SoylentNews

cereal_burpist writes:

A London startup trained an AI on 4.1 million recipes across seven languages

• KAIKAKU.AI published Epicure, a family of three ingredient AI models trained on 4.14 million multilingual recipes.
• The model doesn't store recipes—it stores what was learned from them, letting users navigate cooking knowledge mathematically.
• Three variants—Cooc, Chem, and Core—sit at different points on a recipe-context vs. flavor-chemistry spectrum, each answering a slightly different culinary question from the same 2MB file.

Josef Chen says he compressed all of human cooking into two megabytes. That's a bold claim. It also checks out.

Chen, co-founder and CEO of London food AI startup KAIKAKU.AI, published a paper on arXiv this week, alongside researcher Jakub Radzikowski, presenting Epicure—three AI models trained on 4.14 million recipes pulled from 11 datasets across seven languages. The result: a map of 1,790 ingredients, each described by 300 numbers, ...
[...]
Think of it as a map. Every ingredient gets a precise location based on how it behaves across millions of real dishes worldwide. The math is blunt: 1,790 ingredients × 300 numbers per ingredient × 4 bytes each ≈ 2.05 megabytes. Those numbers encode which ingredients appear together, which share flavor compounds, and which belong to the same culinary tradition. Once the model learns all that from the recipes, the recipes can go. The knowledge lives in the coordinates.

This is essentially the same trick word2vec pulled on language back in 2013, when Google researchers showed that you could do arithmetic with meaning. Epicure does that for food. Take beef, point it toward America and you'll get bread, lettuce, maybe beer. Point it toward South East Asia and the model stops thinking about burgers and grills and starts thinking about soy sauce, ginger, and sesame oil.
[...]
Epicure comes in three versions, and picking the right one depends on what you're actually asking. Cooc learns from recipe co-occurrence—what shows up together in real dishes. Chem learns from flavor chemistry—which ingredients share aroma compounds from the FlavorDB chemical database. Core is a mix between the previous two.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

The company was doing a hotfire test to prepare for New Glenn's next mission:

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has exploded on its launchpad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while the company was conducting ground tests for an upcoming launch. The company explained that it "experienced an anomaly" during a hotfire test and will provide more details about the incident when it learns more. On X, company owner Jeff Bezos said all personnel are safe and account for. Blue Origin has already started investigating, but it's too early to know the root cause of the explosion. "Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying," he added. "It's worth it.

As you can see in the footage of the explosion above, it pretty much obliterated the rocket, the structure and the equipment around it. As The New York Times reports, that's Blue Origin's only launchpad for New Glenn, and it could take several months for the company to repair it.

The incident could affect Blue Origin's participation in NASA's Artemis and Moon Base programs, wherein it's expected to provide a commercial lunar lander for both cargo and crew. NASA even chose Blue Origin over SpaceX for the Moon Base I mission, which it's hoping to launch this fall. Blue Origin's lunar missions require the use of its New Glenn rocket, but with its launchpad now out of commission, NASA may have to rethink its plans.

[...] Blue Origin has only just gotten clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to launch its New Glenn rocket again. The FAA grounded New Glenn after it had failed to put the payload it was carrying into orbit in its third mission. It oversaw the company's investigation and determined that the incident was caused by a "cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line and led to a thrust anomaly during the second-stage engine burn." After the FAA gave the company permission to launch New Glenn again, it quickly started preparing the rocket for its next mission, which will clearly not happen anytime soon.

Original Submission

"fab23" writes:

What Is a Dickover?:

dickover n. : a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user with an unwanted, unnecessary, mandatory interaction; e.g. asking the user to accept "cookies", subscribe to a newsletter, install the website's mobile app, agree to terms of service, or anything else that the user couldn't give two shits about.

You know what a dickover is, even if you didn't know what to call it (until now). If you use the Internet, you encounter them every day. They're popovers, but dickheaded. The web is absolutely lousy with them, and mobile apps present them too, with increasing frequency.

Dickovers are a veritable scourge. They're so common they're effectively part of the firmament. I started calling these things dickpanels in 2022 , but when dickover popped into my head last week, 1 I couldn't shake the feeling that it's a better term for these ubiquitous odious irritations. You can hardly go anywhere on the web without getting dicked over by a dickover. They often pester you about permitting cookies, like this one from Euronews or this one from Gallup . This malicious design pattern is so ubiquitous that it has spread even to personal blogs, like this one from my friend Om Malik , and to great brands like Field Notes , both asking you to sign up for their newsletters.

The homepage for every single blog hosted by Substack shows a particularly pernicious dickover on its homepage. The Substack dickover doesn't even look like a panel. It's a full-screen curtain designed and worded to suggest, strongly, that you need to sign up for the blog's email newsletter just to read anything. The dismissal button for the Substack dickover is a small text link — that doesn't look anything like a button — that says something like "No thanks" (e.g. Paul Krugman , Matt Yglesias ) or something that adds insult to injury with a cloyingly saccharine label like "Just gimme that content!" (e.g. Volts ).

hubie writes:

PR executives say UK companies are forcing them to present ordinary automation as artificial intelligence:

UK companies are performing "yoga-level" stretches to describe themselves as AI specialists in an attempt to capitalise on the buzz around the technology, public relations firms have said.

Weary communications executives tasked with securing media coverage for brands have complained that bosses in low-tech industries or running businesses that use automation but not generative AI, are increasingly demanding they are pitched to journalists as artificial intelligence companies.

"You can almost hear the eyes roll when you mention the word AI to a reporter," said a publicist in south London who represents a portfolio of tech and design firms. "I've watched a steady stream of companies try to bolt the label AI on to whatever they do, no matter how tenuous the link."

Imran Ariff, a media strategist for Fight or Flight, a London-based communications agency, said: "It can be easy for brands to 'drink their own Kool-Aid' when they're so proud of what they're doing and consequently, go too far in their efforts to promote their AI capabilities."

Last month, the US shoe company AllBirds "pivoted" to to acquiring AI graphics processing units, while genetics companies have hyped AI-powered blood tests. In inboxes this month, there have been press releases about AI-powered basketball hoops, and AI-powered lasers that – somehow – protect women from predators on crowded underground platforms.

Some companies have been accused of "AI washing", trying to rebrand familiar, often years-old, technologies as "AI".

Technology PRs – whose job it is to send tens, or hundreds, of pitches to journalists each week, the vast majority of which get ignored – have complained about being forced to send out AI-related press releases under duress despite their industries' image for unscrupulously hyping up products.

"A lot of companies are trying to name every single product with 'AI' first, or trying to get 'AI' into an actual product name," said an account director at another firm, based in central London.

"People are littering marketing with how AI is making a difference. It's an 'AI-driven' or 'AI-powered' product when in reality, it's just better automation than we've seen before."

[...] Communications workers also said that bosses were asked to be presented as commentators on the technology to appear relevant.

"I have seen some Bikram yoga-level stretches by brands in service of trying to manufacture reasons to talk about AI," said a PR working for a global agency with offices in New York and London.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Veteran journalist and distinguished blogger, Robert X Cringely, is back from a multi-year hiatus. His first couple of posts were that he is back and where he had been. The latter leads into his current post on the AI industry's betting on failed models.

Because that is what the essay became, whatever Amodei intended. It gave every other person writing nine- and ten-figure checks a reason not to worry about the one thing that should worry them most. The hallucination problem is the difference between a clever toy and a system a hospital or a bank or a court can actually rely on. It is the whole ballgame for enterprise AI. And the prevailing wisdom, blessed from the top, is that you needn't address it directly. Scale will provide.

Look at where the money is going and you can see the permission slip being cashed. Stargate, half a trillion dollars. The hyperscalers, tens of billions each per year. The Anthropic–Akamai arrangement, nearly two billion more. The collective bet of the wealthiest companies in the world is that you fix intelligence — including its honesty — by buying more of it. The data center operators are happy. The chip vendors are ecstatic. The labs raising money at valuations with too many zeros are happy. Everyone in that chain has the same incentive, which is to believe that the answer is more.

The customers who will eventually pay for all of it are the ones who should be asking whether any of this is true.

In his previous post, he covered his first hand experience with LLMs not being fit-for-purpose in their very design.

Previously:
(2020) Bob Cringely is Still Alive and Kicking

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/researchers-develop-a-new-process-to-get-lithium-out-of-rocks/

While we make batteries based on many different chemistries, nothing has approached the massive scale at which we can produce lithium batteries. That scale makes the economics of lithium-ion batteries hard to compete with. Even if we develop a superior battery technology, it's unclear whether we can get manufacturing costs down quickly enough to compete with the efficiency of the lithium supply chain and manufacturing.

The one thing that could change the dynamics is a supply crunch. While lithium is extremely widespread, lithium that can be extracted economically is a different matter. It's cheapest to extract it from brines, and lithium-rich brines are largely limited to South America. We do obtain some lithium from other sources, but it's considerably more expensive.

In today's issue of Science, however, a research team has identified an energy-efficient means of extracting lithium from rocks. The process they've designed uses far less energy than existing ones, regenerates all its starting chemicals, and produces byproducts that could also be sold.

Like other metals, lithium shows up in various minerals. For example, the US Geological Survey recently took an inventory of all the lithium oxide deposits in the Northeast (they are extensive), which are found in a type of rock called pegmatite. Globally, however, the new paper indicates that the most abundant lithium ore is called spodumene, a lithium-aluminum silicate (LiAl(SiO₃)₂). And there is some processing of this material going on—it's just energy-intensive and leaves behind a lot of waste.

That's because the process starts by heating the mineral to roughly 1,000° C to disrupt its compact structure, after which sulfuric acid is used to leach out the lithium. The resulting lithium sulfate solution is then converted into something useful for battery manufacturing (typically lithium carbonate), leaving behind sulfur-containing waste.

The new work was done by a collaboration between MIT researchers and a couple of Boston-area companies. Their goal was a process that was far more energy-efficient and didn't produce as much waste. What they came up with is a process where the key chemical used at the start of the process gets regenerated at a later step, and both the silicon and aluminum in the mineral end up in a form that we're already using in commercial applications.

Reuters reports https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/even-north-korea-someones-your-parking-spot-2026-05-12/ on the recent surge in private cars in the DPRK.

North Korea's capital is experiencing a surge in passenger cars, creating traffic jams for the first time and necessitating new parking lots and EV charging infrastructure to accommodate the influx of vehicles, according to three recent visitors and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters.

That a car culture is flourishing at all in one of the world's most heavily sanctioned and economically underdeveloped states is striking enough. Yet the signs are everywhere. At several hotels in Pyongyang, cars now fill parking spaces and spill into adjacent streets. Vehicles surround the Gold Lane bowling alley and Rakrang Market, a suburban hub for groceries. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un nodded to the trend in April by visiting an auto-service center where he inspected various vehicles, their make and model concealed conspicuously under silver cloth.

The burgeoning auto trade doesn't show up directly in official statistics because exporting cars to North Korea is prohibited under U.N. sanctions. But shipments of related goods such as tires, mirrors and lubricants from China are soaring, Chinese customs data show, revealing growing demand for parts and other essentials as more North Koreans get behind the wheel.

The boom follows changes to North Korean law that formalized private car ownership over the past two years, allowing licensed drivers to buy one vehicle per household through state-certified dealers. Owning a car is still mostly the preserve of the elite and the entrepreneurial class known as donju, analysts say.

They've got a ways to go before they can match the traffic jams on the 405 in LA, the yellow license plates for privately owned vehicles only have five digits...

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

The rapid introduction of AI-generated code is increasingly leading to production failures, according to a survey.

In a study by the software company CloudBees, more than 200 technology executives were surveyed about the use of AI in their companies. 81 percent reported problems such as functional errors, security vulnerabilities, and performance issues after deployment that are related to AI-generated code. 63 percent additionally reported compliance violations caused by the AI. These also sometimes made their way into productive business.

One issue appears to be, according to CloudBees' survey results, that testers can no longer keep up with validating AI code. 62 percent increased automated tests, 30 percent added more manual verification steps. However, only half believe that the formal review processes for AI code are truly always applied in their company. For many, managing the test environment has become a greater burden than writing the code itself.

[...] Classic software engineering is based on systems that deliver identical results for identical inputs. Generative AI, on the other hand, works with probabilities and can produce different variants of the same code even with consistent logic. This stochastic behavior leads to problems, particularly where hundred percent accuracy is a central criterion; for example, in security-critical development environments.

[Source]: heise online

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

From a reimagined search box to AI agents that hunt for apartments on your behalf, Google Search is being rebuilt with AI at its core:

The new AI-powered Search box is Google's biggest redesign of its core interface in more than 25 years.

Until now, AI has shown up in Google Search in the form of its so-called AI Overviews and in a separate AI Mode that feels more like talking to the Gemini chatbot. A new interface will instead adjust to match the tone and results of your search query -- including an "intelligent search box" that lets you ask longer, more complex questions. Here's what's coming to Search from Google I/O.

Robby Stein, Google's vice president of product for Search, framed this year's I/O updates as a major step in combining Google Search with advanced AI, tracing progress from AI Overviews to AI Mode and, now, a unified AI search experience. He said a billion people use Google's AI Mode each month, and they're asking it more questions. These tools let people ask virtually anything and get rich, real-time answers from Google's extensive knowledge systems, he said.

[...] AI Overviews now transition seamlessly into AI Mode for follow-ups. So instead of just getting an AI-generated answer in Search, you can have a conversation with the AI providing your search results to get the answers you're looking for.

Stein also introduced dynamic, interactive "widgets" and larger "super widgets" generated by the system (enabled by Gemini and developer tooling). These can simulate physics, visualize concepts, build calculators or become persistent mini-apps for tasks such as moving, health tracking or trip planning -- optionally using connected personal data (Gmail, Photos, Calendar) to personalize results across 200 markets and 98 languages.

Stein described Search moving into an "agentic" era where AI agents can assist you with a range of tasks, such as monitoring topics, sending alerts (like when your favorite artist announces a tour) or booking services. While the agent cannot book a reservation on your behalf, you can share your details -- like the preferred dates and times, and number of people joining your party -- to receive a list of matches with updated availability and pricing, and links to officially finalize your reservation booking. These capabilities will be available this summer.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

LX 7G100 proves hype trumps performance:

Lisuan Tech often markets the LX 7G100 as a competitor to the GeForce RTX 4060. However, reviews have revealed that the LX 7G100 didn't hit the performance goal. Instead, it's more along the lines of a GeForce RTX 3060, one generation behind the target, and two generations behind the latest GeForce RTX 5060. The issue was that Lisuan Tech priced the LX 7G100 like a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB; however, it seems the high price didn't impede its early adoption at all.

The LX 7G100 is only the beginning for Lisuan Tech, and June 18 will not only mark the highly anticipated restock of the Founders Edition but also serve as the official launch date for two new graphics cards: the LX Pro and the LX Ultra. The LX Pro specifically meets the demands of professional engineering applications, whereas the LX Ultra caters to cloud computing. Meanwhile, the LX Max, designed for creative professionals, has an uncertain launch date.

Lisuan Tech may be a startup in the graphics card market, but its leadership brings a wealth of experience and industry knowledge. Silicon Valley veterans Xuan Yifang, Kong Dehai, and Niu Yixin founded Lisuan Tech in 2021, all of whom had previously worked at the renowned but now-defunct S3 Graphics. It only took the company five years to put out a working graphics card that's competitive with models two generations behind. Everybody has to start from somewhere, and Lisuan Tech has a firm stepping stone.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

Nasa has released details of robotic landers, hopping drones and vehicles it aims to send to the Moon as part of US plans to build a lunar base.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin is one of several companies picked to build the machines.

The US wants to land Americans back on the Moon before President Donald Trump leaves office in 2029.

But most experts agree that Nasa's timeline is unrealistic.

"It would not surprise me at all if China gets there first," Dr Simeon Barber, Lunar Scientist at Open University, told BBC News, citing Nasa's setbacks in securing a craft that can land humans on the Moon.

What happens if China gets their first? Space Macau? Will they take all the good spots? After all I'm fairly sure that those websites that sells plots of lands on the moon are fake and the agreements will not hold up or be honored.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39228nxyr4o
https://www.nasa.gov/moonbase/

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

An interesting essay on the Internet by Terry Godier

The internet you grew up on isn't dying. A commercial veneer glued on top of it is.
You have noticed that the internet is dying.

Twitter changed hands, changed names, and changed shape, and the version of it you knew is gone. Reddit went public. Google search now returns generated answers stapled to half a dozen ads. Instagram is bots making content for bots.

Discord servers you joined in 2019 have gone quiet. The blogs you read in 2012 redirect to parked domains. The forums where you learned what you know got bought, gutted, redesigned, and left to rot.

This is real. You are not imagining it.

The places you spent your younger years are gone or unrecognizable, and the places you use now are visibly straining under a flood of machine-generated text nobody asked for. There is a low ambient grief about it, and a faint guilt, something like: "I should be doing something. I should be somewhere else. I want the old thing back."

I want to tell you a thing that I think is true, and that I think will make you feel better.

[Source]: The Boring Internet

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/HP-Sponsoring-LVFS-Fwupd

That didn't take long. Mere days after Dell and Lenovo began sponsoring the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) as premiere sponsors in contributing $100k+ annually to this open-source firmware updating initiative, HP is also now a premiere sponsor.

Following LVFS calls for more sponsorship from the major OEMs/ODMs leveraging LVFS/Fwupd for delivering firmware updates to their Linux customers, more companies have been getting involved in sponsoring the project to help push the efforts forward for a better firmware updating story on Linux from system firmware to device/component firmware updates and peripherals.

Lead LVFS/Fwupd developer Richard Hughes of Red Hat announced today that HP is the third premier sponsor following Dell and Lenovo.

HP already supports LVFS/Fwupd on their hardware from some laptops like the ZBook Ultra G1a to different workstations like the Z6 G5 A and then some peripherals like USB docks. Hopefully this sponsorship leads to more HP devices seeing official LVFS/Fwupd support.

https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2026/05/20/lvfs-sponsorship-announcement-hp/

Some more great news: I'm pleased to announce that HP has also agreed to be premier sponsor for the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) as part of our sustainability effort.

With the industry support from HP (and our existing sponsors of Lenovo, Dell, Framework, OSFF and of course Linux Foundation and Red Hat) we can turbo-charge the growth of the LVFS even more. Thanks!

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Are we pilots or are we passengers? Aschbacher asks:

European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher has taken a swipe at NASA and US policy, while calling for autonomy in human spaceflight via an opinion post titled "Are we pilots or are we passengers?"

The May 18 post is emblematic of the hand-wringing within ESA over the last few years as NASA has lurched from plan to plan amid fluctuating priorities and funding. Aschbacher, it appears, has had enough.

"Europe has become too exposed to decisions beyond its control," he said.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman recently announced changes that would pause, and likely cancel, the Lunar Gateway space station project in favor of a Moon base. The decision, along with scrapping the over-budget and delayed Mars Sample Return mission, does not sit well with ESA, which had a hand in both. 

Aschbacher warned of the potential for dependence on third parties for programs including human spaceflight. ESA removed reliance on Russia for missions such as ExoMars, and turbulence in US space policy has given the agency pause for thought.

"Europe must decide whether it prefers to be dependent on others to send its explorers into space or to assume its role as a fully capable space power. As the head of the European Space Agency (ESA), I am convinced that autonomous human spaceflight is not a luxury. It is a necessary anchor for Europe to secure its freedom to unlock the scientific, economic, strategic and geopolitical benefits of space and to inspire a new generation to shape Europe's future."

In 2025, an agency insider referred to NASA as "an abusive spouse who could lash out at any moment in unpredictable ways." In 2026, Aschbacher's patience appears to be running out. 

"I'm glad," a source told The Register. "The US has fucked us around for too long."

Aschbacher and ESA would not put it so bluntly. However, one of ESA's strengths is also one of its weaknesses. The agency has 23 member states. Political and funding decisions are imminent: the ESA Council meets in June, the Intermediate Ministerial Council is in December, and a full Council at Ministerial level is due in 2028.

"If we started today," Aschbacher wrote, "it would still take us many years to build autonomous capability – we must act quickly. The cost of inaction would far outweigh the necessary investment."

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Researchers have visualized mosquito flight behavior for the first time, which could improve mosquito-control strategies:

After watching hundreds of mosquitoes buzzing around one of their colleagues and collecting 20 million data points, Georgia Tech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have created a mathematical model that predicts how and where female mosquitoes will fly to feast on humans.

The new study is the first to visualize mosquito flight patterns and provides hard data for improving capture and control strategies. In addition to being a nuisance, mosquitoes transmit diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, and Zika, which cause more than 700,000 deaths every year.

The researchers also designed an interactive, public website to show the paths and behaviors.

The team used 3D infrared cameras to see how the insects moved around inanimate objects based on visual cues and carbon dioxide. Then they put a person in a chamber, dressed him in various shades of clothing, and tracked mosquito trajectories.

[...] Based on their data, the researchers said they don't think mosquitoes swarm because they're following the pack. Each appeared to pick up on the cues independently, then found themselves at the same place at the same time.

"It's like a crowded bar," said David Hu, a professor in Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Biological Sciences. "Customers aren't there because they followed each other into the bar. They're attracted by the same cues: drinks, music, and the atmosphere. The same is true of mosquitoes. Rather than following the leader, the insect follows the signals and happens to arrive at the same spot as the others. They're good copies of each other."

The study included three experiments that varied visual cues and carbon dioxide. In the first, the researchers used a black sphere as a target. It attracted the mosquitoes, but only when they were flying toward the object. Once they arrived, they didn't stick around, often fluttering past.

When the researchers swapped the black target with something white and added carbon dioxide, mosquitoes slowly found the source, but only if they were nearby. Hu noticed the insects doing a "double take" before settling in around the source.

Introducing a black sphere and CO2 at the same time proved to be the most irresistible scenario: the mosquitoes swarmed, stayed, and attacked.

[...] Once he learned about their attraction to motionless clues, Zuo donned various outfits and stepped into a mosquito chamber. He dressed in all black, all white, or a combination.

Zuo stretched out his arms and let dozens of insects circle him as cameras captured their trajectories. The data was sent to MIT, which determined the mostly likely rules that generated those flight patterns.

[...] The researchers hope their findings can lead to better pest control.

"One tactic is using suction traps that rely on steady cues, such as continuous CO2 release or constant light sources, to attract mosquitoes," Zuo said. "Our study suggests using them intermittently, then activating suction at intervals, might be better. That's because mosquitoes don't tend to stick around their target when both clues aren't used at the same time."

Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adz7063

Original Submission