This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through November 2)

Google CEO Says Over 25% of New Google Code Is Generated by AI
Benj Edwards | Ars Technica
“We’ve at all times used instruments to construct new instruments, and builders are utilizing AI to proceed that custom. On Tuesday, Google’s CEO revealed that AI methods now generate greater than 1 / 4 of recent code for its merchandise, with human programmers overseeing the computer-generated contributions. The assertion, made throughout Google’s Q3 2024 earnings name, reveals how AI instruments are already having a large influence on software program improvement.”

Waymo Raises $5.6 Billion From Outside Investors
Eli Tan | The New York Instances
“Amid its push to develop its fleet of autonomous robotic taxis and increase into new cities, Waymo has raised $5.6 billion from exterior buyers, its largest funding spherical up to now. …The recent cash comes behind Waymo’s first style of economic success. Its robotic taxis are actually finishing over 100,000 rides every week in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles, double its quantity in Could, and can be working in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta by 2025 by means of a partnership with Uber.”

This Is a Glimpse of the Future of AI Robots
Will Knight | Wired
“Bodily Intelligence, often known as PI or π, was based earlier this yr by a number of outstanding robotics researchers to pursue the brand new robotics strategy impressed by breakthroughs in AI’s language skills. ‘The quantity of information we’re coaching on is bigger than any robotics mannequin ever made, by a really important margin, to our data,’ says Sergey Levine, a cofounder of Bodily Intelligence and an affiliate professor at UC Berkeley.”

Nuclear Fusion’s New Idea: An Off-the-Shelf Stellarator
Tom Clynes | IEEE Spectrum
“The PPPL staff invented this nuclear-fusion reactor, accomplished final yr, utilizing primarily off-the-shelf parts. Its core is a glass vacuum chamber surrounded by a 3D-printed nylon shell that anchors 9,920 meticulously positioned everlasting rare-earth magnets. Sixteen copper-coil electromagnets resembling large slices of pineapple wrap across the shell crosswise.”

Wall Street Giants to Make $50 Billion Bet on AI and Power Projects
Katherine Blunt | The Wall Avenue Journal
“The funding is a guess on AI’s large vitality wants and the mounting stress it’s placing on the US energy grid. …The businesses stated they’re now working along with massive tech corporations to speed up their entry to electrical energy, which has develop into constrained in elements of the US as data-center builders compete for energy sources and entry to the grid. ‘The capital wants are large, and one of many massive bottlenecks—possibly the bottleneck—is electrical energy availability,’ ECP founder and senior companion Doug Kimmelman stated.

The AI Boom Rests on Billions of Tons of Concrete
Ted C. Fishman | IEEE Spectrum
“To the informal observer, the info trade can appear incorporeal, its merchandise conjured out of weightless bits. However as I stand beside the busy development web site for DataBank’s ATL4, what impresses me most is the gargantuan quantity of fabric—largely concrete—that offers form to the goliath that may home, safe, energy, and funky the {hardware} of AI. Huge knowledge is massive concrete. And that poses an enormous drawback.”

Waymo Explores Using Google’s Gemini to Train Its Robotaxis
Andrew J. Hawkins | The Verge
“Waymo has lengthy touted its ties to Google’s DeepMind and its many years of AI analysis as a strategic benefit over its rivals within the autonomous driving area. Now, the Alphabet-owned firm is taking it a step additional by creating a brand new coaching mannequin for its robotaxis constructed on Google’s multimodal massive language mannequin (MLLM) Gemini.”

SpaceX Has Caught a Massive Rocket. So What’s Next?
Eric Berger | Ars Technica
“Right here’s our greatest try and piece collectively the milestones and main objectives of the Starship program over the subsequent a number of years earlier than it unlocks the potential to land people on the Moon for NASA’s Artemis Program and begins flying demonstration missions to Mars. For enjoyable, we’ve additionally included some estimated dates for every of those milestones. These symbolize our greatest guesses, they usually’re virtually actually unsuitable.”

Meet the First Star System to ‘Solve’ the 3-Body Problem
Ethan Siegel | Huge Suppose
“It’s simple to have planets that orbit round a single star, and in a double star system, you may both orbit shut to 1 star or removed from each members. These configurations are steady, however including a 3rd star into the combo was thought to render the formation of planets unstable, as mutual gravitational interactions would finally power their ejection. That knowledge bought thrown out the window with the invention of GW Orionis, which boasts a number of huge mud rings and probably much more planets, all orbiting three stars directly.”

Picture Credit score: David Clode on Unsplash