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China's 7-Year Tech Independence Push Yields Major Gains in AI, Robotics and Semiconductors
China has achieved substantial technological advances across robotics, AI, and semiconductor manufacturing as part of a seven-year self-reliance campaign that has tripled the country's research and development spending to $500 billion annually.
Chinese robot manufacturers captured nearly half of their domestic market by 2023, up from a quarter of installations just years earlier, while AI startups now rival OpenAI and Google in capabilities. The progress extends to semiconductors, where Huawei released a high-end smartphone powered by what industry analysts believe was a locally-produced advanced processor, despite U.S. export controls targeting China's chip access.
Morgan Stanley projects China's self-sufficiency in graphics processing units will jump from 11% in 2021 to 82% by 2027. Chinese companies have been purchasing as many industrial robots as the rest of the world combined, enabling highly automated factories that can operate in darkness. In space technology, Chinese firms won five of 11 gold medals when U.S. think tanks ranked the world's best commercial satellite systems last year, compared to four for American companies.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Plans Glasses for 2026 as Part of AI Push, Nixes Watch With Camera
Apple is aiming to release smart glasses at the end of next year as part of a push into AI-enhanced gadgets, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, but it has shelved plans for a smartwatch that can analyze its surroundings with a built-in camera. From the report: Company engineers are ramping up work on the glasses -- a rival to Meta Platforms's popular Ray-Bans -- in a bid to meet the year-end 2026 target, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Apple will start producing large quantities of prototypes at the end of this year with overseas suppliers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the products haven't been announced.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mozilla Is Shutting Down Pocket
BrianFagioli writes: In a surprising move that will frustrate longtime fans, Mozilla has announced it will shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025. The once-popular read-it-later service, which helped users save and organize web content for later reading, will no longer function as normal after that date. While existing users can continue saving and reading articles until July, the service will switch to export-only mode afterward, with all user data permanently deleted on October 8. The Firefox-maker will also shut down Fakespot, a service that allows users to identify unreliable reviews, on July 1.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Listen to a podcast recap of everything we announced at I/O.Listen to a podcast recap of everything we announced at I/O.
At this week’s I/O, we announced our very latest products, tools and research designed to make AI even more helpful with Gemini. The latest episode of the Google AI: Rel…
Categories: Technology
US Treasury Unveils Plan To Kill the Penny
An anonymous reader writes: The US Treasury is phasing out production of the penny and will stop putting new one-cent coins into circulation. The US Treasury has made its final order of penny blanks this month, and the mint will continue to manufacture pennies as long as its supply of penny blanks exist.
President Donald Trump stated that production of pennies are wasteful, as the coins cost more to produce than their one-cent value.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Anthropic Releases Claude 4 Models That Can Autonomously Work For Nearly a Full Corporate Workday
Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 today, positioning Opus 4 as the world's leading coding model with 72.5% performance on SWE-bench and 43.2% on Terminal-bench. Both models feature hybrid architecture supporting near-instant responses and extended thinking modes for complex reasoning tasks.
The models introduce parallel tool execution and memory capabilities that allow Claude to extract and save key facts when given local file access. Claude Code, previously in research preview, is now generally available with new VS Code and JetBrains integrations that display edits directly in developers' files. GitHub integration enables Claude to respond to pull request feedback and fix CI errors through a new beta SDK.
Pricing remains consistent with previous generations at $15/$75 per million tokens for Opus 4 and $3/$15 for Sonnet 4. Both models are available through Claude's web interface, the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud's Vertex AI. Extended thinking capabilities are included in Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Sonnet 4 also available to free users.
The startup, which counts Amazon and Google among its investors, said Claude Opus 4 could autonomously work for nearly a full corporate workday -- seven hours. CNBC adds: "I do a lot of writing with Claude, and I think prior to Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, I was mostly using the models as a thinking partner, but still doing most of the writing myself," Mike Krieger, Anthropic's chief product officer, said in an interview. "And they've crossed this threshold where now most of my writing is actually ... Opus mostly, and it now is unrecognizable from my writing."
Krieger added, "I love that we're kind of pushing the frontier on two sides. Like one is the coding piece and agentic behavior overall, and that's powering a lot of these coding startups. ... But then also, we're pushing the frontier on how these models can actually learn from and then be a really useful writing partner, too."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Russia To Enforce Location Tracking App On All Foreigners in Moscow
The Russian government has introduced a new law that makes installing a tracking app mandatory for all foreign nationals in the Moscow region. From a report: The new proposal was announced by the chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, who presented it as a measure to tackle migrant crimes. "The adopted mechanism will allow, using modern technologies, to strengthen control in the field of migration and will also contribute to reducing the number of violations and crimes in this area," stated Volodin.
Using a mobile application that all foreigners will have to install on their smartphones, the Russian state will receive the following information: Residence location, fingerprint, face photograph, real-time geo-location monitoring.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How well do you know our I/O 2025 announcements?How well do you know our I/O 2025 announcements?Contributor
Take this quiz about Google I/O 2025 to see how well you know what we announced this year at I/O.Take this quiz about Google I/O 2025 to see how well you know what we announced this year at I/O.
Categories: Technology
Verizon Asks For An End To Its Phone Unlocking Requirements
Verizon is officially asking for a waiver of the FCC's phone unlocking requirements. From a report: "Given the substantial and growing harms to consumers, competition and Verizon from this obligation -- and the lack of offsetting benefits -- the commission should waive this rule," the operator wrote.
Verizon faces phone unlocking requirements stemming from its acquisition of 700MHz spectrum in 2008, and also from conditions the FCC placed on the operator's acquisition of prepaid provider TracFone in 2021. The requirements mean that when a customer buys a phone from Verizon it's locked to Verizon's network for 60 days, so that they can only use it with a Verizon SIM card. After 60 days, Verizon automatically unlocks the phone, allowing that customer to use their phone on another carrier's network.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Has a Big AI Advantage: It Already Knows Everything About You
Google's expansion of Gemini's data access through "personal context" represents a fundamental shift in how AI assistants operate. Unlike competitors that start from scratch with each new user, Gemini can immediately tap into years of accumulated user data across Google's ecosystem. The Verge adds: Google first started letting users opt in to its "Gemini with personalization" feature earlier this year, which lets the AI model tap into your search history "to provide responses that are uniquely insightful and directly address your needs." But now, Google is taking things a step further by unlocking access to even more of your information -- all in the name of providing you with more personalized, AI-generated responses.
During Google I/O on Tuesday, Google introduced something called "personal context," which will allow Gemini models to pull relevant information from across Google's apps, as long as it has your permission. One way Google is doing this is through Gmail's personalized smart replies -- the AI-generated messages that you can use to quickly reply to emails.
To make these AI responses sound "authentically like you," Gemini will pore over your previous emails and even your Google Drive files to craft a reply tailored to your conversation. The response will even incorporate your tone, the greeting you use the most, and even "favorite word choices," according to Google.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Our project to reduce traffic emissions with AI has expanded to more than 100 intersections in Boston.Our project to reduce traffic emissions with AI has expanded to more than 100 intersections in Boston.
Project Green Light, Google Research’s initiative to lower traffic emissions using AI, has expanded to 114 intersections throughout Boston.This technology uses AI and Go…
Categories: Technology
Signal Deploys DRM To Block Microsoft Recall's Invasive Screenshot Collection
BrianFagioli writes: Signal has officially had enough, folks. You see, the privacy-first messaging app is going on the offensive, declaring war on Microsoft's invasive Recall feature by enabling a new "Screen security" setting by default on Windows 11. This move is designed to block Microsoft's AI-powered screenshot tool from capturing your private chats.
If you aren't aware, Recall was first unveiled a year ago as part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC push. The feature quietly took screenshots of everything happening on your computer, every few seconds, storing them in a searchable timeline. Microsoft claimed it would help users "remember" what they've done. Critics called it creepy. Security experts called it dangerous. The backlash was so fierce that Microsoft pulled the feature before launch.
But now, in a move nobody asked for, Recall is sadly back. And thankfully, Signal isn't waiting around this time. The team has activated a Windows 11-specific DRM flag that completely blacks out Signal's chat window when a screenshot is attempted. If you've ever tried to screen grab a streaming movie, you'll know the result: nothing but black.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
