News

Joanna Stern Pokes the Pickle

If anyone could devise a funny way to measure battery life, it’s her. ★

Source: Inference provider Modal Labs closing in on $750M round at $15.75B valuation

The new financing is expected to more than triples the AI infrastructure startup's valuation from just four months ago.

The Download: rogue agent liability and the AI Hype Index

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Who’s liable when AI agents go rogue? Over the past few months, a cascade of cyberattacks by AI agents has stunned the world. In July, OpenAI …

MIT Technology Review

“A foundry for bastard web fonts.” The default is a version of Times New Roman but every 7th glyph is replaced with one from Arial, but you can dial up whatever bastardization you want. This is why I’m not at all worried about AI destroying the world. Look at the horrible things …

bastardica.mitpit.com

‘When Did Google Get So F-Ing Weird?’

Sancho Panza: I recently had an experience while doing a simple Google search that was so profoundly weird that it stopped me in my tracks. Kagi, the search engine I’ve been using for a few years now, gave me the exact sort of results to Panza’s query that he was looking for. ★

Who’s liable when AI agents go rogue?

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. Over the past few months, a cascade of cyberattacks by AI agents has stunned the world. In July, Open…

MIT Technology Review

International tech

China’s first AI-produced theatrical film sets October 23 release

AI-generated video is no longer anything new. But a 100-minute theatrical feature film that uses AI throughout the production process and has secured an official screening license shows how far AI filmmaking has come. On Sunday, Bona Film Group announced that Sanxingdui: Future P…

Huawei Cloud CodeArts Ships Harmony Coding LLM Tuned for ArkTS

On September 21, 2026 Huawei Cloud upgraded CodeArts with a Harmony coding LLM for ArkTS, citing ~78% one-shot compile pass gains and >80% lower thousand-line error rates, plus a DevEco CLI agent and cloud practice center.

‘No UPI Day’: Mobile, FMCG Retailers To Protest UPI MDR On October 2

Indian retail traders are gearing up for a nationwide protest against the proposed UPI MDR soon. The All India Mobile…

LimX Dynamics and Kyland Ship First Humanoid on Domestic Electronic Architecture

On September 28, 2026 in Yichang, LimX Dynamics and Kyland Technology unveiled a humanoid integrating Kyland Intewell, AUTBUS and MaVIEW as a fully domestic electronic architecture with microsecond motion control claims.

How Drones and Robots Are Reshaping Renewable-Energy Operations

Editor’s note: This article was written by Lucia, a TechNode reporter. When photovoltaic panels develop defects such as hot spots, physical damage, dust buildup, or other obstructions, workers have traditionally had to inspect them one by one, often at height. The process is time…

Amazon India FY26 Report Card: Loss Balloons 48% YoY, Revenue Inches Closer To ₹40,000 Cr

Amazon’s India businesses delivered a mixed performance in FY26. While revenues of its seller services, retail and pay businesses continued…

When can we say AI made a scientific discovery?

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last Wednesday, Anthropic announced that earlier this year it had launched a molecular biology lab, where Claude agents read and conjecture ab…

MIT Technology Review

OpenAI reportedly ditches model over safety concerns

A top executive at the AI lab told the Wall Street Journal that the model in question had displayed a poor aptitude for following orders.

OpenAI Cancels Release of GPT-6.1 Astra Because It ‘Regressed’ on Safety

It doesn’t sound like it morphed into a diabolical hacker. It mostly just screwed up.

Trending

Places To Visit: Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

There are many benefits to spending time in the park, but perhaps few of them have a Hackaday angle. There’s a park in Germany you might want to make an …read more

Synthetic Aperture Radar Drone Gets Interferometric Imaging

It’s been more than a year since [Henrik Forstén] built the first iteration of his synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imaging drone, and he’s certainly been productive in the meantime. Not only …read more

Jeff – Jev-compatible 0.8B decision models, trained at home, ~30 ms

Article URL: https://github.com/firelex/jeff Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883844 Points: 434 # Comments: 163

EP227: Top 9 Places to Use Jev

Jev is TypeSafe AI’s first System One Model. It is 100x faster and cheaper than frontier LLMs.

AI Agents Can Think. Now They Can Pay.

I attended a MPP event at Stripe HQ, where I spoke with Emily Sands and Matt Schulman from Stripe, along with Brendan Ryan from Tempo.

World Labs Is Joining AMD

Article URL: https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog/amd-announcement Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883760 Points: 250 # Comments: 104

So long Google, and thanks for all the nudes

Article URL: https://lecaro.me/20260921-google-less.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49881951 Points: 226 # Comments: 89

Two-Dimensional Material Now Easier to Manufacture

We often see scientific breakthroughs in journals or other media that’s reported on as if it’s a revolutionary technology guaranteed to reshape human existence, only to never hear about it …read more

It's Time to Investigate the AI Labs

Article URL: https://calnewport.com/its-time-to-investigate-the-ai-labs/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883471 Points: 413 # Comments: 155