Large vision-language models (VLMs) face challenges in achieving robust, transferable reasoning abilities due to reliance on labor-intensive manual instruction datasets or computationally expensive self-supervised methods. To address these issues, we introduce MindGYM, a framework that enhances VLMs through synthetic self-challenging questions, consisting of three stages: (1) Seed Single-Hop Question Synthesis, generating cognitive questions across textual (e.g., logical deduction) and multimodal contexts (e.g., diagram-based queries) spanning eight semantic areas like ethical analysis; (2) Challenging Multi-Hop Question Synthesis, combining seed questions via diverse principles like bridging, visual-textual alignment, to create multi-step problems demanding deeper reasoning; and (3) Thinking-Induced Curriculum Fine-Tuning, a structured pipeline that progressively trains the model from scaffolded reasoning to standalone inference. By leveraging the model's self-synthesis capability, MindGYM achieves high data efficiency (e.g., +16% gains on MathVision-Mini with only 400 samples), computational efficiency (reducing both training and inference costs), and robust generalization across tasks. Extensive evaluations on seven benchmarks demonstrate superior performance over strong baselines, with notable improvements (+15.77% win rates) in reasoning depth and breadth validated via GPT-based scoring. MindGYM underscores the viability of self-challenging for refining VLM capabilities while minimizing human intervention and resource demands. Code and data are released to advance multimodal reasoning research.

Indeed, many of Tracy's pieces of film criticism aren't reviews--they're movie-centered essays, in which she develops in detail her probingly comprehensive view of the art form over all. She may even be the cinema's first major theoretician. Her body of work cries out for a complete reissue in book form. Tracy, born in 1874, was the daughter of actors, and she began her career on the stage, in the eighteen-nineties. In 1909, she published a book of short stories about the lives of theatre people, "Merely Players." In her love of movies, she was fighting an uphill battle against the intellectual orthodoxies of the time, which revered theatre as a serious art form and disparaged movies as merely popular entertainment.

Public high school in America was the product of the time of its invention, which was way back in 1821. But in this era of rapid technological change marked by artificial intelligence and robots moving into more aspects of work and social life, maybe the way teaching is done in high school needs a reboot. It is framed around the thought experiment: What would an ideal high school of the year 2040 look like? The tour guides of this imagined school of the future are two authors: Jim Tracy, a senior advisor at the nonprofit Jobs for the Future who in his career has led private K-12 schools and served as a college president; and Greg Toppo, longtime education journalist. They instead focus on how coming technological change will end up shifting the relationship between people and machines, and therefore between students and teachers.

A California firm has revealed a radical new AI'pilot assistance' system it hopes could change they way we travel. SkyRyse says its first craft will begin operations in Tracy, California, in January where it will provide support to the city's emergency response units, including law enforcement, search and rescue missions, and firefighters. The system will eventually allow helicopters and other vehicles to fly themselves, and its founder hopes to take on Uber and others developing'flying taxi' services. SkyRyse says its first craft will begin operations in Tracy, California, in January providing support to emergency response units. It will eventually allow helicopters and other vehicles to fly themselves.

Delta is now letting some passengers use their fingerprints as a boarding pass at Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), the company announced Thursday. The upgrade comes after Delta, in partnership with Clear, launched in May a program in which its SkyMiles members could enter the Delta Sky Club at DCA by using their fingerprints. Now, they can board a plane by using their fingerprints as proof of identity. Read: Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport Creates Robot'Tracy' To Help Travelers Get Through Security Members will have to enroll with Clear to use the fingerprint feature. Delta said the final phase of the DCA biometric boarding pass test, which is coming this summer, will allow members to use their fingerprints when checking-in their luggage.

Robots are now helping passengers get through security faster. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport announced this week it is testing a robot to speed up the security process for passengers. The robot gives travelers tips for getting through security faster, like reminding them to remove objects such as scarves, light jackets, belts and to empty their pockets before going through screening. "The robot pilot program is an example of how Sea-Tac airport embraces technology, science and operational innovations," the airport said in a release. Sea-Tac officials will track the number of times travelers set off the body scanner alert during and after the robot test to see if it is actually helping speed up the process.

There's a good chance something you've bought online has been in the hands of a "picker" first. These are the workers in warehouses who pick, pack and ship all those things we're ordering. Experts say while the robots are replacing some human workers, the machines aren't quite ready to take over completely. To keep pace with a growing hunger for fast delivery, more pickers are being hired in the distribution industry. And on the outskirts of the Bay Area, a school is using technology to train students in these new jobs.

SACRAMENTO - Thousands of employees work at the 1 million-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center in Tracy. But there are many more, who don't get paid for the work they do. Hundreds of automated machines roving around the fulfillment center can transport a vertical shelf of items up to 750 pounds. They roam the gigantic building on a pre-calculated route, using floor sensors. It's artificial assistance, that has drastically changed how much product Amazon can bring in and ship out.

If you're young and single, chances are you're rejecting potential dates left and right on apps like Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid. Hundreds of people are whittled down to a few in minutes. In the seconds you lingered on one person's profile, four pictures and an ambiguous job title, what made you swipe him or her to the right? First impressions count in ways you might not expect. How people sit or where their arms and legs are in the images they share seem to loom large in potential daters' calculations, according to experiments involving speed dating and an online dating app.

Evaluating new educational programs and tools, especially those targeted at difficult-to-assess learning goals can be quite challenging due to the small number of participants typically engaged with pilot programs. The focus of the evaluation, then, should be on collecting rich data from each participant about their experience in the workshop and their progress towards meeting the workshop’s learning goals. We present a novel evaluation technique, the debugging task, that seeks to assess at post-workshop a participant’s independent ability to use the tools, skills, and materials of the workshop. The technique is presented in the context of Robot Diaries, a program to develop a robotics design activity centered on crafts materials and expressiveness, and targeted to middle school girls. The paper discusses the rationale for the debugging task, its implementation, and the results and analyses of girls completing the task.