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Received — 27 June 2026 ⏭

This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 27)

✇SingularityHub
By: SingularityHub Staff
27 June 2026 at 14:00

Computing

IBM Has Unveiled Chip Technology That Could Help Extend Moore’s Law Another DecadeSophia Chen | MIT Technology Review ($)

“To fit more transistors on a chip, engineers across the industry are eyeing a pivot to an approach familiar to urban planners: build up. On Thursday, IBM announced it has created a chip that uses this strategy. The new architecture, known as a nanostack, vertically stacks transistors in two layers on a silicon chip.”

Artificial Intelligence

AI Is Designing Radio Chips That Humans Couldn’t Even ImagineKaushik Sengupta | IEEE Spectrum

“Some of the…chips look more like modern art than circuit layouts. Yet in many cases, the physical prototypes bested state-of-the art circuits in terms of performance. The real achievement, however, is that it took the AI orders of magnitude less time to conceive a working design than it would a human designer.”

Science

A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great UnknownsSteve Nadis | Quanta Magazine

“Even though scientists have assumed that dark energy and dark matter ‘don’t have anything to do with each other,’ said Tim Tait, a particle physicist at the University of California, Irvine, ‘you can imagine a case where one influences the other. And it would not be surprising if [they] were manifestations of a kind of unified theory of the dark universe.'”

Biotechnology

New Effort Will Get Genome Sequences for Entire Endangered Species ListJohn Timmer | Ars Technica

“Over 2,300 plant and animal populations remain on the [endangered species] list, requiring ongoing government intervention. On Thursday, it was announced that all of those species would see their genomes sequenced and tissue samples preserved to aid future conservation efforts.”

Future

AI Was Supposed to Kill Engineering Jobs, but New Data Suggests They’re the Most ResilientMarina Temkin | TechCrunch

“Software engineering, in theory, is the professional field most vulnerable to automation, given the rapid adoption of AI-powered coding tools. However, researchers at venture firm SignalFire say the hiring data tells a different story. ‘The rationale given for lots of layoffs is consistently AI, and specifically they’ll say AI with respect to code; they’ll say one engineer could do the job of however many engineers in the past,’ said Asher Bantock, SignalFire’s head of research. ‘What we’re seeing on the ground is a little inconsistent with that.'”

Computing

This Flying Solar-Powered Platform Could Deliver Better Internet From the AirRachel Courtland | MIT Technology Review ($)

“As soon as August, a giant silver bullet will cut its way through the dry air of the southwestern US and cross the Pacific to reach the coast of Japan. Once there, the roughly 200-foot-long craft, built by the New Mexico–based company Sceye, will park some 18 kilometers above the ocean’s surface, in a wispy-thin layer known as the stratosphere. Then it will use a custom-built antenna to supplement Softbank’s 5G network, a test that will include beaming data straight to devices.”

Computing

A New Paper Argues Microsoft Exaggerated Its Quantum Claims a Year AgoSophia Chen | The Verge

“A critique published in Nature Wednesday calls the basic technology behind Microsoft’s ‘breakthrough’ quantum computing chip the Majorana 1 into question. …In a peer-reviewed article, Henry Legg, a physicist at the University of St. Andrews, reanalyzed Microsoft’s data on their device and argued that the company’s researchers did not conclusively demonstrate a working topological qubit in the first place.”

Artificial Intelligence

The AI World Is Getting ‘Loopy’Russell Brandom | TechCrunch

“‘Two years ago, we wrote source code by hand. We started to transition so agents write the code. And now we’re transitioning to the point where agents are prompting agents that then write the code,’ [said Claude Code creator Boris Cherny]. ‘As big as the step from source code to agents was, loops are just as important and as big a step.'”

The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 27) appeared first on SingularityHub.

Received — 20 June 2026 ⏭

This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 20)

✇SingularityHub
By: SingularityHub Staff
20 June 2026 at 14:00

Artificial Intelligence

A Startup Claims It Broke Through a Bottleneck That’s Holding Back LLMsWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($)

“According to Subquadratic, it has developed a new kind of LLM, called SubQ, that is faster and cheaper and uses a lot less energy than any other model on the market. The company also claims that SubQ is able to process up to 12 times as much text at once than most other models, allowing it to carry out a range of data-heavy tasks, such as analyzing hundreds of documents or entire code bases.”

Robotics

The Next Humanoid Robot Might Not Look Human at AllRobert Hart | The Verge

“The next humanoid robot might not have a head. It might not have legs. It might even sit on a wheeled base and fold down like a deck chair. But, as Genesis AI puts it, ‘humanoid robots don’t need to look human.’ …Genesis says Eno is designed ‘around human capability’ rather than human appearance and is intended as a fully ‘general-purpose’ robot rather than a machine built around a single task, like folding laundry.”

Biotechnology

Chilling the Body With Drugs Could Limit Brain Damage From StrokeAlice Klein | New Scientist ($)

“A combination of two drugs used to treat hay fever and psychosis cooled down the core body temperature of mice and monkeys, reducing brain damage after a stroke. These medications have also undergone preliminary testing in people, and will now be evaluated in a follow-up clinical trial.”

Future

A Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI OverviewsFernanda González | Wired ($)

“The authorities found that, unlike traditional search engines, which merely display lists of links with statements made by third parties, Google’s tool produced ‘independent, new, and substantial statements’ based on a misinterpretation of information available on the internet. …Google is the only entity with the ability to modify the technology underpinning its AI-generated summaries and, therefore, ‘must be held accountable.'”

Artificial Intelligence

Estonia Is Giving AI Agents ‘Personal Identification Codes’Webb Wright | Gizmodo

“Estonia is trying to bring some law and order to the Wild West that is the world of AI agents. The small Baltic nation plans to assign each AI agent a ‘personal identification code,’ hoping to track what agents do across the internet and identify the people or companies behind them.”

Biotechnology

Why the Human Genome’s Tangled Physicality May Confound AIPhilip Ball | Quanta Magazine

“[The AI] approach is likely to be useful, but for those who crave real understanding of how the genome, and ultimately life itself, works, a computational black box will never suffice. And perhaps more to the point, the genome might not submit to the kind of straightforward input-output approach that such AI models ultimately assume. That’s because the genome is no blueprint or algorithm. It is something else.”

Future

The Inevitable Weakness of MetricsBryan Gardiner | MIT Technology Review ($)

“What I think many of us miss—what I know I certainly missed—is that there are always trade-offs when you try to distill something important down to a data point. When we turn to metrics to understand ourselves, our social world, and culture as a whole, they will never come close to capturing what matters. Even worse, they’ll often actively obscure it.”

Future

Just 16% of Americans Believe AI Will Positively Impact Society, Pew Poll FindsMatt Novak | Gizmodo

“Half of adult Americans use AI chatbots, with a quarter using them daily, according to new polling from Pew Research released Wednesday. That’s up from 33% of Americans who used AI chatbots in the summer of 2024. But a small minority, 16%, believe AI will have a positive impact on society.”

Computing

Sooner Than Expected? Useful Quantum Error Correction Promised for 2028.John Timmer | Ars Technica

“‘By 2028, we will bring Libra, a Megaquop-scale device, capable of executing one million quantum operations over hundreds of logical qubits, to our customers, enabling first scientific applications in quantum chemistry, high-energy physics, and materials simulation that are beyond the reach of classical and Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers today,’ Amazon’s statement said.”

Computing

Brain-Computer Interface Trials Are Taking OffJessica Hamzelou | MIT Technology Review ($)

“Over the past couple of years, the number of BCI trial volunteers has soared. This year, China became the first country to approve a BCI for medical use. Advances in technology are allowing engineers to provide more features than ever. BCI research is properly taking off.”

Robotics

Why Waymo’s Driverless Taxis Won’t Be on Your Streets Anytime SoonDavid McCabe | The New York Times ($)

“Waymo is increasingly facing political roadblocks as it tries to roll out its self-driving taxis powered by artificial intelligence nationwide. After early successes winning over politicians in California—its home state—and elsewhere, Waymo has stumbled in unlocking some of the biggest markets in the country.”

The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 20) appeared first on SingularityHub.

Received — 13 June 2026 ⏭

This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 13)

✇SingularityHub
By: SingularityHub Staff
13 June 2026 at 14:00

Artificial Intelligence

Jeff Bezos Wants to Build an ‘Artificial General Engineer’Cade Metz | The New York Times ($)

“‘All societal wealth is driven by invention,’ [Bezos] said in an interview with The New York Times. ‘Six thousand years ago, somebody invented the plow, and we all got wealthier. Then, much later, somebody invented the steam engine, and we all got wealthier.’ …’What Prometheus seeks to do,’ he added, ‘is to offer a set of tools that dramatically accelerates that invention loop.'”

Computing

Why Orbital Data Centers Are Harder Than Silicon Valley ThinksAndrew Cavalier | IEEE Spectrum

“Proponents tout the many wonders of computing in space: abundant solar energy, free cooling, and freedom from Earth-based disturbances like earthquakes, floods, and protesters. But a sober look at the physics of space-based computing paints a much more nuanced picture.”

Biotechnology

Longevity Startup Doses First Human in Bid to Reverse Age-Related Sight LossIsabella Ward | Wired ($)

“It is the first-ever cellular-rejuvenation therapy using this technology to receive FDA clearance to enter human clinical trials, and hence the first chance to test whether the technology can ‘ameliorate human disease,’ according to Life Biosciences cofounder David Sinclair, who is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.”

Future

AI Absolutism Is Breaking Our Brains. The Apocalyptic Future We’re Being Sold Isn’t InevitableSamantha Oltman | The Guardian

“Contradictory as they may be, all these arguments and anxieties fit neatly into the overarching message of the people building this technology: AI’s dominance is inevitable. Get on board or you will be left behind. …[But] the version of AI that we’re being sold doesn’t have to be the version we buy. Nor does it need to be the story we believe in.”

Energy

Commonwealth Fusion Makes the Physics Case for Its 400 MW ReactorJohn Timmer | Ars Technica

“According to our best models, developed using real-world data from multiple tokamaks, ARC should be able to regularly trigger fusion reactions that release more energy than we put into them. But there’s ‘working’ from a physics perspective, and ‘working’ from a market perspective. …the finances are going to be the hardest risk to retire and may require having ARC operate for decades before we have a definitive answer.”

Artificial Intelligence

Google DeepMind Is Worried About What Happens When Millions of Agents Start to InteractWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($)

“According to Rohin Shah, who directs the company’s AGI safety and alignment research, the mass-market arrival of agents that can carry out tasks without human oversight and follow instructions given to them by other agents creates a whole new class of risk.”

Future

Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After Wired ReportDhruv Mehrotra | Wired ($)

“One day after Wired revealed that Meta had quietly embedded an unreleased face-recognition system into an app installed on more than 50 million phones, the company removed it, according to a Wired analysis of the latest version’s code. …The version published the day of Wired’s report included several code libraries explicitly named for face recognition. Friday’s release includes none of them.”

Space

A Falcon 9 Booster Turns 5 Years Old—and Just Set a Remarkable Reuse RecordEric Berger | Ars Technica

“Since [SpaceX’s] Booster 1067 made its debut in June 2021, [ULA] has flown its workhorse Atlas V rocket a total of 22 times and the Vulcan rocket four times, and the Delta IV Heavy vehicle made its final three flights. So in the time that this single Falcon 9 first stage has flown and landed 35 times, its competitor company has made 29 total launches. Put another way, this rocket has put more mass into orbit than more than two dozen expendable rockets over half a decade of effort.”

Artificial Intelligence

Why Apple’s Slow-And-Steady AI Bet Is Starting to Look Pretty SmartLucas Ropek | TechCrunch

“In short, Apple is spending less, making more, and now launched a suite of AI features that—for many iPhone users—will feel indistinguishable from the other AI applications already available to them through the App Store. If that doesn’t exactly count as ‘winning the AI race,’ it may be the smartest way to run it.”

Future

Who Will Actually Thrive in the Hybrid AI-Human Work ForceStaff | The New York Times ($)

“The transformation that’s coming is going to take place in the world as it is familiar to us today, and every single day will feel familiar. And there’ll be tiny, tiny changes along the margin. There’ll be tiny bits of automation along the margins. And 10, 15, 20 years later, we’ll look back and we’ll say, My god, everything is different. But you’ll never notice it happening. That’s the way it always goes.”

The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 13) appeared first on SingularityHub.

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