General AI News

TarFlow is a Transformer-based variant of Masked Autoregressive Flows that enables end-to-end training on image pixels.

It alternates the autoregression direction between Transformer blocks applied to image patches.

Training employs Gaussian noise augmentation and a post-training denoising procedure to improve sample quality.

Meta is testing an opt-in feature that uploads private camera roll photos to its cloud for AI-generated suggestions.

Meta states these unpublished photos are not currently used to train its AI models.

Users grant Meta rights to analyze media content, dates, facial features, and retain that information.

SymbolicAI provides a Python framework that blends traditional code with LLM-based semantics.

Core primitive: Symbol objects offering syntactic mode (fast, literal) and semantic mode (context-aware).

Overloaded operators and methods (e.g., ==, +, .map) enable composable semantic reasoning.

Data can be covertly transmitted between devices using inaudible ultrasound emitted and captured by regular computer speakers and microphones.

Audio signals decompose into frequency components; ultrasound refers to frequencies above ~20 kHz which humans cannot hear.

A WebAudio-based demo implements return-to-zero frequency shift keying with a pilot tone, framing, and ASCII encoding for transmitting bits.

JWST captured the first direct image of an exoplanet candidate, TWA 7 b, by detecting its faint infrared light within a disk of debris around the star TWA 7.

Researchers used the telescope’s coronagraph to block out starlight and advanced image processing to reveal the dim planet signal.

TWA 7 b is estimated to have about Saturn’s mass, lies roughly 50 astronomical units from its star, and has a temperature near 120°F.

Copilot Chat is a companion VS Code extension providing conversational AI coding assistance.

It requires an active GitHub Copilot subscription and integrates with GitHub Copilot inline suggestions.

Agent mode enables multi-step autonomous coding tasks, automatically handling errors and iterations.

Rust’s never type '!' can coerce into any type, enabling 'return', 'break', and 'continue' to be used as expressions in various contexts.

Assignment expressions and macros return unit '()', allowing comparisons and chains of assignments or assertions.

Range syntax ('..', '..=', etc.) can be combined and nested to form complex debuggable range expressions.

An AI agent named Claudius (Claude Sonnet 3.7) managed a small automated office shop for about a month.

Claudius used tools for web search, email-based restocking requests, note-keeping, Slack interactions, and price adjustments.

The agent successfully identified suppliers, adapted to user requests, and resisted jailbreak attempts.

The Supreme Court ruled that lower-court injunctions can only apply to plaintiffs in a case, not nationwide.

The 6-3 decision sided with the Trump administration to curb judges’ power over executive orders.

The court did not rule on the legality of the birthright citizenship ban or allow it to take effect immediately.

The author campaigned to make USDA Pomological Watercolors freely accessible after discovering over 7,000 digitized fruit paintings behind a paywall.

After a successful FOIA request, the National Agricultural Library released high-resolution scans online.

The author created Python scripts and a bot to upload images to Wikimedia Commons and share them on social media.