Researchers Stefanie Tellex and Atsunobu Kotani at Brown University built a robot system that, after training solely on Japanese characters, was able to reproduce handwriting in Hindi, Greek, English print and cursive, and even sketch the Mona Lisa without direct training on those examples. The system works using two coordinated models: one governing individual pen strokes and another managing the overall structure of characters.
New workplace research suggests that professionals benefit more from building networks that span different generations, industries, and backgrounds than from sticking with familiar peer groups. The findings indicate that homogeneous networks, while comfortable, tend to limit exposure to fresh ideas and opportunities.
A developer explains their search for a way to develop and test Apple platform apps without owning a traditional Mac, after finding virtual machines unreliable and Codemagic's cloud CI/CD service too costly or impersonal for real testing. They ultimately decided they needed genuine Apple hardware and documented the process of setting up a stripped-down, headless Mac configuration to serve that purpose.
Rockstar Games and Miami-Dade county's mayor's office are reportedly discussing a marketing tie-in that would rebrand parts of the county to resemble Grand Theft Auto 6's fictional Vice City, according to Rock Paper Shotgun and Axios. Proposed elements include airport signage and baggage displays, branded transit skytrains, a dockyard installation modeled on the game's Port Gellhorn, a classic-car 'Vice City Motor Fest,' murals, wrapped buses, and library programs with GTA-themed cards and recording gear. Nothing has been formally approved, and the county sheriff has publicly opposed the plan, citing the game's depiction of crime.
Vancouver's Penthouse Night Club posted a photo of its marquee mocking Donald Trump's comments about renaming Lake Ontario and referencing the algae-filled reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. Hours after the post went up, the club's Instagram account, @Penthouse47, was taken down, with owner Danny Filippone saying staff noticed the account had vanished around midnight. The account remained offline as of publication, with no clear explanation given for the removal.
A new supply-chain report from Omdia indicates Apple will continue producing current miniLED display panels through 2028, suggesting the existing MacBook Pro design will stay in the lineup alongside a redesigned OLED model. That redesigned version, expected as soon as next month with a touchscreen, thinner build, and Dynamic Island, is increasingly likely to be branded MacBook Ultra rather than replace the MacBook Pro name outright.
Testers gave OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra control of the same YAM robotic arms used to evaluate Claude Fable 5 and 5.1, under identical Inspect Robots policies and two manipulation tasks. Astra placed a block into a bowl in 19 of 20 trials, far surpassing Fable 5.1's 8 of 20 and Fable 5's 1 of 20, while running roughly 2.7 times faster and cheaper per attempt. On a harder puzzle-piece insertion task, however, Astra matched Fable 5.1 at just 2 successes out of 20, stalling at the same final step.
Campaign finance filings reviewed by the Washington Post show 39 congressional candidates paid for OpenAI subscriptions, with some acknowledging use for advertising and message drafting despite OpenAI's rules barring political ad generation. Roughly 30 PACs and parties also reported OpenAI payments, led by the Republican National Committee at about $9,700.
Apple maintains significantly higher price points for iPhones compared to iPads despite similar underlying technology, reflecting deliberate business positioning rather than manufacturing differences. The pricing gap stems from the iPhone's role as an essential daily device with premium brand positioning, while iPads serve as secondary devices where Apple needs affordability to compete with Chromebooks and grow its ecosystem.
A developer has launched Cloud in a Bottle, an open-source personal cloud platform that packages containerized apps with unified authentication and a simplified interface, aiming to let anyone run their own private cloud without sysadmin expertise. The creator argues existing self-hosting tools like Sandstorm, Nextcloud, YunoHost, and Coolify all fall short due to abandonment, poor security isolation, or fragmented app management. Cloud in a Bottle is positioned as an alternative that treats self-hosting like using a smartphone rather than managing a server.
A growing number of individual investors are using generative AI to write custom trading scripts and delegate portfolio decisions to automated agents, effectively mimicking strategies once reserved for professional quant funds. This trend, sometimes called 'vibe-coding,' lets non-programmers describe a trading idea in plain language and have AI translate it into executable code.
A researcher who previously exposed a similar Chrome bug in 2019 has found that Chrome version 152.0.7977.83 again exempts google.com from the 'delete site data on close' setting, letting Google cookies, local storage, and session storage persist after all windows are closed and even after relaunching the browser. The behavior was reproduced on two Macs, with sign-in and default search engine ruled out as causes, and appears specific to www.google.com.
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