The scientist who made the AI ​​we know today possible has just raised 1 billion. His new goal is to teach him to see space

Fei-Fei Li, known as the godmother of AIjust closed a $1 billion round for World Labs, his startup dedicated to teaching machines to understand the world in three dimensions. Behind this bet are large companies such as NVIDIA, AMD, Autodesk or the Andreessen Horowitz fund, among others. Li, like other important figures in the field of AI, believes that world models are the way to go, instead of the AGI. Who you are and why what you do matters. Li is one of the people who made it possible for the Generative AI as we know it today existed. He was part of the team that developed ImageNet, a database of millions of images that allowed computers to learn to recognize objects in photos. That academic work was the trigger for the leap towards deep learning that gave rise to everything that came after: from voice assistants to generative models of text and images. Now, from Stanford University, where he directs the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and from World Labs, the startup he founded in 2024, Li points to what he considers the next big unsolved problem in AI: that machines understand the physical world, not just text or flat images. The problem you want to solve. The great language models like GPT either Claude They are extraordinarily good at processing text. But the real world is not text, or at least it is not only text: it is three-dimensional, it has physics, it has geometry, it has objects that move and relate to each other. “If AI is to be truly useful, it must understand worlds, not just words,” counted Li in his statement. That is what so-called spatial intelligence, the central focus of World Labs, pursues. Unlike working with two-dimensional data, the models the startup works on are designed to perceive, generate and interact with three-dimensional environments. The idea is that an AI with spatial intelligence can reason about how things work in space, where an object is, how it moves, what will happen if it is pushed, how it fits into a larger environment, etc. What already exists and what is coming. In November of last year released Marbleits first commercial product. It is a model that generates editable and downloadable 3D environments from text, images, videos or panoramas. The user can create a virtual world, modify it, expand it and export it in different formats. The startup positions it mainly for video games, visual effects and virtual reality, or sectors with a huge demand for 3D content in which there are few tools to put them into operation. With this new round of financing, the focus also expands to robotics. And in this field, spatial intelligence is especially critical, since a robot that understands the space around it can plan actions before executing them, process different ways of completing a task or adapt to changing environments without needing to be reprogrammed for each situation. Autodesk has put 200 million at your table. It really makes perfect sense. It is the company that makes the design software used by architects, engineers, animation studios and manufacturers around the world. Your business is, by definition, thinking in three dimensions. And if Li’s models can generate and reason about 3D environments, Autodesk tools can also benefit from what the startup aims to offer. Daron Green, chief scientist at Autodesk, explained to TechCrunch that the collaboration between both companies will initially focus on entertainment and audiovisual production. The idea is that design workflows can be combined with AI-generated worlds. In this way, a user designs an object in Autodesk and places it in an environment created by World Labs, or the other way around. “You might anticipate that we will consume their models or that they will consume ours in different contexts,” Green said. You are not alone in this race. World Labs is not the only commitment to world models. Google DeepMind works on your family of Genie modelscapable of generating and simulating 3D environments. Yann LeCun, who was chief AI scientist at Meta, just founded AMI Labs with the same approach. Startups like Decart and Odyssey They also move in this spacealthough with products still in the demo or research phase. However, there are differences in their respective approaches. LeCun, for example, defends that to build true world models a completely new AI architecture will be needednot generative. Li, from World Labs, is committed to advancing with current generative models and improving from there. Cover image | World Labs and Andria Lo In Xataka | We’d love to tell you that ‘Her’ hasn’t come true and there aren’t people dating an AI, but we can’t.

There is a whale that has been alive for more than two centuries. And it has things to teach us

Stopping aging is one of the objectives that a field of science has right now that is very focused, above all, on preventing diseases as serious as cancer that can be associated with being older. Now the secret does not seem to be in a hidden book, but on a bowhead whale what is one of the oldest known mammals with a life expectancy that exceeds 200 years. A headache. This combination of size and longevity has been a problem for biologists for decades. Precisely, more cells (due to their size) and more time (due to their longevity), the greater the probability that one of those cells will accumulate mutations and turn into cancer, as happens in humans. However, this does not seem to affect the bowhead whale: it is not particularly prone to cancer. This apparent contradiction is known like Peto’s paradox. And now, a team of scientists from the University of Rochester believes he has found the key to this resistance. The importance. With the passage of time, humans accumulate different mutations in our cells that a priori They couldn’t be more important. The change of one nucleotide for another in a very complex sequence of a protein may not alter the resulting amino acid, and it is very common, since our ‘genetic photocopiers’ such as DNA polymerases they are not perfect and they make mistakes in their work when it comes to replicating DNA. And it is precisely in these errors that the probability of suffering from a major disease such as cancer increases. Above all, it is worrying when these errors accumulate throughout life. This makes finding ‘the secret of eternal youth’ crucial for humans and the control of devastating diseases. When we think about anti-aging we automatically imagine wrinkle-free skin, but beyond aesthetics, science is interested in how young the cells are. And this is where the question is that now focuses on the genome of these whales that seem to hold the key to understanding how to reverse our molecular aging. The hypotheses. Why a whale has such a high life expectancy despite its size has led to different scenarios being considered. The first of them is that the whale can have extra defenses, as happens in elephants that have evolved to have extra copies of tumor suppressor genes, such as the TP53. Basically, they have more “police” monitoring the genome so that, the moment there is a cancer cell, it is eliminated by apoptosis. But when researchers tested the whale’s cells, they got a major surprise. Unexpectedly, bowhead whale fibroblasts required fewer oncogenic “hits” (what we can say are mutations) to undergo malignant transformation than human fibroblasts. That is, they are more likely to develop cancer compared to humans. So how come they don’t develop cancer in the wild? If your cells are, in theory, more vulnerable, where’s the catch? The repair. And the trick is not in have many police officers monitoring our cells to ‘kill’ those that get out of controlbut it is about having a big toolbox to fix everything that is not normal. It is something that the team led by Professor Vera Gorbunova discovered in the cells of the bowhead whale. In this case, instead of eliminating damaged cells in a process called apoptosis, the whale had perfected the art of repairing them. Their cells showed an “enhanced” ability and fidelity to repair DNA double-strand breaks, which are the most dangerous type of genomic damage. This results in lower mutation rates than present in other mammalian cells. A protein. The person responsible for this super repair is a protein called CIRBP (cold-inducible RNA binding protein). And the name is no coincidence. These types of animals spend their entire lives in the icy waters of the Arctic, and it seems essential to activate this repair system that is present 100 times more frequent in these animals than in humans. And CIRBP seems a real swiss army knife of repair for everything it can do within the whale’s body. Something that can be summarized in the following points: It protects DNA from degradation so that it ‘holds up’ to being repaired. Reduces the formation of ‘micronuclei’, a clear sign of genomic instability and chromosomal damage. It increases the precision of DNA repair so that the genetic material ends up well assembled and without any type of error. In short, we are talking about a conservative strategy of nature: instead of discarding cells that may still be useful, the whale invests in meticulously repairing them. This not only prevents cancer, but also contributes to its exceptional longevity, as it keeps tissues functional for longer. In humans. The question in this case is whether we can take advantage of this great repair capacity within our body. To do this, the research team introduced the whale protein CIRBP into human cells and the result was a success: the protein improved the efficiency of DNA repair in our own cells. But the star experiment was done with fruit flies. In this case, the researchers engineered the flies to overexpress the CIRBP protein (both the human and whale versions) and the results showed a much longer lifespan and greater resistance to the ionizing radiation that destroys our DNA. The next step is now to breed mice with enhanced levels of CIRBP to see if it also makes them live longer, and who knows if it finally somehow becomes a drug that could be very useful especially for those people who are more likely to suffer from cancer. Cover | Wikipedia In Xataka | “Guided missiles” are revolutionizing cancer treatment. And they are already giving results

The photographic AI of the Pixel allowed to create false memories. Now your goal is to teach us to get better photos

If Google mobiles have always been characterized by something, it is for its photographic functions. Post -processed cameras and software has always been a reference in the market, but AI has devastated this segment. Although There have been interesting functionsthis technology has also made time the difference between reality and the processed image It was bigger. Google has given a step back in that trend. Camera Coach. This is the name of the new Android function present in the new Pixel 10, Pro and Pro XL. Contrary to what happens With the magic editorwhich allows us modify our images with ia To the point of creating false memories, Camera Coach goes in the opposite direction: try to draw real photos “without tricks”. As? Teaching us photography. Frame better. This Google tool uses The gemini modelbut he does it with a teaching and educational function. The idea is not to add things that were not or remove the ones and “bothered.” What Camera Coach does is guide us in things how to make a better frame of the photo before taking it out. The composition also matters. During that process that guides us when taking a photo, Google’s AI “sees what we see” and giving us advice of all kinds. Not only to frame – “move the camera a little to the right and up”, “apply a little zoom” – but so that the composition of the photo is also better – “Frame to see that sculpture also in the background” – and the final result is more professional. Di “Cheese”. This function comes to suggest that for example the protagonists of the photo also contribute to the better. Thus, Camera Coach can advise us to ask that person to smile or look at the camera or any other part. It can even suggest scenes that we had not even considered photographing. A learning for the future. Google’s proposal is interesting because all these tips can help us for the future. Thus, at first we need them more and apply them, but over time the idea is that we apply them automatically without the need for Camera Coach so that our photos have better frame and composition. And if that were not enough, Guided Frame. That Google option is based on the fact that the AI already sees what our camera sees and is Able to recognize a scene and “understand it.” That is what the AI of Google takes advantage of for “Guided Frame” technology, which is capable of identifying all the elements present in the image so that we can then act on those elements. Thus, in a group photo with four people and with cars and trees behind, Google’s AI can identify all that and then allow us to edit that image with natural language. For example, saying “fixes the lighting of this image” or “eliminates that garbage cube on the right.” If Google Mete ia, you will also put water brand. The new pixel 10/pro/pro xl also have an important novelty: according to Google they are the first to implement C2PA content credentials. That means that if at any time changes in the photo are made to edit it, for example adding things with AI, the system will integrate in that new image an invisible water mark that can be consulted afterwards to verify that, in effect, there has been a certain editing process with AI or with editing applications. The new magical editor allows this normal photo to become something much more striking … even if it is a lie. Source: 91mobiles/Kamila Wojciechowska Beware of false memories. In recent years, Google drifting in editing processes has been as striking as controversy. He Magic draft He taught us that we could eliminate things that had left over our photos, and the Magic editor went further and allowed us to distort those photos and memories with options like that “reimagine” that scares and excites equal parts. We could make the sky, instead of lead, be sunny, or that the sea in the background was more blue and crystalline instead of darker and ugly. Good for the educational approach. Google continues to reinforce those options to edit photos with AI. However, the most striking novelty among those that have been announced of this type is precisely that “integrated photography teacher” that will teach us to get better photos in different situations. It is a striking and original proposal that will undoubtedly help many fans get even more game of their mobile camera. In Xataka | Google photos was a place where we kept photos. Google wants it now a place where our photos are “invented”

To play Dungoons & Dragons you just needed ball, paper and dice. Now a course of 2,000 dollars wants to teach you better

To direct a game of Dungoons & Dragons, the legendary role -playing gamejust a dice, a paper and a pencil. Okay, you need to know basic rules, but essentially traditional role -playing games are a lot of friends using their imagination to develop stories. the D & D Dungeon Master University It is willing to end that: one thousand euros for an accelerated and official role of role in a luxury environment and surrounded by experts in the field. It is not an eccentricity: it is the last sample of the tendency to become the luxury experiences of the simplest hobbys. What is this university. A luxury retreat that teaches you all the secrets of the role of role games. There are subjects such as skill development, campaign creation, world construction and professional development. It will take place at the Oglethorpe University of Atlanta. The courses will be on January 2 and 3 of next year, although students who are from January 1 to 4 are asked (a bit complicated dates, if they ask us). As for prices, they range from $ 995 to 2,250, which includes private meetings and games with teachers and other advantages (such as an exclusive jacket). But who are these people. The event is organized by the people of D&D in A A A A, organizers of immersive retirement events that they offer Dungeons & Dragons experiences within real castles (All officially and in collaboration with the owners of the brand). For four days, players of all levels play the role in marathons that arrive at 24 hours and with all the comforts (food, accommodation) inspired by the game. Of course, there are parallel activities (workshops, miniatures, Escape Roomsarchery …) to foster the community, in what becomes a kind of thematic cruise, but dry. Make community. In principle it seems an eccentric luxury, but it is only another way to create new physical ties in hobbies. As he counted This great article about The Verge Comic-Con, Sharing our hobbies is an extremely healthy attitude and the Dungeon Master University and his older sister, D&D in A Castle, are ways of promoting them. Increasingly, conventions, courses and encounters are ways of prolonging our leisure and free time, and there are even websites, such as Meetup, Classbento in the United Kingdom or Fancoons in the US that are responsible for listing and announcing these types of activities. Hobby is a luxury. But beyond conventions and encounters, there is another trend behind these wealthy role -playing courses: to convert simple, traditionally cheap and accessible activities for everyone, in luxury artifacts. Reading clubs are transformed into part of the activities of select clubs at 2500 euros of fee per year; embroidery is the opportunity to make a Exotic and luxury trip which includes workshops and talks about technique; The paint is carried in the calls Art Holidays, where natural can be painted in exquisite landscapes; And something similar happens with photography, to extremes such as expeditions Capture Earth To photograph wildlife. The meaning of luxury. Luxury experiences They have always been there to corroborate social status or to fantasize with what is no more than A couple of days a yearbut this trend goes one step further: it converts our more conventional hobbies into unique experiences. One more step in the transformation of our life into a showcase, including such little distinguished activity (until now) How to play role. In Xataka | Paper, pencil and a messaging app: this is all you need to play ‘Dungoons & Dragons’ and other role -playing games

If China wants to dodge US tariffs, Russia can teach you a shortcut: Kyrgyzstan

In the middle of chaos that have generated United States tariffs, a theory as absurd as feasible Start circular. If in a few weeks we begin to hear that, for example, the Kyrgyzstan nation is shooting its exports suddenly and unexpectedly to the United States, it should not surprise us so much. It does not have to be Kyrgyzstan, of course, but, coincidences of a world more and more globalizedthe nation has become the protagonist for Russia … and China. Boom. To understand how a site like Kyrguistan It can be an important actor in a commercial war we must go back to the beginning of the War in Ukraine. Kyrgyzan’s economic panorama changed radically from March 2022. In a matter of months, country imports from traditional business partners They began to growhighlighting the case of China, whose exports almost tripled. However, the most striking phenomenon was the sudden rise of trade with countries with which Kyrguistan barely had previous economic ties. From different points of the European Union (such as Poland, Czech Republic and the Baltic States) began to register A wave of goods. In some cases, the increases were so extraordinary that it was difficult to assimilate. Data from the Institute of International Finance revealed that, between March 2022 and October 2023, German car exports and pieces towards Kyrguistan increased 5,500%. What the hell had happened? The Ukraine War. The date, obviously, was not trivial. Despite the striking of growth, the origin and destination of many of these goods was diffuse. On numerous occasions, the products are classified as coming from an “unknown” country and with equally “unknown” destination, which generated enormous opacity in commercial statistics. However, for researchers and analysts There was no doubt What is the true destiny: Russia. Far from representing a genuine boom of the Kyrgyse economy, that phenomenon was interpreted as proof of the efficacy of the Kremlin to avoid the international sanctions imposed after its large -scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the researcher Erica Marathassociated professor at the National Defense University of Washington DC, these commercial flows are part of a mechanism which facilitates the evasion of sanctions by Moscow, a mechanism that has been skillfully adopted throughout the region. Parallel imports. In May 2022, Russia promulgated legislation that institutionalized what it called “parallel imports“. This regulation allows the entry of sanctioned products through third countries, without requiring the permission of brand owners. It was enough to import products to another country (such as Kyrgyzstan) and then redirect them to Russian territory. The system was adopted quickly by Russian and foreign companies. In addition to conventional supplies, it also included “double -use” products: appliances, electronic components and other civil goods that can be de -slasamed and reused for military purposes. Between May and December 2022, Russia admitted to having imported 2.4 million tons of goods by a Value of 20 billion dollars Through this scheme. Kyrgyzstan map Kyrgyzistan, the epicenter. No doubt, the nation’s exports to Russia went from 393 million dollars in 2021 to More than 1,070 million in 2022. Not just that. The figures could be underestimated, since many countries (including Kyrgyzstan) classify large volumes of trade as appropriate or with “unknown” destination, using this emptiness as a legal loophole to channel goods towards Russia without raising formal suspicions. This practice, according to marath, It is not considered illegaland therefore the authorities feel comfortable ignoring it while receiving economic benefits. Plus: Kyrguistan is not the only country that facilitates the evasion of sanctions, but possesses particular characteristics that make it an ideal transit point. He is a member of the Eurasian economic union (EAEU), a block founded in 2015 that also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. This block guarantees the free movement of goods and services among its members, which significantly reduces The bureaucratic load For trade between them. The Chinese friend ”. And what does China look in all this? As we said at the beginning, coincidences of a world globalized And in the midst of a commercial war marked by the tariffs of the United States, China has also noticed Kyrguistan, although From another perspective. I told it This week The Economist: Although Beijing proclaims a cooperation relationship “back with back, shoulder shoulder” with Russia, in practice it is taking distance in a crucial aspect: the safety of its export routes to Europe. Yes, despite its geopolitical alliance with Moscow, China prefers not to depend on Russia to maintain the flow of its assets to the European continent, especially in a context marked by conflicts and sanctions. Solution? In December, the construction of an ambitious began officially Railway project that is going through Kyrguistan and Uzbekistan, with the aim of creating a direct route towards Europe that avoids the Russian territory. This new connection becomes more relevant to a possible intensification of the commercial war with the United States and the growing importance of the European market (China already exports more than America). The impulse. Although the railway project had almost three decades under discussion, its materialization only It was completed after the invasion Russian to Ukraine in February 2022. Before the conflict, the main railway routes to Europe passed through Russia, many times via Kazajistan. The war, however, raised security risks, triggered insurance costs and weakened the Russian rail infrastructure due to sanctions, forcing transport companies to look for alternatives. As a result, they began to deviate towards the call “transpian route“Or” Medium Corridor “, which is going through Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea. Connecting the Chinese Railway Net A 520 km line that will consolidate this strategic option. Commercial Resilience. It is not the end of any “alliance”, because as The Economist toldChina continues to consider Russia as a pillar of its ambitious global infrastructure project (the Strip and the Route initiative, launched in 2013 by Xi Jinping), its current enthusiasm by the middle corridor responds rather to economic interests. China’s growth, increasingly dependent on exports, has lost impulse, and guaranteeing stable roads … Read more

how are they shown in the app and what information teach

Let’s explain How to see on Google Maps Las Zbethe low -emission areas where you can fine if you enter with a vehicle that does not meet the requirements. Although these areas are having Some problems with justiceit is still important to know where they are when you travel to a city you don’t know. We are going to explain the way in which Google Maps is indicating these areas using a new icon. We will also tell you the information offered by this app in your GPS browser. How the Zbe works on Google Maps Google Maps has included indications for low emissions areas With a circular icon with a Z In the center. This is the one that is responsible for indicating the presence of the Zbe in a city. This icon It will appear when you design a routeon the informative screen prior to the start where you have to click on Start To start the route. In the description of this route, in addition to indicating traffic, if it is the most ecological, and other things, it will also tell you if there is a zbe in it. This area can also appear on the map. If you click on the indication of the low emission zoneyou will specify the vehicles that cannot enter it and the labels you need to have to do it. There will also be a link to local regulations, so you can see the possible exceptions and information about sanctions. Google Maps will go integrating this information progressively during the next months. First it will reach the largest cities or more important areas, and then little by little they will expand it to the rest of the municipalities. In Xataka Basics | 61 European alternatives to Google, X, Gmail, Chrome, Maps, Dropbox, Google Drive, WhatsApp and other popular services

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