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Baidu Self-Driving Taxi Launches in China

The launch of the RT6 was announced at the company’s Apollo Day, held in Wuhan, in Hubei province.

The vehicle, which is made by strategic partner Jiangling Motors, was first unveiled in 2022 but is now finally ready to be put into service. Around 1,000 are expected to be deployed in Wuhan alone by the end of 2024.

The all-electric model measures 15.7 feet long – very similar to a Tesla Model 3 – and comes with a spacious cabin for four passengers.

AI Unearths Nearly a Million Potential Antibiotics to Take Out Superbugs

“There is an urgent need for new methods for antibiotic discovery,” Dr. Luis Pedro Coelho, a computational biologist and author of a new study on the topic, said in a press release.

Coelho and team tapped into AI to speed up the whole process. Analyzing huge databases of genetic material from the environment, they uncovered nearly one million potential antibiotics.

The team synthesized 100 of these AI-discovered antibiotics in the lab. When tested against bacteria known to resist current drugs, they found 63 readily fought off infections inside a test tube. One worked especially well in a mouse model of skin disease, destroying a bacterial infection and allowing the skin to heal.

Decagon raises $35 million from Accel and A16z to build AI customer support agents. Here’s an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used

Decagon cofounders Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas have more in common than just their company. Each studied computer science, married young, and even founded a company before Decagon. “We started hacking on some stuff together,” said Zhang, the startup’s CEO. “And that went well, so we just kept working together.”

Founded in July 2023, Decagon uses generative AI to automate customer support for enterprise customers. The company has emerged from stealth and raised $35 million in funding for its seed and Series A rounds. Accel led the company’s $30 million Series A, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, A*, and Elad Gil. A16z led the company’s $5 million seed round. Decagon also counts Box CEO Aaron Levie and Airtable CEO Howie Liu as angel investors.

Edible robots could end up on a menu according to scientists

Fully edible robots could soon be a reality, according to scientists behind a project to create truly edible robots and robotic food.

Food and tech are intrinsically linked. Whether it’s in the increasing amount of high-tech kitchen gadgets, or that you can have just about any food you desire delivered to your door through the touch of a button on your smart device.

Now, one group of scientists is bringing food and tech together in a brand-new way, by creating edible robots and robotic food.

Runway Gen-3 Alpha: New video model closes gap with OpenAI’s Sora

👉 Runway has introduced Gen-3 Alpha, a new AI model that offers significant improvements in detail, consistency, and motion representation in the generated videos compared to its predecessor, Gen-2.


Runway has introduced Gen-3 Alpha, a new AI model for video generation. According to Runway, it represents a “significant improvement” over its predecessor, Gen-2, in terms of detail, consistency, and motion representation.

Gen-3 Alpha has been trained on a mix of video and images and, like its predecessor, which was launched in November 2023, supports text-to-video, image-to-video, and text-to-image functions, as well as control modes such as Motion Brush, Advanced Camera Controls, and Director Mode. Additional tools are planned for the future to provide even greater control over structure, style, and motion.

Runway Gen-3 Alpha: First model in a series with new infrastructure

According to Runway, Gen-3 Alpha is the first in a series based on a new training infrastructure for large multimodal models. However, the startup does not reveal what specific changes the researchers have made.

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