All Updates
Page 553 of 648
February 24, 2026
UK Tech Visa Apps Drop 11% Amid Skills Squeeze
UK tech sector visa applications from international workers fell 11% between Q2 and Q3 2025, and 6% year-on-year, per RSM UK. Executives are emigrating amid a skills shortage. AI is cited as exacerbating the talent crunch.
Accent-Aware Whisper Cuts WER by 4%
Whisper Accent adapts OpenAI Whisper for accented English using per-accent conditioning via Adaptive Layer Norm, keeping encoder/decoder frozen. It supports 20+ accents and achieves 13.4% WER on medium model, outperforming base Whisper. Full training code, eval pipeline, and checkpoints released on GitHub.
VoiceLine Raises β¬10M for Voice AI Scale
Munich startup VoiceLine raised β¬10M Series A for voice AI platform targeting frontline enterprise teams. Led by Alstin Capital and Peak. Aims to expand product and customers across Europe.
ML Papers Accepted Without Code
Reddit discussion criticizes major ML conference papers accepted without code or reproducibility evidence. Users highlight risks of fabricated results or evaluation errors due to high training costs. An example cites an empty GitHub repo for a promising protein MSA generation method.
Anlife evolution sim tackles AI debate
Anlife, a new Steam evolution simulator blending life sim and AI motion-learning, launches amid past controversy. Hayao Miyazaki once called its tech 'an insult to life' in 2016 demo. Developers now release it publicly after backlash recovery.
Alimama AI Tools Get 500K Merchant Subsidies
Alimama launches full-chain AI marketing for Tmall 38 promo with pre-sale and spot phases. Offers multi-incentive tools and up to 500K rebates per merchant to boost growth. AI matrix targets spring trends in e-commerce.
ASML Targets 1000W EUV Power by 2030
ASML's chief technology expert Michael Purvis revealed researchers have developed a stable system to boost EUV light source power from 600W to 1000W for production use. This advancement meets strict real-world requirements. By 2030, it could increase hourly wafer output by 50%.
Microsoft Stores 4.8TB in Glass for 10,000 Years
Microsoft's Project Silica encodes 4.8TB of data into a 120mm x 120mm x 2mm glass plate using laser-written voxels, achieving 1.59 Gbit/mmΒ³ density. The borosilicate glass ensures data longevity over 10,000 years, with the breakthrough published in Nature. This optical storage meets production system requirements for archival needs.
Trump Pushes AI Data Center Power Plants
Trump and governors are advocating for new power plants to support booming AI data centers. Equipment manufacturers like GE Vernova saw stock rises, while existing power plant owners experienced declines.
ArcFlow Accelerates Diffusion Models 40x with 5% Params
ArcFlow from Fudan and Microsoft Asia Research uses nonlinear 'drifting' along curved trajectories to distill diffusion models like FLUX and Qwen-Image, achieving 40x faster inference. It trains 4x faster using only 5% parameters via LoRA, avoiding geometric mismatch in straight-line distillation. Code and paper are available on GitHub and arXiv.
AI Reshapes Economy: 6 Stocks Poised to Win
AI is transforming the economic landscape. Aerospace and manufacturing emerge as potential safe havens amid the shifts.
Altman Slams AI's Massive Power Use
Sam Altman criticizes AI's high energy consumption, equating it to humans eating rice for 20 years to gain equivalent intelligence. He argues human evolution includes unquantifiable joys like emotions and growth. Netizens react with surprise or challenge.
Qwen Hits 200M Orders in Lunar New Year Promo
Alibaba's Qwen AI app recorded nearly 200 million orders during Lunar New Year giveaway campaigns. Over four million users aged 60 and above participated, highlighting AI adoption among seniors. Chinese tech giants leveraged promotions to drive explosive user growth and position AI as holiday consumption.
ChatGPT Japan USD Users Switch to Cheaper JPY Pro
Japanese ChatGPT paid plan users previously billed in USD can switch to JPY pricing by canceling their subscription once. This results in significant savings, with the top-tier Pro plan costing about 4000 yen less. The change applies upon contract renewal cutoff.
Tesla Sues CA DMV Over Autopilot Ban
Tesla sued California's DMV on February 13 to overturn a ruling banning 'Autopilot' and 'Full Self-Driving' marketing terms. The DMV deemed them misleading on autonomy levels, forcing a rename to 'Full Self-Driving (Supervised)'. Tesla argues the order is factually wrong, unproven on consumer confusion, and unconstitutional amid its Robotaxi ambitions.
Unitree Launches As2 Quadruped Robot
Unitree has announced the Unitree As2 quadruped robot with 90N.m peak torque and over 4 hours of unloaded battery life. It features IP54 water resistance, supports 15kg payload, offers over 13km range, and includes an open secondary development ecosystem.
Zhifang Raises 1B+ RMB Series B, Valuation Tops 10B RMB
Zhifang, China's robot startup most akin to Tesla, has secured five rounds of Series B financing after seven prior rounds. The funding totals over 1 billion RMB, elevating its valuation beyond 10 billion RMB. This underscores robust investor interest in Chinese humanoid robotics.
China's First Quantum OS Open for Download
Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center announced China's first independently developed quantum computer operating system, ζ¬ζΊεΈε, now available for online download. It is the world's first openly downloadable quantum OS, designed to lower development barriers and accelerate China's autonomous quantum computing ecosystem.
County Middle-Aged Pin Hopes on AI Rescue
Middle-aged residents in China's county towns feel anxious about their futures. They await AI to transform their lives and careers. One regrets not studying AI seriously during school years.
Qwen 3.5 Tops Hugging Face Leaderboard
Alibaba's Qwen 3.5 has topped Hugging Face's open-source model leaderboard. Chinese models now occupy 8 of the top 10 positions. The model boasts 397B total parameters but activates only 170B for efficiency.