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Baton Rouge startup selected for national health tech competition
Baton Rouge health technology startup Chrysalis is among 15 teams selected to participate in a national competition focused on using AI to help people living with chronic, difficult-to-diagnose illnesses. The company, co-founded by husband-and-wife duo Brent and Brittany Martin, will present its flagship product, Chrysalis Health Spaces, Thursday afternoon during the final demonstration of the […]
New Richland Lab Could Transform How Scientists Study Microbes and Boost Regional Jobs
The BriefGroundbreaking held Tuesday: PNNL officially began construction on the M2PC lab, a 30,800-square-foot facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science that will study soil microbes to improve crop productivity and develop new biotechnology applications. The facility will be open to researchers from around the nation and the world.Research timelines could shrink dramatically: The facility's automation and AI capabilities could reduce experiments that currently take six months to just 72 hours, allowing scientists to explore more possibilities faster than ever before.New jobs coming to the Tri-Cities: The project is expected to create positions for automation engineers, AI experts, roboticists, technicians, and skilled craftspeople, with the facility opening in 2029.RICHLAND, Wash. — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory broke ground Tuesday on a first-of-its-kind facility that could accelerate scientific discoveries about the microscopic organisms living in soil—organisms that may hold the key to growing more food and developing new energy technologies.The Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability, or M2PC, represents a significant investment in automation and artificial intelligence to speed up research that traditionally takes years to complete. The 30,800-square-foot facility will house more than 100 connected automated instruments designed to study microbes at a pace and scale never before possible.Reshaping Agriculture's FutureThe M2PC facility will not put a new tool directly into a farmer's hands tomorrow morning, but it is actively reshaping the commercial pipeline to solve agriculture's biggest headache with biologicals: inconsistent field performance. For years, PNNL researchers have explored how microbes work and how they might help produce useful materials, advance energy technologies, and address challenges involving critical materials and minerals. But those experiments have been limited by what researchers could accomplish by hand."They can be used to provide nutrients to a plant so that the plant would grow more. So, like increasing your crop productivity, for example," said Douglas Mans, PNNL's Associate Laboratory Director for Integrated Discovery Sciences.PNNL's own research shows soil microbes can help plants access nutrients and withstand drought—benefits that could prove crucial as farmers face growing environmental pressures. The M2PC facility will allow scientists to identify and optimize useful microbes faster than ever before, accelerating the development of biological solutions that actually work consistently in the field.What Makes M2PC UniqueThe Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability differs from traditional research labs because it operates as a first-of-its-kind, AI-enabled autonomous laboratory designed to shrink experimental timelines from years down to months or weeks. The M2PC lab will connect more than 100 automated instruments to grow microbes, prepare samples, measure their behavior, and link observations to the molecular processes behind them. Artificial intelligence will help analyze results and guide the next experiments, allowing scientists to explore more questions faster.Deb Gracio, PNNL Director, emphasized the transformative potential during Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony: "Research that has taken years will become possible in months and hopefully in weeks."That acceleration is already being demonstrated. PNNL's smaller automated lab, called the Anaerobic Microbial Phenotyping Platform or AMP2, completed three experimental cycles in just 72 hours—a process that normally would have taken about six months."That normally would have taken us about six months … and we were able to do that in 72 hours," Mans said.The AMP2 laboratory is not being closed or replaced. Instead, the current 1,800-square-foot laboratory serves as an active prototype and precursor for the much larger M2PC facility. AMP2 will continue operating as a separate lab designed to run anaerobic experiments—those conducted in the absence of oxygen—while M2PC will focus on aerobic research.Broader Applications Beyond AgricultureWhile improving crop productivity is one important application, the M2PC facility is designed to support research into multiple areas critical to national priorities. The lab will advance research into biofuels, manufacturing materials, and energy technologies. It will also help researchers understand how microbes respond to environmental changes and how to design biological systems for biotechnology applications.As a flagship component of the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, M2PC represents a significant investment in using artificial intelligence and automation to accelerate U.S. scientific discovery. Dorothy Koch, Associate Director of the DOE Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research program, highlighted the facility's importance during the groundbreaking."M2PC will accelerate biological discovery and design," Koch said, noting that the facility is expected to conduct a minimum of 500 strain experiments per week, 100 microbiome experiments per week, and take a million measurements per month.Economic Opportunity for the RegionBeyond the scientific breakthroughs, the M2PC project represents significant economic opportunity for the Tri-Cities region. The facility will require hiring automation engineers, AI experts, technicians skilled in operating robotics, and specialized craftspeople to build and maintain the sophisticated equipment."We're anticipating that type of hiring," Mans said when asked about job creation.PNNL has already begun recruiting talent nationally and internationally for positions related to the smaller AMP2 lab, bringing automation engineers from cities like Boston and San Francisco to work in the region. The M2PC facility is expected to accelerate that trend."This capability won't really exist anywhere else in the world," Mans said, suggesting the facility could become a draw for scientific talent seeking to work on cutting-edge biotechnology research.Timeline and Next StepsThe M2PC facility is expected to open in 2029. Between now and then, construction crews will level and prepare the ground, while the building takes shape. Simultaneously, Ginkgo Bio Works, the automation contractor, will build the facility's automation components off-site so they can be installed as the building is completed.In the interim, PNNL researchers and the broader scientific community will begin planning the first experiments to be conducted in the facility, ensuring research is lined up and ready to begin as soon as the doors open.The groundbreaking ceremony included representatives from the Department of Energy, PNNL leadership, and elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, underscoring the project's significance to the region and the nation's biotechnology future. News The U.S. Department of Energy Secretary tours Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Dan Hanson, Apple Valley News Now News Beyond DNA: Scientists Explore New Frontiers in Biology Research Dan Hanson, Apple Valley News Now News TRIDEC optimistic that Hanford, PNNL will see funding in national budget Robert Desaulniers News Big picture science: monitoring the Yakima River Basin News PNNL research could shape the future of fighting fentanyl COPYRIGHT 2026 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
Page wants County health department to monitor low frequency data center noise
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page says low-frequency noise generated by data center projects are not currently monitored and should be on a county-wide level by the public health department.
Roman sarcophagus inside Westminster Abbey originally held a different body
A case of coffin swapping may explain the mysterious medieval burial.
Applications Open for County College of Morris Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Apprenticeship
MORRIS COUNTY — County College of Morris (CCM) is accepting applications through Monday, November 2, for the next cohort of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science Apprenticeship, offering CCM students and adult learners living in New Jersey an opportunity to gain paid, hands-on experience while preparing for a career in the fast-growing fields of […]
A 'golden age' vs. 'we're working on it': Trump and Vance give different pitches on the economy
When Vice President JD Vance speaks on the campaign trail about the high costs Americans are facing, he often says he understands that people are hurting
Commission announces plan for polar hub to step up research coordination
The European Commission plans to develop an EU polar research hub to strengthen coordination and improve the alignment between science and policy. The objective, according to a Commission official, is to “better connect research, observation and scientific infrastructure, improve access to research resources and strengthen coordination with stakeholders, including Indigenous people.”Announced in a new EU Arctic strategy on October 20, there is little detail yet on how the hub will be implemented, only that it will “reinforce and expand” the European Polar Coordination Office (EPCO), which is hosted and managed by the European Polar Board (EPB) at Umeå University in Sweden. EPCO was born from the EU-PolarNet projects funded through Horizon 2020 and currently coordinates the EU Polar Cluster, a network of EU-funded collaborative polar projects.While the practical details remain to be defined, the decision sends “a clear and positive signal,” said Maria Grigoratou, head of EPCO and executive secretary of EPB. “By reinforcing EPCO, the Commission has an opportunity to build on the legacy of EU-PolarNet 2, strengthen European polar research coordination and expand cooperation with a broader range of Arctic stakeholders,” she told Science|Business.The move has been welcomed by the polar research community. “The polar research hub could play an important role in connecting existing research communities, observation systems and infrastructure, and in bringing scientific knowledge closer to policymaking, in cooperation with local communities and Indigenous people,” said Katrine Moland Hansen, director of operations at Norway’s Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center.But money will be an issue. “It is clear that EPCO will need more resources and structure to function well and to make research reach policymakers,” said Kati Lindström, vice-chair of the Polar Research Committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. “European polar research is big if we pool the resources, and it should not only be left to enthusiastic scientists to develop networks of strategic importance in their free time.”The Arctic strategy makes a point of saying that local communities should have a greater involvement in Arctic science. “All EU Arctic research consortia are mandated to invite Indigenous people representatives to participate in projects,” it reads. “The EU also supports research that is directly led by Indigenous communities and address their challenges.”It also underlines the importance of reinforcing collaboration with like-minded partners such as Norway, Iceland, Canada, the UK, Japan and South Korea, as well as deepening its engagement with NATO. This includes the US, with which “the EU is committed to continuing a pragmatic transatlantic engagement based on shared interests and values.”Related articlesViewpoint: Does Europe dare to invest in the Arctic?Anchor Greenlanders in Arctic climate research, experts tell EU ahead of policy updateFor Moland Hansen, this open and inclusive approach to cooperation is encouraging. “The Arctic is also a strong example of why equal participation of associated countries in EU funding instruments matters.”Overall, she finds the new Arctic strategy to be ambitious, timely and comprehensive. “We particularly welcome the recognition that climate change, environmental protection, security, resilience and competitiveness are closely interconnected,” she said. “Research, observations and forecasting capabilities are essential to understanding the rapid changes taking place in the Arctic and addressing these challenges together.”Security focusWhile the Arctic strategy foregrounds security, with pledges to protect undersea cables, boost satellite monitoring, deploy more icebreakers and improve military mobility, the polar community is satisfied that environmental concerns have not been forgotten.“It is inevitable that there is a strong security angle to the EU Arctic strategy, but the impact of climate change and need for climate mitigation and resilience is also strongly recognised and includes a pledge to stay the course on climate commitments,” said Sian Prior, lead advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance, a coalition of campaigning non-profit organisations.“We need to remember that by the time the next Multiannual Financial Framework comes to an end, in 2034, the polar regions, especially the Arctic region, will be living under a new reality when it comes to ecosystem processes, when it comes to the climate,” Grigoratou went on. “And that will affect any ambition that humans may have in the region.”Lindström agreed. “All aspects of European security are dependent on climate change in the Arctic and consequently, on climate science,” she said. “We cannot close our eyes to issues like energy security, critical minerals, northern shipping routes, dual-use technologies and others. However, it remains to be seen how well the promises to protect the environment and Indigenous rights will hold when faced with critical mineral extraction under the Critical Minerals Act.”
J. Crew's website crashed, leaving an apparent AI backend message
The website of clothing retailer J.Crew crashed Monday, leaving shoppers with a puzzling message: "JCrew generative AI Backend is healthy."
Goldman Sachs spends big to give small businesses an AI boost
The Wall Street giant is committing $500 million to expand its 10,000 Small Businesses program and launch an AI institute, partnering with Google, Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic to bring AI know-how to Main Street. NBC's Christine Romans spoke exclusively with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and with small businesses figuring out how to make AI work for them.
Australian Politician Who Was Hit by Car Has Lost Both Legs
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Doctors have amputated both of Australian federal lawmaker Helen Haines ' legs as she remains in critical condition after being repeatedly hit by a car in an apparent act of political violence, her husband said Wednesday. The 65-year-old independent politician is ...
Urban Meyer only has one concern about a 24-team College Football Playoff
Urban Meyer won three national titles as a college football head coach, but the game is already very different from his time at Florida and Ohio State. The ways NIL and the transfer portal have shifted the sport’s landscape were hard to predict, and the Fox Sports college football analyst is among those who misread…
Oso Ighodaro exits Suns opener with injury
Phoenix Suns center Oso Ighodaro exited the team's season opener against the Portland Trail Blazers with an apparent right hip injury Wednesday.
Several S&T researchers among top 2% cited scientists in their fields
A total of 94 current and former researchers affiliated with Missouri S&T are among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists recognized either for their career-long impact or for their 2025 metrics, according to a Stanford University analysis of the Elsevier Data Repository....Continue Reading Several S&T researchers among top 2% cited scientists in their fields
Bucco Calls for Action to Support Small Businesses, Introduces Bill to Give Them a Voice in Trenton
While the Sherrill administration continues its ‘small business listening tour’, Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco (R-Morris, Passaic) is calling for immediate action to support Ne
Brain scans reveal 'number line' that's used to mentally compare values
Although whole numbers and fractions are processed differently in the brain, when you compare their values, a single "mental map" akin to a number line lights up.
Space science offers common ground for international cooperation
Scientists from more than 20 international and domestic scientific organizations and research institutions gathered in Beijing on Oct. 20 to discuss current challenges in space research at a symposium held as part of the 2026 International Science Council (ISC) Midterm Members' Meeting and Beijing Science Dialogue.
School of Public Health releases 2026 Healthy Georgia Report
“Healthy Georgia: Our State of Public Health,” provides a glance at how the Peach State is faring on 31 different health topics.
Twin County Regional Healthcare responding to increased volume of patients related to community incident Tuesday night
Twin County Regional Healthcare announced on its Facebook page Tuesday evening that it is currently responding to an increased volume of patients related to what it called a “community incident”.
How well have past GOTY winners sold?
We’re less than two months away from 2026’s The Game Awards, and what a year it’s been for fantastic games, including Resident Evil Requiem, Forza Horizon 6, Slay the Spire II, the Blood of Dawnwalker, and Control Resonant – just to name a few. So as we approach the end of the year, we thought we’d look back on our estimates for the GOTY winners of the past four years. In terms of revenue, Elden Ring (2022 winner), Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), Astro Bot (2024), and Expedition 33 (2025) have generated a combined $3.8B via 73M copies sold: Let’s have a look, then. Elden Ring has generated $2B in revenue Elden Ring is a phenomenon in every sense. It’s sold a whopping 36.4M copies across Steam (50%), PS5 (35%), and Xbox (15% across console and PC). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring also just passed an astronomical milestone: $2B in revenue. While PlayStation and Xbox account for half of Elden Ring’s copies sold across these three platforms, they account for 57.5% of revenue. This – as ever – is due to regional pricing and the higher relative share of PC gamers in lower-priced markets. For example, around 17.4% of Elden Ring’s Steam copies sold were in China, where the game costs about 26% less than the price in the States. There’s an … interesting narrative going around these days that console gamers are only interested in ball-and-gun games and have the patience for little else. Well, Elden Ring’s impressive sales prove that is simply not true, and across all platforms. What’s more, over 9.8M people have played Elden Ring for over 100 hours, with nearly 3.5M people getting all of the achievements and trophies. For reference, 10.9% of Elden Ring’s PlayStation players have the platinum trophy, while 10.5% of players on Steam and 3.9% of Xbox players unlocked all the achievements. Git gud, Xbox players! Of the 1.5M people who played Elden Ring on PlayStation last month, 4% also played Dark Souls 3 last month, 4% played Bloodborne, and 3% played Sekiro. There’s those Soulsborne diehards for you. By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time. It’s an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring has sold another 2M copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox this year, generating almost $110M. This means it’s outperforming many of this year’s high-profile releases. Even Elden Ring’s standalone run-based PvE spinoff, 2025’s Nightreign, has sold 7.8M copies and generated $282M in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3 is another billion-dollar-plus banger Another cross-platform phenomenon is Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold 23.2M copies and generated over $1.2B in revenue. About 18.7M of these copies (80.6%) are via Steam, 2.9M via PS5 (12.7%), and 1.6M (6.8%) via Xbox. Around 1.3M folks on Steam bought BG3 before it hit 1.0. The PlayStation version launched about a month after the PC 1.0 release, while the Xbox version came four months later due to technical issues around developing local co-op on the Series S. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Across platforms, Baldur’s Gate 3’s monthly active users have never dropped below 2M, including 2.2M MAUs last month (68.5% on Steam, 21.9% on PS5, and 9.6% on Xbox). And it still regularly brings in 280K to 400K players every day: About 1% of BG3’s Steam player base has played for over 500 hours! That’s a little under 200K people. Astro Bot is also an evergreen seller, albeit a more niche, family one Astro Bot, 2024’s winner, has now sold 4.7M copies and generated $291M in revenue. The budget, including marketing, is almost certainly under $100M, given the small Japan-based core team and three-year dev timeline. You can really see why the tides are changing toward less expensive hubs. Astro Bot is the only first-party winner on this list, but follows other first-party winners of The Last of Us Part II (2020’s winner), God of War (2018), and Breath of the Wild (2017). Around 46.6% of Astro Bot’s copies sold have been physical, which is far higher than the typical game. This makes sense for a couple of reasons: There’s a large family audience for this one, and physical boxes are an item to wrap when giving Astro as a gift. Astro has collector value for the PlayStation core (this is nostalgia-fueled platformer celebrating PlayStation’s history) Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Astro is another one of those games that continues selling over time, regularly selling more than 100K a month. It’s sold around 1M more copies this year ($60M in revenue) and is a popular title with families. We can see this using the Alinea platform’s MAU crossover tool: Astro Bot’s top #2, #3, and #4 games by crossover in any given month this year are Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox – without fail. The #1 title every month, though, is Astro’s Playroom, a pack-in with all PS5 consoles. For every month this year, between 20% and 30% of Astro Bot players also played Astro’s Playroom that month. So the free pack-in is a noice funnel for converting players to a full paid product. Expedition 33 sells 8.7M despite Game Pass cannibalisation Finally, we have last year’s winner – Expedition 33. The turn-based-RPG banger has generated $366M via 8.7M copies sold, with 58.8% on Steam, 35.7% on PS5, and 5.5% on Xbox. Xbox’s share of copies sold is this low due to Expedition 33 launching on Game Pass, where 4.3M people across console and PC accessed the game. A little under 700K Xbox players used their subscription to play Expedition 33 this year. That said, the game’s 1.5-year Game Pass deal ended last week on October 16, and we’re already beginning to see a positive trend on Expedition 33’s copies sold via Xbox (but the jury’s still out!). There’s understandably a lot of French pride behind this one, as France is the game’s #3 market on both Steam and PlayStation. Vive la France! One thing that stood out to me is that the GOTY winners aren’t $300M Hollywood productions made in the US. They’re mostly mid-budget studios outside the traditional AAA cost centres. Lots to think about there. Also, good games sell well; who’d have thunk it!? And there’s a whole load of them this year, with GTA 6 still to come, too. GTA just made the cutoff point for the VGAs this year. What a coincidence! Loading... Cool links and other stuff Our physical games newsletter from Tuesday was picked up by GameSpot, Eurogamer, TweakTown, and a bunch of others. We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up. Next week, we’ve got some exciting news regarding the future of our newsletter, so stay tuned! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. Want to see why these companies (and many others) are subscribed to Alinea? Get a free platform trial! [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
Star Wars
Through A-list connections, Jaka Bizilj became a prominent humanitarian. His Ukrainian employees tell a different story.
Liz Morentin Launches Entertainment, Media, Tech Communications Agency
Liz Morentin launched entertainment, media and tech communications agency Greenvalley Media & Marketing. Morentin was most recently at Virgin Music.
Bellevue-Based Business Receives National Recognition
OneFarStar LLC, the Bellevue-based parent company of Millie’s Sipping Broth, has been named among the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 CO—100.
John Legend on Pharrell’s musical push, Jay-Z’s praise and new creative challenges with ‘Muse’
Jay-Z once called John Legend “our voice,” but Pharrell Williams had a different idea for Legend's baritone | WWL
Students Take a Bus Ride to a Different Rutgers
A new seminar helps undergraduates connect their interests to research they never knew existed For Dave Bushek, the obstacle to bringing students to Rutgers’ field stations across New Jersey was getting them there. A visitor to Rutgers’ shellfish research facilities wondered why more students weren’t seeing them, too. Bushek, a professor of marine and coastal […]
Duke Dominates First Half against #8 Tennessee
Duke at half is currently up 54-30 against #8 Tennessee. They dominated the first half from start to finish, including a 15-0 run after it was tied 2-2. The Blue Devils have looked like the much better team. Tennessee attempted a run late in the half but couldn’t get closer than 20 points. If the […] The post Duke Dominates First Half against #8 Tennessee appeared first on HEAVY.
OU looking 'at adversity as an opportunity' heading into Mississippi State
Off the heels of a devastating loss to No. 12 Kentucky, head coach Brent Venables and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle will look to rebound as they hit the road to
Political ads can be confusing for kids. Here's how to talk through the emotions
Political ads can be scary or confusing for kids, but experts say parents shouldn't shy away from talking about politics with their children.
Help is available: Resources available for youth mental, behavioral health
Seattle Children’s Hospital recently reported that they are currently experiencing high demand for youth mental and behavioral healthcare in their emergency departments. If you or a young person you know is experiencing an immediate crisis: In addition, here are some resources for youth mental or behavioral healthcare funded by the Seattle Human Services Department (HSD) […]
WA parents and businesses lose billions due to lack of childcare
Washington parents and businesses lose out on more than $6 billion annually in wages and revenue due to insufficient childcare, a recent study found.
What makes Troy Aikman such an appealing option for CBS?
ProShooter/Depositphotos Troy Aikman’s ESPN deal ends in 2027 Troy Kenneth Aikman works as an NFL analyst for ESPN after playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. His current broadcasting agreement runs through Super Bowl LXI, scheduled for February 2027. During an October 15 radio interview in Dallas, Aikman said he expected to become a free agent.…
More Than a Charcuterie Board: A Mother and Daughter Build a Business Around Gathering.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Birch Bay Retirement Village. NORTHEAST HARBOR—Food’s ability to be a social cornerstone is one of the founding premises of one of Mount Desert Island’s newest, and perhaps most unique, endeavors in cuisine based catering. From intimate gatherings to large functions, Olive & Pearl creates charcuterie boards that can not only astound the tongue but also the eye. Many would agree that food can bring people together. In fact, culinary delights, and sometimes adventures, have been utilized as the centerpiece for social and business occasions of all kinds for centuries. Often times it even has the ability to start conversation, temper differences, and build new relationships. Settings can vary, from a multi-course sit down meal, a backyard barbecue, or a couple of bowls of chips and dip in front of a television, but the result can be the same. Humans come together, they share food, and the whole process is a catalyst for thought, communication, and a shared experience. Imagined and created by the mother and daughter team of Dr. Susan Scanlan (formerly MacCready) and Kayla Musetti, Olive & Pearl was started in June of this year and has been creating, delighting, and growing since. We gave the two an opportunity to answer some questions about themselves and their new venture. The love, passion, and pride for what they are doing and the fact that they are doing it as a mother and daughter team came through so strongly in their answers that we decided to present the question and answer session in its entirety. The Interview What did you do prior to Olive & Pearl? We’re a mother-daughter team, and food, family, and hospitality have always been a big part of our lives. Susan grew up in a large family in Pennsylvania, where the table was always at the center of everything. There were multiple dishes, little bites, stories, and plenty of conversation. Food was never simply about eating. It was about gathering, celebrating, and spending time together. After living in several Southern states, Susan relocated to Maine more than 20 years ago, and Maine has truly become home. She loves its sense of community, natural beauty, and connection to local food and makers. Professionally, Susan is a registered nurse and holds a doctorate in health administration. She has worked in a variety of clinical, nonclinical, and leadership roles and currently works as a faculty academic director. Building Olive & Pearl has been an exciting creative venture alongside her career. Kayla is also a registered nurse and works in the ambulatory surgery unit at Mount Desert Island Hospital. While healthcare is an important part of both of our professional lives, Olive & Pearl has given us an entirely different way to connect, collaborate, and create something together. Tell us about the business. Olive & Pearl is a mother-daughter charcuterie business centered around beautiful food, thoughtful presentation, and bringing people together. We create curated charcuterie boards designed for everything from intimate gatherings and dinner parties to weddings, showers, corporate events, boat days, and celebrations of all kinds. We think of our boards as more than food. They’re an experience and an invitation to gather, slow down, and enjoy time with the people around you. We’re intentional about quality ingredients, artful presentation, and personalization. Whenever possible, we also incorporate Maine-made and locally sourced products, including cheeses, jams, honey, seasonal produce, and baked goods. What inspired you to start Olive & Pearl? In many ways, Olive & Pearl grew out of something we had been doing our entire lives —bringing people together around food. We’ve always loved creating beautiful spreads for family and friends. There was something special about watching people gather around a table, graze, talk, laugh, and simply enjoy being together. Friends and family began telling us, “You should do this as a business,” and one day, we stopped laughing it off and started mapping it out. We realized we had an opportunity to combine our different strengths and create something that reflected what we both value: hospitality, creativity, quality, and connection. Charcuterie felt like the perfect expression of that. It’s beautiful and creative, but it’s also communal and approachable. At its heart, it brings us right back to where the idea began, a table filled with food and people gathered around it. Do you have a business partner(s)? Our business partner is each other! Olive & Pearl is truly a mother-daughter partnership, and building it together has been incredibly meaningful and sometimes hilarious! We know each other extremely well, which can be both a strength and, occasionally, a challenge. We have different personalities and strengths, but we’ve learned to lean into those differences and use them to our advantage. There’s a lot of trust between us, and we’ve learned how to communicate, collaborate, and occasionally laugh at ourselves along the way. We’re also building Olive & Pearl while continuing our careers in healthcare and education, so we’re taking things thoughtfully and growing the business one step at a time. We all have to start somewhere. One of the most rewarding parts has been having something that belongs to both of us. We get to learn from one another, celebrate the small wins together, and create something that we hope will become part of our family’s story for years to come. When exactly did you launch the business? Recently, in June 2026, we launched Olive & Pearl, turning an idea we had talked about for years into real business. It has been incredibly rewarding to watch something that started around our own family table and begin to find a place within the community. How is it going so far? How do you feel it has been received? It has been going very well, and we’ve been incredibly encouraged by how warmly Olive & Pearl has been received. As more people hear about us, our orders have continued to increase, and we’re seeing growing interest in boards for events and celebrations. It’s exciting to watch something that began as an idea between the two of us start to grow within the community. One of the most rewarding parts is hearing from customers after their events or seeing photos of our boards being enjoyed. Knowing that something we created became part of someone’s celebration is incredibly meaningful to us. Is there a brick-and-mortar location or is it all online? Olive & Pearl is currently an online business. We’re intentionally starting this way so we can build relationships with our customers, learn what they love, and grow thoughtfully. Our long-term dream, if the business continues to grow, is to eventually have a sit-down space where people can experience Olive & Pearl in person. Do you have any future plans if things go well/keep going well? Absolutely. For now, our focus is on continuing to grow Olive & Pearl, getting to know our customers, and becoming part of more celebrations and gatherings throughout the area. Long term, we would love to have our own physical space where people can come together and experience Olive & Pearl beyond the boards themselves. We can imagine a place that combines food, hospitality, creativity, and community. Ultimately, we want to build something that continues to grow while still feeling personal and connected to the people and community around us. Is there an aspect of the business that you really love? There are so many things we love about it, but the people and the connection are probably at the top of the list. We love creating something beautiful, but what really matters to us is what happens after we hand it over to the customer. We picture our boards on kitchen islands, at backyard gatherings, on boats, at weddings, or around a long dinner table—with people laughing, talking, and lingering a little longer. We also love the creative side. Every board is an opportunity to play with color, texture, shape, seasonality, and flavor. We don’t just want to fill a board, we want to curate an experience. And supporting local makers is especially meaningful to us. Whenever possible, we love incorporating Maine-made cheeses, local jams and honey, seasonal produce, and products from nearby bakeries and businesses. It allows us to showcase some of what makes Maine so special. Perhaps most importantly, we love doing this together. Building something as a mother and daughter has given us another way to spend time together, learn from one another, celebrate small wins, and create memories. Is there anything regarding any aspect of Olive & Pearl that you may think is important that is not reflected on the website? One thing that may not always come through online is just how personal this business is to us. Olive & Pearl isn’t something we created simply because charcuterie was popular. It grew very naturally from our family, our traditions, and the way we’ve always enjoyed gathering with people we love. There is a lot of heart behind every board. We think about the people who will be enjoying it, the occasion they’re celebrating, and how we can make the experience feel special. We also want people to know that we care deeply about supporting locals whenever possible. Using Maine products isn’t just about sourcing ingredients, it’s about telling a little story about where we live and the talented people who make and grow wonderful things here. Is there anything that we have not asked that you think is important/relevant that would like readers to know? We hope people see Olive & Pearl as more than just a charcuterie business. At its heart, it’s about gathering. Our goal is to make it easier for people to create those moments when everyone gathers around the table, conversations last a little longer, and people simply enjoy being together. We also hope people see the mother-daughter story behind the business. We’re building Olive & Pearl alongside our careers, one step at a time, and there is something incredibly special about creating a shared family legacy in the process. For us, success isn’t just about how many boards we make. It’s about becoming part of people’s special moments - birthdays, weddings, weekends with friends, quiet evenings at home, or a beautiful day on the Maine coast. If one of our boards helps people put down their phones, linger a little longer, laugh a little more, and enjoy the people around them, then we feel like we’ve done exactly what we set out to do. All photos courtesy of Olive & Pearl. LINKS TO LEARN MORE Olive & Pearl website Olive & Pearl Facebook Olive & Pearl Instagram RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website. [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/pemetic-students-share-thoughts-on) [ Pemetic Students Share Thoughts on Declaration of Independence Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/pemetic-students-share-thoughts-on) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/pemetic-students-share-thoughts-on) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/fall-festival-at-the-noreaster-for) [ Fall Festival at the Nor’Easter for Mount Desert Nursery School, October 24. Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/fall-festival-at-the-noreaster-for) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/fall-festival-at-the-noreaster-for) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/explore-career-opportunities-where) [ Explore career opportunities where you make a difference for Maine’s natural resources—and the people who enjoy them. Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/explore-career-opportunities-where) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/explore-career-opportunities-where) [ Cranberry Isles Comprehensive Plan Committee Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/cranberry-isles-comprehensive-plan) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/cranberry-isles-comprehensive-plan) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/community-school-hosts-a-pancake) [ Community School Hosts a Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser October 25! Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/community-school-hosts-a-pancake) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/community-school-hosts-a-pancake) HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
Tracking tsunamis triggered by extreme weather
As much of Western Europe faced record-breaking temperatures and extended drought this summer, Croatia experienced another weather event that could also set a worrisome precedent.Over the course of two weeks, a series of meteorological tsunamis (meteotsunamis) struck Croatia’s Adriatic coast, alarming both residents and tourists. Social media posts showed flooded seaside promenades and people walking through knee-deep water. Fortunately, no deaths or major damage were reported.In a world where natural disasters seem to be increasing, meteotsunamis — tsunamis caused by rapid weather changes – rarely make headline news. But warming sea temperatures and changing atmospheric conditions may help explain why these phenomena could become more common, especially in shallower seas and inland lakes with wide coastal shelves.“We have definitely become more aware of them, and there have been a lot more reports of these events in the last 10 years,” says Jadranka Šepić, an associate professor of environmental physics at the University of Split whose research focuses on efforts to track meteotsunamis in real time. She is also one of Croatia’s ambassadors for Science Comes to Town (SCTT), a European Commission-funded programme aimed at making research more accessible to the public.Šepić sees two possible reasons for the apparent increase in meteotsunamis. One is that photos and videos shared on social media are providing more empirical evidence, while rising air and sea temperatures could also play a role. The geophysicist “cannot say with certainty” that warming is a contributing factor because research is still ongoing. “But I can say that previously in Croatia we might have had one exceptionally strong event every 10 or 15 years, and one strong event every five years, and within 15 days this summer we had five strong events,” Šepić notes. “This is not typical.”‘A fist against the sea surface’Unlike tsunamis that are triggered by underwater earthquakes or volcanoes, meteotsunamis are caused by sudden changes in atmospheric pressure combined with other rapidly developing weather events, such as thunderstorms. The effect “is like pushing a fist against the sea surface,” Šepić explains. The resulting oscillation intensifies as it reaches shallower water, and “can be far more destructive than a wind-driven wave because meteotsunamis are accompanied by very strong currents than can penetrate much deeper inland.” The meteotsunami, she continues, “then behaves the same as a tsunami — they slow down and grow as the sea shallows, and then grow further in places like harbours due to further shallowing and narrowing. When they come ashore, they can be very destructive — taking everything with them out to sea and then taking it back.”Croatian research institutions have tracked such sea oscillations since the 1930s because the relatively shallow Adriatic Sea is prone to meteotsunamis. The strongest recorded so far was in June 1978, according to the Adriatic Meteotsunami Catalogue, which is supported by the European Research Council (ERC), Croatian Science Foundation and the country’s leading research institutions. During that event, six-metre-high waves flooded the coastal town of Vela Luka on Korčula Island, causing major damage.Other meteotsunami “hotspots” in Europe include the Mediterranean Sea as well the Atlantic coastal shelves off France, Portugal and Spain. In June 2006, a meteotsunami with five-metre-high waves swept through the harbour of Ciutadella in Spain’s Balearic Islands, causing widespread damage to boats. Several less powerful events were reported in the Balearics and off the coast of Spain this summer, leading to some beach closures.Forecasting is challenging because of how quickly meteotsunamis can develop and their uncertain trajectory. Šepić is involved in two ERC-funded research projects — SHExtreme and MeD-Track — aimed in part at strengthening monitoring and real-time data collection. Access to accurate and immediate information is essential for early-warning systems.Early exposure to meteotsunamisŠepić first learned about meteotsunamis from her parents while growing up in Croatia. She later had the opportunity to investigate these events during her master and doctoral studies in geophysics at the University of Zagreb. The geophysicist has also conducted research at the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries in Split, the University of the Balearic Islands in Palma de Mallorca and the Institute of Ocean Science in the Canadian province of British Columbia.Projects like SCTT are important to raise awareness about research and inspiring young people to pursue studies and careers in science, notes Šepić. She credits her colleagues at the University of Split and the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries for their community outreach and engagement in the European project, which includes partner universities and institutions in Brest (France) and Kiel (Germany). As an example of town-gown collaboration, Šepić highlights her own university’s ‘Oceanographers on the Island’ programme. This initiative offers workshops and hands-on learning for children living on numerous Croatian islands.“It is a great privilege for Split to be involved in a project like Science Comes to Town, which is the first of its kind in the European Union," Šepić says. As for encouraging new generations of scientists, “This is a great effort, and I hope that we will see an effect in a few years.”Science|Business, which connects policymakers, academics and industry through its news reporting, analysis and events, is an SCTT partner.
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AI as the next political divide
We have a guest post today from our friends at Focaldata, with whom we have done polling before. They have been doing a lot of work on attitudes towards AI and how this is affecting politics on both sides of the Atlantic. In this post, they explore exclusive new polling – with a whole set of fascinating charts on how voters’ views are developing and why. In particular, the authors explore why the debate is currently so much more polarised by party in the US than in the UK, to the benefit of the Democrats. Subscribe Focaldata HQ is located in Shoreditch, east London. To access the office from the Shoreditch High Street Overground station, you have to walk under the bridge at Braithwaite Street. We mention this not as a navigational aid, but because the posters above caught our eye over the summer. Since June, the area has been the centre of a fiercely contested debate around the construction of a data centre on the Truman Brewery estate on Brick Lane, less than 200 metres from our office. It was one of the first ‘US-style’ protest movements around AI data centres the country has seen, and may not be the last. These protests served as the catalyst for our forthcoming report, examining whether AI could become the next political divide on both sides of the Atlantic. We wanted to understand what was driving the emerging politics of AI and whether the dynamics at play in the US offer clues as to how the British debate will evolve. Over the last month, we polled 3,851 people across the UK and US about their views on AI. Our research found striking similarities between the two countries: for instance, both electorates are evenly split on their views towards AI development, with just over a third in favour (37% in each country), a similar number opposed, and the remainder somewhere in the middle or unsure. Statistically speaking, there is no difference in overall sentiment towards AI between the UK and US. Under the hood, demographic patterns also look largely the same in the two countries, with millennials, degree holders, full-time workers and those who describe themselves as financially comfortable more pro-AI than the rest of the country. Despite this convergence in overall attitudes, there is a striking divergence in how much of a politicised issue AI has become. In the US, attitudes are increasingly split by political affiliation and the issue has become the latest front in the seemingly interminable culture war, playing a role in the upcoming midterms. This stark political polarisation of AI has not happened in the UK – at least not yet. In what follows, we test several hypotheses for why the two countries are so far apart on a political basis. Understanding which hypothesis is correct will give us an indication of where the British dynamics go next.
Commentary: New treasurer, same State Health Plan mistakes
I do not doubt that the treasurer’s office is trying to manage costs. However, its current approach appears to replicate the same approach that Briner criticized in his predecessor.
Vikings Face Criticism Over J.J. McCarthy From Unexpected Voice
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Oral Health Disparities and Parental/Caregiver Role in Dental Care Among Children With Special Healthcare Needs and Children Without Special Healthcare Needs in Sriganganagar, Rajasthan: A Cross-Sectional Study
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Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner Vie to Become the Second Biggest Film This Year...
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Often, people blame “data” for ruining Hollywood, when I’d argue that hype (which can often be debunked by data) is often worse, as you can see in these two headlines. To use a common meme, here’s how it started: and how it’s going: Earlier this year, I read countless (and I mean countless) articles (in almost every mainstream media outlet) about how Heated Rivalry was a huge hit and that it “heated” interest in hockey. But Heated Rivalry wasn’t a huge viewership hit compared to the hype: [ ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) [ You Can’t Eat Buzz…Did Heated Rivalry’s Buzz Translate into Actual Viewership? ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) Entertainment Strategy Guy · Jan 22 [ Read full story ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) In this case, the hype (Heated Rivalry is really popular) belied the data (It didn’t make the top ten charts, meaning it wasn’t a huge hit.1) Even worse, every time I write about this, I get a lot of negative feedback, hence why I only sparingly mention the show these days or add lots of caveats when I write about it, but this just further cements the hype. But companies, and the executives leading them, have to determine strategy based on reality, not media coverage. The NHL committed real marketing dollars to a campaign that didn’t work. Sure enough, the latest NHL season opened to under a million viewers. At some point, you have to focus on what the data says, because real dollars are at stake. And that’s why we have the Streaming Ratings Report! To provide and analyze cold, hard data. Luckily, this week, I can be positive and take a look at a huge opening on streaming, along with a very buzzy horror film that customers kind of like, but don’t really love. And a comedy that tried to rebound on streaming. Today, I’m covering two weeks—21-Sep and 28-Sep—so we have a lot to discuss (nearly 5,000 words worth), including a series of film misses for Netflix, another argument for weekly-released TV shows on streaming, another sitcom tries to avoid the comedy curse, Netflix has two new game shows (one powered by AI), Reacher falling off the charts after a huge run, Prime Video tries its hands at the romcom game**,** a look at the WNBA’s big season, a big night for the VMAs on CBS and MTV, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 14th to October 4th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - Two Hits and a Miss Come to Streaming… Three very interesting films came to streaming in one week, and I like comparing them since they show the range of theatrical films. One was a huge blockbuster, one was popular, and one was neither. One is a horror film, a buzzy genre; one is a comedy, a struggling genre; and one is an animated family film, the king of the box office. One went to a tiny streamer (HBO Max), one went to a second-tier streamer (Disney+), and one went to the biggest (Netflix). So… If you just went by box office, you’d expect Backrooms—the $197 million grosser, and partner of Obsession for “YouTube Horror Summer”—to dominate on streaming. If you read this report, though, you know that horror films don’t do great on streaming, and that’s the case again. Backrooms opened at 3.8 million hours according to Nielsen, and had 3.9 million hours in its second week. Here’s how that stacks up to other HBO Max films: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… ...why I don’t buy Backrooms budget… …two new games shows arrive on streaming… …another sitcom struggles… ...another argument for putting out shows weekly on Netflix... ...and a whole lot more, nearly 5,000 words more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Next week, I’ll be taking a look at the eighth season of Hulu’s The Kardashians, answering the question: will this show ever make the charts? If Mormon wives can make it, surely one of social media’s most popular families can as well. Also, Prime Video has a new horror show based on popular IP, Carrie, Netflix has a horror show starring Josh Hartnett, Below, and Apple TV has a UK import, Small Prophets. Plus a bunch of movies like Disclosure Day heading to Peacock, The Housemaid coming to HBO Max, Ben Affleck’s latest on Apple TV, Animals, and Matchbox the Movie on Apple TV, a John Cena action comedy inspired by Hasbro’s toy cars. The week after is even busier! I’ll look at another IP-based horror show, Crystal Lake, a new MCU show on Disney+, VisionQuest, season two of The Lowdown on FX/Hulu, the fourth seasons of The Diplomat on Netflix and Tulsa King on Paramount+, another season of Love is Blind, and four straight-to-streaming films: Netflix’s Sacrifice (starring Chris Evens, Anya-Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, John Malkovich, Salma Hayek. Charlie XCX), Apple TV’s Tenzing (starring Tom Hiddleston and Willem Defoe), Prime Video’s Love of Your Life (Margaret Qualley) and Masterplan (Stanley Tucci) and a whole lot more, somehow. Long term, here’s some huge IP news: a Game of Thrones movie is coming to theaters, Game of Thrones: Aegon’s Conquest in 2029, while Jon Watts (who helmed three of the most recent Spider-Man movies) is directing the next Star Wars trilogy, to be written by Simon Kinberg. I’m cautiously optimistic for both. It feels obvious to say that making good movies matters, but for bets this big (Star Wars is on a swoon, Game of Thrones hasn’t been to theaters yet), the quality has to be there.
Googlebook deserves a little patience: why early launch quirks don’t define its future
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Report: Microsoft's Project Helix planned for 2028 at $1,200 to $1,800 price
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The Crooks family business is volleyball excellence
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University of Maryland expands key reproductive health program
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Tiffany announces parental 'Bill of Rights' to ban transgender sports, pronoun changes
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How AI is transforming research discovery in Web of Science
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Roaming Tap provides mobile keg solution for gatherings
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Scientists discover dangerous water oscillations between Lake Varna and Black Sea
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Alleged mice infestation at Albuquerque middle school raises health concerns, staff & parent outrage
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Carolina Hurricanes Dealt Major Dylan Larkin Trade News Amid Rumors
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Athletics, CBA and everything MLB in between
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Australian politician who was intentionally hit by car loses both her legs
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Four advantages MacBook Pro redesign will have over current model
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Stranger Than Heaven: The Final Preview of the Yakuza Team’s Ambitious, Decades-Spanning Action-Adventure
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New org weighs AI's impact on mental health
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From PMS to Menopause: Two new clinical studies strengthen the science behind one saffron extract
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Commentary: What a new fight over chemical safety reveals about our changing politics
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Sokaogon partners on workforce training for $72M broadband network
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Introspection required if EU Inc fails, says start-up lobbyist
European start-ups have a new voice in Brussels. Startups for Europe, created from the merger of lobby groups Allied for Startups and the European Startup Network, is hoping to harness the momentum behind EU-Inc, a campaign that united start-ups and investors behind demands for a new pan-European company regime.At a launch event for the new association in Brussels on October 1, the mood was remarkably upbeat compared to a typical Eurobubble gathering, more Silicon Valley than Schuman roundabout.When asked whether this reflects a feeling that Europe is on the right track, chief executive Serena Borbotti-Frison said it’s a “scary” moment as the continent looks to boost its competitiveness amid a new technological arms race.“What is at stake is quite intense, and the way we can answer is by delivering, but also with hope,” she told Science|Business. “It’s what our industry does. It’s not about identifying a pain point and then saying it’s too hard.”For many in the start-up community, that sense of hope is dwindling. In March, the European Commission presented its proposal for EU Inc, naming its initiative after the grassroots campaign.EU Inc was meant to be a gamechanger: the ability to incorporate within 48 hours for less than €100 and scale up across Europe; a harmonised stock option regime enabling start-ups to compete for talent; and simplified insolvency procedures for innovative start-ups to reduce the cost of failure.However, haggling by EU governments has raised concerns that EU Inc will be stripped of the very features, including stock option harmonisation, that are meant to make it attractive for companies.“I fear we are proving to ourselves that the model doesn’t work,” Borbotti-Frison said of the policymaking process. “Everyone agrees we should have EU Inc. Everyone agrees it’s hard to scale and we need to scale to answer the competitiveness [challenge], and still we cannot deliver? [. . .] What does that say about ourselves?”The Commission has made EU Inc a cornerstone of its single market reform, and has agreed with the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to target an agreement by the end of 2026. However, several points are currently holding up an agreement, including national rules around employee participation in management decisions, and the provision that employee stock options always be taxed at the point of sale. Some EU governments have reportedly pushed back on the Commission’s choice of legal basis, contending that anything related to taxation requires unanimity in the Council.Trade unions have also protested against EU Inc, fearing it will be exploited by companies looking to undermine workers’ rights.“If this doesn’t work, it’s introspection time, on the way our institutions work, maybe the way our lobbies work, and maybe the way the cooperation between them works,” Borbotti-Frison said.“Is it in the national interest? Is it a gap between political will and technical ability to operate? Is it speed? I don't know, but something needs to be fixed.”Ahead of last week’s European Council meeting, EU-Inc campaigners tried a new strategy: appealing directly to EU presidents and prime ministers. In an open letter, they urged EU leaders to “step in and give your negotiating teams a clear mandate to change course and reverse their objections to the Commission’s original proposal.”Lessons from EU-IncLike its predecessors, Startups for Europe will represent national start-up associations, but it is also targeting investors. The founding sponsors are venture capital firm Atomico and EQT, the investor selected earlier this year to manage the €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund.It also wants to harness the knowledge and cross-border experience of European success stories. “Take the list of the 100 biggest unicorns in Europe. We are speaking to all of them,” Borbotti-Frison said. The association plans to publish a full list of supporters following the Slush tech conference in Helsinki in November.Andreas Klinger and Simon Schaefer, two key figures in the EU-Inc campaign, are both on the board of the new association, and Startups for Europe wants to take the lessons from their campaign.What was unprecedented about EU-Inc was “how rooted it was, and how strong it was in bringing everyone on board behind one clear pain point and solution to fix it,” Borbotti-Frison said. “This is an inspiration for us, and then we need to turn it into something more systematic, more bridged in Brussels, more connected to the policymaking game, and to scale it.”If it’s possible to unite such a broad coalition, it’s because the European start-up ecosystem is now mature, she said. “Maybe it was not ten years ago. Maybe it was not five years ago. But now, it’s mature to speak with one voice.”Open and liberal EuropeThe association plans to campaign on files related to three “pain points,” Borbotti-Frison said: “start and scale in Europe, fundraise and invest in Europe, and making Europe the most innovative continent.”As well as EU Inc, she cited public procurement, the EU’s simplification push, the Savings and Investments Union, and files related to AI adoption and technological sovereignty as priorities for the coming months.What these files have in common is that they relate not to subsidies but to the framework conditions influencing the availability of mostly private, or in the case of procurement, public, funding.Related articlesEmployee participation disagreement delays MEPs’ vote on EU IncCommission urges EU governments not to water down EU IncEU’s ‘ultra-fast’ €5B scale-up fund is set up to win, says its fund managerThe budget dispute over the next Horizon Europe programme will also impact start-ups, which are supported notably through the European Innovation Council. But EU innovation funding is a drop in the ocean compared to venture capital and public procurement budgets.“If competitiveness and innovation are a priority, then the [EU budget] should reflect it,” Borbotti-Frison said. However, she added that the main question is not how much public money is invested, but “how do we create the right conditions for the market to solve the problem?”The Scaleup Europe Fund mixes both approaches, using €1 billion in EU funding to crowd in private investors and address Europe’s lack of large-scale, late-stage growth funds. “It’s a proof of concept. Ideally, then the market will do it itself,” Borbotti-Frison said.Startups for Europe is also focused on bringing an alternative political narrative. Amid competing visions for open, global markets on the one side and a protectionist Europe on the other, it wants to offer “a third voice, to say we can be proudly European and build a strong continent in a liberal economy, open to the world, and global.”It can be tempting, when thinking about how Europe can better support innovation, to look across the Atlantic. But while it’s important to compare statistics to see where Europe needs to catch up, that’s where the comparison should stop, Borbotti-Frison said. “On everything else, we need to do it our own way. We don't have the same history. We don't have the same political model. We don't have the same way of life.”Many of the key files that could benefit the start-up community, including EU Inc and the Savings and Investments Union, rely on closer integration within Europe, making it easier to operate across borders.While the Commission has made deepening the single market a political priority, support at national level is more precarious. The coming months will see pivotal elections in Spain and France, while the German government has also been coming under pressure domestically. In each country, far-right parties have been gaining ground.When asked if she was concerned the political situation could jeopardise this progress, Borbotti-Frison responded: “Of course. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t.” However, she continues to believe that cooperation is the only way forward. “Doing it alone is not the solution. It’s also not who we are, it’s not the model we are building, and it’s not the scale we need.”
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Things to do: Oct. 22-28
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Burning through Türkiye's GDP: The high cost of fossil fuel PM2.5 pollution on public health – Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
Türkiye’s reliance on fossil fuels is generating massive air pollution health costs both within the country and throughout the region. This report finds that fossil fuels account for more than half (52%) of Türkiye’s population exposure to PM2.5 air pollution. The cumulative health impacts are estimated to cost the Turkish economy approximately USD 55 billion each year, equivalent to 4.1% of national GDP in 2024. The pollution is also responsible for roughly 26,500 deaths per year in the country, including deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, lung cancer, stroke, and diabetes.The impacts begin at the very start of life, with fossil-fuel-derived PM2.5 pollution contributing to an estimated 8,000 preterm births, 8,200 low-birthweight infants, 5,100 new cases of childhood asthma, and 6,500 emergency-room visits for asthma each year in Türkiye.Beyond the estimated deaths each year in Türkiye, air pollution from the country’s fossil fuel emissions also contributes to deaths and economic losses in neighbouring countries. In 2024, these emissions were estimated to cause: 32,000 deaths and USD 2.1 billion in economic burden in Egypt; 1,700 deaths and USD 0.2 billion in economic burden in Syria; 800 deaths and USD 0.8 billion in economic burden in Iraq; 500 deaths and USD 4.5 billion in economic burden in Israel; and 400 deaths and USD 1.5 billion in economic burden in Greece.Türkiye currently has no national ambient air-quality standard for PM2.5, despite the substantial health burden associated with exposure to the pollutant. Figure — The percentage of annual PM2.5 emissions in Türkiye’s fossil fuel emissions, using the EMEP emission inventory and EMEP MSC-W chemical transport model Key findings Türkiye’s fossil fuel emissions (from domestic sources as well as international aviation and shipping) account for 52% of population exposure to PM₂.₅ nationwide. PM2.5 pollution attributable to Türkiye’s fossil fuel use is responsible for approximately 26,500 deaths in the country every year, including deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, lung cancer, stroke, and diabetes. Children are among the most affected, with fossil fuel-derived PM2.5 pollution contributing to an estimated 8,000 preterm births, 8,200 low-birth-weight infants, 5,100 new cases of childhood asthma and 6,500 emergency room visits for asthma each year. The cumulative health impacts of fossil fuel-derived PM2.5 pollution are estimated to cost the Turkish economy approximately USD 55 billion each year, equivalent to 4.1% of national GDP in 2024. Transboundary pollution attributable to Türkiye’s land-based fossil fuel emissions also leads to thousands of deaths in five neighbouring countries, with estimated economic burden per year (as of 2024) reaching USD 2.1 billion in Egypt (3,200 deaths), USD 0.2 billion in Syria (1,700 deaths), USD 0.8 billion in Iraq (800 deaths), USD 4.5 billion in Israel (500 deaths), and USD 1.5 billion in Greece (400 deaths). Türkiye currently has no national ambient air quality standard for PM2.5, despite the substantial health burden associated with exposure to the pollutant. Reducing fossil fuel use and emissions across Türkiye’s energy, transport and industrial systems would deliver substantial air quality and public health benefits by reducing exposure to PM2.5 and preventing associated illness and deaths. Figure — Annual deaths attributable to Türkiye’s land-based fossil fuel emissions in the five most affected countries, based on 2024 emissions
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Senate Health Committee Holds Hearing on Impacts of H.R.1
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'Glee' reboot coming to Disney+ and Hulu
Co-creator/writer Ryan Murphy (C) poses in the press room with the cast of 'Glee' with the award for best television series musical or comedy for 'Glee' at the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 17, 2010 in Beverly Hills, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)The hit TV show Glee is coming back.An all-new season of the hit series from Ryan Murphy is coming to Disney+ and Hulu, Disney announced Wednesday.No details about the cast or an official release date have been shared.The studio behind the reboot is 20th Television, which also produced the original series.Glee first aired on Fox for six seasons, from 2009 to 2015.It followed a high school glee club and starred Lea Michele, the late Cory Monteith, the late Naya Rivera, Amber Riley, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch and more.Murphy told ABC News last month that a script for a Glee reboot had been written, and that he is in touch with cast members about returning.“I’ve been quietly having conversations with people on that show … about, ‘What do you think? Should we?,'" Murphy said. "Maybe I shouldn’t, I don’t know. It’s fun just to try."Glee won six Primetime Emmys and several Golden Globes. It also won the GLAAD Media Award for outstanding comedy series in 2010 and 2011.All 121 original episodes of Glee are currently streaming on Hulu.The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News, Disney+ and Hulu.Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
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Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
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