers, and more than 30 cloud command-line tools.
Dolphin X also claims to steal .env files, SSH keys, cloud access tokens, browser login data, cryptocurrency wallet information, and other developer credentials.
As Varonis analyzed the Dolphin X operator panel, builder, and related network traffic rather than a live malware sample executing on an infected machine, the malware’s advertised collection capabilities were not independently confirmed by the researcher.
Artificial intelligence has become a popular tool among threat actors, with it being used to launch cybercrime services such as SpamGPT and AI agents conducting autonomous cyberattacks.
Dolphin X platform instead uses AI to solve an operational problem by processing large amounts of stolen data and automatically sorting infected users into highest-value victims.
A Florida man is suing OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company’s chatbot, ChatGPT, provided him with incorrect and “dangerous” medical guidance regarding a health condition that nearly became fatal.
According to the lawsuit, Scott Winters, a 55-year-old pastor, often turned to ChatGPT for medical advice when he experienced health symptoms. The suit alleges the chatbot eventually diagnosed Winters with dysautonomia, a nervous system disorder, and “developed a personalized recovery plan with specific instructions for Scott on how to heal his body.”
But on July 13, 2025, Winters experienced a “massive pulmonary embolism due to multiple blood clots in both of his lungs that brought him to the brink of death,” according to the lawsuit, which has been shared by multiple publications. Doctors’ notes later contradicted ChatGPT’s alleged diagnosis.
“I do not believe he has any dysautonomia (self-diagnosed from the internet),” one note read, according to the complaint.
The suit alleges that ChatGPT went beyond its scope by providing medical advice, and that the chatbot “should have escalated crisis safeguards and directed” Winters to medical personnel. Instead, it allegedly “dissuaded him from seeking that help and instead offered him unqualified diagnoses and personalized treatment plans,” which the suit alleges led to the “life-altering medical emergency.”
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told CNET in part that “ChatGPT is not a doctor and should never be used as a substitute for medical care, diagnosis or treatment. Treating chatbots as the whole story behind people’s medical decisions or outcomes oversimplifies a much bigger challenge, and risks getting in the way of people accessing powerful new tools that can aid them in their health journey.”
According to the suit, the chatbot did at least on one occasion provide a disclaimer that read, “it is important to consult a healthcare provider to identify the underlying cause and receive appropriate treatment.” However, the suit alleges it subsequently began giving medical advice without a disclaimer.
“The lengthier Scott’s interactions with the tool, the fewer disclaimers it included in its messages,” the suit alleges. Winters is seeking financial damages based on these allegations.
Winters was using an older ChatGPT model, GPT-4o, which OpenAI has since retired due to concerns that the bot was too agreeable and could possibly cause harm. The same model was named in a separate lawsuit filed by a Canadian woman whose daughter died by suicide after interacting frequently with the chatbot. That case is still in litigation.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
AI and health advice
A recent study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine found that when people interact with an AI chatbot for health diagnoses, it misses more than half of all medical diagnoses. This is despite the fact that large language models can now score comparably to passing the US Medical Licensing Exam on medical knowledge benchmarks.
The study notes that missed diagnoses may be at least partially attributed to users not providing enough information regarding symptoms.
According to a survey released in January and conducted by OpenAI itself, three in five US adults say they’ve used AI tools for health-related information in the past three months.
Death of Gaming: Just like any other company dealing in hardware products built from off-the-shelf components, Valve is facing some truly difficult choices when it comes to pricing. The company tried to fend off the chip shortage caused by the AI boom with a massive price increase, but potential customers apparently responded by removing themselves from the buying equation.
A recent report by Boiling Steam might confirm what most enthusiasts have always suspected: an overpriced Steam Deck is never going to sell well. In fact, Valve’s handheld machine might have already suffered a disastrous drop in sales. Despite the price hike, Valve is earning far less money than it did before.
Boiling Steam used the same methodology it employed to estimate Steam Machine sales, tracking data points from Steam’s own global list of best-selling games and products. The outlet compared the Steam Deck’s ranking throughout 2025, when it was often listed fairly high on the sales chart. Things changed in 2026, when Valve decided to retire the older – and cheaper – LCD models and offer only the OLED models at a significantly higher price.
At first, OLED Steam Decks appeared to sell out despite the $300 price hike. According to new estimates from Boiling Steam, sales have now undergone yet another dramatic change. Valve is selling 82% fewer units than it did in 2025. Steam Deck sales have allegedly fallen from 11,000 – 18,000 units per week to an average of 1,400 – 3,000 units per week.
Valve tried to offset the massive increase in component prices by passing the supply-chain surcharge on to customers. According to Boiling Steam’s estimates, the company is now suffering from a 72% drop in revenue as well. Despite the price hike, Valve might have significantly diminished the Steam Deck’s appeal as an enticing option for handheld gaming enthusiasts.
Boiling Steam speculates that the Steam Deck was an interesting option when it sold for $650 but is a complete waste of money when priced at around $1,000 for the 1TB model. Furthermore, affluent gamers looking for a handheld at that price point will likely gravitate toward more powerful machines, such as the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ or the Asus ROG Ally X.
If the publication’s methodology checks out, we might soon see a dramatic collapse in Steam Machine sales as well. The IT industry is currently going through a series of massive transformations, which means it’s probably too early to say that the Steam Deck is completely finished. After all, Valve engineers recently confirmed that things can always get worse.
TL;DR
Musk told investors Optimus has no supply chain and every part is new, as Tesla quietly dropped mass production language from its Q2 deck
Elon Musk told investors on Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call that Optimus will be “the hardest product to scale manufacturing that we’ve ever made at Tesla,” warning that the humanoid robot has no existing supply chain and that every component is new. He said he wanted to “calibrate people correctly” on expectations, acknowledging that the initial production ramp will follow a normal curve but with a flat early stretch that could last longer than investors hope. Tesla also quietly removed references to Optimus mass production from its Q2 shareholder presentation, after using that language as recently as the first quarter.
The admission marks a sharp change in tone from previous quarters. Last year Musk said he would be “shocked” if Tesla was not producing 100,000 Optimus robots per month within five years, and in January 2025 he projected 50,000 to 100,000 units for 2026. By January of this year he acknowledged that zero Optimus robots were doing useful work in Tesla’s factories, with the more than one thousand Gen 3 units deployed across Fremont and Gigafactory Texas collecting training data rather than performing productive tasks.
Musk was candid about the engineering barriers, saying Optimus needs at least human-level dexterity before it can be useful outside controlled factory settings and calling the human hand “an incredible thing” that no robotics company has managed to replicate. Tesla must also solve memory, logic, and chip packaging challenges while securing AI processors from partners including Samsung and TSMC. The robot contains roughly 10,000 unique parts, and unlike Chinese competitors that can tap an existing smartphone supply chain for actuators and precision motors, Tesla is building its manufacturing base from scratch.
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The financial backdrop adds pressure. Tesla reported Q2 revenue of $28 billion, up 26 percent, but adjusted earnings of 33 cents per share badly missed the 51 cents analysts expected, and operating income fell 57 percent. Capital expenditure jumped to nearly $6 billion in the quarter, part of Tesla’s $25 billion full-year spending plan, pushing free cash flow to a negative $1 billion and sending shares down about seven percent in pre-market trading on Wednesday.
Musk’s compensation deal ties part of his payout to delivering one million Optimus robots within a decade, a target that now sits uncomfortably against his own warnings about how difficult scaling will be. Tesla has converted its Fremont Model S and Model X lines for Optimus production and is building a dedicated facility near Gigafactory Texas, but the company has stopped promising when volume output will begin. Tesla’s China president has described the Shanghai Gigafactory as a “golden key” to mass-producing Optimus, though that factory has not yet begun robotics manufacturing either.
‘Ottava’ has been given market authorisation for use in multiple general surgery procedures within the upper abdomen.
Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has been granted ‘de novo’ approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for what the company said is the world’s first table-integrated soft tissue robotic surgical system.
‘Ottava’ has been given market authorisation for use in multiple general surgery procedures within the upper abdomen, including gastric bypasses, gastrectomies, appendectomies and hiatal hernia repair.
When integrated into an operating theatre, the system’s four robotic arms occupy up to 50pc less space than ‘boom- and cart-mounted’ solutions for such environments, the company said. The system can also be programmed to help simplify set-up and breakdown of an operating theatre, or manipulate the positioning of a patient during a procedure.
Ottava also features a curated range of surgical tools and has its own “digital ecosystem” to support surgeons working with it, according to Johnson & Johnson.
“We are pioneering a new category of surgical robotics with Ottava,” said Tim Schmid, executive vice-president and worldwide chair of medtech at Johnson & Johnson.
“This is the start of the next era in surgery as we deliver not just a new surgical robotics system, but a catalyst for fundamentally better surgical care that is informed by technology, guided by clinical insight and delivered with care.”
The company said that Ottava – which will initially launch commercially with select US customers while aiming to advance into other use cases and regulatory jurisdictions – is purpose-built for present-day surgical procedures and environments while building a pathway to “support more digitally enabled, data-driven surgery in the future”.
Hani Abouhalka, the company’s group chair for surgery and medtech, said: “By opening up the way we think about architecture, data and the very workflows of surgery itself, we have designed Ottava to deliver clinical and economic benefits, and support surgeons and hospitals as the future of surgery unfolds.”
Earlier this week, US neural engineering company Science Corporation received EU approval for its vision-repairing medtech implant, Prima, with FDA approval processes also ongoing.
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Chipmaker AMD is taking aim at competitor Nvidia with its latest hardware release: a rack-scale system designed to power computing needs of the world’s largest AI labs.
At the company’s sold-out Advancing AI conference in San Francisco on Thursday, AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su promoted the new AI rack system known as Helios — along with its growing list of customers, including Microsoft — as the company prepares to ship it later this year. Su also pitched the company’s newest chips that are designed to feed the compute-hungry dragon that is the AI industry.
Rack systems combine many processors into a single high-powered unit. They are built for data centers, where they train and run AI models and other compute-intensive workloads.
Su called Helios the tech industry’s “highest-performance AI rack,” adding that it was “built to train and run the most demanding frontier models in the world at massive scale.” The system will be deployed by leading AI companies at gigawatt-scale, the company said.
Nvidia has historically dominated this market with its Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell rack-scale systems. AMD is clearly looking to get in on the action. And Helios’ performance metrics appear to give it a real chance, beating out Vera Rubin by a number of metrics, The Register reported.
Helios, which was revealed in 2025 and shown onstage in January at CES 2026, already has several well-known customers, including OpenAI, Meta, Oracle, Anthropic, and Microsoft, all of which have plans to deploy the system. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Monday that the company would expand its Azure infrastructure with Helios. Meanwhile, Anthropic and AMD announced a strategic partnership Wednesday to deploy up to two gigawatts of GPUs via the new rack system.
AMD also introduced Thursday its Venice-X CPU, which is designed for data centers and to handle high-computing workloads. The Venice-X is expected to launch in 2027.
During her remarks, Su commented on the trajectory of the chip industry, claiming that, by the year 2030, chips that power AI will become a massive part of the overall computing market. This is because the industry is “seeing a step change in compute demand” driven largely by the rise of agentic AI, she said.
“When you ask the agent to do something, it actually has dozens of steps, and it has to reason, and it has to call tools, and it has to access data, and it has to keep doing it over and over until it solves the problem, and so you need lots of GPUs to do all that,” the executive said.
“We’re now expecting that by 2030, the AI accelerator market is going to reach about $1.4 trillion,” Su said. “What that means is, by the end of the decade, the AI accelerator market is going to approach the size of the entire semiconductor market today.”
“We do expect that GPUs are going to make up the vast majority of that market because the algorithms are still very much in their infancy, and we’re still continuing to see the workloads change, and that favors programmability in the overall silicon ecosystem,” she added.
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Australian energy provider Origin Energy has confirmed a data breach by an unknown threat actor that exposed customers’ personally identifiable information (PII).
The company has 4.8 million customers and is currently investigating how many of them have been impacted to inform them of the risk via individual notifications.
Origin Energy is Australia’s largest energy retailer, providing electricity, natural gas, and broadband internet services to millions of clients across the country.
The company is listed on the ASX, has annual revenue of $8.5 billion, and holds a 20% ownership stake in the UK’s renewable energy retailer Octopus.
Yesterday, Origin announced that it had launched an investigation into “a potential security incident that may involve unauthorized access to some customers’ data.”
An update published today confirms a data breach, listing the following data types as potentially exposed:
- Full name
- Physical address
- Date of birth
- Phone number
- Account information
- Last four digits of credit card
- Last three digits of bank account
The company noted that the exposed financial details are “incomplete” and cannot be used to hijack accounts or make unauthorized charges to clients’ bank accounts.
Origin CEO, Frank Calabria, apologized to customers for the sensitive data being exposed, and assured them that the company is taking steps to block further unauthorized access.
Also, confirmed impacted clients are being contacted directly and offered support via a dedicated portal and related resources.
Origin has informed the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner about the incident, and continues to engage with the agencies as needed.
Hackers claim large-scale data theft
Local media outlet 7news reported that before Origin Energy released its second statement, a threat actor identifying as “John Doe” contacted them to claim the breach.
The threat actor alleged to be holding the data types for 2 million Origin customers.
Source: 7news
The hacker claimed that they contacted security teams, customer support, and even board executives, without receiving a response.
The hacker has set up a site where he threatens to leak the stolen data in two weeks unless Origin contacts them via Signal to negotiate a solution.
Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.
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AI and ML
AI no longer welcome in human-focused community
You can take your vibe-coded project elsewhere. Codeberg, a volunteer-run code hosting community, has decided that AI-authored software is no longer welcome.
On Thursday, Codeberg announced that the members of Codeberg e.V., the Berlin-based non-profit overseeing the code hosting service, had voted to ban “vibe-coded projects” and declared that Codeberg would not use users’ code or data for AI training due to its impact on Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS).
The vote follows ongoing efforts by Codeberg to prevent automated software (bots) from taxing its infrastructure with excessive network requests. Authors Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, Otto Richter, and William Zijl argue that AI companies are shifting costs to others and damaging online communities in the process.
“LLMs are so costly that companies externalize the costs on a massive scale – on those who don’t use them and society at large,” they wrote in a blog post. “Increased hardware prices, energy use and environmental damage – we all pay for it!”
They point to the cost of Codeberg’s SSD and memory hardware as an example, noting that a drive that only a few years ago cost €700 (~$800) now costs €3,700 (~$4,200) – if it’s even in stock. The result is that Codeberg has been forced to raise prices.
The authors also call out the proliferation of projects that often involve a solo developer “working with a statistical machine that turns energy into code.” They fault these folks for not having any community and argue it’s unreasonable for Codeberg to spend its limited CI/CD and storage resources on ghost projects.
But the vote isn’t simply about unfair resource consumption. It reflects broader unease among Codeberg members about the damage AI coding models are doing to the FLOSS community.
AI-driven price hikes, they contend, are broadening the digital divide by making personal computers less affordable, forcing more people toward corporate-owned cloud services. And beyond the environmental harm of increased water and energy use, the Codeberg authors argue that LLM use is undermining the foundation of trust and community that makes FLOSS work.
“The widespread use of LLMs in FLOSS is instead becoming a multidimensional attack on the trust between contributors and the very idea of convivial collaboration itself,” they state.
LLMs magnify maintainers’ workloads, create confusion around whether projects will be maintained, and “lead to ‘license laundering’, where copyleft code is stripped of its reciprocity requirements by ‘generating’ it out of the training data.”
“As we want to center on human collaboration, we will not actively support or engage in the creation of LLMs and will not put our limited resources to use for storing single-use software that would pollute our FLOSS commons,” the authors conclude.
As a consequence of the community vote, projects developed and maintained mostly by an AI agent are no longer welcome at Codeberg and are urged to move to other hosting options.
This is reflected in amended Terms of Use language: “You must not share projects that mostly consist of code written by ‘generative AI’-tools (including services such as Claude, OpenAI Codex). Such projects having an unclear copyright status … and furthermore have little safeguards to ensure that they do not include harmful code.”
Enforcement of the ban seems unlikely, however, unless a project draws attention to itself, given Codeberg’s statements about limited resources and its overburdened workforce.
Support for the vibe-coding ban was substantial but not overwhelming, with some celebrating the decision and others condemning it. Among Codeberg members, 358 voted in favor, 144 voted against, and 14 abstained. About half the active members voted.
“I think this is a very bad move, and the people behind Codeberg should re-consider their stance,” said Armin Ronacher, creator of Flask and one of the co-founders of AI agent biz Earendil.
On its way toward Free, Libre, and Open Source Software equilibrium, Codeberg also decided to ban cryptocurrency projects, citing a similar move by SourceHut in 2023.
A proposed amendment to make it Codeberg’s stated purpose “to oppose discrimination and promote a diverse FOSS community” passed with a two-thirds vote but is not yet merged. The protection extended to philosophical outlook does not cover belief in AI. ®
OpenAI’s new Health feature gives ChatGPT access to Apple Health data and medical records, adding useful analysis at the cost of sharing sensitive information with another company.
The feature is available to logged-in users 18 and older across Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans. OpenAI says ChatGPT can compare laboratory results over time, summarize changes since a medical appointment, and identify patterns involving sleep, exercise, and daily activity.
Users can connect Apple Health, medical records from supported U.S. hospital systems, One Medical, and Function Health. ChatGPT can also receive information that fitness, nutrition, and wearable apps make available through Apple Health, although some proprietary scores may not transfer.
OpenAI says more than 300 million people turn to ChatGPT with health-related questions each week. Connecting records could make it easier to understand medical terminology, prepare questions for a doctor, or track changes without repeatedly uploading the same documents.
Health in ChatGPT requires users to sync potentially extensive medical and wellness information with OpenAI. Users who don’t connect the feature avoid adding OpenAI to the services handling that data.
OpenAI promises safeguards, but the data still leaves Apple
OpenAI says connected medical records, Apple Health information, and related conversations won’t train foundation models or target ads. It further claims that all ChatGPT conversations are encrypted in transit and at rest, with added protections for Health data.
ChatGPT asks for permission before using connected health information by default. Users can approve access for one request or allow ChatGPT to use it automatically in future conversations.
Permission controls don’t eliminate the underlying data transfer. ChatGPT can analyze health information only after users make it available to OpenAI.
Percentage of reviews earning high scores by evaluation category. Image credit: OpenAIOpenAI deletes synced health data within 30 days after disconnection, while information in past chats remains until users delete those conversations. ChatGPT can also create memories from Health conversations, and sharing health details through another service may require confirmation.
Siri AI offers a first-party alternative with fewer data transfers
Apple’s Siri AI in iOS 27 uses a first-party architecture for supported requests involving personal context. Siri AI can search across apps for user data, understand information shown onscreen, and perform actions through Apple’s systemwide app frameworks.
The company processes many requests on the device and uses Private Cloud Compute when a request needs a larger model.
Private Cloud Compute sends only the data needed to process a request to Apple Silicon servers. Apple can’t access or retain that data, and researchers can inspect the software used to process it.
The key difference is how Apple and OpenAI process the data. For supported health tasks, Apple can process requests on-device or through Private Cloud Compute without a persistent connection to OpenAI.
Processing supported health requests on-device or through Private Cloud Compute avoids adding OpenAI as another service handling the data. OpenAI’s safeguards reduce some risks, but avoiding the extra connection minimizes data sharing more effectively.
Apple and OpenAI remain partners while fighting in court
The Health rollout also comes amid a legal conflict between Apple and OpenAI. Apple continues to offer optional ChatGPT integration through Apple Intelligence.
Connecting Apple Health to ChatGPT. Image credit: OpenAIApple sued OpenAI and two former Apple employees on July 10 over alleged trade secret theft tied to OpenAI’s consumer hardware work. The lawsuit names Tang Yew Tan and Chang Liu.
According to the complaint, both men improperly accessed, kept, or shared confidential information connected to their departures from Apple and later work for OpenAI.
OpenAI has denied wanting or using competitors’ trade secrets. The allegations haven’t been proven, and the dispute is separate from the privacy and security of Health in ChatGPT.
Health in ChatGPT still requires careful verification
Hundreds of physicians helped OpenAI build realistic health scenarios for testing ChatGPT. The evaluations measure accuracy, safety, communication, context awareness, completeness, and whether ChatGPT recognizes when professional care may be needed.
GPT-5.6 outperformed GPT-5.5 on OpenAI’s HealthBench Professional evaluation, though ChatGPT can still make mistakes. Users should verify important information with a qualified health care provider.
Connected records may also be incomplete or outdated. OpenAI notes that a medication can remain listed after someone stops taking it, making it important to check ChatGPT’s information against the original source.
ChatGPT can make records easier to understand, identify changes worth discussing, and help someone prepare for an appointment. Its output shouldn’t be the sole basis for a diagnosis, medication change, or decision to avoid professional care.
Health in ChatGPT organizes scattered medical data. Apple users must decide whether that convenience is worth sharing their health information with OpenAI.
Mark Zuckerberg really wants you to believe that AI is good, actually. But the centerpiece of his company’s new “optimistic” ad campaign, at least for now, is a one-minute commercial for Meta’s AI efforts that… features very little AI.
According to a Meta spokesperson, the ad is the start of a broader effort from the company to present an alternative view to “AI doomers and those who have sketched out a dystopian vision” for the future. “As we enter this next wave with AI, we continue to believe the future is for everyone,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post accompanying the video. “We’re focused on giving every person the tools to reach your full potential and making sure the benefits of technology are distributed to everyone.”
Notably this is the same company which in recent months has used the supposed productivity benefits of AI as an excuse to lay off many thousands of its own staff. The same company that has been accused of using AI to justify cuts that disproportionately affected workers on medical leave. The same company that is being sued by publishers for allegedly training its AI on copyrighted material. The same company that once had an internal policy document that suggested it was permissible for AI chatbots to have “sensual” conversations with minors. Those guys!
So what are the benefits of AI? It’s hard to say because the commercial makes very few references to any of Meta’s AI features. Instead, it shows a bunch of nondescript footage: a crowd walking, people smiling, a couple dancing. Are these people implied to be happily benefitting from AI? Who can say. It then cuts to someone scrolling Facebook, the Instagram logo and a WhatsApp chat. All of those apps have been flooded with AI features over the last year, but none are visible in the video.
The company’s communications team describes the campaign as “beginning to articulate [Meta’s] optimistic vision for a future with AI,” which seems like something that should have been figured out before investing many billions of dollars into building AI.
There’s a brief moment where the video cuts to the words “Muse Spark,” Meta’s latest AI model, on a laptop screen. And a moment later the Meta AI interface appears. But there’s no indication of what these tools can actually do or why they should be relevant to anyone watching. Just that… they are available to “everyone,” I guess? “Some people will have you believe AI will make us less connected, that it’s gonna leave us behind,” the video states. “We couldn’t disagree more.” Ok!
It wouldn’t be the first time Zuckerberg has been vague about the future of AI. He now talks about AI with the same incomprehensible enthusiasm he once had for the metaverse, the thing he once predicted was “going to be the successor of the mobile internet.” We all know how that ended.
The final 15 seconds of the video prominently feature Meta’s smart glasses, including its new Kylie Jenner-branded frames. There are a few shots of POV footage captured from Oakley Meta glasses but, again, no references to AI.
“The discourse around AI spans everything from existential dread to utopian visions,” Meta’s Chief Marketing Officer Denise Moreno wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “With all the noise, it’s easy to feel like the future is heading toward less connection and less agency. We’re taking a different stance: we think AI will empower people to do more of what they love. As we enter this next wave of AI, we’re continuing that work and doing everything we can to ensure the future is for everyone.”
Meta might believe the future is “for everyone,” but Moreno apparently felt differently about the present. She limited comments on her post.
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