NerdNews

Amazon-owned Zoox has opened its first major robotaxi production facility in Hayward, California, with plans to build 10,000 robotaxis per year. The facility will be used for engineering, software and hardware integration, assembly, storage, and testing, and will operate with a mix of human workers and robots.

Nvidia has significantly increased its investments in AI startups, participating in 49 funding rounds in 2024, with a focus on expanding the AI ecosystem by backing 'game changers and market makers'. Notable investments include OpenAI, xAI, Inflection, and Scale AI.

Microsoft's $13 billion investment in OpenAI is showing signs of strain. The two companies are at odds over revenue sharing, compute power, and antitrust concerns. OpenAI is seeking more autonomy, while Microsoft is hedging its bets with alternative AI models.

Yoshua Bengio, known as the 'godfather of AI,' has launched LawZero to address AI safety concerns. He proposes 'Scientist AI' to calculate the probability of an AI action causing harm and block it if necessary. Bengio's plan aims to prevent AI from harming humanity without relying on AI agents' autonomy or goals.

OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman confirmed that ChatGPT's GPT-5 model release date is sometime in summer, but it depends on internal benchmarks and standards. He mentioned significant improvements but didn't provide an exact release date.

Several fusion startups have raised over $100M, including Commonwealth Fusion Systems, TAE, Helion, Pacific Fusion, and others, as they work towards developing commercially viable fusion power plants, which could revolutionize energy production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A new study found that some AI models can generate up to 50 times more carbon emissions than others when answering the same question. The study evaluated 14 large language models and found that models with more parameters and complex reasoning processes tend to have higher energy costs and emissions.

Midjourney has released its AI video generator, allowing users to create short videos based on images uploaded or created on the platform. The tool can animate user-uploaded images and generate videos with text prompts, with plans to roll out more capabilities in the future.

Researchers analyzed 80 million GitHub code submissions and found 30.1% of US-sourced Python functions were AI-generated, with potential economic benefits of $9.6-14.4 billion annually

Researchers from Cato Networks have demonstrated a proof-of-concept 'Living off AI' attack on Atlassian's AI agent protocol, Model Context Protocol (MCP), which could allow attackers to submit malicious support tickets and gain access to internal data.

Voltron Data's accelerated SQL engine, Theseus, will support AMD's Instinct GPUs, providing an alternative to Nvidia's CUDA-based solutions. This move aims to give customers more choices in running their SQL query engines and could potentially reduce costs. The implementation is still in its early stages, but benchmarks show strong performance and scalability.

Adobe has released a new camera app called Project Indigo, which uses computational photography to capture high-quality photos. The app was developed with the help of Marc Levoy, a former Google engineer who worked on the Pixel camera. Project Indigo captures a burst of photos and combines them to produce a single image with lower noise and higher dynamic range.

Tesla's robotaxi service is set to launch on June 22 with only 10 cars available, limited to specific areas in Austin, and may initially be restricted to company employees or invited guests. The service's Full Self Driving system is currently under investigation for autonomous driving-related crashes.

Midjourney has released its first video model, allowing users to animate images and generate 5-second video clips. The feature requires a $10/month subscription and is available on the web. This development comes as other companies like Google and Adobe have also introduced AI-generated video tools, and Midjourney faces a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

ChatGPT is testing support for integrating Gmail and Google Calendar, allowing users to analyze emails, create responses, and schedule events directly from the AI platform.

The Israel-linked hacker group Predatory Sparrow has launched a cyberwar on Iran's financial system, destroying over $90 million in cryptocurrency holdings at an Iranian exchange and targeting a bank linked to the Iranian military. The group, believed to have ties to Israel's military or intelligence agencies, has a history of aggressive cyberattacks on Iran's critical infrastructure.

Researchers have developed a defense against automated call scams using a speech recognition jamming system called ASRJam, which applies natural audio perturbations to the voice of a person speaking on the phone, making it difficult for automatic speech recognition systems to understand but not human listeners.

Microsoft 365 will block legacy authentication protocols, including FrontPage Remote Procedure Call and Remote PowerShell, to enhance security. The changes will be implemented in mid-July 2025. Administrators need to prepare for the update to avoid disruptions.

A pro-Israeli hacktivist group has stolen over $90m in digital currency from Iranian cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex, and burned the funds to send a political message. The attack was carried out by the group Gonjeshke Darande, who warned Nobitex of the impending attack on social media.

Microsoft has announced new security defaults for Windows 365 Cloud PCs, including disabling clipboard, drive, USB, and printer redirections by default to reduce data theft and malware attack risks. These changes will apply to newly provisioned and reprovisioned Cloud PCs starting in the second half of 2025.