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Top249: Issue 1
Learn more, scroll less. Curated AI/Tech/Business news and articles.
🌟 Welcome to the latest edition of Top249 🤩
We're here to keep you updated on AI, tech, and business news and articles, so you can save time and focus on learning and growth.
Let's get started! 😎
AI Frontier
Gemini 2.5 now supports native audio capabilities, allowing real-time, expressive voice conversations with emotional nuance, accents, and natural pacing—bringing human-like depth to AI interactions.
The update includes advanced text-to-speech features, enabling developers to control emotion, speed, pronunciation, and multi-speaker scenarios in over 24 languages.
To ensure safety and authenticity, all audio outputs are embedded with SynthID watermarks, and the system has undergone rigorous internal reviews and red-teaming for risk mitigation.
Gemini 2.5 now supports native audio capabilities, allowing real-time, expressive voice conversations with emotional nuance, accents, and natural pacing—bringing human-like depth to AI interactions.
The update includes advanced text-to-speech features, enabling developers to control emotion, speed, pronunciation, and multi-speaker scenarios in over 24 languages.
To ensure safety and authenticity, all audio outputs are embedded with SynthID watermarks, and the system has undergone rigorous internal reviews and red-teaming for risk mitigation.
Tech That Matters
A new executive order narrows cyberattack sanctions on U.S. critical infrastructure to target only foreign malicious actors and removes provisions related to election interference, while rescinding Biden-era digital ID initiatives.
The order mandates federal agencies like the Department of Defence, DHS, and ODNI to address AI vulnerabilities and quantum computing, and directs NIST to produce secure software development guidelines despite recent staffing cuts.
Critics warn this policy shift de-prioritises proactive cybersecurity and could weaken U.S. digital defences in favour of politically driven priorities.
Apple researchers created puzzle-based environments with controlled problem complexity to evaluate how Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) truly “think”—they discovered that while LRMs show strong performance on simple tasks, their reasoning accuracy drops sharply as complexity increases.
The study exposes that although LRMs produce elaborate reasoning traces, their internal chains of thought don’t equate to genuine understanding—highlighting a performance collapse in final answers once tasks exceed a certain compositional threshold.
Because of this dramatic drop in accuracy and reliance on pattern exploitation rather than abstract reasoning, the findings caution against overestimating current AI reasoning capabilities and underscore the need for better benchmarks beyond conventional math and coding tests.
Nvidia is building around 100 AI-centric data centers, called “AI factories,” aimed at training and running multiple AI models simultaneously. These facilities reflect a strategic pivot—with data-centre revenue making up nearly 90% of Nvidia’s Q4 2024 income.
CEO Jensen Huang frames the initiative as a 50-year “manufacturing intelligence” project, backed by advanced hardware like GB200/GB300 systems, efficient cooling solutions, and performance-per-watt improvements up to fourfold—turning raw compute into higher revenues.
Nvidia is developing an international ecosystem through global partnerships with OEMs and regional governments—spanning locations like Arizona, Texas, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia—and aims to integrate expertise from firms including TSMC, Foxconn, Gigabyte, and Supermicro.
Business Briefs
Leaders who understand how their brain responds to uncertainty, fear, and stress can better regulate their behavior and make clearer, more thoughtful decisions, especially in high-pressure situations.
The brain’s default mode is to avoid threats and conserve energy, so effective leaders must consciously shift into a proactive mindset—engaging curiosity, empathy, and creativity to inspire and guide their teams.
Self-awareness and emotional regulation are not just personal traits but essential leadership tools; training the brain through mindfulness, reflection, and intentional habits can significantly improve decision-making and influence.
A course for beginners by Google on Coursera
Did You Know? The first computer bug was literally a bug—in 1947, Grace Hopper found a moth trapped in a Harvard Mark II computer, coining the term "debugging" in the process.
Till next time.