AI in practice Archive

Apr 13, 2026

Softbank is uniting Japan's industrial elite to build the country's own AI foundation, trying to reduce dependence on American and Chinese models.

Eight Japanese corporations, including NEC, Honda, Sony, three major banks, Nippon Steel, and Kobe Steel, have invested in a new Softbank unit. The goal is to develop a foundation model with roughly one trillion parameters by the end of the decade. The project focuses on "Physical AI," meaning artificial intelligence that can autonomously control robots and machinery.

Even large Japanese companies increasingly rely on foundation models from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Alibaba. But as AI handles more sensitive data like the operational status of industrial facilities, concerns about training data flowing to foreign servers are growing, according to Nikkei. All data processing is set to take place on Japanese soil, including at a data center Softbank is building in a former Sharp LCD factory in Sakai, near Osaka.

Through the funding agency NEDO, roughly one trillion yen (about $6.7 billion) is expected to flow into national AI development over the next five years. Softbank's new unit is considered a leading candidate for these funds.

Comment Source: Nikkei

Maximilian Schreiner

Apr 13, 2026

Short News

According to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, Apple is developing smart glasses that skip the display entirely and instead function as an AI wearable. The glasses are part of a three-device strategy - glasses, AirPods, and a camera pendant - all designed to capture the user's surroundings through computer vision and feed that data to Siri and Apple Intelligence. The goal is to enable features like better navigation instructions and visual reminders.

The glasses, internally codenamed N50, are expected to be announced in late 2026 or early 2027 and go on sale the same year. A distinguishing design feature will be vertically oriented oval camera lenses. Unlike Meta, Google, and Samsung, which partner with established eyewear manufacturers, Apple plans to handle the design in-house. The glasses will rely on the new version of Siri shipping with iOS 27.

Apple's former AI chief John Giannandrea is leaving the company for good this week, according to Gurman. His role had already been scaled back in 2025 following the underwhelming rollout of Apple Intelligence.

Comment Source: Bloomberg

Maximilian Schreiner

Apr 13, 2026

Short News

Anthropic brings Claude directly into Microsoft Word. Anthropic already offered Claude add-ins for Excel and PowerPoint. Now the company is rounding out its Microsoft Office integration with a Word add-in.

The AI can rewrite highlighted text, respond to comments in a document, and insert changes as tracked changes that users can accept or reject individually. Context can be shared across the Word, PowerPoint, and Excel add-ins.

Claude for Word is currently in beta for Team and Enterprise plans and can be installed through the Microsoft Marketplace. Supported file formats include .docx and .docm.

Comment Source: Anthropic

Matthias Bastian

Apr 13, 2026

Short News

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood has been attacked again. According to an exclusive report by the SF Standard, someone apparently fired a shot at the property from a car early Sunday morning—just two days after a 20-year-old threw a Molotov cocktail at the same house.

According to the police report, a Honda sedan pulled up in front of the property, which stretches from Chestnut Street to Lombard Street, at 1:40 a.m. Sunday. The vehicle had already driven past once before. On the second pass, the passenger reached out the window and apparently fired a shot. Surveillance cameras captured the entire incident along with the license plate of the fleeing vehicle, which led police directly to the suspects.

The San Francisco Police Department announced the arrests of Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, on charges of negligent discharge of a firearm. During a search of their home, investigators found three firearms.

Comment Source: The San Francisco Standard

Matthias Bastian

Apr 12, 2026

Short News

OpenAI recently expanded its pricing options to include a $100 plan. But the company hasn't been particularly clear about how the usage limits differ from the existing $200 plan. OpenAI employee Thibault Sottiaux tried to clear things up, with an emphasis on trying.

According to Sottiaux, the $100 plan offers at least ten times the Plus usage, while the $200 plan offers at least twenty times. But both figures only reflect a temporary 2x usage boost that runs through May 31. On top of that, the $200 plan has had this boost since February, but OpenAI never explicitly documented it.

Once the boost expires at the end of May, usage could drop to at least five times and ten times Plus usage, respectively. Sottiaux didn't directly confirm these base values, though.

The confusion started because OpenAI's pricing page listed "5x or 20x usage." According to Sottiaux, the misleading labels led many users to assume the 2x boost would double both numbers to ten times and forty times. In reality, "20x" was already the boosted value for the $200 plan, while "5x" represented the base value of the cheaper plan.

Comment Source: via X

Matthias Bastian

Apr 12, 2026

Short News

Anthropic invited roughly 15 Christian leaders from Catholic and Protestant churches, academia, and business to a two-day summit at the end of March. According to the Washington Post, the $380 billion startup was looking for guidance on how to handle the moral and spiritual behavior of its chatbot Claude. Topics ranged from how to respond to grieving or at-risk users to whether an AI could be considered a "child of God."

Participants like Silicon Valley-based Catholic priest Brendan McGuire and Notre Dame professor Meghan Sullivan said they were convinced the company's interest was genuine. "They’re growing something that they don’t fully know what it’s going to turn out as," said McGuire.

The summit is another sign that Anthropic tends to view an AI model as something beyond a piece of technology. The company isn't alone in this: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also leaned on spiritual metaphors in the past. He's said, for example, that OpenAI was trying to develop "magical intelligence in the sky" and that he felt "on the side of the angels."

Comment Source: Washington Post

Jonathan Kemper

Apr 11, 2026

AI in practice

Google's Gemma 4 puts free agentic AI on your phone and no data ever leaves the device

Google’s new open-source model, Gemma 4, processes text, images, and audio completely on-device. Using agent skills, the AI can independently tap into tools like Wikipedia or interactive maps; no cloud required.

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Matthias Bastian

Apr 11, 2026

Short News

AI startup Overworld has released Waypoint-1.5, an update to its real-time world simulation system that generates interactive 3D worlds on consumer hardware. The software now runs on Mac and Windows for the first time, with two model tiers: 720p at 60 frames per second for high-performance systems, and 360p for a broader range of gaming PCs with NVIDIA RTX graphics cards and eventually Apple Silicon.

Compared to the earlier Waypoint 1.0 and 1.1 releases, the new version delivers noticeably better visual quality, improved efficiency, and stronger system performance, all while being half the size. Overworld says the model was trained on roughly 100 times more data than the original version.

Comparison between Waypoint 1.1 and 1.5. The visual quality has increased significantly with better efficiency. | Image: Overworld

Users can install the software locally through the Biome runtime environment or try it out via browser streaming at Overworld.stream. More details are available at over.world.

Comment Source: Overworld

Matthias Bastian

Apr 11, 2026

Short News

Anthropic has added a feature called "Ultraplan" to Claude Code that moves the planning phase of programming tasks to the cloud. Developers start a planning job in the terminal, Claude works out the plan on the Claude Code web interface, and the terminal stays free for other work meanwhile.

The documentation on code.claude.com lists three differences compared to local planning: users can leave comments on individual sections of a plan rather than responding to the whole thing at once, planning runs in the background in the cloud, and the finished plan can be executed either in the browser or back in the terminal. The browser interface also supports inline comments, emoji reactions, and revision requests.

Using Ultraplan requires a Claude Code web account, a GitHub repository, and at least version 2.1.91 of Claude Code. It doesn't work with Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, or Microsoft Foundry. Anthropic employee Thariq noted on X that Ultraplan consumes roughly the same number of tokens as the previous plan mode. The feature is currently available as a preview for anyone who has activated Claude Code on the web.

Comment Source: Anthropic

Maximilian Schreiner

Apr 10, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI tells investors its infrastructure gives it an edge over Anthropic

OpenAI is pitching investors on the idea that its early infrastructure buildout gives it a decisive advantage over Anthropic. Meanwhile, the company is pausing its UK data center project, and Anthropic is exploring custom AI chips.

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