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Al’s in your ears with a proper commute sprint: OpenAI locks in a permanent London office for 2027, the UK trials robots for the kind of hazardous incidents you really don’t want humans walking into first, and a major immunity study hints at how the post-Covid landscape could shape the next outbreak response. After that, gaming gets loud — Pragmata finally lands — and Fortnite quietly opens up Save the World for free. Plus, DJI teases the next Osmo Pocket, because London pavements are basically a stabilisation test course. More on everything at standard.co.uk — and follow Tech and Science Daily from The Standard for your weekday briefing.

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Al’s back with a quick sprint through the stuff shaping your day — starting on the District line, where TfL expands LiDAR scanning to check the network without sending everyone down the tunnel. Then it’s a very UK-flavoured battery boost, with a new £25m innovation round aimed at materials, recycling, and supply-chain resilience.

After that: a genuinely urgent one — Adobe patches an Acrobat/Reader flaw that’s already being exploited, so maybe don’t raw-dog random PDFs today. And because we deserve something fun, NASA’s James Webb telescope has spotted a monster “planet” that formed like a planet… even though it’s basically trying to be a star. Plus, Battlefield gets a fresh update, and Samsung’s letting you test-drive the Galaxy S26 experience on your current phone. More on all of it at standard.co.uk.

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Alan Leer's on the mic for your London commute as Anthropic admits it’s built an AI model it won’t release — and launches Project Glasswing with a who’s-who of tech to secure critical software. We also hit a London bit of calendar-watching as Tech.eu reveals what it’s pushing at its London summit, and a UK transparency drop as the ICO details how an LLM helps turn messy complaints into real cases. In gaming, 007: First Light slips again on Switch 2 — “later this summer” doing a lot of heavy lifting. Plus the UK’s ongoing experiment in teen screen rules at home. More on everything at standard.co.uk — and follow Tech and Science Daily from The Standard for your weekday briefing.

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For Episode Nine, Evgeny is joined by Michael Pollan, journalist, author, and one of the leading voices exploring the human mind. Drawing on his new book A World Appears, Pollan makes an impassioned case for consciousness as something precious, private, and increasingly under threat. Together, they explore how social media and AI are not just competing for our attention, but beginning to shape attachment, emotion, and even our sense of self.

The conversation ranges from chatbots and “AI psychosis” to meditation, psychedelics, and the idea of “consciousness hygiene” - the habits and practices that might help us protect our inner lives. Pollan also reflects on why writing is a form of thinking, why boredom and mind-wandering matter, and how experiences of ego dissolution, art, and nature can deepen our understanding of consciousness. The episode ends on a wider question: whether the real challenge is not only understanding consciousness, but learning how to practise it.

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