NerdNews

Samsung has completed the industry's first commercial call over virtualised RAN (vRAN), powered by Intel Xeon 6700P-B processor series. This achievement accelerates AI-native, 6G-ready networks, reducing physical space, energy consumption, and costs. The single-server vRAN deployment consolidates network elements, simplifies management, and improves efficiency.

Motive has launched AI Dashcam Plus, a class of intelligence hardware for commercial vehicles that uses driving analytics to enable drivers and operators to stay safe on the road in real-time. The device is powered by the Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS6490 processor and can run over 30 AI models simultaneously, detecting and responding to risk instantly.

Apple has signed a deal with Google to use its Gemini AI model, which will power future iPhones and improve Siri's capabilities. This partnership is expected to elevate the iPhone's dominance in the market and give Apple a competitive edge in AI technology.

1X, the company behind the Neo humanoid robot, has released a new AI model called the 1X World Model. This physics-based model uses video and prompts to give Neo robots new abilities, allowing them to learn from internet-scale video and apply that knowledge to the physical world. The model enables Neo bots to transform prompts into new actions, although with limitations, and provides users with insight into the bot's thought process.

Deepgram, a voice AI company, has raised $130 million in a Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation. The company plans to use the funding to expand its global footprint, support multiple languages, and cater to restaurants through voice AI. Deepgram has acquired Y Combinator-backed OfOne, which built a voice AI-powered solution for quick-service restaurants.

Google's John Mueller and Danny Sullivan say that breaking content into smaller chunks for LLMs is not an effective long-term strategy for search ranking. Instead, creating content for humans is the best approach, as it ensures long-term search exposure.

Microsoft has announced a new initiative to cover full electricity costs for its data centers, addressing community concerns over rising electricity bills and water usage. The company plans to set a high bar for responsible data center development, including minimizing water use and creating local jobs.

Vulnerabilities in popular AI and ML Python libraries used in Hugging Face models allow remote attackers to hide malicious code in metadata, enabling remote code execution. The affected libraries, including NeMo, Uni2TS, and FlexTok, use Hydra's instantiate() function, which can be exploited to achieve RCE. The libraries' maintainers have issued security warnings, fixes, and CVEs, but the threat remains as attackers can create malicious models with poisoned metadata.

The Every team is focusing on agent-native technology, offering two hands-on camps, Vibe Code Camp and Agent-native Camp, to learn about building with AI agents. New subscribers can get their first 30 days free and join the Every community to stay at the edge of AI.

Uber redesigned its mobile analytics architecture to standardize event instrumentation across iOS and Android, simplifying engineering effort and improving data quality. The new platform uses shared infrastructure, standardized event types, and analytics builders to manage event lifecycle and metadata attachment.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul plans to introduce legislation to legalize robotaxis in the state, except in New York City. The legislation would expand the state's existing AV pilot program, allowing for the limited deployment of commercial for-hire autonomous passenger vehicles outside NYC. Companies like Waymo would need to submit applications demonstrating local support and adherence to high safety standards.

ElevenLabs, a voice AI startup, has crossed $330 million in annual recurring revenue. The company's voice agent technology is being adopted by Fortune 500 companies and startups for customer support and experience interactions. ElevenLabs has also launched music creation capabilities and struck deals with celebrities for AI-generated content.

Converge Bio, an AI-driven drug discovery startup, has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The company uses generative AI to speed up drug development, and has already worked with over a dozen pharmaceutical and biotech customers. The funding will be used to expand its platform and grow its team.

Apple introduces Creator Studio, a subscription-based suite of creative apps including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro, priced at $13/month, significantly cheaper than Adobe's Creative Cloud. The suite will be available on the App Store starting January 28, with a one-month free trial and an annual payment option.

Google's Veo 3.1 AI video model now supports vertical video output and improved consistency with reference images. The update also includes resolution upscaling to 4K and improved 1080p video generation. The 'Ingredients to Video' tool allows users to generate videos based on up to three reference images.

ING bank has centralised its AI development efforts, resulting in a high success rate for pilot projects. The bank uses generative AI-powered chatbots and is testing speech-to-speech models to improve customer interactions. With a human-in-the-loop approach, ING aims to streamline mortgage applications and other high-value processes.

The article discusses the difference between SaaS AI accelerators and enterprise AI, and how to decide which one to use. SaaS AI accelerators are hosted add-ons that plug into existing tools, while enterprise AI is a capability that needs to be built or extended to live inside governance. The article provides guidance on how to cut through the noise around AI and figure out which AI cyber use cases are worth a look.

Microsoft's January 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses 114 vulnerabilities, including 3 zero-day flaws, with 8 critical vulnerabilities and 57 elevation of privilege vulnerabilities. The updates also fix issues in Windows, Microsoft Office, and other products.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to integrate Elon Musk's Grok AI into military networks this month, despite recent controversies surrounding the AI tool, including generating sexualized images of women and children. The integration aims to place 'the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department.'

Forrester predicts AI and automation will replace 6.1% of US jobs by 2030, affecting 10.4 million roles. However, the impact is expected to be slow and structural, with AI augmenting one in five roles, and most layoffs being financially driven rather than directly caused by AI.