Tworek says he wants "to try and explore types of research that are hard to do at OpenAI." That sounds like a not-so-subtle dig at CEO Sam Altman's relentless focus on products and revenue, which has reportedly been causing tension among researchers. No word yet on where Tworek is headed next.
The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) from Abu Dhabi has released Falcon H1R 7B, a compact reasoning language model with 7 billion parameters. TII says the model matches the performance of competitors two to seven times larger across various benchmarks, though as always, benchmark scores only loosely correlate with real-world performance, especially for smaller models. Falcon H1R 7B uses a hybrid Transformer-Mamba architecture, which lets it process data faster than comparable models.
Falcon H1R 7B scores 49.5 percent across four benchmarks, outperforming larger models like Qwen3 32B (46.2 percent) and Nemotron H 47B Reasoning (43.5 percent). | Image: Technology Innovation Institute (TII)
Amazon has released the web version of its AI assistant Alexa Plus in early access for users in the US and Canada. Users can sign up at Alexa.com and use the new chatbot directly in their browser. Alexa Plus was already available on new Echo devices and recently rolled out to older Echos as well. A beta test is currently running in Germany.
The web interface lets users upload documents, emails, and images. Alexa Plus can extract information from these files - turning recipes into shopping lists or automatically adding appointments to your calendar. Amazon is also promoting features like automatic meal planning and filling Amazon Fresh carts based on dietary restrictions. Smart home devices can be controlled through the website too. Amazon is also launching a new sidebar for quick access and a redesigned mobile Alexa app.
AI tool catches pancreatic cancer in routine scans before symptoms appear
According to physician Zhu Kelei, AI has definitively saved the lives of patients whose scans were only flagged by PANDA, an AI tool developed by Alibaba researchers. The system analyzes non-contrast CT images – scans where even experienced radiologists can easily miss tumors.
"The exponential continues until it doesn't," says Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, quoting her colleagues. At Anthropic, the team believed every year that this pace couldn't possibly keep up, and yet it did, Amodei says in an interview with CNBC TV. But that's not guaranteed, she adds. Anthropic doesn't know the future either and could be wrong about this assumption.
Economically, things get more complicated, Amodei says (from 15:56). Even if the models keep improving, rolling them out in companies can stall for "human reasons": change management takes time, procurement processes move slowly, and specific use cases often remain unclear. The key question for whether AI is in a bubble comes down to whether the economy can absorb the technology as fast as it's advancing, she suggests.
Google engineer says Claude Code built in one hour what her team spent a year on
A senior Google engineer publicly praises Anthropic’s Claude Code: the tool built in one hour what her team spent a year developing. The quality and efficiency gains exceed anything anyone could have imagined, she says. Plus: Claude Code’s creator shares his best workflow tips.
Baidu's AI chip division, Kunlunxin, has confidentially filed for an IPO in Hong Kong. The company submitted its application on January 1, setting the stage for a spin-off while keeping Kunlunxin under Baidu's umbrella. According to Reuters, a recent financing round valued the company at around $3 billion. The final size of the offering hasn't been determined yet.
Kunlunxin started as an internal unit back in 2012 and has primarily supplied chips to Baidu. Over the past two years, though, the company has been expanding its customer base beyond its parent company.
