TechCapsules

Donald Trump abruptly ended a press conference with tech leaders, including Jeff Bezos, Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk, after a reporter questioned his earlier claim that AI was a “hoax.” The event, scheduled to discuss AI regulation, was already winding down when the reporter asked why Trump had called AI a hoax. White House staffers quickly moved to remove the media from the room, and a woman—whose affiliation was unclear—interjected about AI dangers. Trump’s exit underscored his [...]

ConConAI ($CON) unveiled a multilingual website, a mobile‑optimized design, a partner console for business listings, and a live development tracker to broaden its AI‑commerce ecosystem. The platform now supports 10 languages, enhancing global accessibility, while the new console lets companies apply to join ConConAI’s listings, using $CON tokens for placement and performance fees. The tracker offers real‑time visibility into ongoing development. These updates aim to give the $CON token tangible utility beyond its presale, positioning the project [...]

Galileo Space is developing autonomous satellites that use edge‑AI to convert raw RF and sensor signals into geolocated intelligence within minutes. The platform targets defense and commercial users who currently endure hours‑long data pipelines for tasks such as tracking FPV drones, detecting ballistic‑missile plumes, locating distressed vessels, and tracing navigation‑frequency interference. By fusing innovative sensors with onboard machine‑learning, each satellite can select its own sensing missions, operate for weeks without ground control, and deliver actionable reports directly [...]

Google announced that its Gemini “Gems” chatbots will be retired in November, with all personal Gems automatically converted into the newer “skills” feature. Skills, previously limited to the paid Gemini Spark assistant, can now be used by any Gemini user over 18 with a personal Google account. The upgrade adds missing Gem capabilities such as sharing skills, attaching Google Drive files, and linking Gemini Notebooks, and allows skills to be invoked inside any chat by typing “/”. [...]

When “Hell Grind” premiered at Cannes, it drew attention not for star power but for being fully generated by artificial intelligence. The 95‑minute action film was produced by Higgsfield AI, a startup of 15 people, in under three weeks on a $500,000 budget, with 80 % of costs allocated to compute power. All actors, visuals and effects were AI‑created, though the company’s co‑founder Mahi De Silva stresses that directors, writers and designers will remain essential. Higgsfield AI’s platform, Cinema Studio, [...]

Alphabet unveiled Gemini 4 Argon, its latest multimodal AI model designed for coding, research, writing and notably defensive cybersecurity. The system, trained to autonomously locate, validate and patch software flaws, is initially available only to a limited set of Google’s cyber partners through the Fairwind Program. Google engineers already rely on Argon for debugging, codebase migrations and visual analysis of long videos or charts. Benchmark tests cited by the company show Argon outperformed OpenAI’s GPT‑6 Astra and Anthropic’s Fable [...]

Advantech unveiled the ASR-D501, a compact AI companion computer for autonomous drones, on Oct. 1, 2026. The device is built around Qualcomm’s QCS6490 system‑on‑chip, delivering up to 12 TOPS of AI performance while consuming less than 10 watts. It integrates five 4‑lane MIPI‑CSI camera links, Ethernet, USB‑C, CAN FD, UART, I²C and GPIO ports, and supports Wi‑Fi 6E, Bluetooth and 4G/5G via an M.2 slot with Nano‑SIM. Running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Advantech’s Robotic Suite for Drone, the platform connects ROS 2 applications to [...]

Factory co‑founder and CEO Matan Grinberg fired VC Chris Degnan from his board‑advisor role after alleging Degnan leaked confidential information to Factory’s main competitor, Cognition. Degnan, who had spent 11 years as Snowflake’s chief revenue officer, announced his new position as Cognition’s chief revenue officer two hours later and denied the accusations, claiming he resigned voluntarily. The dispute follows Factory’s recent $200 million raise at a $5 billion valuation and Cognition’s $2 billion funding round, underscoring heightened tensions among AI‑focused venture [...]