back

AI is BOOMING! Google CRUSHES it, Open AI Overhauls Chat Memory, Open Source models & MORE!

Get SIGNAL/NOISE in your inbox daily

# AI is BOOMING: Weekly Tech Roundup

This week has been absolutely colossal for AI advancements, with major releases from industry leaders, open-source innovations, and impressive demos across various domains. Here’s a comprehensive summary of the most significant developments:

## New Language Models

– **Meta’s Llama 4**: Released two variants – Scout (16B parameters with 16 experts) and Maverick (16B parameters with 128 experts). While open-source, they’re designed for corporations rather than consumer hardware, with a somewhat restrictive license.

– **Grok 3 API**: Finally available with surprisingly reasonable pricing. The flagship models are expensive ($15-25 per million output tokens), but Grok 3 Mini offers more competitive rates at just $0.50 per million output tokens. Independent evaluations show it performing well, beating GPT-4.5 in some tests.

– **OpenAI**: Preparing three new models for release soon – O4 Mini, O4 Mini High, and the “big bad O3.” Some reports suggest internal concerns about rushing these models to market.

## Image Generation

– **Hydream AI**: A new MIT-licensed image generation model (though its text encoder uses Llama 3). Available on HuggingFace with three variants (full quality, dev quality, and fast quality), performing competitively against established models like DALL-E 3 and SDXL.

– **Image Stylization Model**: Built on Flux.1, this new open-source model attempts to mimic GPT-4 Omni’s style transfer capabilities. While not as accurate as GPT-4O, it provides a faster, fully open-source alternative.

## Google’s Big Week

– **Firebase Studio**: An AI-powered coding platform using Gemini, though early user feedback suggests it needs refinement.

– **Gemini Updates**: Enhanced image generation, upcoming text-to-music features, voice cloning capabilities, and the release of Gemini 2.5 Flash.

– **Ironwood TPU**: Google’s sixth-gen TPU designed for AI inferencing, featuring 192GB RAM per chip and 4.5x faster data access – positioning as an Nvidia

Recent Videos

Oct 6, 2025

How To Earn MONEY With Images (No Bullsh*t)

Smart earnings from your image collection In today's digital economy, passive income streams have become increasingly accessible to creators with various skill sets. A recent YouTube video cuts through the hype to explore legitimate ways photographers, designers, and even casual smartphone users can monetize their image collections. The strategies outlined don't rely on unrealistic promises or complicated schemes—instead, they focus on established marketplaces with proven revenue potential for image creators. Key Points Stock photography platforms like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and Getty Images remain viable income sources when you understand their specific requirements and optimize your submissions accordingly. Specialized marketplaces focusing...

Oct 3, 2025

New SHAPE SHIFTING AI Robot Is Freaking People Out

Liquid robots will change everything In the quiet labs of Carnegie Mellon University, scientists have created something that feels plucked from science fiction—a magnetic slime robot that can transform between liquid and solid states, slipping through tight spaces before reassembling on the other side. This technology, showcased in a recent YouTube video, represents a significant leap beyond traditional robotics into a realm where machines mimic not just animal movements, but their fundamental physical properties. While the internet might be buzzing with dystopian concerns about "shape-shifting terminators," the reality offers far more promising applications that could revolutionize medicine, rescue operations, and...

Oct 3, 2025

How To Do Homeless AI Tiktok Trend (Tiktok Homeless AI Tutorial)

AI homeless trend raises ethical concerns In an era where social media trends evolve faster than we can comprehend them, TikTok's "homeless AI" trend has sparked both creative engagement and serious ethical questions. The trend, which involves using AI to transform ordinary photos into images depicting homelessness, has rapidly gained traction across the platform, with creators eagerly jumping on board to showcase their digital transformations. While the technical process is relatively straightforward, the implications of digitally "becoming homeless" for entertainment deserve careful consideration. The video tutorial provides a step-by-step guide on creating these AI-generated images, explaining how users can transform...