February 7, 2025

New IEEE Standard for Securing Biomedical Devices and Data

4 min read Kathy Pretz is the editor in chief of The Institute, IEEE’s member publication From left: IEEE Standards Association President James E. Matthews III joins IEEE 2933 Working Group Chair Florence Hudson and IEEE SA Awards and Recognition Committee Chair Yatin Trivedi at the ceremony where Hudson accepted the 2024 IEEE SA Emerging Technology Award. Klein and Ulmes If you have an implanted medical device, have been hooked up to a machine in

Kathy Pretz February 7, 2025

Synthetic Data Generation with LLMs | Towards Data Science

Popularity of RAG Over the past two years while working with financial firms, I’ve observed firsthand how they identify and prioritize Generative AI use cases, balancing complexity with potential value. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) often stands out as a foundational capability across many LLM-driven solutions, striking a balance between ease of implementation and real-world impact. By combining a retriever that surfaces relevant documents with an LLM that synthesizes responses, RAG streamlines knowledge access, making it invaluable for applications like customer support, research,

Aaron Birnbaum and Matthew Makansi February 7, 2025

Robotics

Physical Intelligence open-sources Pi0 robotics foundation model

[embedded content] Physical Intelligence, the San Francisco-based startup that has raised more than $400 million, has open-sourced its Pi0 robotic foundation model. Pi0 was introduced a few months ago and can be tuned to a range of tasks, including folding laundry, cleaning a table, scooping coffee beans, and more. Physical Intelligence has released the code and weights for Pi0 as part of its experimental openpi repository on GitHub. It also provides checkpoints for a few

Steve Crowe February 7, 2025

The Method of Moments Estimator for Gaussian Mixture Models | Towards Data Science

Audio Processing is one of the most important application domains of digital signal processing (DSP) and machine learning. Modeling acoustic environments is an essential step in developing digital audio processing systems such as: speech recognition, speech enhancement, acoustic echo cancellation, etc. Acoustic environments are filled with background noise that can have multiple sources. For example, when sitting in a coffee shop, walking down the street, or driving your car, you hear sounds that can be

Aaron Birnbaum and Matthew Makansi February 7, 2025

Software

Forget Faster Than Light Travel—Quantum Computing Could Deliver What You Say Even Before You Speak | HackerNoon

Just before 2024 ended, engineers from Northwestern University showed the world that quantum teleportation may not require specialized infrastructure as we’ve always thought. Instead, we could use the same fiber optic cables that we utilize in classical communication. Fibre optic cables or optical fibers transmit light particles, signals, or pulses. They contain glass fibers wrapped in another glass layer called cladding, a buffer tube, and a jacket, the final layer. After quantum teleportation became more

Tiru Chillapalli February 7, 2025

Startups face the recurring dilemma of whether to partner | TechCrunch

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This first week of February was busy on the geopolitical front, as well as in the world of startups and VC news, with many announcements and significant amounts of capital changing hands. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:Waabi Startups took different views on the

Anna Heim February 7, 2025

Exclusive: Self Inspection raises $3M for its AI-powered vehicle inspections | TechCrunch

A number of startups are racing to make vehicle inspections faster, easier, and cheaper. Self Inspection, a startup based in San Diego, thinks it has them all beat with its AI-powered service — and now it has convinced outside investors. Self Inspection, founded in 2021, is set to announce Thursday it’s raised $3 million in seed round co-led by Costanoa Ventures and DVx Ventures, the firm run by former Tesla president Jon McNeill. Joining the

Sean O'Kane February 7, 2025

AR/VR

The Google/Epic Games app store showdown goes before Court of Appeals | The DeanBeat

We had a rare peek this week into the legal world of antitrust and its enforcement in the games industry. Google is appealing its loss in an antitrust trial as Epic Games convinced a federal court that Google had illegally acted as a monopolist in restricting Epic’s access to Android users. Now Google has taken the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals and is trying to get the remedies that Epic Games won tossed

Dean Takahashi February 7, 2025

Software

AI Could Handle Your 911 Emergency Better Than You Know | HackerNoon

Public safety answering points (PSAPs) — also known as 911 call centers — provide a critical service. While most people hope never to need one, they are essential to society. Since they are so important, it is reasonable to think they are some of the most efficient institutions in the country. However, that assumption could not be further from the truth. Many emergency communication centers are underfunded and understaffed, resulting in unanswered 911 calls and

Zac Amos February 7, 2025

Hardware

Warning Issued For Millions Of iPhone And Android Users Over Screenshot-Scanning Malware

Malware on iPhones and Android devices is often associated with downloading third-party apps from unofficial sources. Cybercriminals, however, are also able to hide malware within apps found at official sources, like the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. These pieces of malware are often designed to target sensitive information captured in screenshots. A recent report revealed that several infected apps contain a malicious software development kit (SDK) aimed at stealing recovery phrases for cryptocurrency

Victor Awogbemila February 7, 2025