This Week’s Superior Tech Tales From Across the Net (Via March 2)

Google DeepMind’s New Generative Mannequin Makes Tremendous Mario-Like Video games From Scratch
Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Expertise Evaluate
“OpenAI’s latest reveal of its gorgeous generative mannequin Sora pushed the envelope of what’s attainable with text-to-video. Now Google DeepMind brings us text-to-video video games. The brand new mannequin, referred to as Genie, can take a brief description, a hand-drawn sketch, or a photograph and switch it right into a playable online game within the model of basic 2D platformers like Tremendous Mario Bros.”

Determine Rides the Humanoid Robotic Hype Wave to $2.6B Valuation
Brian Heater | TechCrunch
“[On Thursday] Determine confirmed long-standing rumors that it’s been elevating extra money than God. The Bay Space-based robotics agency introduced a $675 million Collection B spherical that values the startup at $2.6 billion post-money. The lineup of buyers is equally spectacular. It consists of Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, Jeff Bezos (by way of Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Enterprise Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures and ARK Make investments. It’s a mind-boggling sum of cash for what stays a still-young startup, with an 80-person headcount. That final bit will nearly definitely change with this spherical.”

How First Contact With Whale Civilization May Unfold
Ross Andersen | The Atlantic
“One evening final winter, over drinks in downtown Los Angeles, the biologist David Gruber instructed me that human beings may sometime discuss to sperm whales. …Gruber mentioned that they hope to document billions of the animals’ clicking sounds with floating hydrophones, after which to decipher the sounds’ which means utilizing neural networks. I used to be instantly intrigued. For years, I had been toiling away on a guide in regards to the seek for cosmic civilizations with whom we would talk. This one was proper right here on Earth.”

RIP Apple Automobile. This Is Why It Died
Aarian Marshall | Wired
“After a decade of rumors, secretive developments, govt entrances and exits, and pivots, Apple reportedly instructed staff yesterday that its automotive undertaking, internally referred to as ‘Challenge Titan,’ is not any extra. …’Prototypes are straightforward, quantity manufacturing is tough, constructive money circulation is excruciating,’ Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a number of years again. It’s a lesson that would-be automotive firms—in addition to Tesla—appear to be taught repeatedly. Even after a decade of labor, Apple by no means fairly obtained to step one.”

Apple Revolutionized the Auto Business With out Promoting a Single Automobile
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
“Apple is so huge, and its gadgets so pervasive, that it didn’t have to promote a single car with the intention to remodel the auto business—not by way of batteries and engines, however by way of software program. The power to hyperlink your smartphone to your automotive’s contact display screen, which Apple pioneered 10 years in the past, is now customary. Just about each main automotive firm has taken an Apple-inspired strategy to expertise, to such a level that ‘smartphone on wheels’ has develop into an business cliché. The Apple Automobile already exists, and also you’ve nearly definitely ridden in a single.”

Bitcoin Surges Towards All-Time Excessive as Everybody Forgets What Occurred Final Time
Matt Novak | Gizmodo
“Bitcoin’s value surged previous $63,000 after which receded only a bit beneath on Wednesday, reaching a stage the crypto coin hasn’t seen since November 2021. Whereas it nonetheless has slightly strategy to climb to achieve an all-time excessive of $68,000, that stage feels comfortably inside attain. And if you happen to’re feeling uneasy in regards to the rally, given what occurred two years in the past, you’re not alone.”

Excessive-Velocity Humanoid Feels Like a Step Change in Robotics
Loz Blain | New Atlas
“You’ve seen a ton of movies of humanoid robots—however this one feels completely different. It’s Sanctuary’s Phoenix bot, with ‘the world’s finest robotic arms,’ working completely autonomously at near-human speeds—a lot sooner than Tesla’s or Determine’s robots.

The Mindblowing Expertise of a Chatbot That Solutions Immediately
Steven Levy | Wired
“Groq makes chips optimized to hurry up the big language fashions which have captured our imaginations and stoked our fears previously 12 months. …The expertise of utilizing a chatbot that doesn’t want even a number of seconds to generate a response is stunning. I typed in a simple request, as you do with LLMs as of late: Write a musical about AI and dentistry. I had hardly stopped typing earlier than my display screen was crammed with an in depth blueprint for the two-act Mysteries of the Mouth.”

SECURITY

Right here Come the AI Worms
Matt Burgess | Wired
“In an indication of the dangers of linked, autonomous AI ecosystems, a bunch of researchers have created certainly one of what they declare are the primary generative AI worms—which might unfold from one system to a different, probably stealing knowledge or deploying malware within the course of. ‘It mainly implies that now you will have the flexibility to conduct or to carry out a brand new sort of cyberattack that hasn’t been seen earlier than,’ says Ben Nassi, a Cornell Tech researcher behind the analysis.”

Picture Credit score: Diego PH / Unsplash