Technology

Tim Cook has been standing on all the third rails this week. Days after hanging out with Donald Trump and attending the premiere of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, just hours after the U.S. Border Patrol gunned down Alex Pretti, Apple announced it is acquiring an Israeli AI company. According to the Financial Times, Apple dropped close to a $2 billion bag to acquire Q.ai, a startup that specializes in tracking facial movements.

According to Bloomberg, Q.ai’s bread and butter is understanding silent communication, which it does by analyzing how a person’s facial muscles move as they are speaking. So, you know, nothing creepy or anything like that. The publication speculated that the startup’s technology could eventually make its way into Apple’s AirPods, which are expected to continue to get an infusion of AI features in the coming years. The tech could also find its way into FaceTime and future smart glasses and headset projects.

Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies and the company’s most senior Israeli executive, said in a statement to Ynet News that, “Q is an exceptional company, pioneering new and creative ways to use imaging and machine learning technologies. We are excited to acquire the company led by Aviad and even more excited about what lies ahead.”

The Aviad in that statement is Aviad Maizels, the co-founder of Q.ai. He’s no stranger to Apple. Back in 2005, he started a 3D sensor company called PrimeSense that lent its technology to the early versions of Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect, a motion-sensing controller system. The company would eventually be acquired by Apple in 2013and become the foundation for Face ID, Apple’s facial recognition authentication system that it released in 2017. Maizels hung out at Apple until a couple of years ago, when he set back out on his own to launch Q.ai.

There’s a decent chance the acquisition won’t sit particularly well with at least a portion of Apple’s workforce, which has been pushing for years now for Apple to divest from Israel. The company has been accused of matching worker donations to the Israel Defense Forces, which carried out what the United Nations determined was a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and to organizations involved in building illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The company has also operated research and development facilities in Israel for nearly a decade. According to a report from CTech, about 30% of Q.ai’s employees were drafted into IDF military service after Hamas carried out an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.

The findings, based on internal ICE material obtained by 404 Media, public procurement records, and recent sworn testimony from an ICE official, show the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground. The tool receives peoples’ addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) among a range of other sources, according to the material.

Video link ->https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/2016727979880304640/pu/vid/avc1/576x1024/JSHtv3ng8AAxHc1Z.mp4

Source -> https://xcancel.com/JustCherry__/status/2016729507806531949#m

BEIJING, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- A joint research team has developed a general artificial intelligence (AGI) system capable of both autonomous problem proposing and automated problem solving, marking a critical milestone in the self-developed logic cores for automated reasoning.

In performance and functional diversity, the system, TongGeometry, has fully outperformed international benchmarks, including DeepMind's AlphaGeometry. This represents a major step forward in AI-assisted mathematical research and the localization of intelligent education.

The study, jointly conducted by the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University, the School of Intelligence Science and Technology at Peking University, the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Peking University, and the Wuhan Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Peking University, was published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence on Monday.

Mathematics Olympiads have long served as the litmus test for AI's logical reasoning capabilities. In early 2024, DeepMind's AlphaGeometry made global headlines by showcasing AI's enormous potential for problem-solving. However, AlphaGeometry is essentially a "passive solver" whose training relies heavily on large-scale synthetic datasets and costly computational resources.

In contrast, the independently developed TongGeometry exhibits a higher dimension of intelligence. It is not merely an "honor student" capable of scoring full marks, but also a "master teacher" capable of creating elegant and novel mathematical problems.

"We identified a profound duality in our research: when the proof difficulty of a geometric proposition is far higher than its construction complexity, it possesses 'aesthetic value' as an Olympiad-level problem," said Zhang Chi, the first author of the paper and a researcher at BIGAI.

"By modeling this duality, TongGeometry can precisely capture high-quality problems that meet the aesthetic standards of human mathematicians from a vast pool of spatial combinations. This is a global first, representing a paradigm shift from 'imitative solving' to 'autonomous creation'," Zhang noted.

TongGeometry clearly highlights the superiority of original domestic technology in terms of performance. While AlphaGeometry requires massive computing clusters, TongGeometry can solve all International Mathematical Olympiad geometry problems from 2000 onward in 38 minutes or less using just a single consumer-grade GPU.

Its reasoning efficiency and accuracy have reached world-leading levels. Furthermore, the system utilizes an innovative normalized representation technology to compress the search space by several orders of magnitude, effectively solving the path explosion problem inherent in traditional methods.

"The significance of TongGeometry lies not only in the increase in solving speed but in its realization of the 'small data, big task' paradigm by simulating the intuition and aesthetics of human mathematicians," said Zhu Yixin, assistant professor from the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University.

"This path, which does not depend on massive labeled data but evolves through internal logic, is the key to the development of AGI. Our system not only benchmarks against the most advanced international AI but also leads the way in understanding the underlying aesthetics of logic and the autonomous discovery of scientific laws," Zhu said.

Three new geometry problems autonomously generated by the system were officially selected for the 2024 Chinese Mathematical Olympiad (Beijing District).

This breakthrough provides core technical support for future advances in automated mathematical proofs, personalized intelligent education, and the development of "Science Large Language Models."

Going forward, the joint research team will continue to iterate on the "Tong" series of general intelligence models, driving Chinese AI technology to take the lead in more fields of complex logic and scientific discovery.

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese research team has successfully developed a miniature self-powered cardiac pacemaker, paving a new way for the advancement of implantable electronic devices.

This achievement resulted from nearly seven years of collaborative research involving multiple institutions, including the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Peking University, and several hospitals. The related study has been published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

This technological breakthrough may extend the pacemaker's service life to match that of the natural heart, thereby addressing the critical issue of repeat replacement surgeries and opening a new path toward lifetime maintenance-free and human-machine symbiotic implantable electronics, said Ouyang Han, the paper's first author and an associate professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Implantable cardiac pacemakers are vital devices for restoring normal heart rhythms in patients. Beyond regulating cardiac activity, such bioelectronic implants are also widely used to restore motor, visual, and auditory functions, as well as for pain management and disease diagnosis, offering crucial support for early intervention, precise treatment, and long-term management of serious conditions.

However, a persistent challenge remains: once the battery is depleted, patients must undergo another surgery to replace the device, which carries additional risks and financial burdens. Achieving lifetime maintenance-free operation has thus become a central goal in the field, with sustainable energy supply representing a core hurdle.

The key innovation of this capsule-sized pacemaker lies in its integrated energy regeneration module, which captures kinetic energy from the heart's motion via electromagnetic induction and converts it into electrical energy.

Tests show that its output power exceeds the critical threshold required for lifelong operation, allowing it to reliably power the pacing circuit and precisely regulate heart rhythm.

The device also features a miniaturized design with excellent biocompatibility and hemocompatibility, enabling minimally invasive transcatheter implantation and significantly reducing surgical trauma.

Additionally, the team developed a simplified magnetic levitation energy buffer structure. This design minimizes energy loss and mechanical friction while achieving near-zero activation thresholds, high energy conversion efficiency, and stable intracardiac power output. It also simplifies system architecture and enhances long-term operational stability.

In animal trials lasting one month, the pacemaker operated autonomously and consistently regulated heart rhythm, demonstrating promising feasibility for clinical translation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260126075708/https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3340516/flying-blind-mach-1-how-china-bringing-worlds-first-supersonic-rail-life

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese research team has created a tiny, fully biodegradable implant that uses the body's own movement to generate gentle electrical pulses, helping damaged muscle heal faster -- all without wires, batteries, or the need for follow-up surgery.

The device, detailed in the journal Cell Biomaterials, offers a promising new approach for treating severe muscle injuries, which remain difficult to restore fully.

The implant consists of two soft, biocompatible parts. The first is a thin, flexible film made from natural materials. When placed near a moving joint -- such as a knee or elbow -- it converts natural motion into a mild electrical signal. The second part is a supportive gel-like scaffold that is placed directly at the injury site. It receives the signal and delivers gentle electrical stimulation to the damaged tissue.

This gentle stimulation encourages muscle cells to grow and repair, while the scaffold provides a supportive structure for new tissue formation.

A key advantage is that the entire system is self-sufficient. It harvests energy from the patient's own movement, eliminating bulky external power sources or batteries. Moreover, both the film and the scaffold are made from safe, biodegradable materials that the body naturally absorbs over time, according to the study.

In tests on rats with muscle injuries, the device helped achieve full muscle recovery within two weeks. The implant itself safely dissolved inside the body within about a month.

"This work provides a new implantable strategy that combines self-powered stimulation with complete biodegradability," said Bai Shuo, a professor at the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the study. "It avoids the need for external hardware or a second operation to remove the device."

The research points toward a future where temporary, intelligent implants can assist healing internally, offering a wireless, surgery-free path to recovery for patients with muscle damage, Bai added.

The deep integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with the real economy is profoundly reshaping models of manufacturing and economic structures, accelerating industrial upgrading.

On January 7, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with seven other departments, released a work plan to deepen the integration of the manufacturing sector and artificial intelligence (AI).

The document outlines seven priority areas—innovation foundation, intelligent upgrading, product breakthrough, market player, ecosystem expansion, security assurance, and international cooperation. It also details 21 specific measures to speed up the intelligent, sustainable, and integrated development of the manufacturing sector.

According to the document, China will achieve secure and reliable supply of key AI technologies by 2027, with its industrial scale and empowerment capacity remaining among the world's leading ranks.

The document calls for promoting the in-depth application of three to five general-purpose large AI models in manufacturing, launching 1,000 high-level industrial intelligent agents, building 100 high-quality industrial data sets, and promoting 500 typical application scenarios.

It aims to foster two to three ecosystem-leading enterprises with global influence, nurture a group of specialized small and medium-sized businesses that produce novel and unique products, cultivate a number of application service providers proficient in both AI and industrial development, and establish 1,000 benchmark firms.

• A 5G-enabled digital production line for photovoltaic panels runs at full capacity in a workshop of a new energy technology company in Suqian, east China's Jiangsu province. (Photo/Liu Ye)

A globally leading open-source and open ecosystem will be established, with comprehensive improvements in security governance, contributing Chinese solutions to global AI development.

In textile workshops, air-conditioning fans are needed to regulate temperature and humidity, purify the air, and ensure ventilation. Traditional products rely heavily on manual adjustment, resulting in low precision and difficulty in predicting equipment failures.

"By using Inspur Yunzhou Industrial Internet Platform, we installed multiple types of sensors on traditional fans to collect and train data, and developed digital-intelligent fans," said Wu Zicai, chairman of Shandong Jinxin Air Conditioning Group.

According to Wu, these digital-intelligent fans can optimize parameters such as air volume in real time based on operating conditions, precisely control workshop temperature and humidity, and reduce equipment maintenance cycles by 40 percent.

"Enterprises need to accelerate full-process transformation and upgrading by deeply embedding large-model technologies into all stages—from research and development (R&D) and pilot testing to production, marketing, services, and operations management—so as to enhance capabilities in assisted design, simulation modeling, production scheduling, and predictive maintenance," an expert said.

In the R&D and design phase, efforts should focus on promoting intelligent design assistance, software code generation, and pharmaceutical research, creating new R&D models that are more personalized, lower in cost, and higher in efficiency.

In production and manufacturing, industrial quality inspection technologies such as machine vision and unmanned intelligent inspections should be expanded. This will enhance real-time monitoring of production lines, predictive maintenance, and the precision of equipment fault identification, while enabling early warnings for potential safety risks and incidents in production operations.

In operations and management, the analytical and generative capabilities of large AI models should be used to enhance enterprises' management of strategy, human resources, finance, and risks.

To support enterprises using AI in R&D, production, operations, and value-added services, the document provides additional guidance for AI application in manufacturing.

This application guide provides detailed, step-by-step guidance on conducting intelligent assessments and planning, strengthening foundational digital capabilities, building high-quality data sets, reasonably planning computing power resources, selecting and optimizing models, deploying and integrating models, and ensuring AI application security—offering hands-on pathways and methods for intelligent transformation and upgrading.

From experience-based mining to smart exploration, and from craftsmanship-driven smelting to AI-enabled precision control, China's non-ferrous metals industry is also advancing rapidly. Recently, the industry's large model Kun'an 2.0 was released, further exploring the deep integration of AI technologies across the entire non-ferrous metals industrial chain.

"Over the past year, we have applied AI to key industrial processes and promoted the development of more than 100 application scenarios. From these, we selected and released 52 scenarios and built eight high-quality industry data sets," said Duan Xiangdong, chairman of Aluminum Corporation of China.

Ge Honglin, president of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, noted that the industry features a wide range of products, complex resources, and highly intricate process flows, and faces challenges in digital and intelligent development in areas such as technology adaptation, data governance, coordination, and talent development. To address such industry-wide challenges, the document clearly calls for the development of high-level industry models and the acceleration of AI-enabled applications in key sectors.

"AI applications in manufacturing should be advanced through differentiated approaches, taking into account each industry's characteristics, technological maturity, and level of digitalization," said an official with the Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The official added that the document also provides tailored guidance for sectors including raw materials, equipment manufacturing, consumer goods, electronic information, and software and information technology services, supporting industry-specific transformation efforts.

https://archive.ph/jSRoU