Désormais n’importe qui peut trouver en quelques secondes où vous habitez, votre numéro de téléphone portable, et même vos informations bancaires ou médicales. Certains ont compilé les récentes fuites de données pour en faire un moteur de recherche. Ou plutôt des moteurs de recherche, car il...
Founded during the US Civil War to provide advice to the government, the National Academies of Science have become one of the most prestigious scientific organizations. Its primary function is to prepare comprehensive reports on scientific and technological issues, aided by its ability to attract top talent from across the country.
Those reports have not been afraid to weigh in on matters of public controversy and risk offending powerful groups, which it has managed to do without losing the respect of the governmental organizations that fund these reports. But this year, there have been increasing signs that the Academies' ability to dodge political firestorms has reached its limit. Yesterday, a deeply reported story from Politico explained the breakdown between the National Academies and Republican politicians.
The National Academies is preparing an expert report on attribution of weather events to human-driven climate change, and fossil fuel companies are worried it will lead to findings of liability in the many cases where those companies are being sued.
BMW drove the new iX3 through heavy rain and snow on public roads, climbing over 6,500 feet up hills, and it still managed 500 miles without stopping to charge.
Et si votre paquet de chips quotidien brouillait un peu plus votre attention ? Une étude menée auprès de plus de 2 000 Australiens suggère qu’une consommation accrue d’aliments ultra-transformés est associée à une baisse mesurable de la concentration, même chez les personnes qui mangent par...
New research has found that humanoid robots could become effective playmates for humans, but only if their behavior aligns with people’s expectations.
A study by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) explored how people interact with humanoid robots during physical games.
The team conducted controlled laboratory experiments using Pepper, a social robot built to engage with humans, to better understand the experience of playing alongside or against a robot.
The findings suggest that robots can be enjoyable gaming companions when they act naturally and respond appropriately to the flow of play. However, mismatched behavior, awkward movements, or an overly competitive attitude can quickly frustrate users and reduce engagement during interactions.
Robot teammate test
Humanoid robots such as Pepper are designed to look and behave in ways that resemble humans, featuring recognizable traits such as heads, eyes, hands, facial expressions, and conversational abilities.
According to researchers, these human-like characteristics help people relate more easily to robots, but they also create expectations that robots will act in socially appropriate and predictable ways.
To better understand how people interact with robots during play, researchers conducted an experiment in which participants played a physical version of trash-can basketball with Pepper. The game involved throwing crumpled paper balls into a trash can from designated positions chosen to provide a balanced level of challenge for both the human participants and the robot.
The study examined two different gameplay modes. In one mode, participants cooperated with Pepper as teammates working toward a common goal. In the other, they competed directly against the robot. Researchers also varied the order of play, with either the human participant or Pepper taking the first turn.
By comparing these scenarios, the team evaluated how gameplay mode and turn order influenced player engagement, motivation, enjoyment of physical activity, and emotional responses.
The findings revealed that seemingly minor factors, such as who takes the first turn and whether the interaction is cooperative or competitive, can significantly affect how people perceive the experience. “Our observations show that robots can actually be good playmates, but only if they behave in ways that make sense to people,” said Yavuz Inal, associate professor at NTNU’s Department of Design in Gjøvik, in a statement.
Cooperative play wins
Participants generally reported the most positive experiences when the game began in cooperative mode. However, competitive play also proved highly engaging for many players. Several participants found competing against Pepper more exciting and motivating, particularly when they were allowed to start the game first, which increased their sense of control over the interaction.
Many players also experienced a strong sense of accomplishment when they outperformed the robot. Some even admitted that watching Pepper miss a shot added to the enjoyment. For these participants, competition with the humanoid robot created a fun challenge, clear objectives, and a rewarding sense of mastery that enhanced the overall gaming experience.
The study also found that participants became frustrated with Pepper for reasons similar to those that make people irritated with overly competitive friends or family members during board games.
Frustration was particularly noticeable when the robot started the game in competitive mode. Pepper’s slow pace, long pauses before taking a turn, and apparent determination to win often clashed with participants’ expectations of how a human-like playmate should behave. As a result, some players felt the robot lacked the responsiveness and natural flow needed for enjoyable gameplay. One participant likened the experience to playing against an “overworked printer with arms.”
According to the researchers, people expect robots cast as playmates to act like genuine players. “The results offer a glimpse into a future where robots not only assist us at work and in the healthcare system, but also participate in everyday activities such as play, exercise, and games,” said the team in a statement.
New details reveal the Great Han, BYD’s upcoming full-size luxury electric sedan, will offer a driving range of over 1,000 km (621 miles). Here’s what else we know.
You see a lot of interesting phones when you're among tech journalists.
I'm thinking of two in particular that I held this past week: One was solid gold, with ornate engravings. It was elaborately embellished, heavy - an actual work of art. The other was the Trump phone.
I know. The Trump phone. The one announced almost a year ago that has shipped to almost nobody. But when you asso …
Tiny lab-grown brain models and the particles they release may reveal hidden differences among Alzheimer’s patients. Personalized treatment remains one of the biggest challenges in Alzheimer’s disease. Two patients can receive the same medication for symptoms such as depression, anxiety, or agitation and experience very different outcomes, leaving doctors with few ways to predict who [...]
A San Francisco company paid nearly $1 million for the solution to an unsolved code in Kryptos, a sculpture on the C.I.A. grounds. Soon it will become an online challenge.
Mistral AI is reportedly in early talks to raise around €3 billion, in a move which could value the French start-up at roughly €20 billion.
Sources told Bloomberg the terms of the proposed raise may still change, and the valuation could also move higher depending on investor demand.
The rumoured round would strengthen Mistral AI’s position as Europe’s main AI challenger by providing the company with more capital as AI players face rising costs for computing power, infrastructure and talent across the globe.
It would also mark a sharp jump from the €11.7 billion valuation Mistral AI secured in September 2025 when Dutch chipmaker ASML became the largest shareholder in the start-up with an 11% stake after leading a €1.7 billion Series C funding round.
The start-up has positioned itself as a sovereign alternative to US and Chinese AI players, targeting European governments and companies with plans to build out cloud computing facilities in France and Sweden.
Mistral AI recently also moved to target industrial customers including Airbus and BMW for services covering engineering and manufacturing.
The French player acquired Austrian start-up Emmi AI last month as part of efforts to expand its services to industrial customers in Europe.
However, the company still trails larger rivals as its models and chatbot have still not matched the adoption of offerings from US players OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Chinese competitors.
Last month, Anthropic raised $65 billion in a funding round valuing it at $965 billion, eclipsing OpenAI’s $852 billion valuation following its latest funding round in March.
A 12 year-old girl dubbed 'Sophie of Dundee' who was arrested after police initially believed a Bulgarian man's claims that she had called him a "f**ing migrant" has been vindicated after he was found guilty of assault.
SpaceX n'a pas toujours été l'empire industriel dirigé par un militant d'extrême-droite mégalo que l'on connaît aujourd'hui. Avant d'atteindre les sommets dans le domaine de l'aérospatial, l'entreprise avait commencé comme beaucoup d'autres.
À peine un milliard d'années après le Big Bang, cette galaxie connaît une croissance fulgurante en formant des étoiles à un rythme exceptionnel. Pourtant, les astronomes ont découvert qu'elle expulse simultanément d'immenses quantités de gaz, le combustible indispensable à sa survie. Une...
Enis Oğuzhan Eren, Evgeny Senokos, Tim Horner, Leonardo Cancellara, Ernesto Scoppola, Jiyong Kim, Morten Johansen, Kangkang Ge, Barbara Daffos, Pierre-Louis Taberna, Patrice Simon, Paolo Giusto A thin tunable carbon film grown by CVD confines porous carbons, enabling diffusion-controlled Na-ion storage with ultrahigh plateau capacity for sustainable sodium-ion batteries. To cite this article before page numbers are assigned, use the DOI form of citation above. The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Mobile World Live brings you our top three picks of the week as Apple reset its AI ambitions at WWDC, OpenAI edged closer to a stock market debut and French operators agreed a €20.4 billion deal to carve-up SFR.
Apple lands Siri AI at WWDC as Cook takes a bow
What happened: During its annual WWDC event, Apple reset its AI strategy, unveiled a revamped AI-powered Siri and spotlighted new child-safety controls as Tim Cook delivered his final keynote as CEO.
Why it matters: Apple SVP of software Craig Federighi said, “truly helpful AI must be centred around you and your needs”, positioning privacy, personal context and deeper app integration as core pillars of the AI-enhanced Siri. The launch gives Apple a chance to overwrite a damaging run of Siri AI delays described internally as “ugly and embarrassing”. Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, said “Apple had to address its shortcomings in AI, and WWDC provided some answers”, but added the company must deliver “a meaningfully better everyday experience, not just parity with rivals”. He noted many features will already be familiar to Android and third-party AI app users, adding iPhone users are “more likely to upgrade for better battery life, an improved camera or a bigger screen rather than to get AI”. However, challenges have already emerged. The AI-upgraded Siri and Apple Intelligence features have already been delayed indefinitely in the European Union (EU) over competition laws and blocked in China over local AI regulations.
On child safety, Wood called Apple’s push “a welcome and timely move” as concerns about online harm grow among regulators but said “stronger cross-industry safeguards need to be built into operating systems at a deeper platform level”. Cook’s farewell added weight to the event as he declared the iPhone will “continue to be the centre of people’s digital lives”, adding, “the best is still ahead”.
What happened: OpenAI confidentially filed paperwork for a US IPO, becoming the latest AI company to move towards a listing as the sector’s biggest players race to raise fresh funds.
Why it matters: The ChatGPT-maker stated it had submitted a draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), adding, “we expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it”. It did not disclose the size, price or timing of the listing and cautioned a debut may not be imminent “because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company”. OpenAI explained the decision involves “a complicated set of trade-offs”, but the filing gives it “the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best”. Reuters reported the company is targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion, with a debut possible as early as September. The filing puts OpenAI into a crowded and expensive AI listings race; rival Anthropic confidentially filed for its own US IPO last week, while SpaceX launched a blockbuster listing. Aviva Investors’ head of multi-asset Sunil Krishnan told the BBC all firms all have a “vast need for cash” as “no one wants to be last” in a space where access to capital could prove crucial as companies fund AI chips, infrastructure and model training. Harrison Rolfes, senior research analyst at PitchBook, argued OpenAI’s $1 trillion listing is “a bet on a company that has never been profitable, in a market it is currently losing, with a cost structure it cannot change for at least another year”. He added this is “all while racing a direct competitor through the same SEC process in the same quarter.” Rolfes concluded: “There is no scenario where OpenAI pricing after a profitable Anthropic favours OpenAI.”
What happened: Bouygues Telecom, Free-Iliad Group and Orange signed a memorandum of understanding with Altice France to acquire and carve up SFR in a deal valuing the operator at €20.4 billion, setting the stage for a major reset of France’s telecoms market.
Why it matters: Under terms outlined in April, Bouygues will take 42% of SFR’s assets, Free-Iliad 31% and Orange 27%. SFR’s consumer mobile and fixed broadband operations will be divided between the three operators, while Bouygues will take control of the B2B unit. Completion is targeted for H2 2027, subject to regulatory clearance. Kester Mann, director, consumer and connectivity at CCS Insight, noted the move marks the biggest potential shake-up in French telecoms since Iliad entered the mobile market in 2012, cutting the number of major operators from four to three and reshaping competition. He said the agreement appears “a successful outcome for all parties” as Bouygues, Orange and Iliad all gain “important new assets in their pursuit of greater scale”, while removing a key rival will “reduce the competitive intensity of the market”. However, the biggest challenge will be to regulators show the deal will deliver “positive outcomes to the French market”. He noted that while that would once have been “a herculean task”, recent approvals in the UK and Spain suggest Europe’s stance on consolidation is softening.
Et si le secret pour vivre plus longtemps ne se jouait ni sur le tapis de course ni sous la barre d'haltères, mais dans l'association des deux ? En suivant plus de 150 000 personnes pendant 30 ans, des chercheurs ont identifié la combinaison sportive la plus efficace pour réduire le risque de...
While China dominates humanoid robotics headlines, a Korean firm showcased a humanoid learning complex motions through an open-source AI framework.
In a recent demonstration, ROBOTIS’ AI Sapiens learned the famous CORTIS REDRED Challenge motion using only smartphone video, eliminating the need for professional motion-capture systems.
The process combined video-based motion capture, motion retargeting, simulation-based reinforcement learning, and Sim2Real transfer.
According to the firm, the demonstration highlights how open-source tools can simplify humanoid robot training, enabling users to generate, learn, and execute full-body motions more easily.
Humanoid learns motion
ROBOTIS has demonstrated the capabilities of its AI Sapiens humanoid robot, an open-source platform for physical AI powered by DYNAMIXEL-Q actuators. The project is designed to make humanoid robot motion learning more accessible by using widely available hardware and open-source software tools.
In the demonstration, AI Sapiens learns and performs a complex full-body motion known as the CORTIS REDRED Challenge. Instead of relying on expensive professional motion-capture systems, the robot learns the movement from video recorded using a standard smartphone camera. This significantly reduces the cost and complexity of collecting training data for humanoid robots.
The motion-learning process begins with video-based motion capture. Human movements recorded on a smartphone are converted into digital motion data that can be processed by software. The captured motions are then passed through a motion retargeting stage, where the human movements are adapted to match the physical structure and joint limitations of the humanoid robot.
After retargeting, the robot is trained in a simulation environment using reinforcement learning. During this stage, the AI repeatedly practices the motion in a virtual world, allowing it to improve balance, coordination, and movement accuracy without risking damage to physical hardware. Simulation training also enables rapid testing and optimization before deploying the motion to the real robot.
Once training is complete, the learned behavior is transferred from simulation to the physical AI Sapiens robot through a Sim2Real pipeline. This process helps ensure that motions developed in the virtual environment can be executed successfully in the real world, despite differences between the simulation and the physical hardware.
Accessible AI robotics
ROBOTIS plans to release the motion generation and learning pipeline as open-source software, giving researchers, developers, educators, and hobbyists access to the tools used in the demonstration. The goal is to lower barriers to humanoid robotics development and enable a wider community to experiment with motion learning and physical AI systems.
According to ROBOTIS, AI Sapiens is a fully open-source humanoid robot platform designed for physical AI research and development. Standing 1.3 meters tall and weighing 34 kilograms, the robot features 23 degrees of freedom across its body, enabling a wide range of human-like movements.
The platform is powered by 23 next-generation DYNAMIXEL-Q quasi-direct-drive (QDD) actuators, including 14 QM-060 units and 9 QM-080 units. These actuators combine low gear reduction ratios, high-torque motors, and integrated control electronics to deliver high backdrivability, low impedance, and precise torque control, making them suitable for dynamic and compliant humanoid motion.
AI Sapiens is powered by an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB computer, delivering up to 100 TOPS of AI performance for advanced robotics tasks. It supports Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, dual Ethernet ports, USB connectivity, and 24V/12V power outputs for connecting additional hardware.
The robot is powered by a 46.8V, 9000mAh battery. It is supported by a fully open-source ecosystem that includes hardware bills of materials, CAD files, source code, simulation assets, and development tutorials, enabling researchers and developers to customize and expand the platform.
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Tiny lab-grown brain models and the particles they release may reveal hidden differences among Alzheimer’s patients. Personalized treatment remains one of the biggest challenges in Alzheimer’s disease. Two patients can receive the same medication for symptoms such as depression, anxiety, or agitation and experience very different outcomes, leaving doctors with few ways to predict who [...] 
Open Access
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