BEAM

Four environmental organizations filed a petition Thursday urging the Federal Communications Commission to reverse its approval of a startup's plan to beam on-demand sunlight from space to Earth. The groups argue the agency failed to consider the project's potential impacts on wildlife and astronomy, reigniting debate over regulating commercial uses of orbit and the environmental consequences of the growing space economy.

The dbb Beamtenbund und Tarifunion, Germany's largest federation of civil servants and public-sector unions, is drawing attention with a statement from its leadership under Ulrich Schmitt declaring "Schluss mit den Rechentricks" — an end to accounting tricks. The federation is pressing for honest calculations in matters affecting public employees, and the demand is gaining traction in German public debate.

Reflection AI has introduced Beam, a large open-weight model with around 501 billion parameters, released for public use. The announcement is drawing attention in AI circles, with discussion focused on the model's scale and on what a heavyweight open-weight release means for competition with closed frontier systems.

The Gleam programming language has dropped its approach of compiling to Erlang source code, according to an announcement on the language's official website. The change marks a shift in how Gleam, a type-safe language that runs on the BEAM virtual machine, targets the Erlang ecosystem. Developers are discussing the technical implications for the language's compilation pipeline and compatibility.

Reflection AI has released Beam, a large open-source artificial intelligence model with 501 billion parameters. The debut was reported by SiliconANGLE, positioning the startup among the growing group of companies publishing frontier-scale models openly. Open-weight releases of this size matter to developers and companies that want to run powerful AI on their own infrastructure rather than depend on closed commercial providers. The announcement is drawing attention as the debate continues over open versus proprietary AI development.

Star Trek actor William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk, has become involved in a dispute on X with a supermarket chain, according to the Evening Standard. The story links the 93-year-old star, a Capital FM presenter and Blue Origin in what appears to be a celebrity exchange that has drawn attention on the platform.

US startup Reflection AI has released its first open-weight AI model, called Beam. The launch is being framed as an American bid to counter China's momentum in open-source artificial intelligence, where Chinese firms have so far led with freely available models. Commenters are asking whether Beam can give the US a serious contender in the open model space.

A BeamNG.drive clip shows a Lightning McQueen-style car attempting an escape from a giant construction shredder monster truck, staged as a superheroes-versus-villain chase. The soft-body crash simulator is used to stage over-the-top vehicle chases and destruction scenarios, and this one has drawn well over a million likes from viewers, largely children and simulation-game fans who follow animated car escape content.

The famous Star Trek catchphrase 'Beam me up, Scotty' is circulating again, cited in a global news item. The phrase, long a shorthand for teleportation, is associated with the character Scotty from the science fiction series and remains a widely recognised cultural reference. No further details about the specific event or announcement behind the renewed attention were provided.

The Pentagon is backing efforts to develop solar power collected in space and beamed to Earth, according to SpaceNews. The idea of space-based solar energy has long been studied for its potential to deliver continuous clean power regardless of weather or time of day, and US defence interest could accelerate research and funding in the field.

Reflection has unveiled Beam, a new open-weight AI model aimed at competing with Chinese models while running at a lower compute cost. The release positions the company in the increasingly crowded open-weight AI race, where efficiency and accessibility are key selling points. Tech observers are watching to see whether Beam can match the performance of established Chinese offerings at a fraction of the compute budget.

Reflection AI has announced Beam, a new AI model focused on coding and autonomous agents, which the company says delivers strong performance with greater efficiency. The announcement highlights Beam's ability to handle agentic workflows and software development tasks while keeping compute costs low. Tech observers are weighing the company's claims against benchmarks from established AI labs, with debate over how the model compares to existing frontier systems.

Reflection AI has announced the release of Beam, the company's first open source artificial intelligence model. The announcement was reported by The Information. Details about the model's capabilities, licensing and performance have not yet been widely circulated, and reactions from the developer and AI communities are still forming as the news spreads.

AI startup Reflection has introduced Beam, a new open-weight AI model it says can compete with leading Chinese models while requiring less computing power to run. By releasing the model's weights openly, the company is positioning Beam as a cost-effective alternative for developers, intensifying the race to deliver high-performing models at lower compute cost.

Reflection AI has released Beam, an open model positioned as a competitor to GLM-5.2 in 2026. The announcement puts a new Western open-weights contender directly against the leading Chinese open model, and is drawing attention from developers comparing performance, licensing terms and cost. Details on benchmarks and availability remain limited so far.

A new American AI model called Beam is drawing attention in the tech industry, with commentators comparing it to DeepSeek, the Chinese model that shocked the AI world with its low-cost performance. The 'DeepSeek of the West' label suggests observers see Beam as a potential Western counterpart that could deliver comparable results at a fraction of the usual cost, intensifying competition in the AI race.

The Gleam programming language team has announced that the language no longer compiles to Erlang source code, detailed in a post on the official Gleam website. The news has drawn attention from developers in programming and compiler communities, who are discussing what the change means for how Gleam code is executed on the BEAM virtual machine.

The Pentagon is backing an ambitious project to collect solar power in space and beam it back to Earth, a concept long discussed as a potential source of clean, continuous energy. The plan, reported on energy news outlets, would involve harvesting sunlight in orbit and transmitting it wirelessly to receiving stations on the ground, bypassing weather and nighttime limits that affect terrestrial solar farms.

A physicist has proposed that laser light could transfer energy to a gravitational wave, a concept that would open a new way of interacting with ripples in spacetime. The idea, outlined in recent reporting, suggests beams of light might add energy to gravitational waves as they pass, though it remains a theoretical proposal rather than a demonstrated result. Physicists are weighing whether such an exchange could ever be tested experimentally.

US startup Reflection AI has released Beam, its first open-weight AI model, positioning it as an American counterpart to the open models coming out of China. The company and commentators frame the release as a bid to give the West a credible open-source competitor in the global AI race. Attention is focused on whether Beam can match the capabilities and momentum of Chinese open models.

Penn Medicine has formed a joint venture aimed at developing new proton therapy centers, expanding access to an advanced form of radiation treatment that targets tumors with high-energy particle beams. The move signals continued growth in proton therapy investment as health systems seek to bring the specialized technology to more markets.

Bomban Talo, a well-known Karelian farmstead building, is not surviving old wooden architecture but a carefully reconstructed copy of an 1855 Karelian farmhouse. The original stood in Suojärvi and was dismantled in 1934, with its timber beams preserved and later used to rebuild the house. Travellers are noting that the building's historic appearance is the result of deliberate restoration work rather than authentic centuries-old construction.

A newly proposed particle beam experiment could test whether Einstein's general theory of relativity holds under conditions never examined before, potentially revealing deviations from gravity as he described it. The report has drawn attention in physics circles, with discussion focused on whether such a beam could deliver a decisive experimental verdict on one of science's most foundational theories.

In 1862, a broken pumping-engine beam blocked the only shaft at Hartley Colliery in Northumberland, trapping and killing 204 men and boys underground. The catastrophe shocked Victorian Britain and prompted Parliament to legislate that all mines must have separate means of escape, a turning point in British mining safety law.

AI startup Reflection has released Beam, its first open-weight language model, positioning it as a direct competitor to China's GLM-5.2. The launch signals growing rivalry in the open-weight AI space, where freely downloadable models from Chinese labs have been gaining ground. Observers are watching to see whether Beam can match the performance and cost advantages that have made Chinese open models popular with developers.

Reflection AI has introduced Beam, a 501-billion-parameter open-weight language model, announcing the release on its company blog. The launch is being discussed on Hacker News under tags for tech and open source, where users are weighing in on the size and openness of the model. Details on benchmarks, licensing terms and intended use cases remain limited to the company's own announcement.

Reflection AI, a startup backed by NVIDIA, has unveiled Beam, an open-weight model that claims frontier-tier reasoning while using far less compute than comparable systems. The company says it matches leading Chinese architectures such as GLM-5.2 while cutting inference costs, positioning it as a serious open alternative in the escalating race over efficient AI reasoning models.

Reflection AI, a startup backed by Nvidia and founded by former DeepMind researchers, has released Beam, an open-weight AI model focused on complex coding tasks. The company says Beam rivals top Chinese competitors on coding benchmarks while remaining efficient. The release is drawing attention as another sign that open-weight models from smaller labs are closing the gap with closed frontier systems.

The Department of War has funded a project to beam solar power from space, according to a news report. Space-based solar power involves collecting energy in orbit and transmitting it to Earth, typically via microwave or laser beams. Interest in the technology has grown as militaries and energy companies look for reliable, continuous renewable power, since orbiting collectors avoid clouds and nighttime losses. Details about the specific contractor, funding amount and timeline were not provided.

Reflection.ai has introduced Beam, an open-weight AI model with 501 billion parameters, and the announcement has reached the top of Hacker News, drawing hundreds of upvotes and dozens of comments. The release is drawing attention as part of the growing wave of large, openly available models competing with closed systems.

Reflection AI has introduced Beam, its first open-weight model: a mixture-of-experts model with 501 billion parameters, trained using 100 million reinforcement learning rollouts. The announcement is drawing attention in AI and developer communities, where interest centres on the model's scale and its reinforcement learning training approach, as open releases from new AI labs remain closely watched.

Researchers report that giant fluctuations of focused light can reveal hidden correlations within complex media, offering a new way to probe materials where light scatters unpredictably, such as biological tissue or turbid substances. The finding suggests focused beams can serve as sensitive probes of otherwise invisible structural correlations.