Last week, this space was all about OpenAIs 12 days of shipmas. This week, the spotlight is on Google, which has been speeding toward the holiday by shipping or announcing its own flurry of products and updates. The combination of stuff here is pretty monumental, not just for a single company, but I think because it speaks to the power of the technology industryeven if it does trigger a personal desire that we could do more to harness that power and put it to more noble uses.To start, last week Google Introduced Veo, a new video generation model, and Imagen 3, a new version of its image generation model.Then on Monday, Google announced a breakthrough in quantum computing with its Willow chip. The company claims the new machine is capable of a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of todays fastest supercomputers 10 septillion (that is, 1025) years. you may recall that MIT Technology Review covered some of the Willow work after researchers posted a paper preprint in August. But this week marked the big media splash. It was a stunning update that had Silicon Valley abuzz. (Seriously, I have never gotten so many quantum computing pitches as in the past few days.)Google followed this on Wednesday with even more gifts: a Gemini 2 release, a Project Astra update, and even more news about forthcoming agents called Mariner, an agent that can browse the web, and Jules, a coding assistant.First: Gemini 2. Its impressive, with a lot of performance updates. But I have frankly grown a little inured by language-model performance updates to the point of apathy. Or at least near-apathy. I want to see them do something.So for me, the cooler update was second on the list: Project Astra, which comes across like an AI from a futuristic movie set. Google first showed a demo of Astra back in May at its developer conference, and it was the talk of the show. But, since demos offer companies chances to show off products at their most polished, it can be hard to tell whats real and whats just staged for the audience. Still, when my colleague Will Douglas Heaven recently got to try it out himself, live and unscripted, it largely lived up to the hype. Although he found it glitchy, he noted that those glitches can be easily corrected. He called the experience stunning and said it could be generative AIs killer app.On top of all this, Will notes that this week Google DeepMind CEO (the companys AI division) Demis Hassabis was in Sweden to receive his Nobel Prize. And what did you do with your week?Making all this even more impressive, the advances represented in Willow, Gemini, Astra, and Veo are ones that just a few years ago many, many people would have said were not possibleor at least not in this timeframe.A popular knock on the tech industry is that it has a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver. The phone in your pocket gives the lie to this. So too do the rides I took in Waymos self-driving cars this week. (Both of which arrived faster than Ubers estimated wait time. And honestly its not been that long since the mere ability to summon an Uber was cool!) And while quantum has a long way to go, the Willow announcement seems like an exceptional advance; if not a tipping point exactly, then at least a real waypoint on a long road. (For what its worth, Im still not totally sold on chatbots. They do offer novel ways of interacting with computers, and have revolutionized information retrieval. But whether they are beneficial for humanityespecially given energy debts, the use of copyrighted material in their training data, their perhaps insurmountable tendency to hallucinate, etc.is debatable, and certainly is being debated. But Im pretty floored by this weeks announcements from Google, as well as OpenAIfull stop.)And for all the necessary and overdue talk about reining in the power of Big Tech, the ability to hit significant new milestones on so many different fronts all at once is something that only a company with the resources of a Google (or Apple or Microsoft or Amazon or Meta or Baidu or whichever other behemoth) can do.All this said, I dont want us to buy more gadgets or spend more time looking at our screens. I dont want us to become more isolated physically, socializing with others only via our electronic devices. I dont want us to fill the air with carbon or our soil with e-waste. I do not think these things should be the price we pay to drive progress forward. Its indisputable that humanity would be better served if more of the tech industry was focused on ending poverty and hunger and disease and war.Yet every once in a while, in the ever-rising tide of hype and nonsense that pumps out of Silicon Valley, epitomized by the AI gold rush of the past couple of years, there are moments that make me sit back in awe and amazement at what people can achieve, and in which I become hopeful about our ability to actually solve our larger problemsif only because we can solve so many other dumber, but incredibly complicated ones. This week was one of those times for me.Now read the rest of The DebriefThe News Robotaxi adoptionis hitting a tipping point. But also,GM is shutting down its Cruise robotaxi division. Hereshow to use OpenAIs new video editing toolSora. Blueskyhas an impersonator problem. The AI hype machine iscoming under government scrutiny.The ChatEvery week, I talk to one of MIT Technology Reviews journalists to go behind the scenes of a story they are working on. This week, I hit up James ODonnell, who covers AI and hardware, about his story on how the startup defense contractorAnduril is bringing AI to the battlefield.Mat:James, you got a pretty up close look at something most people probably havent even thought about yet, which is how the future of AI-assisted warfare might look. What did you learn on that trip that you think will surprise people?James:Two things stand out. One, I think people would be surprised by the gulf between how technology has developed for the last 15 years for consumers versus the military. For consumers, weve gotten phones, computers, smart TVs and other technologies that generally do a pretty good job of talking to each other and sharing our data, even though theyre made by dozens of different manufacturers. Its called the internet of things. In the military, technology has developed in exactly the opposite way, and its putting them in a crisis. They have stealth aircraft all over the world, but communicating about a drone threat might be done with Powerpoints and a chat service reminiscent of AOL Instant Messenger.The second is just how much the Pentagon is now looking to AI to change all of this. New initiatives have surged in the current AI boom. They are spending on training new AI models to better detect threats, autonomous fighter jets, and intelligence platforms that use AI to find pertinent information. What I saw at Andurils test site in California is also a key piece of that. Using AI to connect to and control lots of different pieces of hardware, like drones and cameras and submarines, from a single platform. The amount being invested in AI is much smaller than for aircraft carriers and jets, but its growing.Mat:I was talking with a different startup defense contractor recently, who was talking to me about the difficulty of getting all these increasingly autonomous devices on the battlefield talking to each other in a coordinated way. Like Anduril, he was making the case that this has to be done at the edge, and that there is too much happening for human decision making to process. Do you think thats true? Why is that?James:So many in the defense space have pointed to the war in Ukraine as a sign that warfare is changing. Drones are cheaper and more capable than they ever were in the wars in the Middle East. Its why the Pentagon is spending $1 billion on the Replicator initiative to fieldthousands of cheap dronesby 2025. Its also looking to field more underwater drones as it plans for scenarios in which China may invade Taiwan.Once you get these systems, though, the problem is having all the devices communicate with one another securely. You need to play Air Traffic Control at the same time that youre pulling in satellite imagery and intelligence information, all in environments where communication links are vulnerable to attacks.Mat:I guess I still have a mental image of a control room somewhere, like you might see inDr. StrangeloveorWar Games(orStar Warsfor that matter) with a handful of humans directing things. Are those days over?James:I think a couple things will change. One, a single person in that control room will be responsible for a lot more than they are now. Rather than running just one camera or drone system manually, theyll command software that does it for them, for lots of different devices. The idea that the defense tech sector is pushing is to take them out of the mundane tasksrotating a camera around to look for threatsand instead put them in the drivers seat for decisions that only humans, not machines, can make.Mat:I know that critics of the industry push back on the idea of AI being empowered to make battlefield decisions, particularly when it comes to life and death, but it seems to me that we are increasingly creeping toward that and it seems perhaps inevitable. Whats your sense?James:This is painting with broad strokes, but I think the debates about military AI fall along similar lines to what we see for autonomous vehicles. You have proponents saying that driving is not a thing humans are particularly good at, and when they make mistakes, it takes lives. Others might agree conceptually, but debate at what point its appropriate to fully adopt fallible self-driving technology in the real world. How much better does it have to be than humans?In the military, the stakes are higher. Theres no question that AI is increasingly being used to sort through and surface information to decision-makers. Its finding patterns in data, translating information, and identifying possible threats. Proponents are outspoken that that will make warfare more precise and reduce casualties. What critics are concerned about is how far across that decision-making pipeline AI is going, and how much there is human oversight.I think where it leaves me is wanting transparency. When AI systems make mistakes, just like when human military commanders make mistakes, I think we deserve to know, and that transparency does not have to compromise national security. It tookyearsfor reporter Azmat Khan to piece together the mistakes made during drone strikes in the Middle East, because agencies were not forthcoming. That obfuscation absolutely cannot be the norm as we enter the age of military AI.Mat:Finally, did you have a chance to hit an In-N-Out burger while you were in California?James:Normally In-N-Out is a requisite stop for me in California, but ahead of my trip I heard lots of good things about the burgers at The Apple Pan in West LA, so I went there. To be honest, the fries were better, but for the burger I have to hand it to In-N-Out.The Recommendation A few weeks ago I suggestedCa7riel and Paco Amorosos appearance on NPR Tiny Desk. At the risk of this space becoming a Tiny Desk stan account, Im back again with another. I was completely floored byDoechiis Tiny Desk appearance last week. Its so full of talent and joy and style and power. I came away completely inspired and have basically had her music on repeat in Spotify ever since. If you are already a fan of her recorded music, you will love her live. If shes new to you, well, youre welcome. Go check it out. Oh, and dont worry: Im not planning to recommendBillie Eilishs new Tiny Desk concertin next weeks newsletter. Mostly because Im doing so now.

Apple is excited to unveil the most downloaded apps and games of the year across iPhone, iPad, and Apple Arcade.

The Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera for Apple Vision Pro content was made available for pre-order, with shipments to customers expected in early 2025. Here's what it can do, and who it's for.The Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera is available for pre-order.Originally announced in June 2024, the device was hailed as an end-to-end workflow for the Apple Immersive Video format used by the Apple Vision Pro headset. Apple Immersive Video combines 8K 3D video with a 180-degree field of view and Spatial Audio support.The Apple Vision Pro, announced during WWDC 2023, is Apple's first attempt at a virtual reality headset, with the company's CEO Tim Cook referring to it as an "early adopter product." Priced at $3500, the headset is powered by Apple's M2 chip and runs a unique operating system known as visionOS. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

The latest developer beta of macOS Sequoia introduces support for Genmoji, following the feature's debut on iPhone and iPad. Here's what you need to know.macOS Sequoia 15.3 introduces support for Genmoji.On Monday, Apple released the first developer beta of macOS Sequoia 15.3. While the software update contains few visible changes, it does include one noteworthy addition support for so-called Genmoji. Originally introduced with iOS 18.2, Genmoji are unique emoticons created by users and generated through the help of Apple Intelligence.Users can describe the emoji they want to create, such as one based on an object or a person they know, and Apple Intelligence will make it a reality. Genmoji can be created with source images from the Photos app, or a generic emoji person can be used instead. Genmoji are also synced via iCloud, meaning that they appear in the user's sticker drawer across all compatible devices, including iPhone and iPad. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, have developed a 3D concrete printing process that captures and stores carbon dioxide (CO) during production. The method incorporates CO and steamby-products of industrial processesinto the concrete mix, where CO chemically bonds into a solid form.The method, described in Carbon Capture Science & Technology, demonstrates a reduction in cements carbon footprint, a material responsible for 8% of global CO emissions. The process has shown improved mechanical properties, including a 36.8% increase in compression strength and a 45.3% improvement in bending strength, and traps 38% more carbon compared to conventional 3D concrete printing.Additional findings include:Reduced Porosity: Open porosity decreased by up to 72%, improving durability and resistance to environmental factors. Enhanced Printability: The process improves printability, allowing structures to be built with a 50% increase in build height capacity...

David Chipperfield Architectshas just completed a three-building scheme for the larger La Confluence master plan in Lyon, France designed by Herzog & de Meuron.View of the office building from one of the garden courtyards. Image: Simon MengesThe program includes a small office building, housing block, and mixed-use tower. The firm tells us each is "shaped by their structure and defined by their simple rectilinear forms yet react to their specific location in different ways."View of the social housing building from one of the garden courtyards. Image: Simon MengesAll three mirror each other and the other buildings in the plan thanks to the choice of mineral-like materials to cover each of their facades. The three buildings combined offer a gross floor area equal to 30,000 square meters (appx. 323,000 square feet) and were designed especially to enhance their site's riverfront connection.The mixed-use tower building. Image: Simon MengesHousingor at least its possibilityb...

Architizer's 13th A+Awards features a suite of sustainability-focused categories recognizing designers that are building a greener industry and a better future. Start your entry to receive global recognition for your work!I have always found the concept of a mood board quite limiting. The idea behind it is to create a visual presentation that conveys the mood and emotion an architect or designer wants to achieve through their work. It is often comprised of a carefully curated selection of textures, colors, objects, real or imaginary spaces and even writing. Nevertheless, the result, in my opinion, always appears somewhat static and rigid, the opposite of what human emotions usually are.Emotional architecture, or rather creating architecture that responds to human emotion has been tormenting architects for countless years. It is one thing to design a space in hopes of evoking certain emotional responses, but it is another thing entirely to design a space that responds to the turbulent mood swings of its occupants. What would that look like? Would it be a neutral space filled with sensors that can detect changes in mood by collecting biometric data (facial expression, heart rate or brain activity) and then adjust the spatial form, color or lighting accordingly? Would the people themselves input commands to a central server, thus controlling their environment more effectively?In truth, there is no architectural project that has been realized so far that shows the way of implementing such an ambition. However, there have been substantial ideas and research that tackle broader questions of inhabitation and participatory design, where a person is viewed as a catalyst in the responsive process of building. View this post on InstagramA post shared by Living Room Daily (@livingroomdaily)Fun Palace for Joan Littlewood is a visionary project conceived by British architect Cedric Price in the 1960s. The project was characterized as a laboratory of fun and a university of the streets, designed as a flexible structure in which programmable spaces can be plugged in, thus altering the design according to the users needs. The difference between Fun Place and other kinetic structures is that it prioritizes freedom, flexibility and fun, exploring notions of anticipatory architecture rather than an architecture that directs movements, emotions and moments of interaction. It reflects Prices personal vision of a city that has an obligation to encourage playfulness and spontaneity, serving the general public through the use of inventive technology. View this post on InstagramA post shared by De Re Aedificatoria (@dereaedificatoria)Another example is New Babylon, the anti-capitalist city conceived by visual artist Constant Nieuwenhuys in-between 1959-1974. Comprised of a series of linked transformable structures, New Babylon is home to homo ludens, i.e., man at play, who is free to live his life in any way he wants, liberated from any societal constraints, i.e., the shackles of work, family life, or any civic responsibility. Constants philosophy advocates that by letting homo ludens roam free, he himself would seek to explore and transform his environment according to his ever-changing needs. As a result, the Dutch painter made sure to create a world that is equally adaptable and responsive.Albeit not explicitly or emotionally responsive, these two projects hold one part of the equation to creating a new breed of responsive architecture. They both propose spatial systems that prioritize anticipation rather than direction, introducing terms like fun and desire in their designs. The other part of the equation, however, is creating the necessary technologies in order to be able to externalize and implement the emotional synergies occurring between humans and structures. For instance, smart material developments such as shape-memory alloys, electro-active polymers and even programmable materials can expand, contract or change properties is response to electrical or thermal stimuli, thus making it plausible to physically transform buildings.The Blur Building by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland Two projects by Diller Scofidio + Renfro have given us a glimpse of what these technologies might look like. The Blur Building, an architecture of atmosphere, is a structure that appears to be a fog mass resulting from both natural and manmade forces. To achieve this effect, water is pumped from Lake Neuchatel, filtered, and shot as a fine mist through 35,000 high-pressure nozzles. It is essentially a smart weather system that reads the surrounding climatological conditions of temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction and regulates water pressure at a variety of zones. Its materiality evades any definition, appearing as formless, featureless, depthless, scaleless, massless, surfaceless, and dimensionless, therefore allowing the visitors to craft their own spatial narrative.In parallel, the Shed is a project that seems as nothing less than definitive. It is a cultural centre and entertainment hall that accommodates an audience of 1,200 seated or 2,700 standing, since the shells entire ceiling operates as an expandable and contractable skin which rolls on custom rails through the use of adapting gantry crane technology. Diller Scofidio + Renfro write, the Shed takes inspiration, architecturally, from the Fun Palace, the influential but unrealized building-machine conceived by British architect Cedric Price and theatre director Joan Littlewood in the 1960s. Like its precursor, The Sheds open infrastructure can be permanently flexible for an unknowable future and responsive to variability in scale, media, technology, and the evolving needs of artists.The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York City, New YorkGoing back to the (mood) board, I do wonder whether these projects are outlines for a larger, more groundbreaking proposition: the creation and utilization of mood systems. Instead of creating predetermined compositions through a mood board collage, mood systems could be a series of inconclusive scenarios, made of materials, drawings, technological components and narratives that offer the mailable and transformable systems that Cedric Price, Constant Nieuwenhuys and Diller Scofidio + Renfro so passionately preached for. These mood systems would not seek to dictate specific outcomes but instead provide a framework for continuous adaptation and evolution, serving as a blueprint for environments that are as fluid and unpredictable as the lives they aim to support.Architizer's 13th A+Awards features a suite of sustainability-focused categories recognizing designers that are building a greener industry and a better future. Start your entry to receive global recognition for your work!Featured Image: The Shedby Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York, New YorkThe post Beyond Architectural Mood Boards: Theorizing Spaces that Adapt to Human Emotion appeared first on Journal.

Its been three years since the launch ofFar Cry 6, which means it probably shouldnt be too long before Ubisoft officially begins speaking about the series next steps. Until then, however, as often tends to be the case with Ubisoft titles, leaks have spilled the beans on several key details on the upcoming unannouncedFar Crygames, with an Insider Gaming report by Tom Henderson offering further information still.As past reports have claimed, Ubisoft Montreal has two titles in the works in the form ofFar Cry 7(under the codenameBlackbird) and and a standalone extraction shooter spinoff (under the codename Maverick), with the latter being set in the Alaskan wilderness, and the former being structured around a real-time 24-hour time limit within which the protagonist has to rescue their family from a dangerous conspiracy theory cult.Now, Henderson has offered yet more potential details, claiming that both titles are being designed to intentionally move away from whats been the establishedFar Cryformula for years. On the moment-to-moment gameplay front, both titles will also feature new and enhanced movement options, including tactical sprinting, vaulting, sliding, and more. Both games will also feature new inventory and loot systems.Past leaks had claimed thatFar Cry 7andMaverickwould both be releasing in Fall 2025, but Henderson now claims that due to the complexities of their development, both titles have now been pushed back into 2026. Allegedly, the developers working on the project are optimistic about howFar Cry 7is shaping up, though there is more internal skepticism surroundingMaverick, with some concerned about whether it will be another in a long list of failed Ubisoft titles that tried to chase trends, similar toXDefiant.

Since its announcement last year, Archetype Entertainments AAA sci-fi action RPGExodushas turned quite a few heads, thanks in large part to its promise of an epic space-faring adventure in the vein ofMass Effect(with a number of former BioWare veterans working on the game, too). Of course, until now, we havent seen too much of the game itself other than its cinematic pre-rendered reveal trailer- though that will soon be changing.Archetype Entertainment has announced that it will be debuting a gameplay trailer forExodustomorrow, on December 17, at 9 AM PT / 11 AM CT / 6 PM CEST. The developer has also shared a brief sneak peak of the trailer, which offers some brief glimpses of several characters, the games explosive third-person shooting combat, some of its locations, and more. You can view it below.Exodusis in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, with a release date or window currently unknown (which, hopefully, will change tomorrow). For more details on the game, make sure to read our interview with narrative director Drew Karpyshyn.Heres a Sneak Peek of our NEW EXODUS GAMEPLAY TRAILER, EXODUS: The Travelers CreedTune in to see the full trailer TOMORROW, DEC 17, on https://t.co/21fwtYcjES at 9AM PT//11AM CT//6PM CEST!#EXODUSGAME pic.twitter.com/e8TnVS7BYB EXODUS (from Archetype Entertainment) (@ArchetypeEnt) December 16, 2024

Still from the documentary film Into the Island, 2023 CCAThe CCA has announced the launch of To Build Law, the second chapter of Groundwork, a three-part film and exhibition series exploring the conceptual development and field research of contemporary architects cultivating alternative modes of practice.Groundworkaims to ask how we understand the making of architecture in the present moment, and how architects situate themselves in relation to changing natural and disciplinary boundaries. The exhibition aims to ask questions such as: What to build, or not build? Is a building the end point of architectural production? What to do with the existing building stock? How to intervene in the landscape? and How to engage with the increasing environmental and social complexities of a site?According to a 2020 report by the UN Environment Programme, the construction industry accounts for at least 38 per cent of carbon emissions globally, operating with narrow methods geared toward profit. Buildings are held as assets, torn down, and redeveloped, with limited consideration of community and environmental impacts.The documentary and exhibition To Build Law follows the Berlin-based collaborative architecture practice bplus.xyz (b+) and the Zurich-located chair for architecture and storytelling s+ (station.plus, D-ARCH, ETH Zurich) as they establish a policy lab, HouseEurope!, to propose industry reforms and shift cultural norms.The project observes b+s radical experiments beyond the fringes of conventional architectural practice, during various phases of conceptualization and development of a European Citizens Initiative meant to incentivize renovation over demolition and new construction.Guided by an urgency to understand the ways that architects are enacting change in the built environment, curator Francesco Garutti, alongside film director Joshua Frank, will be presenting a reportage of urban fragments and legal pathways in which architecture reveals itself as an open process of establishing partners, drafting positions, convening meetings, strategizing campaigns, and collecting votes to build a movement that aims to change the conditions of the architectural discipline in Europe.To Build Law is the second chapter of Groundwork, whichlaunched in May 2024 with Into the Island.The exhibition will be on display until September 14, 2025.For more information on the exhibition, clickhere.The post CCA announces second part of three-part film and exhibition series appeared first on Canadian Architect.