NerdNews

OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman is backing a new company, Merge Labs, to develop brain-computer interfaces, competing with Elon Musk's Neuralink. The new venture aims to raise $250 million and is valued at $850 million.

Paradigm has developed an AI-powered spreadsheet with over 5,000 AI agents, allowing users to assign prompts to individual columns and cells. The company has raised $7 million, including a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst, and is now releasing its product to the public.

AWS recently released Kiro, a new VS Code fork that supports spec-driven development, aiming to remedy the downsides of vibe coding. Kiro generates user stories, technical design documents, and coding tasks from natural language requirements, and introduces Hooks for consistency and quality control.

DeepMind has introduced Genie 3, a world model framework that generates interactive 3D environments directly from text prompts, allowing for continuous navigation and interaction. The system renders scenes in real-time and maintains consistent physics without a separate memory module.

iOS 26 introduces Liquid Glass design, improved Phone and Messages apps, Live Translation, and more. It will be released this fall, with the public beta now available for download. Compatible iPhone models include iPhone 11 and later.

Grammarly has introduced a new document-based interface and multiple AI features, including an AI assistant, grader, proofreader, and citation finder. The update also includes tools to detect AI-generated content and plagiarism.

Travis Gosselin discusses building an internal developer portal to combat the developer experience crisis, focusing on reducing friction, improving fulfillment, and balancing standardization with flexibility.

HashiCorp's HCP Terraform now offers Hold Your Own Key (HYOK) support, giving customers full control over encryption keys used to protect sensitive Terraform artifacts. This feature ensures that plaintext secrets never transit through HashiCorp infrastructure, helping organizations meet strict compliance and data sovereignty requirements.

Microsoft has introduced a new COPILOT function in Excel, allowing users to perform generative tasks directly within the spreadsheet. The function can be used for tasks such as summarizing feedback, categorizing data, and bringing in outside information. The COPILOT function is currently available to beta users of Microsoft 365 Copilot and can be invoked using a formula, such as =COPILOT("Summarize this feedback into a paragraph",D4:D18).

The UK government is developing an AI-powered assistant to help citizens navigate complex forms and bureaucracy. The 'Exemplar' program aims to deliver billions in value and unlock £45 billion in productivity gains. However, concerns have been raised about the potential 'hallucination' problem inherent in large language models and the legal impact of any errors made by such models.

Apple's upcoming hardware event is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 lineup, featuring a thinner design, improved cameras, and new colors. The iPhone 17 Pro may have a rectangular camera bar, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max could have a slightly thicker body for a larger battery. Additionally, Apple may introduce the iPhone Air, a slimmer phone with a 6.6-inch screen, and update the Apple Watch and AirPods lines.

Gemini 2.5 Deep Think is a model designed for creative problem-solving through parallel thinking techniques and extended inference time, achieving state-of-the-art performance on several benchmarks.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW game streaming service is getting a significant upgrade with the addition of RTX 5080 GPUs, allowing for 5K streaming at up to 120fps and improved image quality with Cinematic Quality Streaming (CQS). The service will also support up to 90fps on the Steam Deck and 5K on newer LG OLED monitors. The Ultimate tier, which costs $20 a month, will have access to the new RTX 5080 streaming servers, 100 hours of monthly playtime, and support for DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation.

Google has announced its first nuclear site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in partnership with Kairos Power. The Hermes 2 plant will supply 50 megawatts of power to Google's data centers under a long-term purchase agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority. The plant is scheduled to begin operations in 2030 and is part of a 500-megawatt deal to provide power for Google's data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.

Nvidia's GeForce Now update introduces 'Install to Play' feature, allowing users to play any game they own on any device with a good internet connection. The update also includes improved streaming quality, 4K resolution at 120 fps, and RTX 5080-level graphics capabilities. Additionally, users can rent out persistent cloud storage for continued access to their games.

Google's Made by Google 2025 event will unveil the Pixel 10 series, featuring AI capabilities with Gemini, a new Tensor G5 processor, and improved camera and video quality. The event will also showcase the Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Buds 2a with new features like blood oxygen monitoring and active noise cancellation.

Microsoft is hinting at a more affordable Xbox Cloud Gaming plan, possibly with a new pricing tier. The company's VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald, discussed the potential for a more affordable option, which could make the service more accessible to players. Currently, Xbox Cloud Gaming is only available as part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription for $19.99 a month.

Microsoft-owned Nuance has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit related to the MOVEit Transfer mega-breach, which exposed the data of over 1.2 million people. The company denies any liability but is settling to avoid further litigation. The breach was caused by the Clop ransomware gang's exploitation of a vulnerability in Progress Software's MOVEit Transfer product.

China has sent an AI model, possibly based on the 'Wukong' open-source AI, to its Tiangong space station. The AI is used to prepare for spacewalks and features a knowledge base centered on aerospace flight standards. It works both on-premises and on Earth, offering a chat interface and solving critical challenges.

China Unicom's 5G-A network provided seamless connectivity for the world's first humanoid robot games, featuring over 500 robots from 280 teams. The network offered high uplink capacity, low latency, and high reliability, enabling real-time interactions between robots and spectators.