A review published in Consciousness and Cognition by Derek Arnold, Loren Bouyer, Blake Saurels and Samuel Schwarzkopf argues that mental imagery is not simply visual perception run backward through the primary visual cortex. Drawing on cases of aphantasia—a lifelong inability to form mental images—and patients who retain imagery despite losing visual cortex tissue, the authors contend that imagination arises from cooperation among frontal and other distributed brain regions rather than a single visual 'screen.'
dailyneuron.com
· 2026-09-14
A new study found that scent-detection dogs make more false-positive alerts when they have not eaten breakfast before starting work. Researchers observed that dogs on empty stomachs were more prone to signaling a scent that wasn't actually present, compared to dogs that had eaten beforehand.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-11
Cognition released SWE-2, a coding model built by post-training on a 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3 base with 104B active parameters, marking its first RL push into the multi-trillion-parameter range. The model posts a class-leading 92.8 on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and competitive FrontierCode scores at lower cost than rivals like Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra, but falls well behind both on the harder Terminal-Bench 4.0 benchmark (27.3 vs 55.8 and 57.9). SWE-2 is closed-weight and available now through Devin Desktop and CLI, with no local deployment option.
tokenstead.ai
· 2026-09-10
Cognition unveiled SWE-2, a coding-focused AI model post-trained from the 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3 base. The company says it scores 50.0% on FrontierCode 1.1 Main, nearly matching Fable 5.1 while costing 64% less, and comes close to GPT-6 Astra at roughly a quarter of that model's price. SWE-2 also outperforms Cognition's earlier SWE-1.7 model and Grok 4.6 across several coding benchmarks.
cognition.com
· 2026-09-10
Researcher Eric Lu and Cognition's Devin AI coding agents built a new GPU-based lattice sieving tool and used it to factor RSA-260, a 260-digit number, beating the previous RSA Factoring Challenge record of RSA-250 set in 2020. The team says the approach runs factoring workloads at roughly 10 times lower cost than prior public methods.
cognition.com
· 2026-09-09
AI coding startup Cognition has closed a Series E funding round of $2 billion, valuing the company at $48 billion. The round includes backing from investors such as Peter Thiel, underscoring strong investor confidence in AI-driven software development tools.
wsj.com
· 2026-09-09
Cognition, maker of the AI coding assistant Devin, closed a $2 billion funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst and Avenir, pushing its valuation to $48 billion—up from $26 billion just four months earlier. The company says its annualized run-rate revenue nearly doubled since May, climbing from $492 million to $900 million.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-08
Ollie, a subscription-based personal AI assistant, has become one of the first family-focused AI products to achieve SOC 2 compliance, an independently audited standard proving it has formal data security controls in place. CEO Bill Lennon says the company's subscription model, rather than data monetization, ensures user data isn't shared or used for AI training. The San Diego startup has raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures and AI House.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-03
Roborock, known for its robot vacuums, unveiled its first robotic pool cleaner, the RockAqua P1, at IFA Berlin. The device autonomously cleans pool floors, walls and waterlines using adaptive path navigation and vision-based obstacle detection, while offering a suction rate of 6,800 gallons per hour that it can adjust to avoid dislodging larger debris.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-03
Autostep, a San Francisco startup building a desktop app that identifies repetitive, costly tasks inside companies and recommends fixes via AI agents or process changes, is expanding its team. The company is recruiting AI and fullstack engineers along with a Chief of Staff as it scales its product. Autostep is part of Y Combinator's current batch and has backing from Neo and executives tied to companies like Cognition, Vanta, and OneTrust.
ycombinator.com
· 2026-08-24
Cognitive scientist Anthony Chemero's book 'Intertwined Creatures' argues that much of the current discussion about whether AI can be conscious rests on flawed, outdated notions of human cognition itself. He contends that Western philosophy's traditional model of mind as a detached, disembodied thinker is wrong, and instead proposes that human cognition is embodied, dynamic, and fundamentally shaped by social and environmental interaction.
nature.com
· 2026-08-24
GoKawiil