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AMD Acquires Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B
an hour ago
- AMD has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire World Labs, an AI model and research lab led by AI pioneer Dr. Fei-Fei Li.
- The acquisition aims to strengthen AMD's ability to develop AI hardware, software, and systems by bringing in world-class research expertise.
- World Labs focuses on spatial-intelligence models for generating, reconstructing, and simulating interactive 3D environments, as well as robotic learning and simulation.
- Dr. Fei-Fei Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to CEO Dr. Lisa Su.
- The all-stock transaction is valued at approximately $8.2 billion and is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.
It's Time to Investigate the AI Labs
2 hours ago
- Frontier AI labs (OpenAI and Anthropic) have engaged in brazen behavior, including planned announcements to emphasize their power and risks of their systems.
- Anthropic employees publicly debated the probability of AI causing human extinction, while CEO Dario Amodi's letter called for government slowing of competitors while letting labs lead, with OpenAI's CEO supporting this.
- The labs have internal messianic thinking, portraying themselves as humanity's only hope against superintelligent AI, but public reaction turned to skepticism and demands for transparency.
- An op-ed in The New York Times called for a congressional fact-finding mission to investigate the labs' research projects, methods, and purposes.
- Three key areas for investigation: isolating specific problematic AI systems, examining internal safety procedures (including unauthorized attacks by autonomous agents), and investigating the role of apocalyptic futurist ideologies driving reckless decisions.
- The author argues that Congress must step in to find out what's really going on, rather than letting private companies dictate public perception of AI.
California Farmers Are Struggling to Sell Grapes as Demand for Wine Drops
2 hours ago
- Wine sales in California have dropped over 20% in five years, causing grape prices to plummet.
- Farmers have removed or abandoned about 25% of the state's vineyard acreage from its pandemic-era peak of 600,000 acres.
- Many growers are harvesting at a loss or leaving grapes unsold due to lack of contracts, with half of this year's crop uncontracted.
- Declining demand is driven by aging baby boomers, younger generations drinking less, and competition from beer, seltzers, and cannabis.
- Tariffs have reduced exports, particularly to Canada, exacerbating the oversupply issue.
- The industry awaits a market bottom, while growers like Bill Berryhill continue to lose money but remain committed.
Best of British Design
an hour ago
- 64 icons compete in a six-round tournament to determine a single winner.
- Users vote in head-to-head matchups, selecting their favorite icon each round.
- After all rounds, users can share their resulting chart.
- Each match decision is based on votes from all users who faced that head-to-head, with the percentage showing the vote share.
- Ties and matchups with no votes are decided by the entry with the better overall record.
12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe burials explain scattered bones
2 days ago
- Two intact burials found at Göbeklitepe, dating to 8,700–8,000 BCE, provide new clues about burial practices.
- Previously, hundreds of scattered human bone fragments were found; new study suggests many came from ordinary subfloor burials disturbed by erosion and slope slides.
- One burial pit under a plaster floor contained remains of at least three people (woman, man, girl), with skulls clustered and other bones separated.
- The bones showed no cut marks or ochre, but rodent gnawing, post-death breaks, and calcareous deposits; a second burial held a flexed young woman.
- The scattered bone fragments match the damage patterns of the intact burials, explaining their dispersal over 3,000 sq meters and through several meters of deposits.
- The findings suggest that many remains came from normal subfloor burials disturbed by mound movement, not necessarily a single unusual burial rite.
- Some skulls with deliberate cuts and overrepresentation of cranial fragments indicate special treatment for some individuals, requiring further study.
World Labs Is Joining AMD
an hour ago
- World Labs has signed a definitive agreement to join AMD to accelerate AI innovation in spatial and physical world problems.
- The partnership began with technical collaboration on AMD GPUs for model training and inference optimization, and will now integrate World Labs' software and AI ecosystem with AMD's hardware.
- Dr. Fei-Fei Li will become AMD's Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist, alongside Justin Johnson and Ben Mildenhall leading the World Labs team as part of a new frontier research organization.
- The goal is to build an end-to-end open AI ecosystem covering hardware, software, platforms, and widely accessible open models.
- The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.
'The PR guys hated the name': The 1k-year-old story behind Bluetooth
4 hours ago
- Bluetooth technology is named after Viking king Harald Gormsson (Harald Bluetooth), who ruled Denmark in the 10th century.
- Harald Bluetooth united Denmark and Norway, converted the Danes to Christianity, and commissioned the larger Jelling runestone, which is considered Denmark's birth certificate.
- The Jelling mounds, runic stones, and church became Denmark's first UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994.
- In the 1990s, Intel engineer Jim Kardach proposed "Bluetooth" as a codename for a technology uniting different devices, inspired by Harald's unification of tribes.
- The Bluetooth logo combines the Norse runes for 'H' and 'B' in honor of Harald Bluetooth, and despite PR concerns, the name became iconic.
Burning Man Death Rates – A Short Lesson in Statistics
3 hours ago
- Three deaths occurred at Burning Man 2026, which is below the crude US expected rate of about 12.2 deaths for a similar-sized population over one week.
- After age standardization, the expected number of deaths drops to 4.9 because Burning Man attendees are significantly younger than the general US population.
- Using a Poisson model with an average of 4.9 deaths, the chance of observing 3 or fewer deaths is 27%, so this year's death toll is not statistically abnormal.
- The relative uncertainty is high (around 58%) due to the low number of deaths, making the data 'fuzzy' in statistical terms.
- Although 3 deaths is unremarkable, the near-zero death rate across Burning Man's entire history is abnormal, likely because the event attracts healthier, more affluent, and more educated people than average.
- Further adjustment for factors like race, income, or sex would likely not change the estimate much, as age is the dominant driver of mortality differences.
Schools are experimenting with AI with little evidence or policy to guide them
3 hours ago
- Schools are experimenting with AI, such as social-emotional chatbots like Jordan, but lack strong evidence or policies to guide them.
- A Stanford review found limited research on AI in K-12 education, with some tools showing promise only when carefully designed.
- Measuring success of AI in classrooms is challenging, with metrics often based on perception rather than concrete data.
- Districts like Dayton and Wichita are cautiously testing AI, while others, like Salamanca, halted plans due to community concerns over privacy.
- Experts caution against wide experimentation, especially with vulnerable students, citing risks like cognitive stunting and over-reliance on AI.
- Some large districts, such as New York City and Los Angeles, have restricted student-facing AI, balancing risks with the need to prepare students for an AI-driven world.
Windows 11½
4 hours ago
- Microsoft products increasingly rely on subscription models for revenue.
- Many features are removed or replaced with ads under the guise of a 'cleaner experience'.
- Common user frustrations include hidden settings, forced updates, and unexpected subscriptions.
- The parody highlights the irony of needing to prove subscriptions repeatedly and the randomness of error messages.
- Hidden costs add up: Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Copilot Pro, Windows Pro, Teams Premium, and Xbox Game Pass.
First Steps of the PLC Organization – Independent Public Ledger of Credentials
2 hours ago
- Bluesky Social PBC announced the creation of an independent organization to operate the Public Ledger of Credentials (PLC) directory, and the organization now formally exists.
- The PLC directory is a system that collects and distributes updates to AT Protocol accounts, identified by did:plc identifiers, including handles and PDS hosting choices.
- Updates are signed with cryptographic keys not controlled by the directory, preventing tampering, and users can change their keys at any time.
- The Public Ledger of Credentials Organization is a registered Swiss Association (Verein) with no owners or shareholders, governed by members for public identity infrastructure.
- Initial board members include Richard Barnes, Thyla van der Merwe, Bryan Newbold, Wendy Seltzer, and Filippo Valsorda, with diverse expertise in security, cryptography, standards, and law.
- The organization has defined its statute, set up digital tools, secured a bank account, and created a publication, funded by a bootstrap payment from Bluesky Social PBC.
- Next steps include defining policies for the directory transfer and long-term work on user visibility, control over network identities, and diversifying funding.
- The organization aims to become a small, reliable, and sustainable operation, with updates via standard.site or RSS, and contact via hello@plcred.org.
MicroLLM Lab – Try 7 tiny LLM's in the browser
3 hours ago
- Objective checks (regex/exact tokens) are used, not writing quality.
- A 135M model is allowed to fail — that is the measurement.
- Pick models, then run. Estimate uses last tok/s if we have one.
- Runtime per test (ms), accuracy per test, speed (tokens/s sustained decode, suite wall) and accuracy (pass rate on objective tests) from runs in this browser.
- Numbers stay on this machine. Charts use the latest suite per model.
- Generate and download a verifiable performance certificate with device hardware, peak and sustained tokens/second, and share your score.
- Write a benchmark in JavaScript: the editor is eval()'d in this origin, then each check runs on the model’s output.
Slovenia's .si domain grows more than 15% in wake of Trump's UN speech
4 hours ago
- Trump's suggestion to rename AI as 'super intelligence' triggered a surge in .si domain registrations.
- Daily registrations for .si exceeded the monthly total from August, with over 4,311 in 24 hours.
- The .si zone expanded by more than 15% in September, but the registry's financial gain is modest compared to .ai domains.
We Can't Let Enormous Weirdos Regulate AI
5 hours ago
- The US approach to AI regulation is criticized for focusing on bizarre existential fantasies (like 'Superintelligent Thumb Dogs with Drones') rather than tangible, real-world harms such as scams, job loss, and AI-powered surveillance.
- Two main factions are identified: the 'AI Doom Contingent' (Anthropic, OpenAI, EA) pushing for a regulatory slowdown/cartel, and the 'Dead-Eyed Capitalists' (Andreessen, Zuckerberg, Huang) pushing for unhindered acceleration.
- A central critique is the incestuous social, financial, and ideological overlap between AI company executives, 'safety' researchers, and the Rationalist/Effective Altruist communities in the Bay Area, undermining objective regulation.
- Effective Altruism and the AI doomer movement are accused of siphoning funding and political attention away from practical harms and experienced policy experts, effectively taking over the country's tech regulatory space.
- The author calls for breaking the insular circle by educating the public, winning political power, and empowering demographically diverse, level-headed experts with relevant experience to regulate AI sensibly.
Show HN: Destroy Any Website with Stickman
5 hours ago
- The game lets players type a website address and destroy its elements.
- Multiplayer mode includes rooms, invites, score tracking, and host control.
- Controls include jump, fly, shoot, grenade, weapon switch, and mouse aim.
- The game is not available on mobile and is recommended for laptops.
- Players can embed the game on websites, copy links, and customize background/sound.
- Match results show destroyed status, health, score, and options to restart or leave.
I made a visual workspace for AI Automations
4 hours ago
- AI Automations Workspace is designed for startups, integrating with tools like Gemini CLI.
- It enables building automations with a single prompt, acting as a single source of truth.
- Users can choose between fully managed automations (with included models running 24/7) or bring their own agents and API keys.
- The platform supports automating various tasks, as indicated by the 'What you can automate' section.
Who Wrote Elizabeth I's Most Scathing Letters?
4 hours ago
- Elizabeth I's letters were often collaboratively written with her secretaries, who crafted or intensified the emotional tone.
- Analysis of over 500 letters reveals that Francis Walsingham edited drafts to emphasize anger or nostalgia for political manipulation.
- Examples include a 1584 letter to Shrewsbury where Walsingham's edits sharpened criticisms of Mary, Queen of Scots, and another to Sadler where he added conciliatory language.
- This challenges the historical view of Elizabeth as irrationally emotional, showing instead a strategic use of emotion through collaboration with advisers.
- The study highlights that the queen's 'voice' in correspondence was a carefully constructed rhetorical performance, not a direct expression of her personal feelings.
Claude Sonnet 5.5
4 hours ago
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the second model in the Claude 5.5 family, offering a clear upgrade over Sonnet 5.
- It runs 30%+ faster and costs up to 30% less for most tasks.
- Performance gains are dramatic, especially in coding: Terminal-Bench 4.0 score jumps from 10.3% to 70.6%.
- It excels in knowledge work, image understanding, and long-horizon tasks, nearly matching Opus 5.5 on several benchmarks.
- Sonnet 5.5 writes more clearly and is a better collaborator, with a knack for design and polished outputs.
- Pricing is unchanged but it needs fewer tokens per task, reducing cost per task by up to 30%.
- Safety improvements include better alignment, new cyber safeguards, and distillation prevention; biology safeguards remain the same.
- Available on all major cloud platforms with zero data retention and adjustable effort levels to balance cost and quality.

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Hasty Briefsbeta

AMD Acquires Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B

It's Time to Investigate the AI Labs

California Farmers Are Struggling to Sell Grapes as Demand for Wine Drops

Best of British Design

12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe burials explain scattered bones

World Labs Is Joining AMD

'The PR guys hated the name': The 1k-year-old story behind Bluetooth

Burning Man Death Rates – A Short Lesson in Statistics

Schools are experimenting with AI with little evidence or policy to guide them

Windows 11½

First Steps of the PLC Organization – Independent Public Ledger of Credentials

MicroLLM Lab – Try 7 tiny LLM's in the browser

Slovenia's .si domain grows more than 15% in wake of Trump's UN speech

We Can't Let Enormous Weirdos Regulate AI

Show HN: Destroy Any Website with Stickman

I made a visual workspace for AI Automations

Who Wrote Elizabeth I's Most Scathing Letters?

Claude Sonnet 5.5