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.

FutureHouse releases AI tools it claims can accelerate science

May 1, 2025
FutureHouse, an Eric Schmidt-backed nonprofit that aims to build an “AI scientist” within the next decade, has launched its first major product: a platform and API with AI-powered tools designed to support scientific work. Many, many startups are racing to develop AI research tools for the scientific domain, some with massive amounts of VC funding […]

Fintech Bench conducts layoff while others still work month-to-month

May 1, 2025
Bench, the accounting and tax startup that was bought in a fire sale last December, has conducted a round of significant layoffs, it confirmed to TechCrunch. Bench didn’t specify how many people were affected, but one person who works there estimated that Bench was eliminating dozens of positions – that’s a big chunk of the […]

Ai2’s new small AI model outperforms similarly-sized models from Google, Meta

May 1, 2025
‘Tis the week for small AI models, it seems. On Thursday, Ai2, the nonprofit AI research institute, released Olmo 2 1B, a 1-billion-parameter model that Ai2 claims beats similarly-sized models from Google, Meta, and Alibaba on several benchmarks. Parameters, sometimes referred to as weights, are the internal components of a model that guide its behavior. […]

Senior State Department official sought internal communications with journalists, European officials, and Trump critics

May 1, 2025
A previously unreported document distributed by senior US State Department official Darren Beattie reveals a sweeping effort to uncover all communications between the staff of a small government office focused on online disinformation and a lengthy list of public and private figures—many of whom are longtime targets of the political right.  The document, originally shared…

Nvidia takes aim at Anthropic’s support of chip export controls

May 1, 2025
Nvidia clearly doesn’t agree with Anthropic’s support for export controls on U.S.-made AI chips. On Wednesday, Anthropic doubled down on its support for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,” which would impose sweeping AI chip export restrictions starting May 15. The next day, Nvidia responded with a very different take on […]