Artificial Intelligence: News, Business, Science

Mar 4, 2026

OpenAI has released its Codex app for Windows. Codex is an AI-powered coding tool that helps developers build software by running multiple agents asynchronously across projects, delegating repeatable tasks through Automations, and connecting agents to tools and workflows via Skills. Developers can review, guide, and step into agent work without losing context.

For the Windows version, OpenAI built its own sandbox that operates at the OS level with restricted tokens, file system access rights, and dedicated sandbox user accounts. This lets AI agents run directly in Windows environments like PowerShell without forcing developers to switch to WSL or virtual machines. OpenAI has published the sandbox code as open source on GitHub.

The Windows app arrives a few weeks after the Mac version, which was downloaded over a million times in its first week, according to OpenAI. More than 500,000 developers had already signed up for the Windows waiting list. OpenAI says Codex now has over 1.6 million weekly active users total. The app is available across all ChatGPT plans.

Comment Source: OpenAI

Matthias Bastian

Mar 4, 2026

AI and society

Google faces wrongful death suit after Gemini allegedly convinced a man to die and become digital

Matthias Bastian

Mar 4, 2026

Short News

Meta has signed a multi-year AI licensing deal with News Corp that will pay the Wall Street Journal's parent company up to $50 million annually. The contract runs at least three years and covers content from the US and UK, reports the Wall Street Journal. Meta can use current content for its AI products and tap article archives for training. News Corp already has a deal with OpenAI worth over $250 million over five years. Meta has also signed agreements with CNN, Fox News, and other outlets.

These deals are a mixed bag for the media industry. They bring in revenue for participating publishers during tough times but risk shrinking media diversity by squeezing out those not at the table. They also give platforms more leverage, letting companies like Meta increasingly set the terms. And because contracts are negotiated one by one, they split the publishing landscape in ways that make it harder for the industry to push for better conditions together.

Comment Source: WSJ

Matthias Bastian

Mar 4, 2026

Short News

OpenAI's GPT-5.4 could be the leap forward that the just-released 5.3 Instant for ChatGPT wasn't. The model should drop "sooner than you think," according to OpenAI, but no official details have been shared yet.

According to The Information, GPT-5.4 will feature a one-million-token context window, more than double the 400,000 tokens in the current GPT-5.2. That would put OpenAI on par with Google and Anthropic. The model is also expected to be more reliable and make fewer mistakes on longer tasks that can run for several hours, which matters especially for tools like OpenAI's Codex programming agent.

One notable addition is an "extreme" thinking mode that lets the model burn significantly more compute on tough questions. This mode is aimed at researchers rather than everyday users who want quick answers. According to The Information, the more frequent model release cadence is designed to keep expectations in check. The hype around the GPT-5 launch set the bar so high it was nearly impossible to clear, and OpenAI's user growth has recently fallen short of internal projections.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Mar 4, 2026

AI and society

Supreme Court AI copyright decision sounds sweeping but actually settles very little

AI inventor Stephen Thaler wanted the US Supreme Court to recognize a machine as the sole author of an image. The court refused, but the ruling only covers this extreme case. It says nothing about whether people can claim copyright for work they create with AI tools.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 4, 2026

AI in practice

US military uses Anthropic's Claude for AI-driven strike planning in Iran war

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 4, 2026

Short News

Meta is building a new applied AI engineering organization, according to an internal memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal. The new teams will be led by Maher Saba, currently a vice president in Meta's Reality Labs division, and will report to CTO Andrew Bosworth.

The structure is designed to be extremely flat, with up to 50 employees per manager. The new division will work alongside Meta's Superintelligence Lab to build the "data engine" that speeds up improvements to Meta's AI models.

According to Saba, the organization consists of two teams: one focused on interfaces and tools, and another on tasks, data collection, and evaluations.

Meta restructured its AI operations last summer, creating the Superintelligence Lab under former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that the company would release new models and products in the coming months.

Comment Source: WSJ

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 4, 2026

Short News

Anthropic is on track to generate nearly $20 billion in annual revenue based on current performance, according to Bloomberg. The company recently surpassed $19 billion in run-rate revenue, more than doubling its $9 billion run rate from the end of 2025. Just a few weeks ago, the figure stood at roughly $14 billion. The growth is driven by strong adoption of Anthropic's AI models and products, particularly its coding tool Claude Code. The company is currently valued at $380 billion.

At the same time, Anthropic is locked in a conflict with the US Department of War. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a designation typically reserved for companies from countries the US views as adversaries. The move came after Anthropic pushed for restrictions on the Pentagon's use of its AI for surveillance and autonomous weaponry. Former White House adviser Dean Ball called the designation "attempted corporate murder." Anthropic said the move is "legally unsound" and is prepared to challenge it in court. The company's main app recently topped Apple's download charts, reflecting a surge of support during the Pentagon standoff.

Comment Source: Bloomberg

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 4, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is building its own alternative to GitHub, Microsoft's widely used platform for code management and collaboration, according to The Information. The move was triggered by a string of GitHub outages in recent months that directly affected OpenAI's own developers. The project is still in its early stages and likely won't be ready for several months.

Internally, the company is reportedly discussing whether to offer the product to outside customers - a move that would put OpenAI in direct competition with Microsoft, one of its biggest investors. GitHub has attributed some of its outages to problems with Microsoft's Azure cloud, which the service is currently being migrated to. Google and Meta both run their own internal code platforms but don't offer them externally. OpenAI, Microsoft, and GitHub all declined to comment.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Mar 3, 2026

AI in practice

Google's fastest and cheapest model Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite got smarter but also tripled the price

Google Deepmind has released a preview of Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, the fastest and cheapest model in the Gemini 3 series. It’s significantly more capable than its predecessor, but output costs have more than tripled.

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