Oceania
Nvidia unveils 'reasoning' AI technology for self-driving cars
Nvidia unveils'reasoning' AI technology for self-driving cars Nvidia boss Jensen Huang on Monday announced Alpamayo, a tech platform the company says will help self-driving cars think like humans. Alpamayo brings reasoning to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to think through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex environments, and explain their driving decisions, Huang said on stage at the annual CES technology conference in Las Vegas. Huang also said Nvidia has begun producing a driverless car powered by its technology, the Mercedes-Benz CLA, in partnership with the German automaker. The vehicle will be released in the US in the coming months before being rolled out in Europe and Asia. Wearing his trademark black leather jacket, Huang told an audience of hundreds that the project has taught Nvidia an enormous amount about how to help partners build robotic systems. Analysts say the announcement reinforces Nvidia's leadership in integrating AI hardware and software, deepening its push into physical AI.
Car giant Hyundai to use human-like robots in factories
Hyundai Motor Group says it will roll out human-like robots in its factories from 2028, as major companies race to use the new technology. The South Korean firm showed off Atlas, a humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday. Hyundai says it plans to integrate Atlas across its global network, including a plant in the US state of Georgia that was involved in a massive immigration raid in 2025 . Other firms that have said they will use humanoid robots in their operations include Amazon, Tesla and Chinese car making giant BYD. The Atlas robots will gradually take on more tasks, said Hyundai.
Nvidia announces new, more powerful Vera Rubin chip made for AI
Jensen Huang speaks at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Jensen Huang speaks at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Next generation of chips in'full production' and will arrive later this year, Jensen Huang says at CES in Las Vegas Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Monday that the company's next generation of chips is in "full production" saying they can deliver five times the artificial-intelligence computing of the company's previous chips when serving up chatbots and other AI apps. In a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the leader of the world's most valuable company revealed new details about its chips, which will arrive later this year and which Nvidia executives are in the company's labs being tested by AI firms, as Nvidia faces increasing competition from rivals as well as its own customers. The Vera Rubin platform, made up of six separate Nvidia chips, is expected to debut later this year, with the flagship server containing 72 of the company's graphics units and 36 of its new central processors.
AI images of Maduro capture reap millions of views on social media
A supporter of Maduro holds a painting of him in Caracas. A supporter of Maduro holds a painting of him in Caracas. Minutes after Donald Trump announced a "large-scale strike" against Venezuela early on Saturday morning, false and misleading AI-generated images began flooding social media. There were fake photos of Nicolás Maduro being escorted off a plane by US law enforcement agents, images of jubilant Venezuelans pouring into the streets of Caracas and videos of missiles raining down on the city - all fake. The fabricated content intermixed with real videos and photos of US aircraft flying over the Venezuelan capital and explosions lighting up the dark sky.
Ofcom asks X about reports its Grok AI makes sexualised images of children
Ofcom has made urgent contact with Elon Musk's company xAI following reports its AI tool Grok can be used to make sexualised images of children and undress women. A spokesperson for the regulator said it was also investigating concerns Grok has been producing undressed images of people. The BBC has seen several examples on the social media platform X of people asking the chatbot to alter real images to make women appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations. X has not responded to a request for comment. On Sunday, it issued a warning to users not to use Grok to generate illegal content including child sexual abuse material.
Sega co-founder David Rosen dies aged 95
It is difficult to think of a more influential figure in the arcade game industry than David Rosen, who has died aged 95. The co-founder of Sega, who remained a director of the company until 1996, was instrumental in the birth and rise of the video game business in Japan, and in the 1980s and 90s oversaw the establishment of Sega of America and the huge success of the Mega Drive console. As a US Air Force pilot during the Korean war, Rosen found himself stationed in Japan, and once the conflict was over, he stayed on, intrigued by the country and seeing possibilities in its recovering economy. In 1954 he set up Rosen Enterprises and noticing that Japanese civilians now required an increasing number of new ID cards he started importing photo booths from the US to answer the demand. From here he expanded to pinball tables and other coin-operated machines, importing them for installation in shops, restaurants and cinemas.
Pigs have been island hopping for 50,000 years
With human help, the mammals can defy'the world's most fundamental natural boundaries.' Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Despite not exactly being world-renowned swimmers, pigs have spread across the Asia-Pacific region for thousands of years . With the genetic and archeological data from over 700 pigs, a team of scientists documented how people helped the mammals make their way across thousands of miles. "This research reveals what happens when people transport animals enormous distances, across one of the world's most fundamental natural boundaries," evolutionary geneticist and study co-author author Dr. David Stanton of the University of Cardiff and Queen Mary University of London said in a statement. "These movements led to pigs with a melting pot of ancestries. These patterns were technically very difficult to disentangle, but have ultimately helped us understand how and why animals came to be distributed across the Pacific islands."
The best new popular science books of January 2026
Megan Eaves-Egenes's Nightfaring explores our connection with the night sky Here in the northern hemisphere, January always feels like the longest, drabbest month of the year, so how lucky we are to have a host of new science books to enliven our days. This month, we can explore everything from what the arts bring to our lives to the unsung hero that is friction. Or what we lose when we light up our skies? Daisy Fancourt's Art Cure investigates the impact of the arts, including dancing, on our minds and bodies What if playing the piano, dancing, visiting art galleries or even lying in the mud listening to Wolf Alice at Glastonbury was good for the body, mind and longevity? Or what if it could help us develop brain resilience against dementia? In theory, she's well-placed to make the case as a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London and director of the WHO's arts and health initiative.
Can animals read? Not in the human way.
A 2024 study found that cats learn to associate images with words faster than human babies. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. "My cat always watches my phone as I text or read a book," someone wrote on Reddit . "Even right now she is on my shoulder, intently watching what I am typing on this post. Can she read or is she just interested in what I am doing?"
Generation AI: fears of 'social divide' unless all children learn computing skills
Children take part in an extracurricular club about coding and AI in Cambridge. Children take part in an extracurricular club about coding and AI in Cambridge. Generation AI: fears of'social divide' unless all children learn computing skills In a Cambridge classroom, Joseph, 10, trained his AI model to discern between drawings of apples and drawings of smiles. "AI gets lots of things wrong," he said, as it mistakenly identified a fruit as a face. He set about retraining it and, in a flash, he had it back on track - instinctively understanding the inner nature of artificial intelligence and machine learning in a way few adults do.