June 18, 2025

Puzzle Corner

Ready for a fresh set of puzzles? Click here for the July/August 2025 Puzzle Corner, brought to you by guest editor Ed Faulkner ’03. Send problems, solutions (by August 1), and comments to puzzlecorner@technologyreview.com. Editor emeritus Allan Gottlieb ’67 launched Puzzle Corner in 1966. Find back issues through 2022 at cs.nyu.edu/~gottlieb/tr and more recent back issues at technologyreview.com/puzzle-corner.

How to build a better AI benchmark

May 8, 2025
It’s not easy being one of Silicon Valley’s favorite benchmarks.  SWE-Bench (pronounced “swee bench”) launched in November 2024 to evaluate an AI model’s coding skill, using more than 2,000 real-world programming problems pulled from the public GitHub repositories of 12 different Python-based projects.  In the months since then, it’s quickly become one of the most…

Bosch Ventures’ new $270M fund is turning its attention to North America

May 8, 2025
The venture arm of Bosch has a new $270 million fund that will continue in its tradition of investing in deep-tech startups. And this time, Bosch Ventures plans to put more of its money into North American startups. Bosch Ventures, which launched in 2007, is on its sixth fund. And while the corporate VC is […]

Fastino trains AI models on cheap gaming GPUs and just raised $17.5M led by Khosla

May 7, 2025
Tech giants like to boast about trillion-parameter AI models that require massive and expensive GPU clusters. But Fastino is taking a different approach. The Palo Alto-based startup says it’s invented a new kind of AI model architecture that’s intentionally small and task-specific. The models are so small they’re trained with low-end gaming GPUs worth less […]

Stripe unveils AI foundation model for payments, reveals ‘deeper partnership’ with Nvidia

May 7, 2025
Fintech giant Stripe announced Wednesday a slew of new product launches at its annual Stripe Sessions user event. The highlights include: a new AI foundation model for payments; stablecoin-powered accounts; a new Orchestration offering, and a recent migration with chip behemoth Nvidia. Stripe’s payments foundation model has been trained on tens of billions of transactions, […]

Tesla’s  ‘Robotaxi’ and ‘Cybercab’ trademarks hit roadblocks ahead of June launch

May 7, 2025
Tesla’s attempt to trademark the term “Robotaxi” in reference to its vehicles has been refused by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for being too generic, according to a new filing. Another application by Tesla to trademark the term “Robotaxi” for its upcoming ride-hailing service is still under examination by the office. In addition, applications […]

OpenAI and the FDA are reportedly discussing AI for drug evaluations

May 7, 2025
OpenAI has met with officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to discuss the agency’s use of AI to speed up drug evaluations, Wired reported on Wednesday. According to the report, OpenAI and the FDA have discussed a project called cderGPT, which seems to be an AI tool for the Center for Drug Evaluation […]

The Papal ‘conclave cam’ is slow TV

May 7, 2025
On YouTube, hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world are staring at an unmoving broadcast of the Sistine Chapel chimney. Occasionally, a seagull will swoop in and perch atop the roof for a few minutes. But for the most part, nothing happens. On Wednesday, the College of Cardinals started the process of picking the […]