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AMD is investing $5 billion in Anthropic and deploying 2 gigawatts of Helios GPUs to run Claude

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TL;DR

AMD will invest up to $5B in Anthropic and deploy 2GW of MI450 GPUs. Claude will accelerate ROCm development. First GW ships H1 2027. Anthropic already uses MI355X GPUs.

AMD and Anthropic announced a strategic partnership on Tuesday that commits AMD to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic and deploy up to 2 gigawatts of AMD Instinct MI450 Series GPUs in Helios rackscale solutions to run Claude. Deployment of the first gigawatt begins in the first half of 2027. Anthropic is already using AMD’s MI355X GPUs and will now scale to MI455X accelerators paired with EPYC “Venice” CPUs and Pensando networking.

The engineering collaboration may matter more than the hardware. AMD and Anthropic will use Claude to optimise workloads for AMD Instinct GPUs and accelerate ROCm software development. AMD will also adopt Claude broadly across its engineering and product development teams. ROCm is AMD’s answer to Nvidia’s CUDA, and its software gap has been the primary reason AI developers default to Nvidia hardware even when AMD’s specs are competitive. If Claude can materially improve ROCm’s developer experience, AMD addresses the problem that has held it back for years, using its customer’s AI to fix its own software.

Anthropic’s compute strategy is now genuinely multi-vendor. Anthropic signed its biggest compute deal with Google and Broadcom, and has separate arrangements with Amazon (Trainium chips, 5GW), CoreWeave (Nvidia GPUs), and SpaceX (Colossus data centres). Adding 2GW of AMD Helios gives Anthropic what Tom Brown, its chief compute officer, called the ability to “map the right workloads to the right hardware.” Diversifying away from any single chip vendor reduces dependency risk at a time when compute is the binding constraint on frontier model development.

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For AMD, the $5 billion equity investment mirrors Nvidia’s playbook. Nvidia invested $2 billion in Nebius and has taken stakes in multiple AI infrastructure companies to lock in hardware demand. AMD is doing the same: investing in a customer to guarantee that its chips, not Nvidia’s, run a meaningful share of the world’s most capable AI models. Lisa Su called it “a major platform for the next generation of AI infrastructure.” Whether Helios can compete with Nvidia’s NVL72 at production scale is the question the first gigawatt will answer.

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World’s First Wave Power Generator Receives Certification For Regular Use

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“The Norwegian certification agency DNV has certified the commercial wave-driven power generator Corpower C4 for regular use,” writes Longtime Slashdot reader Qbertino. “German news site heise.de has a detailed write-up. See a CGI video of the power station and its internals, as well as the company’s website [at their respective links].” From the report (translated to English): According to the manufacturer Corpower Ocean, it is the first DNV prototype certificate for a wave energy converter. The certificate confirms that Corpower’s technology meets DNV’s requirements for structural strength, reliability, and safety, Corpower Ocean announced. The certification process began in the design phase and lasted seven years. DNV oversaw the process from concept development through design, manufacturing, and assembly, to dry-running tests and subsequent operation.

This is an important step, said Patrik Moller, CEO and one of the founders of Corpower Ocean. With the certification, wave energy is no longer just a promising technology, but a proven and financially viable one. This opens up new opportunities for project financing, insurance, and investments in commercial applications. The Corpower C4 wave power plant looks like a normal buoy: It consists of a 19-meter-long floating body with a diameter of 9 meters and a weight of approximately 11 tons. The system is anchored to the seabed. A mechanism inside the buoy converts its up-and-down movements in the waves into a rotary motion. This, in turn, drives a generator that produces electricity. The report notes that the company is “planning the first two industrial-scale wave energy farms off the coasts of Portugal and Scotland,” which are scheduled to begin operating sometime between 2027 and 2029.

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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra vs. Z Fold 7: Improved Battery, Screen and a Higher Price

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At Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event, the phone-maker announced three new folding phones, including its first-ever Ultra foldable phone. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is the true successor of last year’s Fold 7, while the Fold 8 enters with an all-new wide-fold design.

These devices are still priced high enough to put them out of reach for many, but they pack subtle design improvements that might make a big impact in daily life. I love the new anti-reflective coating, easier-to-unfold design and battery upgrades, but the Galaxy Z Fold 7 remains a powerful and capable device – especially if you can get it at a rare discount.

The two book-style foldables differ mainly in experiential upgrades rather than spec bumps. It might be hard to get an idea of what’s exactly new. That’s why I put them side by side during my hands-on to find out.

Holding the Z Fold 8 Ultra and the Z Fold 7.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra succeeds the Galaxy Z Fold 7 with a thinner design when folded.Prakhar Khanna/CNET

Design and display

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is roughly the same size as the already thin-and-light Fold 7. It weighs the same but is a millimeter slimmer when unfolded. Both phones are comfortable to hold, but the new model is easier to open.

Samsung has made the Ultra’s sides slightly slimmer so its bezels don’t run all the way to the corners. This gives you a slight gap between the sides to make it easier to unfold. In comparison, the Fold 7 has flat sides with zero gap when the phone is folded shut, making it more difficult to unfold.

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Both phones have a 6.5-inch AMOLED cover screen and an 8-inch AMOLED folding display with a 120Hz variable refresh rate. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra’s inner screen is brighter at 3,000 nits (versus 2,600 nits on the Fold 7). It also has a matte finish, along with my long-requested feature: an anti-reflective coating for better legibility in harsh lighting conditions and outdoors.

Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 7
Side by side of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 (left) and the Z Fold 7.Prakhar Khanna/CNET

I held both phones indoors in direct light, and the difference was noticeable. My Fold 7 was more susceptible to glare and harder to see under direct light when compared to the new model. 

Samsung has also improved the crease situation. It is minimal and can’t be seen unless you’re specifically looking for it. The phone-maker has added a new display structure that combines titanium-alloy film with an enhanced titanium plate to strengthen the display and balance the “hinge mechanics, display tension and magnetic force to make unfolding feel smoother, lighter and more natural,” says Samsung.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Fold 7 while closed.
While closed, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 use their 6.5-inch displays. Prakhar Khanna/CNET

Both foldables are IP48 rated for dust and water resistance. So, they aren’t truly dust-tight like the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Honor Magic V6, but they can survive being dunked in water for at least 30 minutes (the “8” in IP48). But they won’t protect against dust particles smaller than 1mm (the “4” in that rating).

Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra while open
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra uses an 8-inch screen when unfolded.Prakhar Khanna/CNET

Performance and battery

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chip, as compared with the Fold 7’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. Both phones come in three storage variants: 256GB, 512GB and 1TB, with the top-end model getting 16GB of RAM (the 256GB and 512GB models are again paired with 12GB of RAM).

Samsung says it has created more space in the internals for better heat dissipation, so you can theoretically expect better thermal management.

As for the battery, this is the first time Samsung is using the silicon-carbon anode technology. It has allowed the phone-maker to upgrade the cell capacity from 4,400 mAh to 5,000 mAh on the new model. The Ultra also supports faster wired charging at 45 watts (the Fold 7 offered 25 watts).

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On paper, it is still behind Chinese rivals like Oppo and Honor, which include over 6,000-mAh batteries in their respective folding phones, but I’m hoping this spec bump will help me get through a day with ease.

Both phones have Qi wireless charging, but no inbuilt magnets. You’ll have to buy a separate magnetic case to add compatibility with Qi2 wireless chargers and other magnetic accessories.

The back of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Fold 7.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Fold 7 both include a 200-megapixel wide camera.Prakhar Khanna/CNET

Camera, software and AI

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra’s camera array is mostly unchanged from last year’s model, with one exception: the ultrawide sensor. You get a 200-megapixel main camera and a 10-megapixel telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom on both phones. However, the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera has been upgraded to a 50-megapixel sensor. You can expect higher-quality images, but I’ll wait for CNET’s tests to identify the real differences.

Both foldables shoot video in 8K at 30 frames per second, but the Fold might appeal to more creatives. The new model adds support for the APV codec and adds a Cine LUT to give cinematic color and tone control directly from your phone. This adds greater flexibility for editing and production workflows for professional creators.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 launched with Android 16 onboard last year, and the Fold 8 Ultra is coming with Android 17 (with One UI 9 on top). You get a similar software experience on both phones, and the Z Fold 7 will get the update to Android 17 with One UI 9.

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The Z Fold 8 Ultra with split screen apps
Now Nudge opens the Calendar in split screen after you tap on its pop-up button.Prakhar Khanna/CNET

The two devices support the full suite of Samsung’s Galaxy AI features alongside Gemini access. There’s AI Select for on-screen search support, an object eraser tool in the Gallery app and contextual AI features like Now Nudge for first-party apps. The latter displays contextual actions based on on-screen information. Like, if you’re having a chat in the Messages app, and they send you an invite with the date, time and address, Samsung’s Now Nudge feature will show a pop-up to add it to Calendar.

The phone-maker also demoed a new agentic AI feature at my demo, which wasn’t very impressive. Ideally, the new Gemini feature would help book a hotel just by looking at an on-screen photo of the Eiffel Tower, but in its current state, it was unreliable. But since the Z Fold 8 Ultra gets seven years of software updates and the Z Fold 7 has six more years to go, there’s plenty of time for both phones to continue to improve on these features.

To see more differences between the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and the Z Fold 7, check out the specs chart below.

Hands-On With Samsung's Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Flip 8: What Your Extra $100 Buys

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra vs. Z Fold 7: Specs and prices

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7
Cover display size, tech, resolution, refresh rate 6.5-inch AMOLED; 2,520×1,080 pixels; up to 120Hz variable refresh rate 4.1-inch AMOLED; 1,048×948 pixels; 120Hz refresh rate
Internal display size, tech, resolution, refresh rate 8.0-inch AMOLED; 2,256×2,504 pixels; up to 120Hz variable refresh rate 6.9-inch AMOLED; 2,520×1,080 pixels; 1 to 120Hz refresh rate
Pixel density Cover: 422 ppi; Internal: 422 ppi Cover: 342ppi; Internal: 397ppi
Dimensions (inches) Open: 6.23 x 5.6 x 0.16 in; Closed: 6.23 x 2.87 x 0.35 in Open: 2.96 x 6.56 x 0.26 in; Closed: 2.96 x 3.37 x 0.52 in
Dimensions (millimeters) Open: 158.4 x 143.2 x 4.1mm; Closed: 158.4 x 72.8 x 8.9mm Open: 75.2 x 166.7 x 6.5mm; Closed: 75.2 x 85.5 x 13.7mm
Weight (grams, ounces) 215g (7.58 oz) 188g (6.63 oz.)
Mobile software Android 17 with One UI 9 Android 16
Cameras 200-megapixel (wide), 50-megapixel (ultrawide), 10-megapixel (telephoto), 10-megapixel (cover screen selfie) 50-megapixel (wide), 12-megapixel (ultrawide)
Internal screen camera 10-megapixel 10-megapixel
Video capture 8K at 30 fps 4K
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy Samsung Exynos 2500
RAM/storage 12GB + 256GB; 12GB + 512GB; 16GB + 1TB 12GB + 256GB, 12GB + 512GB
Expandable storage None None
Battery 5,000 mAh 4,300 mAh
Fingerprint sensor Side Yes
Connector USB-C USB-C
Headphone jack None None
Special features IP48 rating, Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 (cover screen), Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (Rear), Advanced Armor Aluminum, 5G (sub6, mmW), Wi-Fi 7, 3,000-nit peak brightness, anti-reflective display, 45-watt wired charging, 20-watt wireless charging One UI 8, IP48 water resistance, 25W wired charging, Qi wireless charging, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Galaxy AI
US price starts at $2,100 (256GB); $2,300 (512GB); $2,700 (1TB) $1,100 (256GB)
UK price starts at £1,899 (256GB); £2,069 (512GB); £ 2,409 (1TB) £1,049
Australia price starts at AU$2,999 (256GB); AU$3,299 (512GB); AU$3,899 (1TB) AU$1,799

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This Searchable Tool Is Helping Track Flock Surveillance Cameras in Your City

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Recent coverage of Flock Safety, the fast‑growing US surveillance technology company, reveals how opposition to automated license plate readers is playing out at the local level.

In South Carolina, officials have been sparring over whether to install 25 new cameras, a dispute that reflects broader questions about cost, oversight, and how much surveillance communities are willing to accept. The city of Los Angeles recently broke its contract with Flock Safety, though Flock’s CEO argues that the suspension should be temporary while the police department revises its rules.

These cancellations are in large part driven by public concern around a system designed to enable mass surveillance, which is susceptible to serious abuses, including biased policing and privacy violations.

To track such surveillance, journalists and researchers are increasingly turning to a free tool called the Atlas of Surveillance, a collaboration between the renowned digital privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation and the University of Nevada, Reno. The site has become a go‑to source for mapping police technology — which also includes drones, facial-recognition cameras and body cameras — with a searchable database that’s often more dependable than alternatives.

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With the Atlas of Surveillance tool, you enter a city, county, state, law enforcement agency or vendor in the US and select which technology you’re interested in tracking. You’ll get a list of details based on your search, including links to public records or news articles.

“We frequently run into situations where local councilpeople don’t even know that a certain tool is in use,” said Beryl Lipton, Electronic Frontier Foundation senior investigative researcher. “Learning about a technology we have logged in the Atlas of Surveillance is meant to help people have conversations [about] whether that tool is appropriate for local use, start asking questions, and advocate for standards around how their police can or can’t use this equipment.”

Surveilling surveillance

While other tools for tracking Flock cameras and similar surveillance systems exist, I prefer the EFF’s approach, which uses reliable crowdsourced data from specific volunteers, including University of Nevada students and staff, as well as experienced researchers. These volunteers use a variety of information, including government documents, press releases, news stories and confirmed social media posts, to create lists of exactly which surveillance technologies local police or sheriff departments are using, as well as when they were adopted.

Deflock, another popular crowdsourced app for reporting Flock camera locations, has an open-source design that leaves it vulnerable to false reports from people who only think they’re seeing a surveillance device. Self-reports are also becoming less reliable as surveillance cameras are being hidden in speed signs and cacti.

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Results for an Atlas of Surveillance search.
The Atlas provides sources for its information and includes records dating back years.EFF

I tried the Atlas tool with several location searches, including Albany, Georgia, where five police officers were fired and arrested in July on charges of misusing the city’s Flock system. Sure enough, I could see exactly when Albany began its Flock program, among other details about the technology it uses.

“While we may know that a police department has a tool, we may not know that they don’t have a governing policy or what is in the policy they have, like how long the data is retained,” Lipton told me.

Lipton recommends that users pair the Atlas tool with the EFF’s Street-Level Surveillance hub, which offers deeper documentation, including details on third‑party vendors that collaborate with law enforcement.

The Atlas database isn’t perfect, and the volunteers can do only so much. In my own searches, I found that my home city offered accurate listings for traffic cameras, but didn’t mention the period when it adopted Flock automated license plate readers last year, before removing them after public complaint. I’ve seen similar patterns in other cities with comparable histories, suggesting the database may emphasize active programs or exclude portions of older records.

Resources like the Atlas of Surveillance give residents a clearer view of the technologies their police departments use, information that can otherwise be difficult to obtain. As I’ve covered before, some cities will carefully omit the name “Flock” when announcing new surveillance or monitoring programs, even if they are using the brand’s drones or ALPR cameras.

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If you’d like to volunteer for the Atlas of Surveillance, you can select the Collaborate option to submit a datapoint for consideration.

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New Markdown rival: Open-source DGML format aims to turn docs into data that AI (and humans) can trust

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L-R: Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin, Docugami CEO Jean Paoli, and Inveniam CEO Patrick O’Meara. The companies are partnering to make DGML a standard for AI, with Docugami turning documents into data, Inveniam verifying it on a blockchain, and Mantra providing the chain.

Jean Paoli has spent his career making documents readable by machines — first as a co-creator of XML, then helping build the file formats behind Microsoft Office. Now his Kirkland, Wash.-based startup, Docugami, is open-sourcing the technology at the heart of its business, betting it can become a standard way to turn documents into data that people and AI agents can trust. 

The company is releasing its technology, called DGML (short for Document Graph Markup Language), under Apache 2.0, a widely used open-source license, so other developers and companies can adopt it.

The idea is to turn it into a shared standard that no single company owns, much as XML became a common foundation across the tech industry. 

The move reflects a shift in where the value is created in AI. Docugami until now has made its money selling software that turns unstructured documents into usable data. It’s betting now that there’s more value in proving that data is trustworthy instead. 

How it works: Docugami is teaming up with Inveniam, a Detroit company whose software helps big investors keep tabs on the mountains of paperwork behind real estate and other hard-to-value assets. Inveniam will record a kind of digital fingerprint of each piece of DGML data on NVNM Chain, its blockchain built with Mantra, a crypto firm that Inveniam is acquiring.

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That means, for example, that a single fact buried in a 200-page lease — such as the rental rate, a renewal option, or a default clause — can be verified on its own, without exposing the whole document. An investor, auditor, or AI agent can trace it to the page it came from. 

To work with documents, AI systems usually convert them into a simpler format first. DGML enters a growing field of contenders in that regard, competing with the popular Markdown format and DocLang, a new open standard for AI-ready documents backed by IBM, Nvidia and Red Hat.

The business model: This is a big move for a company of Docugami’s size, taking the 30-person startup in a new direction. Paoli is handing the industry the technology his team spent years building, and pinning the company’s future on a larger idea.

The plan is to make money not from the format itself but from the value of the trusted data. Once a company converts its leases or loans into DGML and anchors the key numbers on the blockchain, investors, lenders and auditors can pay to draw on that verified data.

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Docugami will share in the revenue through its partnership with Inveniam. The company also stands to collect a small fee each time a piece of data is recorded on the chain. 

The company is giving away the DGML format and a working version of the software, but not everything. Paoli said the company is keeping some of its own technology private, including AI models it has fine-tuned to read documents, and could sell those or other tools to enterprises. 

“The business model of everybody is changing. And if you know any company where it’s not true, you need to tell me, because I haven’t met them yet,” Paoli said in an interview. 

Docugami has raised about $13 million to date, including a $10 million seed round in 2020 that drew the first investment in Grammarly’s history.

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The partnership: Paoli met Patrick O’Meara, Inveniam’s CEO, a few months ago, through a former Microsoft colleague who had become one of O’Meara’s advisers. They quickly realized they had been working toward the same idea from different directions.

Inveniam, founded in 2017, helps big investors keep track of assets that are hard to value, like office towers, private loans and infrastructure. It monitors the documents behind those assets and flags changes as they happen, and its clients include some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, according to O’Meara.

What it lacked was a consistent way to break those documents into verifiable pieces. That is what Docugami provides.

“We’re not putting the data itself on-chain, just a fingerprint of the document. Change one bit, one byte, one pixel, and the hash won’t match,” O’Meara said.

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The blockchain comes from Mantra, a crypto company run by John Patrick Mullin. Inveniam invested $20 million in Mantra last year and has since agreed to acquire it outright. Mantra’s OM token collapsed in April 2025, erasing several billion dollars in value. 

Paoli said the project uses the underlying blockchain, not the token.

“Crypto as an industry has gone through a lot of changes in the last 18 to 24 months, and it’s growing up in a lot of ways. This is a real use case with fundamental value, not just pure speculation,” Mantra’s Mullin said in an interview. 

The result is a division of labor: Docugami turns documents into data, Inveniam verifies it and brings the customers, and Mantra provides the chain where the proof is recorded.

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The DGML specification, sample documents and reference code are at dgml.io and on GitHub

Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to correct the name of a competing document format, DocLang, and to note that Inveniam’s blockchain is called NVNM Chain.

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Scientists made robots curious like toddlers, and it helped them learn language twice as fast

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Scientists have been trying to figure out how kids pick up language so fast for decades, and a new study out of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) might have cracked part of the puzzle: curiosity.

Researchers built a virtual robot with a brain-inspired neural network and set it loose in a simulated 3D world full of shapes, colors, and simple commands like “push left magenta dumbbell.” 

Some robots were rewarded only for completing tasks correctly. Others got an extra reward for curiosity, essentially getting a little internal high whenever they encountered something that challenged their existing understanding of the world.

How does curiosity help a robot learn language?

The curious robots didn’t just edge out their indifferent counterparts; they blew past them. According to the study, published in Science Advances, curious robots reached a genuine understanding of language in about half the time. 

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Study author Theodore Tinker compared it to trying white chocolate for the first time even though you already love dark chocolate. You take the risk anyway, and you walk away knowing more about chocolate in general.

Things got even more interesting halfway through training. The curious robots started knocking things over and experimenting with actions nobody asked for, basically playing. Nobody programmed that behavior in. It just showed up on its own.

Do robots really make the same mistakes as toddlers?

The robots also mimicked a well-known quirk in how children learn language. Kids often get certain verb forms right at first, then start applying grammar rules too broadly and make mistakes on verbs they’d previously used correctly, before eventually sorting out the exceptions and correcting themselves. The robots followed the same U-shaped dip in performance.

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It’s also a nice contrast to how today’s chatbots learn. Large language models like ChatGPT train on massive datasets and spit out the statistically likely next word. This robot’s brain works more like ours, prioritizing accuracy while trying to keep its beliefs intact, only updating them when something surprises it enough to be worth the trouble.

None of this means robots understand language the way we do. But it does suggest that curiosity paired with a wide variety of experiences might be a big part of how toddlers crack the language code with so little to go on.

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Kalanick raises $1.7B for Atoms, and Uber invests too

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Travis Kalanick is back, and Uber is helping to fund him. The founder Uber forced out in 2017 has raised $1.7 billion for Atoms, an industrial-AI and robotics company he has built in near-total stealth for years.

Andreessen Horowitz led the round. Its co-founder Ben Horowitz is joining the board. And among the investors sits Uber, the company Kalanick started in 2009 and left under a cloud.

That exit still shadows the story. Uber pushed Kalanick out as chief executive in 2017 after complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and a toxic workplace. Nine years on, his old company is writing him a cheque. Kalanick, never one for understatement, calls the round “unfinished business”.

The equity comes with serious debt. Alongside a16z, Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and others, Atoms lined up credit facilities from JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Barclays. The company did not disclose a valuation. That is the kind of firepower needed to build heavy machines, not apps.

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Bits to atoms

Kalanick’s pitch is a single idea he has chased for 16 years: turning the physical world into something software can run. In his framing, manufacturing is the processor, real estate is the storage, and transport is the network. Uber digitised transport for the masses.

CloudKitchens, his ghost-kitchen venture, did the same for food. Atoms is meant to do it for whole industrial sectors. He calls the result an “atoms-based computer.”

The target is the unglamorous heart of the economy: mining, construction, heavy transport and food. His term for the toolkit is Industrial AI, a mix of software, sensors, robotics and models aimed at automating entire sectors. He calls the wider shift the “Age of Atoms.”

Not a humanoid in sight

Here Kalanick parts ways with much of the field. While rivals pour billions into general-purpose humanoid robots, Atoms builds specialised machines for specific jobs. Horowitz argues that purpose-built hardware copes with brutal industrial environments far better than a humanoid could. It is a pointed bet against the hottest trend in physical AI.

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Atoms is split into three parts, according to reports. Atoms Food folds in CloudKitchens and its cooking and delivery software. Atoms Mining puts autonomous machines to work at extraction sites, built on Atoms’ acquisition of Pronto, a startup run by former Uber and Google engineer Anthony Levandowski.

Atoms Transport is what Kalanick calls a “wheelbase for robots.”

Levandowski’s presence adds intrigue. He sat at the centre of a self-driving trade-secrets case involving Google and Uber, and later received a presidential pardon. Kalanick has also flirted with buying the US arm of China’s Pony AI, with Uber’s help, though those talks ended earlier this year.

Comeback, with caveats

The mood around the deal is euphoric. One a16z partner called it the largest cheque the firm has ever written. Another investor predicted Atoms would be worth a trillion dollars within a decade. Horowitz put it more simply: “Travis is back.”

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Some scepticism is warranted. Atoms has revealed a grand vision and a very large bank balance, but little in the way of deployed industrial robots at scale. The valuation is a mystery, the claims are sweeping, and Kalanick’s Uber record is not easily forgotten. Yet the bet is coherent.

He turned the movement of people into a software business once. Now, with $1.7 billion and his old adversary alongside him, he wants to do the same to the machines that grow, dig and haul the physical world.

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Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua to step aside as company pushes into robotaxis, robotics

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Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua plans to step down from the top leadership post after nearly three decades, just as the company pushes into robotaxis and humanoid robots.

Shashua will remain CEO until Mobileye hires a replacement, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.

Mobileye got its start making computer vision chips based on Shashua’s academic research at Hebrew University in Israel, and grew into a major supplier of the chips that power automotive safety and driver-assistance features. It had the largest IPO in Israel’s history, was acquired in 2017 by Intel for $15.3 billion, then spun back out as a publicly traded company in 2022, though Intel remains its largest shareholder.

Under Shashua, Mobileye also moved beyond selling chips to automakers and began building its own systems that handle autonomous driving, which it now supplies to Volkswagen and its MOIA subsidiary.

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In January, the company acquired Shashua’s humanoid robotics startup Mentee Robotics for $900 million, which Shashua called part of “Mobileye 3.0,” the next phase of the business focused on robotics and automotive AI.

Mobileye also said in June it would expand beyond its supplier status to launch its own robotaxi service in a U.S. city in 2027.

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Microsoft commits $60M to ‘Genesis Mission’ to help power Dept. of Energy’s AI-for-science push

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(GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop)

Microsoft is putting $60 million behind the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, a push to use artificial intelligence to speed up scientific research across the government’s 17 national labs.

The company’s investment is split into two pieces: $40 million in Azure cloud computing and AI credits over three years, and $20 million for engineering and deployment help to get DOE researchers actually using the tools, Microsoft said in a blog post Wednesday.

Microsoft is also launching a new internal group called SPARK — Scientific Partnership Advancing Research & Knowledge — to serve as the single point of contact between the company and DOE on Genesis Mission work. It’s meant to combine Microsoft’s program management, engineering, security and research teams into one coordinated effort, instead of leaving individual labs to navigate Microsoft on their own.

President Trump created the Genesis Mission through an executive order in November 2025, directing DOE to build a unified computing and data platform — since named the American Science and Security Platform — that connects the national labs’ supercomputers, AI tools and scientific datasets.

The order likened the effort’s urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project, and the White House said it’s expanded into a whole-of-government initiative involving more than 15 federal agencies, backed by more than $5 billion in commitments.

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Microsoft named four initial projects taking shape under the partnership, including work with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., to speed up the discovery of new energy storage materials — cutting analysis that used to take years down to weeks — and autonomous lab work with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory aimed at detecting biological threats earlier.

“We move faster together,” Chris Barry, president of Microsoft’s U.S. Public Sector business, wrote in the blog post announcing the commitment, framing the investment as both a “national security imperative” and economic opportunity for the U.S.

Microsoft isn’t the only Seattle-area cloud giant courting the Genesis Mission. Amazon Web Services was recognized by DOE as a Genesis Mission supporter in December, highlighting its work with Idaho National Laboratory on AI tools for nuclear reactor design, and the company launched its own Genesis Accelerator Initiative in February, offering up to $50 million in cloud credits for DOE-related research over three years.

Google also announced Wednesday that it was committing $40 million of AI tokens and cloud credits for researchers in support of the Genesis Mission.

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Google Is Expanding Access To Its Gemini Spark Agentic AI Assistant

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More Google AI Pro and Ultra users will now have access to Spark.

Google is making Gemini Spark, the agentic AI assistant it announced at this year’s I/O developer conference, available to more people. Unfortunately, they still don’t include free users. In the US, Spark is rolling out to everyone paying $20 a month for Google AI Pro. It’s also rolling out globally to Google AI Ultra users, who are paying between $100 to $200 a month for their subscription…unless they’re in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the UK and Nigeria. Those who can now access Spark with this expansion may want to check if it also comes with local language support. 

Spark is powered by Gemini 3.5 and is deeply integrated into Google’s Workspace apps. Users can assign tasks to it by going to the Spark page, either via the sidebar on a computer or by tapping on the option under menu on mobile. From there, they can type in the tasks they want Spark to do. They can tell Spark, for instance, to check their emails and calendar schedules every morning and then let them know what to prioritize. Spark can also automatically create draft responses for when emails from a particular person hit the user’s inbox, or summarize lengthy email threads. Users can use Spark to create detailed reports in Google Docs from meeting notes and emails, as well. As these are only a few possible tasks for Spark, users can check out Google’s support pages for more information. 

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Tails Download Free – 7.10

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Tails helps you to use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship almost anywhere you go and on any computer but leaving no trace unless you ask it to explicitly.

Tails is a complete OS designed to be used from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card independently of the computer’s original operating system. Start on your Tails USB stick instead of starting on Windows, macOS, or Linux. Tails leaves no trace on the computer when shut down.

Tails helps you to:

  • Use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship
  • All connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network
  • Leave no trace on the computer you are using unless you ask it explicitly
  • Use state-of-the-art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, emails and instant messaging

Tails includes a selection of applications to work on sensitive documents and communicate securely. It comes with several built-in applications pre-configured with security in mind: web browser, instant messaging client, email client, office suite, image and sound editor, etc.

If you are interested in giving Tails a try on your current computer without running any risk, please check out our Guide: Running Linux From a USB Drive As a Virtual Machine or Bootable Disk.

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What is Tails?

Tails is a portable Linux distribution based on Debian that combines the Tor network, the GNOME desktop and several other tools to offer a secure and anonymous computer experience.

How safe is Tails?

Tails is very safe as long as you do not run it on an infected machine. Tails is designed to run from a USB stick on any computer as a completely independent OS. However, if the host computer is infected with malware such as a keylogger your privacy would be at risk.

How does Tails ensure privacy?

Tails is set up out of the box to run from your computer’s memory and never stores information locally unless you configure it to. This means that every time you shut down Tails, the memory is wiped clean, deleting all traces of your work and every new session starts as a blank slate.

Can I use Tails to circumvent censorship?

Yes, you can use Tails to circumvent internet censorship and browse the web anonymously. All the applications that come with Tails (email, browser, messaging client, office suite) use the Tor network to connect to the internet, so all your activity can be hidden.

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Online anonymity and censorship circumvention with Tor

Tails relies on the Tor anonymity network to protect your privacy online:

  • all software is configured to connect to the Internet through Tor
  • if an application tries to connect to the Internet directly, the connection is automatically blocked for security.

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

Using Tor you can:

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  • be anonymous online by hiding your location
  • connect to services that would be censored otherwise
  • resist attacks that block the usage of Tor using circumvention tools such as bridges

Detection of problems with Wi-Fi hardware

Problems with Wi-Fi are unfortunately quite common in Tails and Linux in general.

To help troubleshoot hardware compatibility issues with Wi-Fi interfaces, the Tor Connection assistant now reports when no Wi-Fi hardware is detected.

What’s New

New shutdown procedure

Tails now uses the standard shutdown procedure from GNOME.

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The standard shutdown procedure is a bit slower, but better prevents data loss.

For example, the Power Off confirmation dialog informs you if an application needs to be closed or an open document needs to be saved before shutting down.

Even without confirming or saving the open documents, Tails will shut down after 60 seconds.

You can still use the faster emergency shutdown as before.

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Celluloid video player

We replaced GNOME Videos with Celluloid, a more modern and reliable video player.

For added security, Celluloid cannot access the network. You can either:

  • Open online videos, like MP4 and AVI files, in Tor Browser.
  • Open online streaming addresses, like IPTV and HLS addresses, in VLC, installed as additional software.

Celluloid doesn’t work on some computer from 2011 or earlier.

  • You can use VLC instead, installed as additional software.

Changes and updates

  • Update Tor Browser to 15.0.19.
  • Update some firmware packages. This improves support for newer hardware: graphics, Wi-Fi, and so on.

For more details, read our changelog

Tails 7.6 changelog

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  • Automatic Tor bridges
  • You can now learn about Tor bridges directly from the Tor Connection assistant in Tails.
  • Tor bridges are secret Tor relays that hide that you are connecting to Tor. If connecting to Tor is blocked from where you are, you can use a bridge as your first Tor relay to circumvent this censorship.
  • In Tails 7.6, choose Connect to Tor automatically when opening Tor Connection. If access to the Tor network is blocked, the bridge configuration screen offers a new option called Ask for a Tor bridge based on your region.

  • This feature uses the same technology as the connection assistant in Tor Browser outside of Tails, which was introduced in Tor Browser 11.5 (July 2022).
  • Tails downloads information about bridges that are most likely to work in your region from the Moat API of the Tor Project. To circumvent censorship, this connection is disguised as a connection to another website using domain fronting.

GNOME Secrets

  • In Tails 7.6, the Secrets password manager replaces KeePassXC.
  • Secrets has a simpler interface and is better integrated in the GNOME desktop. For example, accessibility features, such as the screen keyboard and cursor size, are working again with Secrets.
  • Secrets offers to unlock your previous KeePassXC database automatically, because both Secrets and KeePassXC use the same file format to store passwords.
  • If you miss more advanced features from KeePassXC, you can install KeePassXC as additional software.

Tor Browser 7.4.2 Changelog

Changes and updates

  • Update the Linux kernel to 6.12.69, which fixes DSA 6126-1, multiple security vulnerabilities that could allow an application in Tails to gain administration privileges.
  • For example, if an attacker was able to exploit other unknown security vulnerabilities in an application included in Tails, they might then use DSA 6126-1 to take full control of your Tails and deanonymize you.
  • This attack is very unlikely, but could be performed by a strong attacker, such as a government or a hacking firm. We are not aware of this attack being used in practice.
  • Update Thunderbird to 140.7.1.

Fixed problems

  • Fix opening the Wi-Fi settings from the Tor Connection assistant. (#18587)
  • Fix reopening Electrum when it was not closed cleanly. (#21390)
  • Fix applying the language saved to the USB stick in the Welcome Screen. (#21383)

Tails 7.4.1

Included software

  • Update the OpenSSL library to 3.5.4, which fixes DSA 6113-1, a set of vulnerabilities that could be critical. Using this set of vulnerabilities, an malicious Tor relay might be able to deanonymize a Tails user. We are not aware of these vulnerabilities being exploited in practice.
  • Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.22.
  • Update Thunderbird to 140.7.0.

Fixed problems

  • Fix Gmail authentication in Thunderbird. (#21384)
  • Add a spinner when opening the Wi-Fi settings from the Tor Connection assistant. (#18594)

Tails 7.4 Changelog

  • Update Tor Browser to 15.0.1.
  • Tor Browser 15.0 is based on Firefox 140 and inherits from it several new features that are particularly useful if you use many tabs:
    • Vertical tabs
    • Tab groups
    • New address bar with improved search
  • Update Thunderbird to 140.4.0.
  • Update the Linux kernel to 6.12.57.
  • Remove Root Console.
  • To open a root console, you can execute the following command in a Console. sudo -i
  • Show Don’t ask again notifications only after the clock has been synchronized.

Tails 7.1 Changelog

Changes and updates

  • Change the home page of Tor Browser in Tails to an offline page, very similar to the home page of Tor Browser outside of Tails, instead of an online page from our website.
  • Improve the message when an administration password is required to open an application but no administration password was set in the Welcome Screen.
  • Update Tor Browser to 14.5.8.
  • Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.19.
  • Update Thunderbird to 140.3.0.
  • Remove the package ifupdown.

Fixed problems

  • Hide the message “Your connection to Tor is not being managed by Tor Browser” in new tabs of Tor Browser. (#21215)

Tails 7.0 Changelog

Tails 7.0 is dedicated to the memory of Lunar (1982 – 2024). Lunar was a traveling companion for Tails, a Tor volunteer, Free Software hacker, and community organizer.

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Lunar has always been by our side throughout Tails’ history. From the first baby steps of the project that eventually became Tails, to the merge with Tor, he’s provided sensible technical suggestions, out-of-the-box product design ideas, outreach support, and caring organizational advice.

Outside of Tor, Lunar worked on highly successful Free Software projects such as the Debian project, the Linux distribution on which Tails is based, and the Reproducible Builds project, which helps us verify the integrity of Tails releases.

Lunar will be deeply missed, both in our community and in the many other communities he participated in.

Faster startup

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Tails 7.0 starts 10 – 15 seconds faster on most computers.

We achieve this by changing the compression algorithm of the Tails USB and ISO images from xz to zstd. As a consequence, the image is 10% bigger than it would be with the previous algorithm.

While testing this change, we noticed that Tails on USB sticks of poor quality can also start 20 seconds slower than on quality USB sticks.

If you are in a place where counterfeit electronics are common, we recommend that you buy your USB stick from an international supermarket chain, which should have a more reliable supply chain.

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Included software

  • Replace GNOME Terminal with GNOME Console.
  • Replace GNOME Image Viewer with GNOME Loupe.
  • Update Tor Browser to 14.5.7.
  • Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.17.
  • Update Thunderbird to 128.14.0esr.
  • Update Electrum from 4.3.4 to 4.5.8.
  • Update OnionShare from 2.6.2 to 2.6.3.
  • Update KeePassXC from 2.7.4 to 2.7.10.
  • Update Kleopatra from 4:22.12 to 4:24.12
  • Update Inkscape from 1.2.2 to 1.4.
  • Update GIMP from 2.10.34 to 3.0.4.
  • Update Audacity from 3.2.4 to 3.7.3.
  • Update Text Editor from 43.2 to 48.3.
  • Update Document Scanner from 42.5 to 46.0.

Changes in GNOME

  • Many sections of the Settings utility have been redesigned, for example Accessibility, Sound, and Mouse & Keyboard in GNOME 44
  • Accessibility settings also include new accessibility features, such as Overamplication and Always Show Scrollbars.
  • The Activities button has been replaced with a dynamic workspace indicator in GNOME 45.
  • The Screen Reader has been improved in different ways, for example, with better table navigation and a sleep mode in GNOME 46.
  • A new option to preserve battery health is available in the power settings in GNOME 48.

Removals

  • Remove the Places menu.
  • You can access the same shortcuts from the sidebar of the Files browser.
  • Remove Kleopatra from the Favorites menu.
  • To start Kleopatra, choose Apps ▸ Accessories ▸ Kleopatra.
  • Remove unar.
  • The File Roller utility still opens most RAR archives.
  • Remove the aircrack-ng package.
  • You can still install aircrack-ng using the Additional Software feature.
  • Remove the Power Statistics utility.
  • Remove the sq package.
  • Remove the obsolete Network Connection option from the Welcome Screen.

Hardware support

  • Update the Linux kernel to 6.12.43.
  • This improves support for newer hardware: graphics, Wi-Fi, and so on.
  • Increase the memory requirements from 2 GB of RAM to 3 GB. (#21114)
  • Tails 7.0 displays a notification when the RAM requirements are not met.
  • We estimate that less than 2% of users are affected.

Previous release notes

  • Update Tor Browser to 14.5.6.
  • Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.17.
  • Update Thunderbird to 128.13.0.

Changes and updates

  • Add a Show Password option when setting the screen locking password.

Fixed problems

  • Remove irrelevant error message when configuring bridges in Tor Connection.
  • Display an empty page instead of the homepage of Tor Browser when opening new tabs in the Unsafe Browser. (#21004)
  • Remove duplicated CPU microcode to reduce image size. (#21001)

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