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The Download: a quantum radar, and chipmakers’ deal with the US government

Physicists have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging, using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected radio waves. The radar is a... Read more »

This quantum radar could image buried objects

The glass cell that serves as the radar’s quantum component is full of cesium atoms kept at room temperature. The researchers use lasers to get each individual cesium atom to swell to... Read more »

The Download: GPT-5 is here, and Intel’s CEO drama

Quote of the day “I don’t think we should think of them as the ‘new Google’ yet.” —Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s CEO, questions the hype swirling around AI agents’ capabilities, TechCrunch reports. One... Read more »

GPT-5 is here. Now what?

Whereas o1 was a major technological advancement, GPT-5 is, above all else, a refined product. During a press briefing, Sam Altman compared GPT-5 to Apple’s Retina displays, and it’s an apt analogy,... Read more »

The Download: how AI is improving itself, and hidden greenhouse gases

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg declared that Meta aims to achieve smarter-than-human AI. He seems to have a recipe for achieving that goal, and the first ingredient is human talent: Zuckerberg has reportedly... Read more »

The greenhouse gases we’re not accounting for

Researchers around the world set to work unraveling the mystery, reviewing readings from satellites, aircraft, and greenhouse-gas monitoring stations. They eventually spotted a clear pattern: Methane emissions had increased sharply across the... Read more »

Five ways that AI is learning to improve itself

That’s why Mirhoseini has been using AI to optimize AI chips. Back in 2021, she and her collaborators at Google built a non-LLM AI system that could decide where to place various... Read more »

The Download: OpenAI’s open-weight models, and the future of internet search

The news: OpenAI has finally released its first open-weight large language models since 2019’s GPT-2. Unlike the models available through OpenAI’s web interface, these new open models can be freely downloaded, run,... Read more »

OpenAI has finally released open-weight language models

“The vast majority of our [enterprise and startup] customers are already using a lot of open models,” said Casey Dvorak, a research program manager at OpenAI, in a media briefing about the... Read more »

The Download: AI agent infrastructure, and OpenAI’s ambitions

The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 OpenAI is adding mental health guardrails to ChatGPTIt’s set to give less direct advice, and encourage... Read more »