All posts tagged: rewrite

Tesla FSD v14.3 rolls out with MLIR rewrite, 20% faster reactions

Tesla FSD v14.3 rolls out with MLIR rewrite, 20% faster reactions

Published by skeptic

Tesla has started rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3 to HW4 vehicles, and the headline change is under the hood: Tesla rewrote the AI compiler and runtime from scratch on MLIR, which the automaker says delivers a 20% faster reaction time. The update, shipping as software version 2026.2.9.6, also brings a new parking spot pin on the map, better behavior around emergency vehicles and school buses, and Tesla’s first public acknowledgement that it’s leaning on MLIR — the compiler infrastructure built by Chris Lattner, who briefly led Tesla Autopilot back in 2017. What’s new in FSD v14.3 Here are Tesla’s official release notes for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3, shipping on build 2026.2.9.6 for HW4 Model S, 3, X, Y, and Cybertruck: Upgraded the Reinforcement Learning (RL) stage of training the FSD neural network, resulting in improvements in a wide variety of driving scenarios. Upgraded the neural network vision encoder, improving understanding in rare and low-visibility scenarios, strengthening 3D geometry understanding, and expanding traffic sign understanding. Rewrote the AI compiler and runtime from the ground up …

How the Texas primary could rewrite the Democrat’s campaign playbook

How the Texas primary could rewrite the Democrat’s campaign playbook

Published by Sam Flores

The closely watched Democratic primary for Senate in Texas, which has turned into a battle between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico, is not just testing what style of candidate Democrats prefer heading into 2026, but also two different theories of how to win elections in a state that Democrats will need to win, if they want to retake control of the Senate. Any path back to a Democratic majority in the Senate basically requires a win in Texas, with Democrats needing to flip four seats to win a bare 51-seat majority. This, combined with the feeling that 2026 appears to be the best chance for Democrats in Texas since 2018, has made the Senate race one of the marquee congressional races in the midterms. However, it’s also testing two theories of how to win in the state, which, if Democrats win in 2026, could become a serious battleground in the 2028 presidential election. On one side, the argument goes that Democrats need a candidate who can expand the electorate and appeal to …

The US-Israeli war on Iran could rewrite Gulf security calculations | Israel-Iran conflict

The US-Israeli war on Iran could rewrite Gulf security calculations | Israel-Iran conflict

Published by Sam Flores

The United States-Israeli war on Iran is just one day old, and it is already clear it will have a profound impact on the Middle East and the Gulf in particular. The US-Israeli bombardment of Iran has killed a number of high-ranking officials as well as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Tehran has responded by attacking not just Israel but also various countries in the region. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman were all struck by Iranian missiles or drones, even though none of these countries had launched attacks on Iran from their territory. Various sites across these states were targeted, including US military bases, airports, ports and even commercial areas. If the conflict drags on, it could become a real turning point for the Gulf – one that reshapes how states think about security, alliances and even their long-term economic futures. For years, Gulf stability has leaned on a familiar set of assumptions: The United States remained the dominant security guarantor; rivalry with Iran was managed, contained and kept below …

Code Metal Raises 5 Million to Rewrite the Defense Industry’s Code With AI

Code Metal Raises $125 Million to Rewrite the Defense Industry’s Code With AI

Published by skeptic

Code Metal, a Boston-based startup that uses AI to write code and translate it into other programming languages, just closed a $125 million Series B funding round from new and existing investors. The news comes just a few months after the startup raised $36 million in series A financing led by Accel. Code Metal is part of a new wave of startups aiming to modernize the tech industry by using AI to generate code and translate it across programming languages. One of the questions that persists about AI-assisted code, though, is whether the output is any good—and what the consequences might be if it’s not. Over the past two years companies like Antithesis, Code Rabbit, Synthesized, Theorem, and Harness have all secured millions in backing from venture capitalists for their approaches to automating, validating, testing, and securing AI-generated code. These startups are selling the “picks and shovels” of the AI gold rush—tech tools that serve a larger industry. While some of the methodologies behind their technology remain unproven, investors are willing to gamble that at …

Yuri Dmitriev, the Russian historian imprisoned for denouncing Kremlin attempts to rewrite history

Yuri Dmitriev, the Russian historian imprisoned for denouncing Kremlin attempts to rewrite history

Published by Sam Flores

The Russian authorities did everything they could to break him, but, at 70 years old, Yuri Dmitriev has not given in. Since May 2022, Dmitriev, a historian specialized in the Soviet-era gulags, has lived the life of a convict in the heart of Mordovia, a stark region located 500 kilometers east of Moscow, dotted with lakes, rivers and prison camps that date back to the Soviet era. Imprisoned since 2016, he is one of the oldest detainees in Russia’s prisons. For 30 years, Dmitriev worked to locate mass graves that prove the Soviet regime’s Stalin-era crimes, horrors that the Kremlin is determined to cover up at all costs. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the KGB’s successors, is suspected of having fabricated a child sexual abuse case against him, both to silence him and to intimidate anyone else who does not conform to the regime’s official historical narrative. According to human rights advocates, he was the victim of a “shameful trial,” and the charges against him were actually a case of kompromat, an …

CRISPR can rewrite our genetic code: Best ideas of the century

CRISPR can rewrite our genetic code: Best ideas of the century

Published by skeptic

“The pain was like being struck by lightning and hit by a freight train all at the same time,” Victoria Gray told New Scientist in 2023. “Now everything is different for me.” Gray used to experience severe episodes of sickle cell disease, but in 2019 she was effectively cured by a revolutionary technique that enables changes to be made to specific bits of our DNA: CRISPR gene editing. In 2023, that experimental treatment became the first approved CRISPR therapy. There are hundreds of clinical trials of CRISPR-based treatments now under way, and this is just the start. CRISPR could help treat all kinds of diseases, not just genetic conditions. For instance, a single dose of CRISPR could reduce your risk of heart attacks and strokes by permanently lowering your cholesterol levels. And while it isn’t yet safe enough to attempt, it does seem likely that in the future, CRISPR will be routinely used to alter our children’s genomes to reduce their risk of common diseases. CRISPR is also starting to transform farming by making it much easier to develop crops and livestock that are disease-resistant, adapted to warmer conditions …

Tomb Raider: Sophie Turner and Alix Wilton Regan will rewrite history

Tomb Raider: Sophie Turner and Alix Wilton Regan will rewrite history

Published by Daniella Wilson

Since its 1996 debut, Tomb Raider has remained an iconic franchise, with protagonist Lara Croft jumping, shooting and plundering tombs for almost three decades. Tomb Raider is a series that’s been a constant presence in my career. There’s no greater example than having a book published about the first two games in 2021, along with a follow-up coming out later this year. 2026 marks the series’ 30th year, and Crystal Dynamics, the current custodians of Tomb Raider in gaming, have announced two new titles. The first, called Legacy of Atlantis, is a re-imagining of the first game, out later this year, while Catalyst is the latest all-new entry in the series, coming out in 2027. New Tomb Raider games usually feature a new voice actor for Lara, and Alix Wilton Regan was indeed announced as the latest to voice Croft. I suspected as much when I saw her interviewed on Radio Times Gaming’s TikTok channel. And with the Sophie Turner-starring Amazon series looming a little further on the horizon, there’s a clear theme being instilled …

Physicists used ‘dark photons’ in an effort to rewrite physics in 2025

Physicists used ‘dark photons’ in an effort to rewrite physics in 2025

Published by skeptic

Dark photons offer a new explanation for the double-slit experiment RUSSELL KIGHTLEY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A core tenet of quantum theory was imperilled this year when a team of researchers put forward a radical new interpretation of an experiment about the nature of light. At the centre of the new work was the double-slit experiment, which was first conducted in 1801 by physicist Thomas Young, who used it to confirm that light acts like a wave. Classically, something that is a particle can never also be a wave, and vice versa, but in the quantum realm, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, all quantum objects exhibit so-called wave-particle duality. For decades, light seemed to be a prime example of this: experiments showed that it sometimes behaves as a particle called a photon and sometimes as a wave that produces effects like those that Young saw. But earlier this year, Celso Villas-Boas at the Federal University of São Carlos in Brazil and his colleagues proposed an interpretation of the double-slit experiment that only involves photons, effectively …