AI humanoid robots are stepping into showrooms to greet customers, explain features and pour coffee. Why settle for a regular robot when you can have a robot coyote? That's the innovative question the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is answering as it rolls out robot coyotes for airfield wildlife control. These cybernetic prairie predators are a creative solution to a very real problem. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox.

At least 30 Palestinians have been killed since dawn across Gaza in Israeli attacks, medical sources have told Al Jazeera, as the besieged and bombarded enclave's decimated health system, overwhelmed by a daily flow of wounded, is forcing doctors to make decisions on who to treat first. In the latest killings on Friday, three people died in an Israeli attack on the Tuffah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City. Five people were also killed in an Israeli air attack in Jabalia an-Nazla, in northern Gaza. Earlier, an Israeli attack hit tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza – previously designated a so-called "safe zone" – igniting a major fire and killing at least five people, including infants. Al-Mawasi has come under repeated, deadly Israeli fire.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are considering a deal that involves Washington buying battlefield-tested Ukrainian drones in exchange for Kyiv purchasing weapons from the U.S., Zelenskyy said in an interview with the New York Post. Zelenskyy said his latest talks with Trump focused on a deal that would help each country bolster its aerial technology. Ukrainian drones have been able to strike targets as deep as 1,300 kilometers into Russian territory. "The people of America need this technology, and you need to have it in your arsenal," Zelenskyy told the Post in the interview conducted Wednesday. The Ukrainian leader said drones were the key tool that has allowed his country to fight off Russia's invasion for more than three years.

Uber will invest 300m in electric vehicle maker Lucid in a robotaxi deal that aims to start with one major US city late next year. The two companies announced the new partnership on Thursday. Over six years starting in 2026, Uber will acquire and deploy over 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs that will be equipped with autonomous vehicle (AV) technology from startup Nuro, the three companies said in a statement. The agreement illustrates the renewed plans and push for financing for self-driving cabs, years after a first wave of autonomous driving investment produced only a limited number of vehicles. Tesla has recently launched a robotaxi trial in Austin, and Alphabet's driverless taxi unit, Waymo, is speeding up its expansion.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. While the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes continue to offer astronomers revolutionary glimpses of our universe, their upcoming sibling may very well upstage them. Scheduled to launch in 2027, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed with a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, with the potential to document light from over a billion galaxies over its career. Combined with timelapse recording capabilities, Roman will help researchers to better understand exoplanets, infrared astrophysics, and the nature of dark matter. According to a study published on July 15 in The Astrophysics Journal, Roman is poised to eventually capture an estimated 100,000 celestial explosions over its lifetime.

Uber has announced a multi-million dollar partnership with U.S. electric vehicle maker Lucid and robotics company Nuro. The three companies plan to deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis "in dozens of markets around the world" over the next six years, starting in a major U.S. city in 2026. The ride-share app announced the news on Thursday, saying that the Lucid vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners. The vehicles, which will be equipped with technology developed by Nuro, will be available to riders "exclusively" via the Uber platform, as per the company's press release. As a part of the deal, Uber is investing 300 million in Lucid and an undisclosed -- but "significant" -- amount in Nuro, according to the Financial Times.

Over the last year, chain of thought (CoT) -- an AI model's ability to articulate its approach to a query in natural language -- has become an impressive development in generative AI, especially in agentic systems. Now, several researchers agree it may also be critical to AI safety efforts. On Tuesday, researchers from competing companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google DeepMind, as well as institutions like the Center for AI Safety, Apollo Research, and the UK AI Security Institute, came together in a new position paper titled "Chain of Thought Monitorability: A New and Fragile Opportunity for AI." The paper details how observing CoT could reveal key insights about a model's ability to misbehave -- and warns that training models to become more advanced could cut off those insights. A model uses chain of thought to explain the steps it's taking to tackle a problem, sometimes speaking its internal monologue as if no one is listening. This gives researchers a peek into its decision-making (and sometimes even its morals).

Amazon today published a blog post by Michelle Vaz, managing director, AWS Training and Certification, that contains some fascinating insights about how AI is changing the landscape for people early in their careers. To understand this dynamic, Amazon partnered with Draup, a "data intelligence firm specializing in workforce planning and talent analytics." Together, the two companies conducted a study entitled, "The Evolution of Early-Career Technical Roles in the AI Era." Amazon hasn't yet provided us with all the data from the study, so I'll make some inferences. Amazon uses the term "early-career professionals," so the AI-related observations are likely about knowledge workers, not all new entrants into the workforce. Also: Amazon's Andy Jassy says AI will take some jobs but make others more'interesting' The analysis raises the same concerns we've been discussing here on ZDNET about AI potentially replacing entry-level jobs.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. More than 180 million years ago, ichthyosaurs ruled the early Jurassic oceans. The carnivorous marine reptiles ranged from the size of a briefcase to larger than a school bus. The biggest of these whale-like creatures were apex predators, hunting ancient fish, ammonites, and even their smaller reptile relatives. As they searched for prey, some may have swum with surprising stealth.

While pressing, this narrow focus overlooks critical human-centric considerations that shape the long-term trajectory of a society. In this position paper, we identify the risks of overlooking the impact of AI on the future of work and recommend comprehensive transition support towards the evolution of meaningful labor with human agency. Through the lens of economic theories, we highlight the intertemporal impacts of AI on human livelihood and the structural changes in labor markets that exacerbate income inequality. Additionally, the closed-source approach of major stakeholders in AI development resembles rent-seeking behavior through exploiting resources, breeding mediocrity in creative labor, and monopolizing innovation.