A developer built PSSA, a non-transformer language model coded from scratch in Rust without any ML framework, using a recurrent state-space layer, an episodic memory bank, and weights that update while the model runs. Tested against a matched-parameter standard transformer on identical data, PSSA reached a training loss of 3.98 versus the transformer's 4.43 over 12.7 million tokens, and generated text about twelve times faster on the same CPU. On a held-out 198,939-token slice neither model trained on, PSSA also scored lower loss throughout every checkpoint.
A developer built a standalone service that generates RSS feeds for Last.fm users' recent tracks, loved tracks, top tracks, and top artists, after Last.fm removed native RSS support during a 2015 redesign. The service also pulls album art as enclosures when available, and a 2025 update added support for recommended tracks via a Soundixx-compatible JSON format.
A group of mathematicians published recommendations for how AI labs should responsibly share mathematical results generated by their models, after collecting over 600 responses from the mathematical community. The recommendations call on labs to stop testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models that remain inaccessible to outside researchers.
The Ballmer Peak, a joke from the xkcd webcomic claiming programmers code best at 0.1337% blood alcohol content, has inspired real-world events and satirical research. A 2024 SIGBOVIK paper tested one subject's coding speed at varying alcohol levels and found performance rose with light drinking before declining sharply, but no distinct 'peak' emerged. San Francisco group Originate has also run a 'Ballmer Peak-A-Thon,' an open-bar hackathon challenging attendees to build the best worst business in five hours.
A 2008 blog post presented a series of parody images that riff on the exaggerated, often misleading cover art used for Atari 2600 video games. The post included reader reactions praising the blog's humor, sourced from Popcrunch.com and a commenter named Jenn.
Apple has begun rolling out Apple Pay in India, roughly twelve years after the service debuted, with Axis Bank serving as its initial banking partner for Visa and Mastercard credit cards. Apple confirmed the launch, and backend changes spotted on its servers indicate the rollout is now live, bringing the total number of supported countries and regions to 101.
Expectations for a strong autumn IPO season are weakening, according to reports of market conditions. Stock market volatility combined with growing investor anxiety over AI safety issues has disrupted plans for what had been anticipated as a wave of high-profile public offerings.
Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan issued a note saying Meta's Muse AI agent, now nearing two weeks atop the US App Store, shows how third-party AI agents could bypass Apple's ecosystem for product discovery, referrals and transactions. Mohan kept a 'Buy' rating and $370 price target on Apple shares, which fell more than 2.5% on the day of the note. Muse has reportedly reached over 3.4 million downloads and integrates commerce partners like Shopify, Shop Pay, Expedia and PayPal.
Scientists are racing to protect coral reefs ahead of a forecast global mass bleaching event driven by record ocean temperatures and a strengthening El Niño. Restoration teams are testing methods including breeding corals bred for greater heat and acid tolerance, applying microbial and nutrient treatments, and using underwater speakers to attract coral larvae to degraded reefs.
Ning Xu, an optical engineer at the National University of Singapore, won Nikon's 2024 Small World in Motion competition for a video of cilia from a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia. Microscopy experts subsequently questioned the video on social media, saying the red, purple and blue structures shown beneath the cilia appear biologically implausible and may have been produced or altered using an AI tool. The competition's blog post on the winning entry did not describe or explain these colored structures.
Researchers led by neuroscientist Agustín Ibáñez at Adolfo Ibáñez University created an algorithm that analyzes hundreds of vocal traits, including pitch and speaking speed, from four-minute recordings to estimate a person's age. The team found that a large gap between this speech-predicted age and a person's actual age was strongly linked to cognitive problems associated with conditions like dementia, according to findings published in Science Advances.
A research consortium has published a large-scale multiome dataset profiling gene expression and chromatin accessibility across immune cell types in many individuals, generating single-cell eQTLs and chromatin accessibility QTLs. The dataset is designed to help pinpoint which genetic variants associated with disease actually alter gene regulation in specific immune cell states, building on prior efforts like GTEx, ENCODE and FinnGen.
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