BEAM

Four environmental organizations filed a petition Thursday asking 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 ignored the project's potential impacts on wildlife and astronomy, opening a new front in the debate over commercial use of orbit and its environmental consequences.

WSB-TV reports patchy, light fog across the Atlanta area to start the day. Residents are checking conditions before the morning commute, with fog expected to burn off as temperatures rise. Forecasters advise drivers to allow extra travel time and use low beams in reduced visibility during the early hours.

Wired reports that space-based laser technology for beaming energy is about to undergo its first real-world test. The experiment would mark a milestone for wireless power transmission from space, a concept long discussed as a potential clean energy source. Interest centers on whether lasers can reliably deliver usable power to Earth.

Wired reports that space-based lasers designed to transmit energy are about to undergo their first real-world test. The experiment would mark a milestone for efforts to beam power from space to Earth, a long-discussed concept that startups and researchers hope could one day deliver clean energy across distances. The technology remains early-stage and unproven at scale.

Chinese researchers say they have developed an electron gun beam described as world-leading, a key step toward building an advanced 'super microscope' for studying materials at extremely small scales. The announcement, reported by the South China Morning Post, is being read as another signal of China's push to compete with the United States and others in cutting-edge scientific instruments.

Beam Therapeutics says a scientist took trade secrets and used them to help launch a rival startup in China. The allegation, reported by Bloomberg Law, adds to ongoing tensions between US biotech firms and China over intellectual property. Details of the accused scientist's identity and the specific secrets involved were not disclosed in the available reporting.

Reflection AI has introduced Beam, a large open-weight AI model with 501 billion parameters, positioning it among the biggest openly available models to date. The announcement has drawn strong attention from developers and AI researchers, who are debating its capabilities, licensing terms and how it compares to leading closed models from major AI labs.

Startup Star Catcher is preparing to launch a system designed to beam energy between two separate spacecraft, which would be a historic first if it works. The company aims to demonstrate wireless power transfer in orbit, a capability that could eventually allow satellites to share energy and extend mission lifetimes. The project is drawing attention as a notable step for space-based power infrastructure.

Europe and the United Arab Emirates are planning a $1 billion data center in orbit, built around 50 connected satellite computers. A central 'LLM store' would let users choose which open source AI model to run on data gathered by satellite sensors, processing information in space rather than beaming it all back to Earth. The project highlights growing interest in orbital computing for space-based data processing.

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.

Space-based laser technology is preparing for its first real-world test in generating energy, according to WIRED. The concept involves transmitting power collected in space down to Earth using laser beams, a long-proposed but never operationally demonstrated approach to energy generation. The trial could mark a significant milestone for the emerging space energy sector.

Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam are moving to win over the fast-growing Formula 1 audience, particularly in the United States, where the sport's popularity has surged in recent years. The two bourbon giants are reportedly competing for visibility among the sport's expanding fan base, reflecting a broader push by American brands into global motorsport marketing.

Star Trek actor William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk, has waded into a public spat on X involving a supermarket chain and a broadcaster. The Standard reports the row also drew in a CEO, Capital FM presenter Chris, and references Shatner's Blue Origin space flight. Details of the dispute remain thin, but the actor's involvement has drawn attention given his celebrity status.

The Gleam programming language no longer compiles to Erlang source code, according to an announcement on the language's official site. Gleam is a statically typed language that runs on the BEAM virtual machine alongside Erlang and Elixir, and the change marks a shift in how its compiler targets the Erlang ecosystem. Developers are discussing what this means for interoperability, debugging and tooling.

Reflection AI has introduced Beam, a large language model with 501 billion parameters released under an open-source license. The debut makes Beam one of the biggest openly available models, putting it in direct competition with closed systems from major AI labs and giving developers the ability to inspect, adapt and run the model themselves. Coverage so far focuses on the sheer scale of the release and what it signals for the open-weight AI race.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University have put forward a technical blueprint for a so-called wireless energy internet. The proposal moves beyond conventional wireless power transfer, which beams electricity to devices, towards direct wireless energy conversion. If realised, the concept could reshape how power is distributed to electronics without cables or plugs, though the university has not detailed a timeline for real-world implementation.

Two of America's best-known whiskey brands, Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam, are sponsoring Formula 1 racing teams, in a photo feature highlighting the tie-ups. The move signals growing interest from major spirits companies in motorsport marketing as Formula 1's audience expands, with the brands putting their names and imagery alongside the teams' cars and drivers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.