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Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan throws cold water on 1-person, billion-dollar startup idea at VB Transform: ‘more people allow you to grow faster’

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more As AI-powered tools spread through enterprise software stacks, AI coding platform Windsurf’s rapid growth is becoming a case study in what happens when developers adopt agentic tooling at scale. In a session at this week’s VentureBeat Transform 2025 conference, CEO and co-founder Varun Mohan discussed how Windsurf’s integrated development

Best Portable Air Conditioners: Cooling Your Home One Room at a Time

Not only did the Midea MAP14HS1TBL excel in performance compared with most portable air conditioners we tested, but it also has a lot of features and specialty options. This model isn't cheap, but it's a well-rounded luxury AC unit with everything you need -- and then some. To start, the MAP14HS1TBL has the highest cooling capacity of any other model we tested. Those 12,000 BTUs come in handy for cooling larger spaces up to 550 square feet, and it showed in the performance. The Midea model beat

Google rolls out text-to-image model Imagen 4 for free

Google Imagen 4, which is the company's state-of-the-art text-to-image model, is rolling out for free, but only on AI Studio. In a blog post, Google announced the rollout of the new Imagen 4 model, but reminded users that it's free for a "limited time" only. Unlike the old text-to-image model, Imagen 4 offers significant improvements and takes the text-to-image generation quality to the next level. Comic generated using Imagen 4 Google says it has two new Imagen models. The first one is cal

The bitter lesson is coming for tokenization

The Bitter Lesson is coming for Tokenization 24 Jun, 2025 a world of LLMs without tokenization is desirable and increasingly possible Published on 24/06/2025 • ⏱️ 29 min read In this post, we highlight the desire to replace tokenization with a general method that better leverages compute and data. We'll see tokenization's role, its fragility and we'll build a case for removing it. After understanding the design space, we'll explore the potential impacts of a recent promising candidate (Byte

Today's NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for June 25, #479

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles. Today's NYT Strands puzzle has a mix of easy and tough answers to find. One of them is not only long, but it was tough for me to unscramble. If you need hints and answers, read on. I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. If you're looking for today's Word

Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for June 25, #745

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Did today's NYT Connections puzzle fool you into looking for a "berries" category, with such clues as blue, straw, rasp and cran? Me too, but of course that would've been too easy for Connections. Read on for clues and today's Connections answers. The Times now has a Conn

Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for June 25, #275

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today's Connections: Sports Edition had four team logos, including my Seattle Seahawks. But the four logos don't all belong in the same category. Read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's a sign tha

New data highlights the race to build more empathetic language models

Measuring AI progress has usually meant testing scientific knowledge or logical reasoning – but while the major benchmarks still focus on left-brain logic skills, there’s been a quiet push within AI companies to make models more emotionally intelligent. As foundation models compete on soft measures like user preference and “feeling the AGI,” having a good command of human emotions may be more important than hard analytic skills. One sign of that focus came on Friday, when prominent open-source

India’s GoKwik raised a small $13M round for a hefty leap in valuation

GoKwik, an Indian startup that offers a suite of integrated e-commerce products, has raised a small round of $13 million, which it calls a “growth” round, that has boosted its valuation to $450 million pre-money. While the new funding round, led by RTP Global, is 63% smaller than its Series B of $35 million, announced in May 2022, it has valued the New Delhi-based startup 43% more than its last pre-money valuation of $315 million. The fresh funding also included participation from the startup’s

Analyzing a Critique of the AI 2027 Timeline Forecasts

There was what everyone agrees was a high quality critique of the timelines component of AI 2027, by the LessWrong user and Substack writer Titotal. It is great to have thoughtful critiques like this. The way you get actual thoughtful critiques like this, of course, is to post the wrong answer (at length) on the internet, and then respond by listening to the feedback and by making your model less wrong. This is a high-effort, highly detailed, real engagement on this section, including giving t

Philips Hue bulbs will be even more expensive in July. And it may not end there.

Philips is upping the prices of its popular and already-expensive Hue series of smart lighting products starting July 1. The company is blaming tariffs for the changes and has suggested that prices could go up even higher after the initial bump in July. Philips started informing its customers via an email marketing message earlier this month that prices would go up and urged people to buy Hue lighting sooner rather than later. In a statement to the Hueblog website, Philips’ parent company, Sig

9to5Mac Daily: June 24, 2025 – iOS 26 beta 2 changes

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Sponsored by Bitwarden: Check out Bitwarden Password Manager, featuring a new Apple Watch authenticator integration, secure autofill on Safari and iOS apps, and enterprise-grade security tools that help you manage credentials with confidence. New episodes of 9to5Mac D

New AirPods Pro 2 beta firmware available with iOS 26 features

iOS 26 introduces several new AirPods features that are currently being beta tested by developers, and Apple just released a new firmware build for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 users. Earlier this month, shortly after its WWDC keynote presentation, Apple shipped new beta firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4. The firmware brought the first iOS 26 AirPods features to beta testers, such as sleep detection and camera remote. And for the first time, joining the AirPods beta became as easy as op

Philips Hue lighting is getting even more expensive on July 1 as a ‘direct result’ of tariffs

In the smart home world, Philips Hue already has some of the more expensive options, and now those prices are going even higher thanks to US tariffs. Over the past few weeks, Philips Hue has been advertising a 25% off sale to its customers via email with the added detail that “Our prices increase on July 1.” Signify, the company behind the Philips Hue brand, has now expanded on what this means. Speaking to HueBlog, Signify says that Philips Hue will “increase prices” in the US starting on Jul

Roland just released a weird little riff on an acoustic handpan

Synthesizer giant Roland just announced a fairly bizarre contraption. The Mood Pan is the company's digital take on an acoustic handpan. For the uninitiated, a handpan is a version of the steelpan instrument that's been popular in Trinidad and Tobago since the 1930s. It's widely considered to be the only truly new acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century. However, handpans and steelpans take serious skill to play. Roland's Mood Pan is much easier to play, thanks to clearly visible pads

OpenAI vs. ioY: Key takeaways from the new legal filings

Yesterday evening, TechCrunch reported on a series of new legal filings made by OpenAI in the ioY trademark lawsuit that led to the scrubbing of the ‘io’ brand on OpenAI’s website. The documents, filed by OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman as well as ex-Apple employees Evans Hankey, Tang Tan, and Marwan Rammah (now all at io Products), reveal as much about the company’s ambitions as they do about what it hopes to keep under wraps. Here are a few key takeaways. 1: iyO tried to hire Evans Hankey In 2022,

This iOS 26 feature could be Apple preparing for AirPods Pro 3 cameras

iOS 26 is a major software release not only for iPhone, but also adjacent platforms like CarPlay and AirPods. And there’s one AirPods feature in particular that could very well be Apple’s preparation for AirPods Pro 3 gaining cameras. AirPods gaining Camera Remote feature in iOS 26 Out of the handful of new AirPods features coming in iOS 26, there’s one that especially caught my eye. Camera Remote is a new AirPods capability that works a lot like the identically-named app on Apple Watch. Ess

4Real-Video-V2: Feedforward Reconstruction for 4D Scene Generation

1Snap Inc. 2KAUST 4Real-Video-V2 is capable of computing a 4D spatio-temporal grid of video frames and 3D Gaussian particles for each time step using a feed-forward architecture. Its architecture has two main components, a 4D video diffusion model and a feedforward reconstruction model. Your browser does not support the video tag. This represents a major upgrade over 4Real-Video, introducing a new 4D video diffusion model architecture that adds no additional parameters to the base video model

Gemini Robotics On-Device brings AI to local robotic devices

We’re introducing an efficient, on-device robotics model with general-purpose dexterity and fast task adaptation. In March, we introduced Gemini Robotics, our most advanced VLA (vision language action) model, bringing Gemini 2.0’s multimodal reasoning and real-world understanding into the physical world. Today, we’re introducing Gemini Robotics On-Device, our most powerful VLA model optimized to run locally on robotic devices. Gemini Robotics On-Device shows strong general-purpose dexterity an

The Bitter Lesson is coming for Tokenization

The Bitter Lesson is coming for Tokenization 24 Jun, 2025 a world of LLMs without tokenization is desirable and increasingly possible Published on 24/06/2025 • ⏱️ 29 min read In this post, we highlight the desire to replace tokenization with a general method that better leverages compute and data. We'll see tokenization's role, its fragility and we'll build a case for removing it. After understanding the design space, we'll explore the potential impacts of a recent promising candidate (Byte

MCP is eating the world

Despite the hype, Model Context Protocol (MCP) isn’t magic or revolutionary. But, it’s simple, well-timed, and well-executed. At Stainless, we’re betting it’s here to stay. “MCP helps you build agents and complex workflows on top of LLMs”. If you’ve paid attention, you know we’ve been here before. There are numerous past attempts at connecting the world to an LLM in a structured, automatic way. Function/tool calling : Write a JSON schema, the model picks a function. But you had to manually wir

Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

Memfault has established itself as the leading platform provider for device observability and management, and secure over-the-air (OTA) software updates to ensure the highest device reliability without field returns. It is trusted by a growing developer community and customers to monitor, maintain, and scale connected products. Nordic will integrate Memfault’s capabilities across its complete product portfolio and into its existing nRF Cloud services platform, creating a significantly more power

Marvel's 'Ironheart' Debuts Today. Here's How to Watch

It's been almost three years since the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel's Ryan Coogler-directed film that introduced Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams. The brilliant teenage MIT student created a vibranium detector that caught the attention of the CIA, Wakandans and, um, a water-dwelling god. Now, the character has her own streaming TV show: Ironheart. Pulled from the pages of Marvel's comic books, the young inventor possesses genius-level intelligence and found Tony Stark an i

This smart fitness product could be the perfect companion for Apple Watch

Update: Avelo Running is closer to arriving with an already funded Kickstarter campaign that doubled its goal within hours of launching. Learn much more about the project and pledge your support to join the race. Avelo Running is a fitness-focused startup that recently came out of stealth to unveil their first product. What the company is building has the potential to be the perfect running companion for Apple Watch. Any runner with a smartphone can benefit, though, without bringing a phone or

Mom-Approved Best Pregnancy Pillows to Help You Sleep Better While Pregnant

Sleeping well during pregnancy is tough, and expectant mothers may experience sleep issues. I was pregnant during the summer and the only thing that seemed to help me, as my bump grew, was using pregnancy pillows. I tried many during my second and third trimesters, and they made a big difference. Cooling options and extra support helped ease the pressure on my back and hips, and I finally started sleeping better. While testing, I kept in mind that everyone’s needs vary when they're pregnant. Fr

Google’s new robotics AI can run without the cloud and still tie your shoes

We sometimes call chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT "robots," but generative AI is also playing a growing role in real, physical robots. After announcing Gemini Robotics earlier this year, Google DeepMind has now revealed a new on-device VLA (vision language action) model to control robots. Unlike the previous release, there's no cloud component, allowing robots to operate with full autonomy. Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, says this approach to AI robotics could make robot

Google DeepMind’s optimized AI model runs directly on robots

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Google DeepMind is rolling out an on-device version of its Gemini Robotics AI model that allows it to operate without an internet connection. The vision-language-action model (VLA) comes with dexterous capabilities similar to the one released in March, but Google says “it’s small and efficient enough to run directly on a robot.” The flagship Gemini

Google rolls out new Gemini model that can run on robots locally

Google DeepMind on Tuesday released a new language model called Gemini Robotics On-Device that can run tasks locally on robots without requiring an internet connection. Building on the company’s previous Gemini Robotics model that was released in March, Gemini Robotics On-Device can control a robot’s movements. Developers can control and fine-tune the model to suit various needs using natural language prompts. In benchmarks, Google claims the model performs at a level close to the cloud-based

How Walmart built an AI platform that makes it beholden to no one (and that 1.5M associates actually want to use)

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more Walmart isn’t buying enterprise AI solutions, they’re creating them in their AI foundry. The retailer’s Element platform has evolved into an internal foundry, capable of creating AI applications at a pace that renders traditional software development obsolete. With 1.5 million associates now using AI tools built on Element, Walmart has sol

Creative clash pauses McConaughey & Harrelson Apple TV+ comedy series

Apple TV+ has halted production for its upcoming untitled “brothers” comedy starring Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar, The Lost Bus) and Woody Harrelson (True Detective, Natural Born Killers). Here’s what happened. Creative differences on season conclusion halt production According to an exclusive report by Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva, filming on the project was suspended late last week, with the cast sent home. The production hiccup is due to the departure of showrunner David West Read (Schi