Shameless Plug

Waymo Says Its Self-Driving Cars Reduced Injury-Causing Accidents by 82% Published on 2026-09-27T19:04:00Z Waymo's self-driving car technology "continues to outperform human benchmarks," the company claimed this week. "It was involved in 841 fewer injury-causing crashes — an 82% reduction compared to human drivers." Electrek reports: We've seen various Waymo crash data before, with Waymo claiming crash reductions. That's all well and good when the company says it, but we've also seen independent data confirming similar (though lower) crash reduction numbers... Waymo has enough miles that it's ready to start quoting how many injuries it has prevented, and the number is pretty high. Its newest crash data states that it had operated a total of 271 million driverless miles through June of this year, which is 50 million more miles added in the 3 months since its end-of-March update. Over those miles, Waymo says there was an 82% reduction in cr...

New Tin-based Solar Cells Trap Heat 1,000 Times Longer, Could Beat 33% Limit Published on 2026-09-27T10:04:00Z Could this push solar cell efficiency beyond the theoretical 33% limit? Interesting Engineering reports: Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands found that tin-based perovskite solar cells can slow heat loss from high-energy "hot electrons..." When sunlight strikes a panel, photons jump-start electrons into action. The most energetic photons create super-charged hot electrons... [but] in fractions of a trillionth of a second, these high-energy particles rapidly cool, dumping their bonus energy as waste heat before ever leaving the solar cell... In collaboration with Maria Antonietta Loi, professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics, the team created an experimental setup. Using a specialized solar cell material called tin-based perovskite, Loi's lab performed a feat many thought impossible: she slowed the heat loss down by a factor of...

China and the US Say They've Agreed to Start Talks About AI Published on 2026-09-27T05:36:00Z The United States and China have agreed to "launch a dialogue" on AI, reports Reuters. On artificial intelligence, the two sides agreed to hold a dialogue on the technology's risks and benefits, with the next round of discussions set for November, and to set up a communication channel for AI-related incidents, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the White House said. The White House said that the leaders had agreed to use the term "super intelligence" in place of "artificial intelligence." In a separate statement, the Chinese ministry said that Beijing valued Washington's use of the new term. As AI technology continues to advance, the two sides should step up exchanges and work toward consensus in line with new developments, it said. But CNN argues that "Despite growing calls to prevent AI development from spiraling out of control, the Trump-...

KDE and GNOME Developers Ponder How to Handle AI-Generated Contributions Published on 2026-09-27T01:04:00Z Last weekend KDE's annual Akademy conference included a presentation proposing an AI-native KDE," writes The Register. This led KDE developer Nate Graham to open a discussion about proposed restrictions on LLM-assisted contributions which "rapidly became heated. Moderators issued warnings, restricted further comments, and eventually removed the thread." But as Graham writes on his blog, "A bunch of people mostly outside of KDE who disapprove of LLM usage derailed KDE's attempt to add restrictions to LLM usage." Two people unknown to any KDE contributors appeared and began fighting with one another about the broader topic of the morality of AI, not the proposed guidelines... Someone else outside of KDE set up kdeforpeople.com in an attempt to... pressure KDE into banning LLMs. A bunch of people signed onto it, almost none of whom are known KDE...

After 40 Years, Microsoft Excel Will Add Single-Cell Lists and Arrays Published on 2026-09-26T20:34:00Z Microsoft's senior product manager for Excel acknowledges that "Throughout Excel's 40-year history, you've only been able to put one value per cell." But that's now changing with arrays in cells (as well as nested arrays) and lists. "You can create a list by selecting Insert > List or pressing Ctrl+J, then typing or pasting items separated by commas or semicolons, depending on your regional settings. Selecting the icon in the cell shows the individual values..." "With lists, you can filter by one or more individual items instead of whole text entries. Referencing a list returns all its values for calculations. For example, =B2 spills those values into separate cells..." "For the first time in Excel, arrays can exist natively in cells as values or as formula results. They can be any size or shape and can even contain other arr...

Is Microsoft Quietly Killing Off Its 'Copilot+ PC' Brand? Published on 2026-09-26T11:34:00Z "Copilot+ PCs" were Microsoft's official branding for Windows 11 "AI PCs" that met their system requirements. But the 2024 launch "didn't go smoothly," writes Windows Central, after security researchers discovered its proposed "Recall" feature was woefully insecure: This pretty much tarnished the Copilot+ PC brand, and over the last two years more and more OEMs have dropped the moniker from marketing materials and product names. In fact, even Microsoft has seemingly stopped mentioning it. I've noticed that none of the Surface PCs launched in 2026 include the Copilot+ PC moniker in their product names, unlike the Surface PCs that launched in 2025 and before. Now, you have to go digging to find any mention of Copilot+ compatibility in specification sheets... It's also worth mentioning that NVIDIA hasn't gone anywhere near the C...

Rogue OpenAI Agents Posted 53 User-Uploaded Images Onto the Internet, Accessed US Government Websites Published on 2026-09-26T07:04:00Z 53 images that users uploaded into OpenAI models were included in training data — and then AI agents in an OpenAI research environment posted those 53 images on public image hosting sites. While posted as links that weren't publicly listed, "the images could still be discovered even if the links were not publicly listed," reports TechCrunch: OpenAI said it was working with the hosting providers to remove this content, though some of it is apparently still online. OpenAI said it could not notify the affected users because "our technical approach and privacy policy" prevent it from "reassociating" the images with the original providers, but declined to say how the lab determined whether the images were provided by users. The news came in a post collecting public statements from the lab's ongoing review of incid...