1. Following silent rollout, xAI unveils Grok 4.1
xAI’s latest Grok 4.1 (and its Fast variant) breaks new ground with a 2 million-token context window, threefold lower hallucination rates, and a built-in Agent Tools API for orchestrating external systems—positioning it as both a nimble creative partner and a robust research assistant (thetechportal.com)
“Grok 4.1 Fast combines frontier tool-calling performance with blazing-fast inference and cost effectiveness.” (gigazine.net)
2. Generative AI has access to a small slice of human knowledge
In this crisp Aeon essay, a Cornell researcher reveals how generative AI’s digital corpus reflects deep power imbalances: whole traditions remain undigitized, and AI’s growing hegemony risks cementing a narrow, Western-centric view of knowledge (aeon.co)
“This asymmetry threatens to become entrenched as AI becomes the primary way many people learn about the world.” (aeon.co)
3. How empathy and creativity can re-humanise videoconferencing
Exploring videoconferencing through the lenses of design research and ethics, Robert O’Toole argues for tools that enrich human connection instead of eroding it, drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s ethics of capabilities and Jon Kolko’s empathetic design principles (aeon.co)
“We should seek to explore the situation space, to see multiple potentials for improvement, and to always consider what might be” (aeon.co)
4. Apple Watch Series 11 Review: Finally, the Watch Lives Longer
WIRED’s hands-on review celebrates Apple’s first truly all-day battery life, observing how a 58 percent morning charge breathes new life into health features—and reflects Apple’s philosophy of tiny, human-centered improvements that transform user experience (wired.com)
“After wearing the new Apple Watch Series 11 for a full afternoon and wearing it to sleep, I woke up in the morning and discovered that I still had 58 percent battery left.” (wired.com)
5. Can AI design a typeface?
Transform magazine’s deep dive with Monotype’s Charles Nix probes whether AI can transcend mere automation to participate meaningfully in typographic culture—balancing creativity, legibility, and the cultural weight carried by letterforms (transformmagazine.net)
“The relationship between typography and AI is less about replacing designers than about reframing our collective conversation around culture and communication.” (transformmagazine.net)