Image: The Threshold Report/GPT Image 2
A technician working on a Caterpillar machine can now ask the Cat AI Assistant out loud for a repair procedure, talk through a fault, or identify the part needed for the job. Caterpillar says the assistant is in the hands of customers, operators, and technicians. The guidance arrives at the machine, without a trip back to the manuals or a separate system.
Image: The Threshold Report/GPT Image 2
Meta has installed a remotely triggered device in some of its data centers that physically presses power buttons to restart Mac Minis and other equipment, so a stuck machine can come back without sending anyone to the rack. The company is separately testing robots that could power-cycle servers and replace network cables. If those tests hold up, more complicated physical maintenance could follow.
Image: theverge.com
Flock's AI-enabled license-plate cameras, which photograph and log passing vehicles, will not be bought with Texas state money for now; Governor Greg Abbott froze the spending. The freeze came after scrutiny of the company's surveillance practices and of what the state had reportedly spent on the cameras. State-funded expansion of the network is on hold, and Texas now sits inside a wider backlash over how automated surveillance gets purchased and used.
Image: theverge.com
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, and other music publishers filed suit in California on Aug. 28 against Anthropic and its cofounders. They allege that copyrighted lyrics, books, and other works were acquired through scraping, downloads, and torrenting in order to train Claude. The complaint goes at how training material was obtained, a question that carries legal exposure and cost for anyone building models on large collected datasets.
Can AI do this yet?
Produce a 60-second ad with consistent characters from a one-page brief
A major new AI data-center campus comes online with dedicated power secured
Complete a full day's office task unattended and report back accurately
Announced or reported, but not yet real or available.
Waiting on: Construction - the Bastrop foundry is still being built and has not begun casting parts.
