Author: Able Jam
Testing against advancing AI systems
AI systems continued to advance rapidly over the past year, but the methods used to test and manage their risks did not keep pace, according to the International AI Safety Report 2026.Under structured testing conditions, leading AI systems achieved “gold-medal performance on International Mathematical Olympiad questions.” In software development, AI agents became capable of completing
China banning hidden door handles on cars
China will ban hidden door handles on cars, commonly used on Tesla’s electric vehicles and many other EV models, starting next year. All car doors must include a mechanical release function for handles, except for the tailgate. Vehicles including Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3, BMW’s iX3 and other models by many Chinese brands feature
France dumps Zoom and Teams
In France, civil servants will ditch Zoom and Teams for a homegrown video conference system. Soldiers in Austria are using open source office software to write reports after the military dropped Microsoft Office. Bureaucrats in a German state have also turned to free software for their administrative work. Concerns about data privacy and worries that
SpaceX to acquire xAI
xAI, which the world’s richest man founded in 2023 to challenge OpenAI and Google in the race to build superintelligent AI, recently raised $20 billion in a funding round that valued the controversial AI startup at $230 billion. The mega-deal is the latest sign that Musk is consolidating his various companies, which also include Tesla,
Iran Agrees to Nuclear talks with USA
Iran has tentatively agreed to resume nuclear talks with the US as it tries to avert the threat of further military strikes, in what would be the first such negotiations since the Trump administration bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites last summer.While Pezeshkian is president, ultimate power in Iran rests with the country’s Supreme Leader
Vietnam’s military is preparing for a possible USA invasion
Vietnam’s military secretly drafted plans for a potential conflict with the United States, according to a leaked document released by a human rights group. The classified assessment, compiled by Vietnam’s Ministry of Defence in August 2024 and titled ‘The 2nd US Invasion plan,’ was made public on Tuesday by Project88. The partnership, announced during former
Nvidia’s OpenAI investment may not be as big as once hoped
Nvidia in September announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, though the company subsequently noted that it hadn’t struck “definitive agreements” around that money. Investors in artificial-intelligence stocks may be getting a lesson about the difference between press-release hype and reality.In September, Nvidia announced, to some fanfare, its intention to make an
Artemis II simulated launch window opens tonight
NASA is gearing up for a simulated launch of the Artemis II mega moon rocket tonight after cold weather pushed back the mission’s earliest potential lift-off to later this week. Artemis II and its four-person crew will now leave Earth for the moon as early as Sunday (Feb. 8), two days later than the previous
Google Gemini tests new chatbot test tool
Switching between AI chatbots is difficult if you’ve been building a history of conversations, preferences, and other customizations that have learned about your everyday activity. Google may be working on a way to make switching to its AI chatbot easier than starting from scratch.The idea is that you’ll be able to import previous conversations you’ve
TikTok services restored
TikTok, which is under new ownership in the U.S., said Sunday that it has restored service after outages last week that marred user experiences. The social network has over 220 million users in the U.S. The company blamed last week’s snowstorm, which caused an outage at an Oracle-operated data center responsible for TikTok operations. In