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Latest peek into pika science written by CMU student during senior year
Karli Weatherill was a Colorado Mesa University sophomore when she showed up at the office of Johanna Varner and voiced an interest in doing scientific research in the mountains.
Gemma 4 and what makes an open model succeed
Having written a lot of model release blog posts, there’s something much harder about reviewing open models when they drop relative to closed models, especially in 2026. In recent years, there were so few open models, so when Llama 3 was released most people were still doing research on Llama 2 and super happy to get an update. When Qwen 3 was released, the Llama 4 fiasco had just gone down, and a whole research community was emerging to study RL on Qwen 2.5 — it was a no brainer to upgrade. Today, when an open model releases, it’s competing with Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-OSS, Arcee Large, Nemotron 3, Olmo 3, and others. The space is populated, but still feels full of hidden opportunity. The potential of open models feels like a dark matter, a potential we know is huge, but few clear recipes and examples for how to unlock it are out there. Agentic AI, OpenClaw, and everything brewing in that space is going to spur mass experimentation in open models to complement the likes of Claude and Codex, not replace them. Especially with open models, the benchmarks at release are an extremely incomplete story. In some ways this is exciting, as new open models have a much higher variance and ability to surprise, but it also points at some structural reasons that make building businesses and great AI experiences around open models harder than the closed alternatives. When a new Claude Opus or GPT drops, spending a few hours with them in my agentic workflows is genuinely a good vibe test. For open models, putting them through this test is a category error. Something else to be said about open models in the era of agents is that they get out of the debate of integration, harnesses, and tools and let us see close to the ground on what exactly is the ability of just a model. Of course, we can’t test some things like search abilities without some tool, but being able to measure exactly the pace of progress of the model alone is a welcome simplification to a systematically opaque AI space. Share The list of factors I’d use to assess a new open-weight model I’m considering investing in includes: Model performance (and size) — how this model performs on benchmarks I care about and how it compares to other models of a similar size. Country of origin — some businesses care deeply about provenance, and if a model was built in China or not. Model license — if a model needs legal approval for use, uptake will be slower at mid-sized and large companies. Tooling at release — many models release with half-broken, or at least substantially slower, implementations in popular software like vLLM, Transformers, SGLANG, etc due to pushing the envelope of architectures or tools. Model fine-tunability — how easy or hard it is to modify the given model to your use-case when you actually try and use it. The core problem is that some of these are immediately available at release, e.g. general performance, license, origin, etc. but others such as tooling take day(s) to week(s) to stabilize, and others are open research questions — with no group systematically monitoring fine-tunability. In the early era of open models, the days of Llama 2 or 3 and Qwen pre v3.5, the architectures were fairly simple and the models tended to work out of the box. Some of this was due to the extremely hard work of the Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc. developer teams. Some is due to the new models being genuinely harder to work with. When it comes to something like Qwen 3.5 or Nemotron 3, with hybrid models (either gated delta net or mamba layers), the tooling is very rough at release. Things you would expect to “just work” often don’t. I’ve been following this area closely since we released Olmo Hybrid with a similar architecture, and Qwen 3.5 is just starting to work well in the various open-source tools that need to all play nice together for RL research. That’s 1.5 months after the release date! This is just to start really investing more into understanding the behavior of the models. Of course, others started working on these models sooner by investing more engineering resources or relying on partially closed software. The fully open and distributed ecosystem takes a long time to get going on some new models. All of this is lead-in for the most important question for open models — how easy is it to adapt to specific use-cases? This is a different problem for different model sizes. Large MoE open-weight models may be used by entities like Cursor who need complex capabilities in their domain, e.g. Composer 2 trained on Kimi K2.5. Other applications can be built on much smaller models, such as Chroma’s Context-1 model for agentic search, built on GPT-OSS 20B. The question of “which models are fine-tunable” is largely background knowledge known by engineers across the industry. There should be a thriving research area here to support the open ecosystem model. The first step is to understand characteristics of different base and post-trained models to understand what they look like. The second step is to tune pretraining recipes for open models so they’re more flexible. Interconnects AI is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe For The ATOM Project and other Interconnects endeavors, we’ve put in substantial effort to measuring adoption trends in the open ecosystem. Everything takes a long time to unfold after a model is first publicly available — and adaptability is why. What we know for sure now, when Qwen has been going from strength to strength with its releases, is that technical staff across the industry has gotten comfortable working with Qwen models. Countless research methods and datasets were made to work with Qwen. It’ll take patience for any other model family to get to this point — a patience I’m not sure many open model builders have. This takes us to Gemma 4, Google’s latest open models. Gemma 3 was released more than a year ago, in March of 2025, and is a bit underrated. Gemma 4 comes in 4 sizes for now, with a bigger, MoE model of over 100B total parameters rumored but not released yet. The models we have today come in sizes of ~5B dense, 8B dense, 26B total 4B active MoE, and 31B dense. I’m most excited that they’re finally adopting a standard Apache 2.0 open source license. This’ll massively boost adoption. The standard of better licenses for strong open-weight LLMs was set by mostly Chinese open model labs in the last 1-2 years, and now U.S. companies are following suit. I will personally be so happy if the horrible Llama licenses and Gemma terms of service were an ~18-month transient dynamic of the industry being nervous about releasing strong open models. The Gemma 4 scores look very solid, the small models have incredible benchmark scores (especially in general domains like LMArena) and the 31B model rivals the recent Qwen 3.5 27B, which is the leading member of that class. The ~30B size range is an important one, as it’s accessible both to researchers and to enterprises looking to deploy the model in real use-cases. Where the 7B model scale is the default for tinkering and research, a 30B model is the default for seeing if an open model can unlock substantial value in your specific workflow — a good mix of intelligence, low price, tractability for downstream training, etc. This takes us back to the above adoption criteria I mentioned for open models and the bigger question — do I think Gemma 4 will be an overwhelming success? Previous Gemma models have been plagued by tooling issues and poorer performance when being finetuned. Gemma 4’s success is going to be entirely determined by ease of use, to a point where a 5-10% swing on benchmarks wouldn’t matter at all. It’s strong enough, small enough, with the right license, and from the U.S., so many companies are going to slot it in. I’m cautiously optimistic that Gemma 4 is going to work better here. Winds are shifting for open models built in America. We saw GPT-OSS go through a bumpy launch to become an overwhelming success. There’s a collective energy around the likes of Reflection, Arcee, Nemotron, Gemma, Olmo, and peers that show substantial demand for building new stacks around open models. There’s capital to be spent on AI stacks across the economy by those who want more ownership of everything, including the model. After launching The ATOM Project 240 days ago, the conversation is shifting into the next stage. Summer of 2025 was a crisis moment where the U.S. AI scene realized it can’t wait and figure out open models after building AGI. The two markets will capture different areas and proceed in parallel. Now that more companies in the U.S. are releasing strong models, we need to improve the ecosystem so that these models are easy to use, understand, and build value around. It’s the hard work to build another inflection point in these adoption plots I’ve been updating consistently, but that’s the work to be done. Join me in it. More data coming soon! Here’s a sneak peek:
Take a Sneak Peek at a Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred In-Game Cutscene
Our April IGN First "cover story" is underway with Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred! As we kick off our coverage today, get an exclusive first look at an in-game cutscene from Diablo 4's upcoming second expansion.
Spring Leap at Teatown: Science, Rabbits and Family Learning
An educational program about lagomorphs will be held on April 12 in Ossining
Mojang Reveals Chaos Cubed Update Coming to Minecraft Later This Year With Tiny Takeover Release Date Set for Next Week
Mojang has unveiled more information about updates coming to Minecraft in 2026, including the release date for Tiny Takeover and a sneak peek at the Chaos Cubed game drop.
The Next Minecraft Drop Could Be Its Most Chaotic Yet
During Minecraft Live, Mojang treated viewers to a sneak peek at its next game drop: Chaos Cubed.
A Rare Peek Behind the Curtain of Washington Spycraft
Plus, Trump tries to build a coalition over the Strait of Hormuz, and the voting ID bill could produce a lively week in the Senate.
Hershey Theatre reopens next week; here\'s a sneak peek at what\'s new [photos]
After more than a year shuttered for renovations, the Hershey Theatre will reopen in March with plenty of new features.
Colorado National Guard helicopter training taking place at Denver Health
People living in central Denver may get a peek at Colorado Army National Guard helicopter training as crews practice landing at Denver Health on Friday afternoon.
Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom "Exclusive Edition" Link Statue Announced, Here's A Sneak Peek
Pre-orders open next week
Oroville Flower Shop prepares for Valentine's Day surge, celebrates 75 years in business
As Valentine's Day approaches, KRCR visited Oroville Flower Shop to get a sneak peek at the work that goes into preparing for the holiday.Emily Jackson, owner o
CT health system to share ‘deeply personal journey’ in Super Bowl ad. See sneak peek before the game
“It’s a reflection of the care, compassion, and clinical excellence that surround our Connecticut communities every day.”
Sony confirms WF-1000XM6 release date in first official teaser
Sony has confirmed the long-awaited release date of its WF-1000XM6 earbuds. Dubbed rather grandiously as the 'next generation of earbuds', Sony has offered a peek at its design too. The successors to the WF-1000XM5 can already be viewed in two colours though, thanks to recent leaks.
Google’s new ‘Desktop Camera’ app gives us a new peek at Android on the desktop
While we all continue to speculate on the long-term convergence of ChromeOS and Android, a new piece of the puzzle has quietly appeared on the Play Store. Thanks to a cool find by 9to5 Google, we...
Starbucks' first investor day in years was a sneak peek of its future
Two Business Insider reporters attended Starbucks' Investor Day and got a firsthand look at how the brand plans to build momentum with its turnaround.
Sneak peek: First look at The HUB, new restaurant concept in Brooklyn
The HUB is a unique dining concept in Jacksonville's Brooklyn neighborhoo featuring three restaurants. Here's a sneak peek inside.
Arts and Entertainment Agenda: Jan. 30-Feb. 5
DanceAspen’s ‘Re:imagine — A Sneak Peek with Emilie Leriche,’ Jan. 30 A free, exclusive preview and behind-the-scenes look at DanceAspen’s upcoming production, “Re:imagine — A Sneak Peek with Emilie Leriche,” will be presented from 5:30-6:30...
What to know about the Melania Trump documentary
As Melania Trump prepares to walk the red carpet at the newly rebranded Kennedy Center Thursday evening, she is proving that a peek behind the curtain of her life isn’t just a historical record, but a multi-million-dollar commodity.
Leak shows Google's new Aluminium OS in action for the first time
In screenshots and videos, we get a first peek at Google's new operating system that combines Android and ChromeOS.
Gemini gets ready for new Live Experimental Features, Thinking Mode, and more
We're getting a sneak peek at some of the new Gemini features likely to debut in Gemini Labs.
ThrillHouse Family Entertainment Center hosting preview event Jan. 17
A new entertainment hub in Marion, Illinois is getting ready to open its doors in mid-February, but you can get a sneak peek of the fun this weekend.
Asus delivers Wi-Fi 8 sneak peek at CES: Is this the shape of routers to come?
Asus previews the ROG NeoCore, a proof-of-concept router that aims to tackle today's biggest network challenges.
Beyond the Super Bowl and the semiquincentennial: Your big sneak peek at 2026 entertainment events to come
You made it through a harrowing 2025 and a half-decade of challenge. Now, put aside your fears of catastrophic climate change, the collapse of American democracy, and AI data centers stretching from sea to shining sea — for just a moment — and plan some fun in the year ahead.
Top Five Peekskill Sports Moments of 2025
As 2025 comes to a close, the Peekskill Herald is taking a look at the most memorable sports moments of the year. For the Red Devils, it was a special 12 months
The man Apple sued for allegedly stealing trade secrets is back with iPhone Fold renders
Jon Prosser is back with more renders; this time they give us a sneak peek of the iPhone Fold.
Hen Hud Sports Roundup
Covering December 19-25, 2025 > Ice Hockey, 10 Questions, Upcoming Games, Other News.
See 'Malcolm in the Middle' family reunion on the bathroom set of sitcom revival
The 'Malcolm in the Middle' family reunited on set in a preview of the series revival, with Bryan Cranston, Frankie Muniz, and Jane Kaczmarek joining together in a sneak peek at the family bathroom.
Hubble Space Telescope spies dusty debris from two cosmic collisions
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has gotten a rare peek at the aftermath of two cosmic collisions — and helped scientists solve a decades-old mystery.
BizTips: Sell your products by selling the story of your business
Build anticipation by teasing what's coming next for your business. Offer early access, sneak peeks, or pre-booking incentives.
US is spending record amounts on healthcare while American health declines, Steve Moore says
'Kudlow' panelists Liz Peek and Steve Moore discuss the GOP weighing healthcare options.