Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

This week, I moderated a panel on world models at the All In conference (no relation to the podcast), and it gave me a chance to dig into one of the most mysterious corners of the AI world. The big players in the space are Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs and Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs — and while both have accumulated a lot of buzz and funding, they also rank pretty low on the trying-to-make-money scale. At their core, world models are about automating spatial intelligence, so the field could head in lots of exciting and lucrative directions, from robotics to…

A tiny aquatic organism made of just one cell can compress its body to one quarter of its original length in under five milliseconds, hundreds of times faster than a person can blink. Scientists have now identified the unusual mechanism behind this remarkable movement. The organism, Spirostomum ambiguum, relies on calcium ions and a specialized protein network arranged like a fishnet. This system allows it to contract far more quickly than human muscle, and researchers say the discovery could eventually help guide the development of faster artificial muscles and synthetic cellular machinery. A Single Cell With Extraordinary Speed Spirostomum ambiguum…

Thousands of people marched in Paris and other French cities on Sunday against a proposed law on the legitimate use of force that critics say would be a “licence to kill” for police and gendarmes. In July, deputies in the National Assembly approved the bill, which says that any law-enforcement official who uses force is assumed to have acted legally when using their weapon. It now faces a vote in the Senate. Politicians, rights groups and other activists joined the Paris demonstration, among them Mathilde Panot of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party. “The police kill already,” Panot told the…

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 144, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, new tech season is here, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I flew out to Los Angeles to try on and write about Snap’s Specs. Along the way, I’ve been marveling at how Apple put the iPhone 18 Pro’s Face ID sensor under the display, reading about new Xbox boss Asha Sharma, getting excited for bakes in the new Great British Baking Show trailer, watching Stephen Colbert shave his…

CLARITY vote fails, long live CLARITYAfter a year’s buildup, the US Senate failed to pass a cloture motion on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act.The motion received just 49 votes in favor and 50 against, well short of the 60 votes required.However, Republican Senator Thom Tillis’s “no” vote was not all it seemed, and he confirmed he’d only switched sides at the last minute to enable him to call a new vote in future.So does that mean the CLARITY Act could be resurrected? The GENIUS bill suffered a similar failed vote on cloture and then went on to pass…

Microorganisms are capable of some extraordinary chemistry. One example is nitrogen fixation, a process that converts nitrogen gas (N2) into a form living organisms can actually use. Nitrogen makes up about 78 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, but plants and animals cannot use it directly because the two nitrogen atoms in N2 are joined by an exceptionally strong chemical triple bond. Certain microorganisms have evolved a way around this problem. They can break that bond and transform N2 into ammonia, which can then be incorporated into biological molecules. One of these organisms is the deep-sea archaeon Methanocaldococcus infernus, which lives in…

William Pettigrew’s book, Britain’s Slave Traders: A Forgotten History, adds a further dimension and depth to our understanding of how entrenched and significant Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade was. The landmark University College London’s Legacies of British Slavery project previously documented the “compensation” payments to 46,000 persons who, at the time of its abolition in 1834, had a financial interest in slave ownership – the £20m paid out is generally reckoned to be worth around £17bn at 2019 prices, or 40% of total government expenditure in 1834 – a vast national debt that was only fully amortised in…

In September 2026, a claim circulated online that big box retailer Walmart once created special lapel pins for its employees to commemorate the 9/11 attacks.  The rumor stems from posts on social media that include alleged photos of the pin, which features a frowning version of Walmart’s Smiley mascot with a teardrop on its yellow face, along with a banner that reads, “September 11, 2001.” The posts circulated before and after the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in 2026.  Photos of the lapel pin appear to be authentic and specimens of the pin itself are available for purchase on eBay as of…

Ferran Torres continued the impressive start to his Paris Saint-Germain career by scoring the opener as the French and European champions won 2-1 at bitter rivals Marseille in Ligue 1 on Sunday. Spain World Cup final hero Torres came off the bench to replace Khvicha Kvaratskhelia just before the hour mark and headed in a Desire Doue cross to give PSG the lead in the 66th minute at the Velodrome. That brought the game to life, with England midfielder Angel Gomes scoring an excellent equaliser for Marseille on 72 minutes only for PSG captain Marquinhos to win the game for…

In March, the Federal Communications Commission banned new consumer internet routers manufactured outside the US, citing national security concerns. The ban doesn’t affect any routers already in American homes or currently on sale in the US, but all new routers aimed at the consumer market will need to be approved. That has inevitably included some of the best new routers to come out in the past six months.While the headline is that foreign-made consumer routers are banned, manufacturers can apply for exemptions, and some have been approved. There’s no need to throw out your router, and you’ll still find plenty…