Google previews Genie 4, an AI model that builds interactive worlds with sound

Google DeepMind announced Genie 4, a 'world model' that generates scenes you can move through in real time. Google lists four changes: more realistic worlds, the option to change a scene while it runs by typing a request, generated audio including speech, and its Gemini 3.8 Flash model running underneath to keep the simulation on track. Ars Technica notes that the worlds still stay consistent for only a couple of minutes. For now it is a research preview for trusted testers. Google plans to offer it to developers through the Gemini API and to its AI Ultra subscribers, whose plans start at $100 a month, and has opened a waitlist.

OpenAI and Oracle widen their deal, putting Oracle business apps inside ChatGPT

OpenAI says it is expanding its partnership with Oracle to bring business applications and AI agents into ChatGPT and to power new Oracle products. CNBC reports that Oracle is adding ChatGPT and Codex to its software, and that Oracle's cloud will offer Google's AI chips, OpenAI's Jalapeño chip and Cerebras hardware. Separately, Nvidia and Oracle announced plans to grow Oracle's clusters of Nvidia Vera Rubin systems to multi-gigawatt scale.

3D art sites say a crawler from game maker Roblox took 145 GB of their files

Open3DLab, SFMLab and SmutBase say a crawler that named itself as Roblox's read almost every project page on their sites on 15 and 16 October. It then downloaded 1,027 files from 712 projects, 145.5 GB in total. The sites say the crawler fetched their robots.txt rules but ignored them, broke terms that forbid scraping, and took work that 423 projects license for non-commercial use only. 345 of the projects are adult content. The sites blocked it on 18 October and say Roblox has not answered two emails. They believe the files were wanted to train Roblox's 3D AI model, but say they cannot prove it.

Anthropic describes AI drug research with six partners and buys a small biotech firm

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, published details of early drug development work with six partners. It says AI can speed up drug development in more ways than proposing designs for new molecules. It also says it has acquired Mithril, a one-person company working on muscular dystrophy.

Anthropic's stock market filing shows an 85% gross margin from running its AI models

The Information reports that Anthropic's IPO filing, published on Monday, shows an 85% gross margin in the first half of the year from running its models. That means Anthropic kept most of what customers paid after the direct cost of serving them. The Information calls it a reality check for skeptics who said selling AI by usage would not be profitable. The Verge looks separately at how Anthropic plans to resist pressure from future shareholders to cut corners on safety, and Ars Technica picks out the AI risks the filing warns about.

Apple puts its new M6 chip in the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the iMac

Apple announced a 14-inch MacBook Pro with its new M6 chip, which has a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU. Apple says graphics are up to 30% faster and AI tasks up to 25% faster than on the M5. The laptop comes with 16GB or 32GB of memory, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and up to 24 hours of battery life. It costs from $1,999 and is available from November 6. Apple also updated the 24-inch iMac with the M6, with up to 32GB of memory and a 4.5K screen, from $1,499; pre-orders open October 28 and it ships November 6. Separately, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple has discussed charging $2,899 for a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an OLED touch screen and M5 Pro chip, $400 more than the current M5 Pro model.

Memory chip maker SK Hynix says quarterly revenue rose 328%, beating forecasts

CNBC reports that SK Hynix's third-quarter revenue rose 328% from a year earlier to about $78.8 billion, above estimates of about $74.07 billion. Operating profit rose 632% to about $62.76 billion, against estimates of about $57.78 billion.

Defence firm Anduril and Qualcomm plan BlueChip, laptops made in the US

Defence company Anduril and chipmaker Qualcomm unveiled BlueChip, a rugged laptop line aimed at the military, government and police. It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Series chip made at TSMC's plant in Arizona, and pre-orders open in 2027. Founder Palmer Luckey says about 90% of the parts cost comes from the US and allied countries. He says the aim is to make every component in the US, including displays, which are only made in China today. He estimates it will cost about 20% more than typical high-end PCs.

US cyber agency warns attackers are exploiting critical flaws in the PHP web language

The US government's cyber agency warns that hackers are exploiting critical bugs in PHP, the software behind much of the web. Cloudflare says the two flaws, known together as php2shell, came during a hard week for web security. It added firewall rules against them on all plans, including Free. It also launched a paid challenge for researchers who can get past those rules, and stresses that its firewall is not a substitute for patching.

Discord will let some public server messages appear in web search

Discord says messages from public channels in Discoverable Servers, its listed communities of at least 1,000 members, may start appearing on the web and in search results from mid-December. From November 16, each such server gets a public web page that can also show summaries of its discussions. Admins can opt channels out in Server Settings > Web Presence, and users can hide their own messages in User Settings > Data and Privacy. Usernames and avatars will not be shown, and private servers and direct messages are not affected. TechCrunch reports that some users have raised concerns.

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