{"id":239708,"date":"2026-01-18T14:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T14:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/239708\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T14:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T14:22:18","slug":"this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-january-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/239708\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week\u2019s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through January 17)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Computing<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re About to Simulate a Human Brain on a Supercomputer<\/a>Alex Wilkins | New Scientist ($)<\/p>\n

“What would it mean to simulate a human brain? Today\u2019s most powerful computing systems now contain enough computational firepower to run simulations of billions of neurons, comparable to the sophistication of real brains. We increasingly understand how these neurons are wired together, too, leading to brain simulations that researchers hope will reveal secrets of brain function that were previously hidden.”<\/p>\n

Tech<\/a><\/p>\n

Gemini Is Winning<\/a>David Pierce | The Verge<\/p>\n

“Each one of [the] elements [you need in AI] is complex and competitive; there\u2019s a reason OpenAI CEO Sam Altman keeps shouting about how he needs trillions of dollars in compute alone. But Google is the one company that appears to have all of the pieces already in order. Over the last year, and even in the last few days, the company has made moves that suggest it is ready to be the biggest and most impactful force in AI.”<\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

Meet the New Biologists Treating LLMs Like Aliens<\/a>Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($)<\/p>\n

“[AI researchers] are pioneering new techniques that let them spot patterns in the apparent chaos of the numbers that make up these large language models, studying them as if they were doing biology or neuroscience on vast living creatures\u2014city-size xenomorphs that have appeared in our midst.”<\/p>\n

Biotechnology<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists Sequence a Woolly Rhino Genome From a 14,400-Year-Old Wolf\u2019s Stomach<\/a>Kiona N. Smith | Ars Technica<\/p>\n

“DNA testing revealed that the meat was a prime cut of woolly rhinoceros, a now-extinct 2-metric-ton behemoth that once stomped across the tundras of Europe and Asia. Stockholm University paleogeneticist S\u00f3lveig Gu\u00f0j\u00f3nsd\u00f3ttir and her colleagues recently sequenced a full genome from the piece of meat, which reveals some secrets about woolly rhino populations in the centuries before their extinction.”<\/p>\n

Biotechnology<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, Some Good News in the Fight Against Cancer<\/a>Ellyn Lapointe | Gizmodo<\/p>\n

“The findings,\u00a0published\u00a0Tuesday, show for the first time that 70% of all cancer patients survived at least five years after being diagnosed between 2015 and 2021. That\u2019s a major improvement since the mid-1970s, when the five-year survival rate was just 49%, according to the report.”<\/p>\n

Computing<\/a><\/p>\n

A Leading Use for Quantum Computers Might Not Need Them After All<\/a>Karmela Padavic-Callaghan | New Scientist ($)<\/p>\n

“Understanding a molecule that plays a key role in nitrogen fixing\u2014a chemical process that enables life on Earth\u2014has long been thought of as problem for quantum computers, but now a classical computer may have solved it. …The researchers also estimated that the supercomputer method may even be faster than quantum ones, performing calculations in less than a minute that would take 8 hours on a quantum device\u2014although this estimate assumes an ideal supercomputer performance.”<\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

AI Models Are Starting to Crack High-Level Math Problems<\/a>Russell Brandom | TechCrunch<\/p>\n

“Since the release of GPT 5.2\u2014which Somani describes as \u201canecdotally more skilled at mathematical reasoning than previous iterations\u201d \u2014 the sheer volume of solved problems has become difficult to ignore, raising new questions about large language models\u2019 ability to push the frontiers of human knowledge.”<\/p>\n

Energy<\/a><\/p>\n

How Next-Generation Nuclear Reactors Break Out of the 20th-Century Blueprint<\/a>Casey Crownhart | MIT Technology Review ($)<\/p>\n

“Demand for electricity is swelling around the world. …Nuclear could help, but only if new plants are safe, reliable, cheap, and able to come online quickly. Here\u2019s what that new generation might look like.”<\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

AI\u2019s Hacking Skills Are Approaching an \u2018Inflection Point\u2019<\/a>Will Knight | Wired ($)<\/p>\n

“The situation points to a growing risk. As AI models continue to get smarter, their ability to find zero-day bugs and other vulnerabilities also continues to grow. The same intelligence that can be used to detect vulnerabilities can also be used to exploit them.”<\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

Anthropic\u2019s Claude Cowork Is an AI Agent That Actually Works<\/a>Reece Rogers | Wired ($)<\/p>\n

“[My experiences testing subpar agents] expose a consistent pattern of generative AI startups overpromising and underdelivering when it comes to these ‘agentic’ helpers\u2014programs designed to take control of your computer, performing chores and digital errands to free up your time for more important things. …They just didn\u2019t work. This poor track record makes Anthropic\u2019s latest agent, Claude Cowork, a nice surprise.”<\/p>\n

Tech<\/a><\/p>\n

Ads Are Coming to ChatGPT. Here\u2019s How They\u2019ll Work<\/a>Maxwell Zeff | Wired ($)<\/p>\n

“OpenAI could use a business like [ads] right about now. The decade-old company has raised roughly $64 billion from investors over its lifetime, and it generated only a fraction of that in revenue last year. Competition from rivals like Google Gemini has only amped up the pressure for OpenAI to monetize ChatGPT\u2019s massive audience.”<\/p>\n

Robotics<\/a><\/p>\n

Wing\u2019s Drone Delivery Is Coming to 150 More Walmarts<\/a>Andrew J. Hawkins | The Verge<\/p>\n

“So far, they\u2019ve launched at several stores in Atlanta, in addition to Walmart locations in Dallas-Forth Worth and Arkansas. They currently operate at approximately 27 stores, and with today\u2019s announcement, the goal is to eventually establish a network of 270 Walmart locations with Wing drone delivery by 2027.”<\/p>\n

Computing<\/a><\/p>\n

OpenAI Forges Multibillion-Dollar Computing Partnership With Cerebras<\/a>Kate Clark and Berber Jin | The Wall Street Journal ($)<\/p>\n

“OpenAI plans to use chips designed by Cerebras to power its popular chatbot, the companies said Wednesday. It has committed to purchase up to 750 megawatts of computing power over three years from Cerebras. The deal is worth more than $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.”<\/p>\n

Space<\/a><\/p>\n

China Just Built Its Own Time System for the Moon<\/a>Passant Rabie | Gizmodo<\/p>\n

“As the global race to build a human habitat on the Moon heats up, there are several ongoing attempts to establish a universal lunar time that future missions can rely on. China, however, claims to be the first to set its lunar clocks and has made its new tool publicly available for use.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Computing We\u2019re About to Simulate a Human Brain on a SupercomputerAlex Wilkins | New Scientist ($) “What would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,135971,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-239708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-curation","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}