French AI up-and-comers Mistral recently released a pair of new AI models as part of its Les Ministraux family of models, detailed in a blog post released earlier this week. The two new models, named Ministral 3B and Ministral 7B, are designed to bring powerful yet compact AI to edge devices, such as laptops and mobiles. Unlike the industry norm of running AI in the cloud, these locally-run models address the rampant privacy concerns regarding AI models potentially storing data online while also outperforming Mistral's larger (albeit earlier) counterparts.
The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and Boston Dynamics recently announced a joint operation to advance humanoid robot whole-body capabilities by integrating TRI's Large Behavior Model (LBM) technology into Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot. While humanoid hardware like Atlas is already highly capable, its software is not - that is where TRI's LBM comes in. The technology would allow robots to autonomously learn and execute complex tasks by analyzing vast amounts of movement data, similar to how chatbot models process human language.
The US Treasury Department's use of AI to combat financial crime has, according to sources reported to CNN, helped recover $1 billion in check fraud in just its first year, along with recovering and preventing more than another $4 billion in fraud. The Treasury credits machine learning AI for its effectiveness in detecting subtle fraud patterns in vast amounts of data - AI flags suspicious transactions, and humans make the final judgment call. The US Treasury is also expanding its AI efforts by pairing up with other state agencies to tackle unemployment insurance fraud.
Earlier this week, the Hong Kong police arrest 27 people who were part of a romance scam operation abusing AI face-swapping technology to defraud victims by posing as attractive women. A report from the South China Morning Post says a total of $46 million was swindled through fake cryptocurrency investments on platforms that victims then wouldn't be able to withdraw their funds from. The police say that victims could be found all across Southeast Asia, from China to Singapore.
Google Shopping sees itself going through an AI-centric makeover as Google introduces new features such as summaries generated by Gemini and personalized product recommendations and deals pages. The AI summaries help users shop smarter by highlighting key product features based on searches, such as recommending kettles with goosenecks for precise pouring when making matcha tea. Personalized shopping feeds and deal recommendations are also available, and users can turn off personalization if desired via the Google Shopping settings menu.
Photonic computing startup Lightmatter recently raised $400 million in funding, led by T. Rowe Price Associates, putting itself at a $4.4 billion valuation. Lightmatter aims to boost data center efficiency by developing an optical interconnect layer that allows GPUs to work synchronously, addressing bottlenecks in AI model training and data processing by using photonic chips that speed up data transfer between GPUs. Lightmatter's current fiber-based system can transmit up to 1.6 terabits per fiber and link 1,024 GPUs, massively outperforming electric-to-optic systems, especially at scale, according to company CEO and founder Nick Harris.