The Wall Street Journal
China has imposed sweeping controls on AI, especially chatbots, requiring politically filtered training data, ideological testing before launch, content labeling, and user identification. President Xi Jinping said earlier this year that AI brought “unprecedented risks,” according to state media.
From "China Tries to Tame AI"
The Wall Street Journal (12/23/25) Stu Woo
View Full Article - May Require Paid Subscription
The Washington Post
When problems arise with Waymo's robot taxis, a behind-the-scenes human workforce steps in. Open doors, tangled seat belts, dead batteries, and power outages can leave autonomous vehicles stranded, prompting Waymo to pay workers via an app called Honk to address the issues. These “rescues” highlight automation’s limitations and the new kinds of human labor it creates.
From "When Robot Taxis Get Stuck, Humans Come to the Rescue"
The Washington Post (12/25/25) Lisa Bonos
View Full Article - May Require Paid Subscription
NIST News
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has invested $20 million to establish two new AI Economic Security Centers with nonprofit partner MITRE to strengthen U.S. manufacturing productivity and protect critical infrastructure from cyberthreats. The centers will accelerate development and adoption of AI-driven tools, support U.S. leadership in AI innovation, and reduce risks from insecure or adversarial AI.
From "NIST Launches Centers for AI in Manufacturing, Critical Infrastructure"
NIST News (12/22/25)
View Full Article
TechRadar
The only known copy of Unix Version 4, preserved on a 1973 magnetic tape and discovered at the University of Utah's School of Computing, has been recovered and made operational. Unix v4 is historically significant as the first release with both the kernel and core utilities written in the C programming language. Archivist Al Kossow of Bitsavers led the recovery, using specialized hardware to digitize the aging nine-track tape and software to reconstruct its contents.
From "Only Known Copy of Unix v4 Recovered from Randomly Found Tape"
TechRadar (12/24/25) Sead Fadilpašic
View Full Article
BCS-The Chartered Institute for IT
U.K. universities saw a sharp rise in students enrolling in dedicated AI degrees this year, with numbers up 42% to a record 1,165 first-year undergraduates, according to BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. Despite the growth, AI students still represent just 4% of all computing entrants, as broader courses such as computer science and software engineering dominate.
From "42% Rise in U.K. Students Taking AI Degrees"
BCS-The Chartered Institute for IT (12/24/25)
View Full Article
Associated Press
At some retirement communities, seniors use VR headsets to explore destinations, revisit childhood neighborhoods, and share immersive experiences together. Companies such as Rendever provide curated programs used in hundreds of senior communities, encouraging conversation, cognitive stimulation, and emotional engagement. Speaking of Rendever's VR technology, Adrian Marshall of The Terraces, a senior community in Los Gatos, California, said, “It helps create a human bridge that makes them realize they share certain similarities and interests. It turns the artificial world into reality.”
From "VR Allows Elderly to Build Closer Real-Life Connections"
Associated Press (12/25/25) Michael Liedtke
View Full Article
