AI Summarized Hacker News

Front-page articles summarized hourly.

A lithium-ion breakthrough that could boost range and lower costs

Columbia University researchers have developed a gel electrolyte for anode-free lithium-ion batteries that improves safety, longevity, and cost. Anode-free designs boost energy density by freeing space for active material, but dendrites cause failures. The gel uses a parasitic salt-phobic polymer network that forms a protective layer on the lithium surface and suppresses dendrite growth. In tests it retained >80% capacity under near-real-world conditions and enhanced thermal stability, withstood drilling, unlike liquid-electrolyte cells. This approach could yield higher density, longer-lasting, safer, cheaper EV packs, complementing continued lithium-ion improvements instead of relying on solid-state.

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"Car Wash" test with 53 models

A car-wash reasoning benchmark tested 53 AI models on whether to walk or drive to a car wash 50 meters away, given the car must be at the wash. In a single run, 42 chose walk; only 11 were correct. The five models reliable across 10 runs were Claude Opus 4.6, Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite, Gemini 3 Flash, Gemini 3 Pro, and Grok-4. Across 530 runs, most models were inconsistent or wrong (33 never right; 12 barely right). Humans drove the choice 71.5% of the time. The test exposes AI reliability gaps and the value of context-aware prompting.

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Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

TechCrunch reports Americans are vandalizing Flock license-plate reader cameras amid privacy and immigration concerns. Flock, valued at about $7.5B, runs a nationwide network; while it says it doesn’t directly share data with ICE, local police have granted federal access and some communities have ended contracts or blocked usage. Incidents include smashed cameras in La Mesa, CA, and other states; Oregon poles cut down. DeFlock estimates around 80,000 cameras nationwide, with many cities rejecting Flock.

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Waymo Is Destroying Tesla's Self-Driving Dreams

Waymo is already delivering autonomous rides with no driver, while Tesla remains selling a promised FSD future. The piece contrasts Waymo’s sensor-heavy, mapped, domain-limited approach with Tesla’s camera-only, scalable vision, arguing that true self-driving at scale is being realized by Waymo. As a result, the longstanding Tesla–Waymo debate shifts from ideology to demonstrated capability, challenging Tesla’s claims of scale, simplicity, and generality.

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The Lighthouse: How extreme isolation transforms the body and mind

Set in the late 19th century on a remote island, The Lighthouse follows two keepers whose isolation sparks paranoia, visions, and a brutal power struggle. Winslow obsesses over the forbidden lantern as Wake’s authority tightens, and reality frays under sensory deprivation and alcohol. Psychologists note isolation can trigger hallucinations and distress, echoing landmark solo-confinement experiments. The film’s stark black‑and‑white imagery and maritime menace magnify how extreme isolation transforms body and mind, with unsettling motifs like a mermaid figurine underscoring the psyche’s rupture.

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Anthropic Education the AI Fluency Index

Anthropic introduces the AI Fluency Index using the 4D AI Fluency Framework, based on 9,830 Claude.ai conversations in Jan 2026. It tracks 11 observable behaviors out of 24 to measure safe, effective human–AI collaboration. Key finding: iteration/refinement strongly boosts fluency (85.7% of conversations), with more subsequent fluency behaviors; however, when outputs are artifacts (code/docs/tools), users direct work more but question reasoning and context less. The report outlines three ways to improve fluency, notes limitations (early adopters, single week, observable-only behaviors), and previews future research including cohort analyses and Claude Code.

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Hadrius (YC W23) Is Hiring Designers Who Code

Hadrius, a YC-backed fintech automating securities compliance, is hiring a Senior Product Designer onsite NYC. Requirements: 6+ years in product design, portfolio with 0-to-1 work or major redesigns, design systems, strong communication; proficient in Figma; preferably B2B SaaS/fintech. You’ll own end-to-end design, contribute to the design system, partner with CTO, and help scale team. Timeline: week—onboard; month—ship a major design and establish design rituals; 3+ months—own complex initiatives and hiring. Perks: salary, sizable equity, 401(k) match, healthcare, housing stipend 18k/yr. Interview: 3 stages with CTO, culture-fit designer, onsite with founders/engineers. About Hadrius: automates back-office compliance for firms; YC W23.

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Show HN: Sowbot – open-hardware agricultural robot (ROS2, RTK GPS)

Open AgBot sowbot provides an open-hardware robotic platform for regenerative agriculture, bridging prototype-to-production gaps. It offers a Reference Hardware Design and a Production-Ready Software Stack, enabling startups to skip ~18 months of plumbing and researchers to share experiments via Docker images. The Open Core module pairs two Avaota A1 SBCs (ESP32-based control and a perception board), with ROS 2 navigation, EKF, topological mapping, and YOLO; native CAN bus; dual GNSS RTK for centimeter positioning; rugged enclosure; open licenses on schematics, PCB layouts, and firmware. Modular chassis, Odrive CAN drivers, 800W hub motors, sodium-ion batteries, and development platforms (Sowbot Mini/Pico).

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AIs can generate near-verbatim copies of novels from training data

New studies show top AI models memorize substantial portions of their training data, enabling near-verbatim generation of novels like A Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games when prompted. This challenges claims that models don’t store copyrighted works and undermines defenses of fair use. Researchers demonstrated that both open and closed models can reproduce large text segments, sometimes via jailbreaking. The findings have legal implications for liability and ongoing copyright lawsuits, though companies argue safeguards limit practical extraction.

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NASA uses Mars Helicopter's SoC for rover navigation upgrade

NASA repurposed Perseverance’s Mars Helicopter Base Station silicon to run a new Mars Global Localization algorithm that autonomously localizes the rover by matching panoramic navigation images to onboard orbital terrain maps. The system, running on the Snapdragon-based HBS, pinpoints the rover’s location within about 10 inches (25 cm) in roughly two minutes, enabling long, Earth-free drives. Tests noted occasional bit errors and Mars-Earth latency (up to 40 minutes, 2 Mbps), but added cross-checks to ensure results. NASA says the software is in production and could inform Moon missions.

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