Author: AI News First

Social scientist Kasley Killam has always been fascinated by the science of human connection. In college, for instance, she once decided to conduct a personal experiment and perform an act of kindness everyday for 108 days. At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she researched solutions for loneliness. At Google’s health spinoff, Verily, her job was to bring people together to promote social health. “I first came across the term ‘social health’ during my research at Stanford, where I was developing an app around human connection,” Killam says. “Since then all my work has been through the lens…

The Qwen team at Alibaba has unveiled QwQ-32B, a 32 billion parameter AI model that demonstrates performance rivalling the much larger DeepSeek-R1. This breakthrough highlights the potential of scaling Reinforcement Learning (RL) on robust foundation models. The Qwen team have successfully integrated agent capabilities into the reasoning model, enabling it to think critically, utilise tools, and adapt its reasoning based on environmental feedback. “Scaling RL has the potential to enhance model performance beyond conventional pretraining and post-training methods,” the team stated. “Recent studies have demonstrated that RL can significantly improve the reasoning capabilities of models.” QwQ-32B achieves performance comparable to…

Google co-founder Larry Page is building a new company called Dynatomics that’s focused on applying AI to product manufacturing, according to The Information. Page is reportedly working with a small group of engineers on AI that can create “highly optimized” designs for objects and then have a factory build them, per The Information. Chris Anderson, previously the CTO of Page-backed electric airplane startup Kittyhawk, is running the stealth effort, The Information reports. Page isn’t the only entrepreneur exploring ways AI could be used to improve manufacturing processes (although he might be one of the richest). Orbital Materials is creating an…

A now-deleted list containing hundreds of US government properties that the General Services Administration (GSA) plans to sell includes most of a sprawling, highly sensitive federal complex in Springfield, Virginia, that also houses a secretive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility, WIRED has learned.The GSA’s effort to sell hundreds of US government properties is part of a blunt reshaping of the federal government and its workforce led by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Staffed in part by young engineers with no prior experience in government, DOGE’s efforts have resulted in mass reductions in force, the effective shuttering of…

Communication serves as the bridge that connects individuals and facilitates the exchange of ideas, thoughts, and information. Communication skills are integral to fostering positive professional relationships, whether delivering a presentation, brainstorming with colleagues, addressing concerns with a superior, or discussing a client’s project. According to a PMI report, Teams that communicate effectively can increase project success rates by 52% compared to those with poor communication. While it might seem like communication is mostly about talking and listening, there’s more to it than that. In this article we will equip you with actionable strategies on how to improve communication skills, why they…

This armless turntable automatically selects 33 or 45 RPM! HomeGift Ideas $400+This armless turntable automatically selects 33 or 45 RPM! Gadget Flow EditorsThe Waiting For Ideas PP-1 armless turntable ditches the fuss. It turns vinyl sessions into moments you feel, not just hear. –Solid Aluminum, Zero Compromises: Crafted from a single block of aluminum. Takes 12 weeks to make. Sturdy, sleek, and built to outlast trends.–Play It Upside Down. Yes, Really: Drop your vinyl. Flip it. Press Play. Skip the tonearm drama. Just a volume knob and one button.–Speed? It Knows What to Do: Auto-senses 33 or 45 RPM. No dials.…

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a renowned privacy hawk who has served on the Senate intelligence committee since just after 9/11, has referred to the new provision as “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.”Declassifying the new types of businesses that can actually be considered an ECSP is an essential step in bringing about clarity to an otherwise nebulous change in federal surveillance practices, according to the ACLU and the other organizations joined in its effort. “Without such basic transparency, the law will likely continue to permit sweeping NSA surveillance on domestic soil…

For years, Ukrainian officials have hinted that they are working on Starlink alternatives. But the truth is, there aren’t many options on the table.The one most discussed is OneWeb, a satellite communications network owned by Eutelsat, a satellite operator in France. Like Starlink, this network relies on small, ground-based terminals, and its total constellation includes around 630 low-Earth-orbit satellites, which offer very high-speed connectivity and lower latency than satellites that orbit at higher altitudes.Joanna Darlington, a spokeswoman for Eutelsat, says that OneWeb offers Europe-wide coverage and that the technology is already deployed in Ukraine to some extent, though she declined…

Nvidia’s 50 Series releases are chugging right along, even though things haven’t exactly been smooth. The top end of the series has shown impressive 4K performance, but finding one in stock for close to MSRP requires active effort or plenty of patience.At just $549, the RTX 5070 is currently the least expensive graphics card in the 50 Series to be officially announced. It can handle 1080p gaming just fine, but it struggles to keep up at 1440p, and especially with high-refresh-rate monitors becoming more common. It’s a nice size, but I’d recommend saving up for the more expensive GPUs, or…

Over the past year, Karla Reyes and her team at Anima Interactive have visited the US-Mexico border twice to interview migrants and humanitarians. Once a month, Reyes interviews migrants remotely via video calls. She’s spoken to dozens. They come from Latin America, but also South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, each with a shared goal: to cross into the US in search of safety.In January, hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, thousands of migrants suddenly received notice that their appointments with US Customs and Border Protection—the agency that would help them gain asylum—had been canceled. The administration shut down…