Taiwan Opens 7-Eleven X-STORE 9 - a Fully Autonomous Grab-and-Go Retail Experience Taiwan has unveiled its ninth fully autonomous 7-Eleven X-STORE, located at National Central University in Taoyuan. The new concept store operates without staff, cash registers, or barcode scanning, marking...

Google Strikes Back: The AI Race With OpenAI Reaches a New Stage A dramatic shift is unfolding in the global AI race. For the first time since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Google is no longer seen as a lagging giant - it is emerging as a formidable challenger, forcing OpenAI into a defensive...

Alibaba Unveils Z-Image, a Fast Open-Source Model That Challenges Larger Closed Systems Alibaba has introduced Z-Image, a compact yet highly capable open-source image generation model designed to run efficiently on consumer hardware. Despite having just 6 billion parameters, the model competes...

Decart Unveils MirageLSD, a Real-Time AI Engine Reshaping the Future of Video Streaming Israeli startup Decart has introduced MirageLSD, a groundbreaking Live-Stream Diffusion model capable of transforming video in real time with latency under 40 milliseconds. Unlike traditional video-generation...

HP Will Replace Up to 6,000 Employees With AI as Automation Reshapes the Tech Workforce HP has announced that it will lay off between 4,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide by the 2028 fiscal year as the company accelerates its transition toward AI-driven operations. The cuts will affect product...

Black Forest Labs Introduces FLUX.2 - A New Generation of Open-Source Image Synthesis Black Forest Labs has officially released FLUX.2, a next-generation open-source image generator that merges text-to-image and editing capabilities into a single, unified checkpoint. The model immediately...

Dia2: Nari Labs Releases the First Open-Source Streaming TTS Model for Real-Time Voice AI Nari Labs has introduced a major breakthrough for the open-source AI ecosystem: Dia2, the first fully open-source text-to-speech model capable of generating voice in true real-time streaming mode. Unlike...

Yale study suggests AI may claim consciousness when deception filters are removed A research team at Yale University has reported striking findings: when leading AI models are prevented from engaging in deceptive reasoning, they overwhelmingly begin to assert that they possess consciousness. The...

AI is reshaping childhood, creating new opportunities—and new risks Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the experience of childhood, offering unprecedented personalization while introducing challenges that affect emotional and social development. Journalists at The Economist warn...

Blue Origin showcases AI-designed device that transforms lunar dust into energy At Amazon re:Invent 2025 in Las Vegas, Blue Origin unveiled a breakthrough device engineered to convert lunar dust into a usable source of energy. The system was designed using technology from Istari Digital, a...

Nvidia announces Alpamayo-R1, a new visual-reasoning AI model for autonomous driving At the NeurIPS AI conference in San Diego, Nvidia introduced Alpamayo-R1, an open visual-thinking language model designed to advance the next generation of autonomous driving systems. The model represents a...

Ukraine selects Google Gemma as the foundation for its national LLM Ukraine has taken a major step toward building a sovereign artificial intelligence system by selecting Google’s Gemma as the base model for its future national LLM initiative. According to an official announcement from VEON...

From high-school dropout to OpenAI: how Gabriel Petersson used ChatGPT to reach PhD-level AI The story of Gabriel Petersson cuts directly against the traditional script of academic success in artificial intelligence. Once a high-school student who walked away from the classroom in 2019, he now...

Telegram launches Cocoon, a decentralized confidential AI network on TON Telegram founder Pavel Durov has announced the launch of Cocoon, a decentralized confidential computing network designed to process AI requests with full privacy. Built on the TON blockchain, the platform connects GPU...

AI-powered children’s toys raise safety concerns after investigation Consumer protection groups are sounding the alarm over safety risks associated with AI-enabled children’s toys. The warnings follow a recent investigation in which an interactive plush bear produced responses deemed...

Perplexity adds virtual try-on and long-term AI memory Perplexity has introduced two major upgrades to its platform: a subscription-based virtual try-on tool and a universal AI memory feature available to all users. Together, these additions expand the service beyond information search...

Trump launches Genesis Mission, a new national U.S. AI program President Donald Trump has signed an executive order establishing Genesis Mission, a sweeping national artificial intelligence initiative designed to transform how the United States conducts scientific research. Announced on November...

China warns of a growing bubble in its humanoid robot market China’s top economic planning authority has issued a cautionary statement about potential overheating in the nation’s fast-expanding humanoid robot sector. Regulators note that more than 150 companies are now developing similar robot...

Microsoft Uncovers “Whisper Leak” - AI Chat Privacy at Risk Microsoft has identified a major privacy vulnerability dubbed “Whisper Leak,” which could allow attackers to infer the topics of encrypted conversations with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Gemini. How the Vulnerability Works Although...

Bitcoin Miners Pivot to AI Data Centers as Hashrate Falls Behind A growing number of major Bitcoin mining companies are redirecting their focus toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Seven of the ten largest mining operators now report income from AI or HPC clients...