AI & Software

Gemini 4 Argon: 1M-token output and 77.9% on DeepSWE

Google’s new flagship can write up to a million tokens in one response, up from 64K. It claims state of the art on DeepSWE v1.1 (77.9%), the long-horizon benchmark OpenAI quoted for GPT-6.1 Sol two days ago, and first place on AutomationBench (51.3%). It is also pitched at finding and patching vulnerabilities on its own. Introductory pricing is $2/$10 per million input/output tokens, with 95% off cached input, rising later to $4/$20. For now access is limited to vetted cyber defenders; paid API and AI Ultra access is “coming soon”.

Google blog

Software

The EDG C++ front end is now open source

EDG’s front end has spent decades quietly parsing C++ inside other companies’ products, including several embedded toolchains and IntelliSense-style tooling. It went public on 30 September at github.com/edgcpp/compiler, with the C++ Alliance (Boost’s fiscal sponsor) as its new home. John Spicer stays as the main contact. All changes land in one public repo at once, so licensees no longer get early access.

edgcpp.org

Software

What TLA+ can and can’t check

Hillel Wayne lists the property types TLA+ can check (invariants, action properties, liveness, leads-to) and the ones it can’t express natively. Those include multi-step properties (“delete then undo restores the state”), reachability (“some behaviour wins the game”), and hyperproperties that compare runs, such as security or “low-power mode uses less energy”. Workarounds exist, he says, but they “are still hacks”. It’s a useful map if you model firmware state machines.

Computer Things (Hillel Wayne)

Practice

A maths app where the AI gets it wrong on purpose

In Lathoa, a robot called Errol works through a problem step by step and slips in one error. Kids aged 10–14 tap the wrong step and explain what went wrong, then see the correct working beside his. Difficulty goes from “Obvious” through “Sneaky” to “Expert”. Detective ranks are earned by catching mistakes, not by speed. The stated goal is to build healthy scepticism of AI answers. There’s a free tier of three cases a day.

Lathoa · Show HN

Maths & AI

A protocol for releasing maths that nobody understands yet

After surveying more than 600 mathematicians, AGMAI proposes two tracks. AI-assisted results that people understand follow the usual norms. Results nobody yet understands go to neutral repositories with the model and prompts disclosed, the proof formalised where possible, and the problem selection documented. AI labs then fund workshops and expository writing so humans can catch up. It also asks for broad access to models so maths doesn’t split into two tiers.

AGMAI

Music & Maths

Coltrane’s tone circle, made interactive

Tom Schroeder rebuilt John Coltrane’s hand-drawn chromatic circle as a rotating widget that highlights ii–V–I progressions, tritone substitutions and modes. It ends with Giant Steps: the augmented-triad symmetry behind moving through three keys a major third apart. It’s a nice pattern to have in your head the next time you’re reading jazz changes.

jtomschroeder.com

Game Design

Before pixels: modular industrial dashboards

Marcin Wichary’s photo essay looks at pre-screen control panels in German museums: air traffic control, metro monitoring, railway signalling and a power-station wall. They’re grids of reconfigurable modules with lamps, counters, switches, DIN type and Dymo labels. It’s a good reference if you want a balloon instrument cluster that looks built rather than drawn.

Unsung (Marcin Wichary)

Craft

Building “Miller’s Monster” out of paper

The great dirhombicosidodecahedron is the only uniform polyhedron with eight faces meeting at every vertex. It has 124 faces (24 pentagrams, 40 triangles and 60 squares) meeting at just 60 vertices. This build log goes from 42 A4 pages of nets to a 30 cm model, with photos of each stage.

Software3D

Astronomy

A forming planet caught stirring its own gas

ALMA has made the first direct image of the gas swirling around a planet still in formation. The planet, WISPIT 2b, is about 5 Jupiter masses and 57 AU from its young star, 430 light-years away. Its sibling WISPIT 2c has carved a cavity further in. Planet formation has mostly been studied in simulations; here the gas flowing towards and away from us is measured. The lead researcher is Myriam Benisty (MPIA), and the paper is in ApJ Letters.

Universe Today

Chess

“Witty Alien” beats Carlsen in a 4,400-player club showdown

In the first Chess.com Chess Club Showdown, nine esports-team clubs played a two-hour blitz arena, then a 50-board final. Streamer CM Volen Dyulgerov won after Carlsen blundered in a winning position. Carlsen won his final board for Team Liquid anyway, but 9z Globant took the final 53.5–45.5 thanks to stronger play on the lower boards.

Chess.com