NerdNews

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) held its inaugural Unify conference, where the future of the Matter smart home standard was discussed. Despite initial struggles, Matter is making progress, with the announcement of version 1.6 of the spec and the introduction of Joint Fabric, which allows for a single smart home network to be controlled by any Matter platform. However, platform adoption and implementation remain a challenge.

Google is expanding its personalized intelligence feature to the Gemini app, allowing users to generate images based on their personal data across Google services such as Gmail and Google Photos. The feature is available to most personal accounts in the US and supports multiple languages.

Google reportedly capped Meta's use of its Gemini AI model due to exceeded computing capacity. Meta uses Gemini for customer service, chatbots, and coding, but has struggled with computing power despite investing in data centers. This incident highlights the challenges tech giants face in finding sufficient computing power for their AI needs.

Google's Gemini app now offers free personalized AI image generation to US users, using Nano Banana-powered technology to create images based on user interests and preferences

OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.6 Sol, its most capable cybersecurity model yet, with restricted access to vetted partners due to US government requests. The model is part of a new series with three tiers: Sol, Terra, and Luna, and is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens.

As enterprises deploy agentic AI, IAM providers are developing ways to secure these systems, including monitoring agent actions, assigning unique identities, and implementing fine-grained authentication. Okta's Auth0 for AI Agents and Saviynt's approach to bring AI agents under one umbrella are examples of these efforts.

Agentic AI has an identity problem, with attackers taking notice. Traditional identity programs fall short, and new approaches are needed to govern AI agents at scale without sacrificing speed. The path forward involves identity-centric governance, with essential controls for agent identity, automated enforcement, and decentralized control with centralized policy.

Mirendil, a startup backed by a16z, is working on self-improving AI systems to accelerate scientific progress. The company believes that access to frontier AI capabilities should be open to all, not just a few deep-pocketed labs. With a valuation of $1 billion, Mirendil is poised to make a significant impact in the AI industry.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that geofence warrants, which compel tech companies to provide location data for devices in a specific area, are considered a 'search' under the 4th Amendment. This decision will impact how police departments seek cellphone location data in the future, requiring them to show probable cause. The court stopped short of declaring geofence warrants unconstitutional, but the ruling provides critical protection against invasive government searches.

Governor Gavin Newsom and Anthropic have made a deal allowing California government agencies to use Claude, Anthropic's AI chatbot, at half price. The agreement provides access to Claude, training, and support for state employees to draft documents and analyze information, aiming to make government more efficient while maintaining safety standards.

AWS FinOps Agent is a managed service that automates FinOps workflows, investigating cost anomalies, correlating spend changes with AWS activity data, and integrating with tools like Slack and Jira. It's built on Amazon Bedrock and available in public preview.

Arena, a popular AI model performance leaderboard, has reached $100 million in annualized run-rate revenue just eight months after launching its commercial service. The company's platform provides model labs and enterprises with deep-dive performance analytics gathered from its community of over 10 million user evaluations.

Cursor has launched a mobile app, allowing users to interact with coding agents on-the-go. The app ties into the company's 2.0 changes, which shifted the service toward independent coding agents. This move follows similar apps from Anthropic and OpenAI, and is part of a broader shift in AI-based coding tools.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to collect location data from tech companies, are protected by privacy rights. The court decided that authorities need to obtain a search warrant to collect this data, showing probable cause that the target may have committed a crime. This ruling is expected to have broad ramifications for privacy rights and law enforcement across the United States.

Omen AI has developed a tiny spectrometer to monitor fluid health in real-time, reducing downtime and costs for data centers. The company has raised $31 million in Series A funding and is working with a dozen data center customers.

The cellular IoT module market saw strong growth in 2025, with shipments reaching 612 million units, up 33% from the previous year. The market is expected to continue growing, with shipments forecast to reach 878 million units by 2030. The growth is driven by increasing demand for IoT devices, particularly in the smart gas and water metering, and local area IoT deployments.

Taiwanese authorities have reportedly raided Supermicro, a hardware company, as part of a US federal case over alleged AI chip smuggling. The move could signal a big change for AI chip exporters, as Taiwan may start enforcing US export controls. Supermicro has been accused of smuggling $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia hardware to China.

Anthropic and Amazon are in a dispute over token-based pricing, which may lead to higher costs for Amazon. Amazon is exploring alternatives, including a potential deal with OpenAI, amid a deeper rift in their relationship.

Jackery announced the Ark AI EMS, a software-based energy management system that uses AI for predictive forecasting and automation. It's designed for homes with solar power and backup batteries, and promises to save users up to 75% in combined solar and battery setups. The system will be released in the US, but no pricing has been announced.

Proception, a robot hand company, has settled a trade secret suit with Tesla and announced an $11M raise. The company is developing a high-dexterity robotic hand that can mimic human hands, with 22 degrees of freedom and multiple joints per finger. Proception's approach involves using a glove laden with sensors to collect human hand interaction data, which can be used to train its robotic hands.