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Scientists built a badminton-playing robot with AI-powered skills

Robots like Atlas, Spot, and Stretch have amazed people with natural, life-like agility and body balance. What they were lacking, though, was a way to quickly connect this natural movement to perception—the robotic equivalent of the reflexes that let you catch a ball or duck in an instant to avoid getting hit. So, a team of scientists at ETH Zürich got busy fixing this problem. “I wanted to fuse perception and body movement,” said Yuntao Ma, a roboticist who led a team developing an AI-powered,

The new version of Audi’s best-selling Q5 SUV arrives in the US

Audi provided flights from Washington, DC, to Denver and accommodation so Ars could drive the Q5 and SQ5, as well as two other models you can read about next week. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. ASPEN, Colo.—There's a lot riding on Audi's next Q5. The model has been Audi's bread and butter here since the model went on sale in the US in 2009, as tastes changed and sedans fell out of favor. The third-generation Q5 is built on an all-new platform and is one of a new generation of soft

Trade war truce between US and China is back on

Donald Trump has said the US and China’s deal to restore their trade war truce is “done” after two days of marathon negotiations in London. In a post on his Truth Social network on Wednesday the US president hailed a breakthrough reached in bilateral talks in London late the night before. The deal revived a trade truce agreed in Geneva last month that subsequently faltered because of differences over Chinese rare earth exports and US export controls. “OUR DEAL WITH CHINA IS DONE, SUBJECT TO F

All-wheel drive EVs at 210 mph? Formula E’s next car gets massive upgrade.

The governing body for world motorsport met in Macau yesterday. Among the jobs for the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile was to sign off on various calendars for next season, which is why there's now a clash between the F1 Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and also between the Indy 500 and F1's annual visit to Canada. The Formula E calendar was also announced, although with a pair of blank TBCs in the middle, I'll hold off calling it finalized. The US round will now take pla

A warlord brings chaos in Foundation S3 trailer

Foundation returns for a third season next month on Apple TV+. Foundation, Apple TV+'s lavish adaptation (or re-mix, if you prefer) of Isaac Asimov's seminal sci-fi series, returns for its third season next month, and the streaming platform has dropped an official trailer to give us a taste of what's in store. As previously reported, the first season ended with a major time jump of 138 years, and S2 focused on the Second Crisis: imminent war between Empire and the Foundation, along with an ene

HP reveals first Google Beam 3D video conferencing setup, priced at $25,000

Amid all the Gemini hype at Google I/O last month, the company also turned one of its experiments into a (kind of) real product. Project Starline was reborn as Google Beam, a 3D video conferencing system that makes it look like you're in the same room with the other party. Google said HP would reveal the first Beam setup, and now it has. The HP Dimension is coming this year, and the price tag is a predictably hefty $24,999. Google Beam calls for a lot of advanced hardware, so the high price isn

Topics: 3d beam display google hp

With the launch of o3-pro, let’s talk about what AI “reasoning” actually does

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced that o3-pro, a new version of its most capable simulated reasoning model, is now available to ChatGPT Pro and Team users, replacing o1-pro in the model picker. The company also reduced API pricing for o3-pro by 87 percent compared to o1-pro while cutting o3 prices by 80 percent. While "reasoning" is useful for some analytical tasks, new studies have posed fundamental questions about what the word actually means when applied to these AI systems. We'll take a deeper l

Musk’s threat to sue firms that don’t buy ads on X seems to have paid off

Elon Musk's strategy of suing or threatening to sue companies that don't buy advertising on X has reportedly paid off in at least a few cases. A Wall Street Journal report yesterday said that Verizon and other companies started advertising on X after lawsuit threats. X sued some advertisers last year over what it claims is an illegal boycott and reportedly threatened to add other companies to the lawsuit if they didn't buy ads. The WSJ article said that Verizon, which hadn't advertised on X sin

After RFK Jr. fires vaccine advisors, doctors brace for blitz on childhood shots

The medical community is bracing for attacks on, and the possible dismantling of, federal recommendations for safe, lifesaving childhood vaccinations after health secretary and fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired all 17 members of a federal vaccine advisory committee Monday. Outrage has been swift after Kennedy announced the "clean sweep" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (A

Hollywood studios target AI image generator in copyright lawsuit

On Wednesday, Disney and NBCUniversal filed a lawsuit against AI image-synthesis company Midjourney, accusing the company of copyright infringement for allowing users to create images of characters like Darth Vader and Shrek, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The complaint, filed in US District Court in Los Angeles, marks the first major legal action by Hollywood studios against a generative AI company. Midjourney is a subscription image-synthesis service and community that allows its users to su

“Yuck”: Wikipedia pauses AI summaries after editor revolt

Generative AI is permeating the Internet, with chatbots and AI summaries popping up faster than we can keep track. Even Wikipedia, the vast repository of knowledge famously maintained by an army of volunteer human editors, is looking to add robots to the mix. The site began testing AI summaries in some articles over the past week, but the project has been frozen after editors voiced their opinions. And that opinion is: "yuck." The seeds of this project were planted at Wikimedia's 2024 conferenc

Fair or fixed? Why Le Mans is all about “balance of performance” now.

This coming weekend will see the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans take place in France. In total, 62 cars will compete, split into three different classes. At the front of the field are the very fastest hypercars—wickedly fast prototypes that are also all hybrids, with the exception of the V12 Aston Martin Valkyries. In the middle are the pro-am LMP2s, followed by 24 GT3 cars—modified versions of performance cars that include everything from Ford Mustangs to McLaren 720s. It is racing nirvana. But wit

Topics: aston cars le lmdh mans

New Apple study challenges whether AI models truly “reason” through problems

In early June, Apple researchers released a study suggesting that simulated reasoning (SR) models, such as OpenAI's o1 and o3, DeepSeek-R1, and Claude 3.7 Sonnet Thinking, produce outputs consistent with pattern-matching from training data when faced with novel problems requiring systematic thinking. The researchers found similar results to a recent study by the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) in April, showing that these same models achieved low scores on novel mathematic

Apple’s Craig Federighi on the long road to the iPad’s Mac-like multitasking

CUPERTINO, Calif.—When Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi introduced the new multitasking UI in iPadOS 26 at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference this week, he did it the same way he introduced the Calculator app for the iPad last year, or timers in the iPad's Clock app the year before—with a hint of sarcasm. "Wow," Federighi enthuses in a lightly exaggerated tone about an hour and 19 minutes into a 90-minute presentation. "More windows, a pointier poin

Why Silicon Valley Needs Immigration

Katie Drummond: And particularly at a moment where, as you said, we're in this Cold War with China, we're in this AI arms race. You hear it from the administration, you read about it in WIRED, you hear about it from Sam Altman, other leaders of the AI industry, this like, “We must beat China. We must beat China.” And then stuff like this happens and you feel like, “Let's just hand it to them. Let's just give it to them.” Because we are basically doing that by disincentivizing not only Chinese st

Topics: 1b china just people visa

One, Big, Beautiful Breakup

Leah Feiger: Well, I mean, because it’s the safer option. This is the richest man in the world and the president of the United States. I would like to believe that there is thought behind any of this. Zoë Schiffer: 100 percent. Leah Feiger: And that's exactly what a bunch of these conspiracy theorists have been saying over the last 24 hours. Senior reporter David Gilbert published a story today about how the entire conspiracy world thinks that the Musk-Trump breakup is a psyop, it's “5D chess.

Topics: leah like lot musk really

Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2025

Apple held its annual developer conference today, and as usual used the keynote address to announce all of the new software features coming to Apple’s many products this fall. This year’s WWDC is occurring at a moment of unprecedented economic uncertainty. Apple’s sales are expected to take a hit as President Trump continues to threaten the company with increased trade tariffs. The event also comes in the aftermath of the very AI-heavy conference of Apple’s archrival Google, putting pressure on

The iPad Is a Full-On Computer Now

“This is what you've all been waiting for.” That's what Craig Federighi stated with a gleeful grin on his face as he introduced the latest changes to the iPad at Apple's WWDC25 keynote. He wasn't talking about new iPad hardware, new software features, or AI implementation that didn't suck. He was talking about windows. You know, those things that computers have. With the release of iPadOS 26, Apple gives these tablets the ability to use conventional windowing—and iPads will never be the same.

We've Finally Reached the End of the Road for Intel Macs

Today, Apple announced the latest version of its Mac operating system, macOS Tahoe, sporting a handful of new features and apps. The update will also, however, mark the final substantial version of macOS to be supported on Intel-based Macs. The final supported Intel-based Macs that will receive macOS Tahoe include the following models: MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports), iMac (27-inch, 2020) and Mac Pro (2019). That means if you own one of these M

Apple Is Pushing AI Into More of Its Products—but Still Lacks a State-of-the-Art Model

Apple continued its slow-and-steady approach to integrating artificial intelligence into devices like the iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch on Monday, announcing a raft of new features and upgrades at WWDC. The company also premiered the Foundation Models framework, a way for developers to write code that taps into Apple’s AI models. Among the buzzier AI announcements at the event was Live Translation, a feature that translates phone and FaceTime calls from one language to another in real time. Appl

‘Beautiful’ and ‘Hard to Read’: Designers React to Apple’s Liquid Glass Update

Apple’s translucent design update for iOS 26, called Liquid Glass, is now available to developers, with a public beta scheduled for next month. The refresh—Apple’s first major interface overhaul in 10 years—makes app icons, buttons, menus, and pop-ups look like they are made of frosted glass, with blurred background colors peeking through. The sweeping software changes are not just for iPhones. This glassy look—inspired by the operating system in the Vision Pro headset—will eventually roll out

The UK Accelerates Its Self-Driving Car Ambitions

Slow and steady. When it comes to autonomous vehicles on city roads, that’s been the approach in most of the world’s countries. But on Tuesday, the UK announced it would put a cautious foot on the pedal, when the Department of Transport said it would accelerate plans to allow companies to operate self-driving cars on public roads in limited pilot programs starting spring of next year. The British government had initially planned to open up its roads for self-driving vehicles more than a year la

WHO Monitors New Covid Variant Spreading in America and Europe

A new Covid variant is being kept under surveillance by the World Health Organization (WHO) as its emergence has led to an increase in infections in several regions of the world. First identified at the end of January, the variant—called NB.1.8.1 but known informally as “Nimbus”—is a descendant of the Omicron family of Covid sublineages, and has become increasingly prevalent throughout the spring in Europe, the Americas, and the Western Pacific. The virus has mutations that may increase its inf

‘Uber for Getting Off Antidepressants’ Launches in the US

Ariella Sharf was first prescribed antidepressants when she was a college student more than a decade ago. When she decided to stop taking them last year, Sharf says she wasn’t sure how to do it safely. She was disappointed when her longtime psychiatrist didn’t help her find a new doctor after she moved across the country, and she thought her primary care physician wasn’t equipped for the task. Sharf decided instead to try Outro Health, a telehealth startup that CEO and cofounder Brandon Goode de

Tesla’s Robotaxis Are Rolling Out Soon—With One Big Unanswered Question

Self-driving vehicle developers don’t usually love talking about “teleoperation”—when a human guides or drives robot cars remotely. It can feel like a dirty secret. Shouldn’t an autonomous vehicle operate, well, autonomously? But experts say teleoperations are, at least right now, a critical part of any robot taxi service, including Tesla's Robotaxi. The tech, though impressive, is still in development, and the autonomous systems still need humans to guide them through less-common and especiall

Sony WH-1000XM6 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra: Which Is Best?

Every couple of years, Bose and Sony trade blows in an effort to claim the title of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy. Until recently, Bose's QuietComfort Ultra (9/10, WIRED Recommends) had the edge, offering world-crushing cancellation that bested Sony's still-great WH-1000XM5 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) and other top models from the likes of JBL, Sonos, and Apple. Now, Sony's back with its latest WH-1000 model, the predictably titled WH-1000XM6 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). The new pai

The Top New Features in Apple WatchOS 26

This year at WWDC 2025, Apple introduced a rather drastic change to its naming conventions. What should be the upcoming WatchOS 12 will now be WatchOS 26 when it launches in the fall, since the company decided to stop labeling its operating systems sequentially and instead name them according to the fiscal year they are released. Every OS now also has a new, overhauled display aesthetic called Liquid Glass, which makes certain apps, icons, buttons, and pop-ups look like frosted glass and other f

A Google Shareholder Is Suing the Company Over the TikTok Ban

The Trump administration is still refusing to enforce a federal ban on TikTok, and Silicon Valley software engineer Tony Tan is fed up. Last month, Tan sued the US Department of Justice for allegedly failing to turn over records about why it has not taken action against Google and Apple, which Tan believes are violating the law by continuing to host TikTok on their respective app stores. Tan is now stepping up his fight against what he sees as a worrying and potentially costly trend away from r

The Top New Android 16 Features (2025): How to Install, Features, Release Date

Another year, another version of Google’s mobile operating system. Android 16 brings a whole new look (Apple also just announced a redesign in iOS 26), more customization options, some chunky security enhancements, and a few welcome accessibility improvements. Android 16 is rolling out to select devices today—these are the new features that caught our eye. Google officially ditched the delicious dessert names for Android years ago with Android 10, but it still uses them internally. Android 15 w

The Top New Features in Apple’s iOS 26 and iPadOS 26

Your iPhone and iPad will look significantly different when iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 roll out this fall. And no, you haven’t missed seven operating system upgrades since iOS 18 last year. Apple has changed the naming structure of its OS updates and made them all consistent—visionOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS 26—so they’re now tied to the year after their launch, similar to what car makers do when debuting new models. The main highlight across all of Apple’s updates announced at WWDC 2025 revolves around

Topics: 26 app apple iphone new