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Thought Pokémon was a tough benchmark for AI? One group of researchers argues that Super Mario Bros. is even tougher. Hao AI Lab, a research org at the University of California San Diego, on Friday threw AI into live Super Mario Bros. games. Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 performed the best, followed by Claude 3.5. Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro and OpenAI’s GPT-4o struggled. It wasn’t quite the same version of Super Mario Bros. as the original 1985 release, to be clear. The game ran in an emulator and integrated with a framework, GamingAgent, to give the AIs control over Mario. Image Credits:Hao…

Google Gemini users can now access the AI chatbot directly from the iPhone’s lock screen, thanks to an update released on Monday first spotted by 9to5Google. Users can now call up Gemini Live, Google’s relatively real-time voice feature for its AI chatbot, before they unlock their phone by adding a Gemini widget to their lock screen. Talk with Gemini Live from the iphone’s lock screen.Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch As Apple’s version of an AI-enabled Siri reportedly faces delays until 2027, competitors in the AI space are stepping in to supply iPhone users with AI assistants of their own. These…

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Cat lovers in Indian-controlled Kashmir were thrown into a tizzy. Panic spread and local veterinarians saw a surge in pet owners coming in with their cats — all because of posts that went viral on social media.It began with a warning in January from veterinarians in the disputed Himalayan region, where the cat population has soared over the past years, partly because of stray cats roaming free and pet stores bringing in ever more costly breeds to keep up with local demand. The vets said there’s been an uptick in infections among the feline population due…

There’s lots of scrutiny involving China obtaining advanced Nvidia chips despite strict U.S. export controls, with Chinese merchants already reportedly ordering Nvidia’s powerful Blackwell GPUs. On Thursday, Singaporean police arrested three men for allegedly smuggling Nvidia chips, Channel News Asia reported. The men, two Singaporeans and one Chinese citizen, were charged with fraud over a supply of servers. Singapore is investigating whether the servers — made by Dell and Supermicro — contained restricted Nvidia chips and were diverted somewhere other than their official destination of Malaysia, Bloomberg reported. Nvidia’s latest annual report shows that it does sell to Singapore. The…

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Anitta has become a pop music sensation in her native Brazil and abroad, but Monday she will have her first shot to prove herself on the country’s biggest stage: the Sambadrome.This year, the 31-year-old took on the new challenge of joining some of Brazil’s most traditional samba artists as a songwriter for a Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro.Anitta is a songwriter for the Unidos da Tijuca samba school, the first to enter the Sambadrome avenue on Monday, the second of three nights of parades. Performers from the Unidos da Tijuca samba school dance during…

On June 5, TechCrunch Sessions: AI will kick off — and you can be part of the industry-changing conversations that will be taking place. We have an open invitation for members of the AI community to lead breakout sessions and discussions with over 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders, and AI aficionados attending our newest event, which will be held in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. There’s just one catch: You have to apply by this Friday, March 7, 2025, before midnight to be considered as a speaker, so head right here to do so. As the AI field rapidly develops, we…

TSMC CEO announced the plan with US president, the latest firm to make investment commitments since Donald Trump took office.Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co plans to invest $100bn in the United States and build five additional factories in the coming years, it has said. TSMC CEO CC Wei announced the plan on Monday in a meeting at the White House with US President Donald Trump. “We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here,” Trump said. “It’s a matter of national security for us.” TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is a leading…

The author of California’s SB 1047, the nation’s most controversial AI safety bill of 2024, is back with a new AI bill that could shake up Silicon Valley. California state Senator Scott Wiener introduced a new bill on Friday that would protect employees at leading AI labs, allowing them to speak out if they think their company’s AI systems could be a “critical risk” to society. The new bill, SB 53, would also create a public cloud computing cluster, called CalCompute, to give researchers and startups the necessary computing resources to develop AI that benefits the public. Wiener’s last AI…

Chipmaker TSMC said that it aims to invest “at least” $100 billion in chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next four years as part of an effort to expand the company’s network of semiconductor factories. President Donald Trump announced the news during a press conference Monday. TSMC’s cash infusion will fund the construction of several new facilities in Arizona, C. C. Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said during the briefing. “We are going to produce many AI chips … to support AI progress,” Wei said. TSMC previously pledged to pour $65 billion into U.S.-based fabrication plants and has…

Google has open sourced an AI model, SpeciesNet, designed to identify animal species by analyzing photos from camera traps. Researchers around the world use camera traps — digital cameras connected to infrared sensors — to study wildlife populations. But while these traps can provide valuable insights, they generate massive volumes of data that take days to weeks to sift through. In a bid to help, Google launched Wildlife Insights, an initiative of the company’s Google Earth Outreach philanthropy program, around six years ago. Wildlife Insights provides a platform where researchers can share, identify, and analyze wildlife images online, collaborating to…