Ethereum core developers have decided to create a third testnet, Hoodi, to better prepare for the Pectra upgrade, which has now been delayed until at least late April after the first two testnets encountered several bugs.
The Hoodi testnet will launch on March 17 and the Pectra upgrade for it will be activated on March 26, Ethereum Foundation developer Tim Beiko said following the Ethereum All Core Dev Call on March 13.
If Pectra runs smoothly on Hoodi without major issues, core developers could set a mainnet launch date for Pectra as soon as 30 days after Hoodi’s activation, Beiko said.
That would mean Pectra could go live on Ethereum mainnet as early as April 25.
Tim Beiko’s latest announcement on the Pectra upgrade: Ethereum Magicians
Pectra, which combines features from the Prague and Electra proposals, will implement over 10 Ethereum Improvement Proposals mostly aimed at bringing more functionality to Ethereum wallets and improving user experience.
It will also include scaling proposals to double the blob count for data availability from three to six.
Pectra was initially slated to launch on Ethereum mainnet in late 2024 but has faced repeated delays due to client readiness issues and synchronization bugs in the first two Ethereum testnets, Holesky and Sepolia.
Pectra was rolled out on Sepolia on March 5, but soon after, Ethereum developers started seeing error messages on their geth nodes and empty blocks being mined.
Galaxy Digital vice president of research Christine Kim said Hoodi would look to “mimic” the Ethereum mainnet as closely as possible by launching a validator set similar to how mainnet currently operates.
That would see at least 20 million test staked-Ether (ETH) distributed across 11 client teams and five staking operators.
The third testnet comes as Ethereum core developers agreed to deploy future Ethereum protocol upgrades at a faster cadence during an “All Core Devs” meeting on Feb. 13.
In the same way that genome sequencing determines the genetic makeup of an organism, Bryan Johnson — the investor and founder behind the Don’t Die movement — wants to start “foodome” sequencing. “We’re going to sequence the U.S. ‘foodome,’ which means test 20% of foods that constitute 80% of the American diet based on stuff […]
AI company Sesame has released the base model that powers Maya, the impressively realistic voice assistant. The model, which is 1 billion parameters in size (“parameters” referring to individual components of the model), is under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially with few restrictions. Called CSM-1B, the model generates “RVQ audio codes” from text […]
Rad Power Bikes has named a new CEO, just a few days after its previous leader stepped down. The e-bike company has tapped Kathi Lentzsch, who has spent the last few decades helping turn around underperforming companies in both the consumer and B2B spaces. The change comes as Rad Power continues to shift away from […]
Flock Safety and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and so on. It’s best known for its automatic license plate recognition […]
Google announced on Thursday that Android phones will soon support Auracast, a new Bluetooth technology that uses a phone to enable a direct connection from hearing aids to audio broadcasts in noisy environments. With Auracast, compatible hearing aids and earbuds can receive direct audio streams, such as a PA system at a train station or […]
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
Gemini Robotics uses Google’s top language model to make robots more useful
The news: Google DeepMind has released a new model, Gemini Robotics, that combines its best large language model with robotics. Plugging in the LLM seems to give robots the ability to be more dexterous, work from natural-language commands, and generalize across tasks. All three are things that robots have struggled to do until now.
Why it matters: The team hopes their work could usher in an era of robots that are far more useful and require less detailed training for each task. Incorporating LLMs into robotics is part of a growing trend, and this may be the most impressive example yet. Read the full story.
—Scott J Mulligan
If you’re interested in how researchers are making robots more useful, why not take a look at these stories:
+ The robot race is fueling a fight for training data. AI is upending the way robots learn, leaving companies and researchers with a need for more data. Read the full story.
+ It’s becoming easier to train robots with sound, which helps them adapt to tasks and environments where visibility is limited. Read the full story.
+ To be more useful, robots need to become lazier. Smarter data processing could make machines more helpful and energy-efficient in the real world. A good way to test this principle is to make robots play soccer.
+ Gen AI models aren’t just good for creating pictures—they can be fine-tuned to generate useful robot training data, too. Read the full story.
MIT Technology Review Narrated: How the Ukraine-Russia war is reshaping the tech sector in Eastern Europe
Startups in Latvia and other nearby countries see the mobilization of Ukraine as a warning and as inspiration. They are now changing consumer products—from scooters to recreational drones—for use on the battlefield.
This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The European Union is pushing back against Donald Trump’s tariffs By slapping the US with its own levies. (WP $) + Its measure could affect up to €26bn of American-made goods. (FT $)
2 What does ‘waste’ mean to Elon Musk? DOGE’s crude calculation of what is—and isn’t—valuable doesn’t make sense. (The Atlantic $) + Musk seems to be testing the limits of Trump’s patience. (FT $) + He’s admitted he’s struggling to balance his DOGE commitments with his work. (Insider $) + Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Big Tech is calling for new nuclear power stations With the notable exception of Microsoft. (FT $) + Interest in nuclear power is surging. Is it enough to build new reactors? (MIT Technology Review)
4 BYD is rapidly gaining on Tesla It’s undercutting the EV maker in 10 major non-Western markets. (Rest of World) + Mercedes-Benz is turning its attention to solid-state batteries. (IEEE Spectrum) + Where it all went wrong for Europe’s EV battery darling. (Bloomberg $) + BYD is one of MIT Technology Review’s 15 climate tech companies to watch. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Intel’s future is hanging in the balance Shares are down, jobs are being cut, and competition is heating up. (The Guardian)
6 North Korean hackers snuck spyware onto the Google Play app store The malicious software can take control of a device’s audio and camera systems. (TechCrunch)
7 Things aren’t looking good for iRobot Its future seems increasingly precarious. (The Verge) + The company is undergoing a strategic review to see if it can be salvaged. (Bloomberg $) + A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook? (MIT Technology Review)
8 Spotify has removed Andrew Tate’s misogynistic courses Following complaints from its own employees. (404 Media)
9 An arbitrator has instructed a former Meta employee to stop promoting her new book The new memoir details alleged claims of misconduct at the company. (The Verge)
10 How to decide where to hunt for alien life Top tip: search for the cosmic shoreline. (Quanta Magazine)
Quote of the day
“The President is basically a car salesman now.”
—Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky accuses Donald Trump of acting like a showroom salesman after he urged Americans to buy Tesla electric cars, MSNBC reports.
The big story
What the future holds for those born today
August 2024
Happy birthday, baby.
You have been born into an era of intelligent machines. They have watched over you almost since your conception. They let your parents listen in on your tiny heartbeat, track your gestation on an app, and post your sonogram on social media. Well before you were born, you were known to the algorithm.
Your arrival coincided with the 125th anniversary of this magazine. With a bit of luck and the right genes, you might see the next 125 years. How will you and the next generation of machines grow up together? We asked more than a dozen experts to imagine your future. Read what they prophesied.
—Kara Platoni
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ These indigenous heavy metal bands are tackling climate change, one devastating riff at a time. + Eating asparagus raw is a thing, apparently. + How our culture’s monsters have evolved over time, and what they tell us about ourselves. + There are few animals more fascinating than the Greenland shark.
