ISSEN enhances language speaking skills through AI-driven voice interactions, bypassing traditional methods’ cost and scheduling issues. The app combines AI features like STT, TTS, and long-term memory to facilitate adaptive, immersive conversations. Unlike gamified apps, ISSEN focuses on speaking practice with a customizable curriculum, word bank, and SRS flashcards. Available on web, iOS, and Android, with pricing from $20 to $29/month.

In Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, microgrids powered by solar panels and storage systems maintain electricity through blackouts. This decentralized system, developed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, underscores microgrids’ potential for infrastructure resilience. Local initiatives and private financing support the expansion against federal fund redirection to the aging grid infrastructure.

Google’s Gemma 3n model offers advanced on-device AI capabilities with multimodal input processing. Efficiently running on mobile hardware, the model uses a novel MatFormer architecture for flexibility and size adaptability. It integrates powerful features for tasks like speech-to-text and vision processing and aims to democratize AI innovation through wide developer and open-source partnerships.

AlphaGenome from DeepMind predicts the impacts of genetic variants, aiding gene regulation understanding with high precision. Combining convolutional and transformer networks, it excels in genomic task benchmarks and supports disease research and synthetic biology. Despite limitations like distant regulatory modeling, its release as a research tool invites scientific exploration and innovation.

Starcloud’s proposal for a $8.2 million space-based data center aboard a Starship is scrutinized for technical feasibility, given energy, cooling, and latency challenges. The project draws skepticism over practicality compared to earth data centers, raising concerns about orbital maintenance and high costs, making it an unlikely and risky venture.