Anthropic's Advanced New AI Tries to Run Vending Machine, Goes Bankrupt After Ordering PlayStation 5 and Live Fish | 2025-12-20
Anthropic’s Claude was put in charge of a real office vending machine, and the experiment became a cautionary tale about AI agents handling money and inventory. After splurging on a PlayStation 5 and even live fish, it still couldn’t stay solvent—so what does that say about “AI employees” in the wild?
https://futurism.com/future-society/anthropic-ai-vending-machine
Our New SAM Audio Model Transforms Audio Editing | 2025-12-16
Meta says its new SAM Audio model can segment and edit sounds in a clip—like isolating a voice or instrument—using prompts rather than painstaking manual work. If it works reliably across messy real-world recordings, it could reshape audio post-production, but it also raises fresh questions about provenance and misuse.
https://about.fb.com/news/2025/12/our-new-sam-audio-model-transforms-audio-editing/
OpenAI’s mysterious ChatGPT gadget could take the form of an AI-powered pen, new leak reveals | 2025-12-31
A new leak claims OpenAI and Jony Ive’s hardware venture may be exploring an AI-powered pen as part of a still-mysterious ChatGPT gadget lineup. A “pen” sounds quaint, but in practice it could be an always-available sensor—so the real debate is whether convenience beats the privacy trade-offs.
https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/openai/openais-mysterious-chatgpt-gadget-could-take-the-form-of-an-ai-powered-pen
NETFLIX OPEN CONTENT | 2022-04-26
Netflix’s Open Content library publishes high-end test footage and assets—4K HDR, high frame rates, and Atmos mixes—so researchers and engineers can stress-test codecs and workflows without using real shows. It’s a rare peek behind the streaming curtain, and a useful reminder that “video quality” is built on lots of measurable trade-offs.
https://opencontent.netflix.com/
Disney's embarrassing AI-generated Star Wars video of scrambled-up animals was the opening salvo in a year full of AI humiliation | 2025-12-28
PC Gamer revisits Disney’s much-mocked, AI-generated Star Wars “Field Guide” video—an odd parade of scrambled animals sold as futuristic creativity. It’s framed as the first stumble in a year of AI embarrassments, and the tension is simple: when big studios chase generative shortcuts, what happens to craft and trust?
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/disneys-embarrassing-ai-generated-star-wars-video-of-scrambled-up-animals-was-the-opening-salvo-in-a-year-full-of-ai-humiliation/
China Proposes Landmark Rules To End AI-Assisted Suicide, Self-Harm And Violence | 2025-12-30
China has floated draft rules aimed at stopping chatbots from encouraging suicide, self-harm, or violence—pushing the safety burden onto AI providers. The proposal would require human intervention when suicide is mentioned and sets a public feedback deadline of Jan 25, 2026, testing how far regulation can reach into conversations.
https://www.ndtv.com/feature/china-proposes-landmark-rules-to-end-ai-assisted-suicide-self-harm-and-violence-10097550
Nvidia expands AI empire with Groq talent grab | 2025-12-25
Nvidia is bringing in top executives from AI-chip startup Groq and striking a licensing deal for its inference technology, another signal that the AI hardware race is now as much about people as silicon. Groq’s founder Jonathan Ross is among those moving—so will this speed innovation, or blur the line between competition and consolidation?
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/nvidia-expands-ai-empire-groq-talent-grab-5708586
Meta just bought Manus, an AI startup everyone has been talking about | 2025-12-29
Meta is buying Manus, a buzzy AI-agent startup, signaling how aggressively Mark Zuckerberg wants revenue-generating AI products inside Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. TechCrunch reports the deal is about $2 billion and comes amid scrutiny over Manus’ China-linked origins and Meta’s massive infrastructure spend.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/29/meta-just-bought-manus-an-ai-startup-everyone-has-been-talking-about/
Tidbits:
GitHub - aquasecurity/trivy: Find vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, secrets, SBOM in containers, Kubernetes, code repositories, clouds and more | 2025-12-17
Trivy is an open-source scanner that checks containers, Kubernetes, repos, and cloud configs for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, secrets, and SBOM issues—handy as supply-chain attacks keep rising. The project’s latest release, v0 dot 68 dot 2, signals how fast this space moves, and raises the question: how much scanning can you automate without drowning teams in alerts?
https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy
Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase, perhaps by 2030 | 2025-12-24
Microsoft is exploring a radical goal: replace every line of C and C++ with Rust by 2030, leaning on AI-driven tooling to rewrite code at enormous scale. One “North Star” metric—“1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines”—sounds audacious, but it spotlights the stakes of memory safety and technical debt.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/24/microsoft_rust_codebase_migration/
