Pika - Where Your AI Self is born www.pika.me Feb. 24, 2026, 2:25 p.m.
Create a living AI version of you, or whoever you want to be.Your AI Self talks, posts, remembers, and grows, so you can live your best life—without all those silly human limits.
OpenAI Is Going Full-On Devices. What That Means for Telecom sebastianbarros.substack.com Feb. 23, 2026, 5:22 p.m.
In the last three months, OpenAI has moved from speculation to reality. Reporting based on sworn court filings confirms a working prototype and indicates that the first hardware product will not ship before late February 2027, alongside a branding pivot away from the “io” name. Executive statements at Davos anchor a reveal window in the second half of 2026.More importantly, first-party hiring signals describe an end-to-end consumer device stack: custom silicon, embedded systems, operating system kernel and frameworks, camera firmware, secure boot, A/B OTA infrastructure, and hardened software supply chain controls. The pattern matches with OpenAI building a vertically integrated hardware platform designed to sit beside the smartphone and control the ambient AI interface layer around daily digital life.OpenAI is leaving chat interfaces behind and moving into the physical world.
Electrostatic Enhanced Dual-Mode Electronic Skin for Multifunctional Robotic Hands Capable of Object Shape and Material Recognition advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com Feb. 23, 2026, 8:57 a.m.
Owing to the increasing requirement for robotic systems to interact intelligently in unstructured and dynamic environments, multimodal perception has become an essential and challenging task. In this study, we introduce a multifunctional robotic hand that can distinguish the shape and material properties of objects using a dual-mode electronic skin (e-skin) capable of non-contact and contact sensing. The e-skin is composed of a polarized expanded polytetrafluoroethylene electret embedded in Ecoflex, thus enabling non-contact sensing via the electrostatic-field effect and contact sensing based on the triboelectric effect. The embedded electret architecture facilitates a high internal charge density, thereby significantly enhancing the intensity and range of non-contact sensing, an advantage not achievable using conventional approaches.
World's smallest QR code, smaller than bacteria, earns Guinness record interestingengineering.com Feb. 18, 2026, 12:41 p.m.
Their creation measures only 1.98 square micrometers. This makes the code smaller than most bacteria. It is so tiny that only an electron microscope can see it. The Guinness Book of Records recently verified this as a new world record. This breakthrough is only 37% the size of the previous record holder. The technology marks a massive leap for the data storage industry.
China Is Leaving America in the Dust on Clean Energy insideclimatenews.org Feb. 15, 2026, 11:46 a.m.
There are enormous geopolitical, economic and climate ramifications to the U.S. abandoning leadership on the energy transition. If you live in America, basically none of them are good.
How Elon Musk’s Sci-Fi Hyperloop Failed washingtonian.com Feb. 14, 2026, 6:50 p.m.
Before his misadventures in government efficiency, Musk promised to revolutionize commuting with a subway that would speed passengers between DC and Baltimore in a matter of minutes. The project was a farce—and a sign of things to come.
Quantum Internet Is Near.Telcos Can Play Big. sebastianbarros.substack.com Feb. 14, 2026, 5:07 p.m.
Quantum internet is approaching faster than many expected. At the same time, the world still runs on classical encryption that quantum computers are projected to break within the next decade.Enterprises, governments, and consumer networks rely on cryptographic foundations that will not withstand a quantum computer with cryptographic relevance. Post-quantum standards were finalized in 2024, and regulators have begun setting migration timelines. The transition is an infrastructure upgrade that must start now.Telcos sit at the center of this shift.They move the world’s data and operate the physical networks where quantum security will be deployed. According to STL Partners, 35 operators are already active across 75 quantum-related projects, from pilots to commercial launches.Telco Momentum is building, and yet the risk is familiar: Telcos can either shape the quantum internet and own the trust layer, or remain passive transport providers while others capture the value. As quantum capabilities move closer to the network, the strategic choice cannot be deferred.
Arm wants a bigger slice of the chip business www.economist.com Feb. 13, 2026, 12:08 p.m.
In the semiconductor industry, Arm is everywhere and nowhere. Designs from the British-based, American-listed, Japanese-controlled firm sit in almost all the world’s smartphones and most other connected devices. Yet Arm does not sell a single chip. Customers license its designs, tweak them if they wish and produce the chips themselves (or have them made). Arm pockets an upfront licence fee and a slim per-chip royalty. The model has made it ubiquitous. More than 300bn chips built on its designs have been shipped—over 30bn of them last year alone.
China once stole foreign ideas. Now it wants to protect its own www.economist.com Feb. 13, 2026, 12:07 p.m.
China has long been a counterfeiting hub. Shoppers do not have to look far to find fake Nestlé food seasoning or imitation Nike sneakers. And brands are not the only form of intellectual property (ip) that is readily pilfered. Foreign multinationals that set up shop in the years after China opened its economy to the world often complained of their trade secrets being stolen. General Motors, an American carmaker, discovered in 2003 that a Chinese partner was rolling out a model strikingly similar to one of its own. Kawasaki, a Japanese industrial giant, and Siemens, a German one, believe their technology was nabbed to help build China’s extensive high-speed rail network.
#dotdot — Frictionless Wireless Connectivity dotdot.fr Feb. 12, 2026, 3 p.m.
#dotdot - Frictionless Wireless Connectivity for Incremental Revenue Generation. Extend network reach, enable opportunistic connectivity, and unlock new revenue streams — without deploying new infrastructure.
Téléphone Starlink : simple buzz ou futur choc technologique ? www.servicesmobiles.fr Feb. 11, 2026, 10:53 a.m.
L’idée d’un téléphone Starlink, directement relié à la constellation de satellites de SpaceX, agite depuis plusieurs mois la techosphère mondiale. Si des fuites persistantes et des discussions internes chez le groupe laissent entrevoir un appareil grand public capable de se connecter sans passer par les réseaux mobiles traditionnels, le projet oscille toujours entre rumeurs, déclarations ambiguës d’Elon Musk et analyses stratégiques pointues.
Ce parapluie volant vous suit tout seul pour vous protéger de la pluie creapills.com Feb. 10, 2026, 11:23 a.m.
Un créateur a conçu un parapluie autonome capable de voler au-dessus de son utilisateur, combinant un quadricoptère dissimulé et un objet du quotidien pour supprimer totalement le geste de le tenir. Grâce à une caméra à profondeur et un Raspberry Pi, le parapluie détecte la position de la personne et s’ajuste en temps réel pour rester centré, sans pilotage manuel. Plus proche d’une démonstration que d’un produit commercial, le projet questionne notre rapport aux objets ordinaires et imagine un futur où ils nous accompagnent plutôt que d’être portés.
China unveils world’s first 'biomimetic AI robot' that smiles, winks interestingengineering.com Feb. 4, 2026, 2 p.m.
A humanoid robot that walks, maintains eye contact, and displays subtle facial expressions has drawn attention on Chinese social media after videos showcasing its capabilities were circulated. The robot, named Moya, was unveiled in Shanghai by the robotics company DroidUp, which describes it as the world’s first fully biomimetic embodied intelligent robot.
AI Will Generate $2.5 Trillion in 2026. Telcos Will Get Crumbs. sebastianbarros.substack.com Feb. 2, 2026, 2:42 p.m.
The AI value chain economics at this stage is focused on infrastructure. AI value creation is concentrated upstream, where capital intensity is highest and scale advantages compound most rapidly. The market rewards balance sheets, not clever prompts. Training and inference workloads demand dense compute, high-bandwidth memory, optical interconnects, and ample power. Those inputs scale poorly for small players and extremely well for incumbents.Gartner frames 2026 as the Trough of Disillusionment. Enterprises prioritize predictable ROI over experimentation. AI gets sold by incumbent vendors and bundled into existing contracts rather than procured as standalone moonshots. That behavior reinforces concentration. Buyers choose suppliers already embedded in their infrastructure stack.
Moins de dossiers, moins de levées : la préoccupante baisse du deal flow dans la French tech www.journaldunet.com Feb. 1, 2026, 12:08 p.m.
Des jeunes pousses aux scale-up plus matures, un nombre croissant de start-up se détournent des investisseurs, par choix stratégique ou parce que les conditions ne s'y prêtent plus.
Supramolecular Ionic Polymerization: Cellulose-Based Supramolecular Plastics with Broadly Tunable Mechanical Properties pubs.acs.org Jan. 31, 2026, 11:52 a.m.
Developing mechanically tough and sustainable plastics from renewable resources such as biomass may certainly give a promising solution to the replacement of petroleum-based plastics and eliminate microplastics. Here, we report a cellulose-based supramolecular plastic (CMCSP) synthesized by supramolecular “ionic” polymerization of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as an oxyanionic monomer and a hyperbranched polyguanidinium ion (PEIGu) as a cationic monomer. CMCSP is mechanically strong but inherently brittle. However, as highlighted in the present paper, we could overcome the brittleness issue by adding (2-hydroxyethyl)trimethylammonium chloride (choline chloride, ChCl) to CMCSP. This FDA-approved, biodegradable ionic human nutrient served as a particular plasticizer, enabling broad modulation of stiff, glassy CMCSP to a tough, flexible material and further to a soft, elastic material. We demonstrated that plasticized CMCSPChCl could be processed into a flexible plastic bag, which was mechanically tough but perfectly dissociable in seawater and closed-loop recyclable with electrolytes. Hence, CMCSPChCl never generates microplastics.
La menace quantique se précise, les entreprises regardent ailleurs www.capgemini.com Jan. 31, 2026, 11:51 a.m.
96 $, c’est ce que coûte aujourd’hui la minute de calcul quantique chez un grand cloud provider. Le quantique n’est plus un fantasme de laboratoire : les machines sont disponibles, les tarifs clairs, les capacités démontrées. En d’autres termes, il suffit à un acteur malveillant, étatique ou criminel, d’estimer ce qu’il lui en coûterait de déchiffrer des données en sa possession et le bénéfice qu’il pourrait en tirer.
« La technologie la plus avancée de l'industrie des semi-conducteurs » : TSMC lance la production massive de puces 2 nanomètres www.lesechos.fr Jan. 31, 2026, 11:50 a.m.
Le géant taïwanais maintient son avance sur ses concurrents dans le secteur stratégique des semi-conducteurs avec une nouvelle génération de puces idéales pour les serveurs et l'intelligence artificielle embarquée.
Increasing the dimensionality of transistors with hydrogels www.science.org Jan. 31, 2026, 11:45 a.m.
With the development of organic bioelectronics, there has been interest in making stretchable semiconductors with acceptable performance. Most approaches to date rely on blending a semiconductor with an elastomer and perform well electronically, but they have a modulus much higher than biological tissue and cannot be modulated through the insertion of ions. Liu et al. created a secondary hydrogel network that facilitated the formation of a continuous phase of a primary redox-active polymer. This composition makes it possible to produce millimeter-thick semiconducting layers with biological compatibility. By controlling the hydrogel’s porosity, the researchers optimized ionic and electronic mobility and demonstrated electrochemical transistors with a high on/off switching ratio.
Prodrug activation by 4,4’-bipyridine-mediated aromatic nitro reduction  www.nature.com Jan. 31, 2026, 11:36 a.m.
Unleashing prodrugs through nitro-reduction is a promising strategy in cancer treatment. In this study, we present a unique bioorthogonal reaction for aromatic nitro reduction, mediated by 4,4‘-bipyridine. The reaction is a rare example of organocatalyst-mediated bioorthogonal reaction. This bioorthogonal reaction demonstrates broad substrate scope and proceeds at low micromolar concentrations under biocompatible conditions. Our mechanistic study reveals that water is essential for the reaction to proceed at biorelevant substrate concentrations. We illustrate the utility of our reaction for controlled prodrug activation in mammalian cells, bacteria, and mouse models. Furthermore, a nitro-reduction-annulation cascade is developed for the synthesis of indole derivatives in living cells.