Hacker News [expanded by feedex.net]

Muse Spark 1.3

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:35:04 +0000

Muse Spark 1.3 is trained for agentic workflows and optimized for competitive coding performance. Developers can expect higher first-attempt accuracy and reliable tool calling.

Meet Muse Spark 1.3

Trained for long-horizon, agentic workflows

Muse Spark 1.3 tracks context and prior results, works through messy or conflicting inputs, and asks for input when needed.

Competitive coding performance

Tuned for long-horizon coding workflows, with fewer unnecessary turns and cleaner output. Whether you’re building coding agents or using AI as a development partner, it performs competitively with frontier models across several coding evals.

Native multimodal perception

Muse Spark perceives video, images and documents, and its visual reasoning runs through a real execution environment instead of scripted steps. Feed it a screenshot or a clip and let it build.

Muse Spark

Introducing Muse Spark 1.3

Introducing Muse Spark 1.3, with max reasoning for challenging reasoning and agentic tasks and improved real-world usability.

Muse Spark 1.3 benchmarks

GET STARTED

More ways to build.

Models and pricing

Model

Context window

Input (Mtok)

Cached input (Mtok)

Output (Mtok)

muse-spark-1.3-contributorUsed to improve our products.

muse-spark-1.3Not used to improve our products.

Cookbooks and quickstarts

Read documentation

[ comments ]

Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:12:40 +0000

[ comments ]

Our newest Gemini models deliver next-generation intelligence for agentic workflows and cybersecurity.

Building on the momentum of 3.7 Flash from three weeks ago and marking our third Flash release in only six weeks, today we’re introducing Gemini 3.8, our best reasoning & coding model yet, at the same speed and low cost of 3.7. Gemini 3.8 introduces 2 variants:

Gemini 3.8 Flash: our most intelligent workhorse model, delivering significant improvements from 3.7 Flash across software engineering, agentic tasks, and critical, multi-step reasoning in specialized domains. It is available at the same introductory price as 3.7 Flash at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens.
Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber: our most capable cybersecurity model with frontier-level performance in vulnerability detection and automated patching, available to trusted defenders through our new Fairwind Program.

While tailored for different deployment environments, both of today's releases are powered by the same foundational intelligence, and further accelerated by long-running agentic loops designed to recursively evaluate and refine the underlying models. The significant coding and reasoning gains across this shared core were driven by a number of innovations, including rigorous training in the highly demanding domain of cybersecurity.

Gemini 3.8 Flash: built for long-horizon coding and autonomous agents

Gemini 3.8 Flash delivers substantial gains from 3.7 Flash, often approaching the performance of higher-cost frontier models.

On DeepSWE v1.1 (Long-Horizon Software Engineering) 3.8 Flash outperforms most larger frontier models in autonomously solving complex engineering problems end to end, only at a fraction of the cost.

Additionally, 3.8 Flash exhibits the dependability required for critical enterprise autonomy, across specialized knowledge domains. In quantitative and professional fields that require advanced analysis and reporting, 3.8 Flash outperforms 3.7 Flash and other frontier models in benchmarks like Vals Finance Agent V2 and Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark. 3.8 Flash also achieves a 54.9% on HLE-Verified, demonstrating its ability to handle multi-step reasoning across STEM, humanities, and professional fields.

These performance gains stem from a core design choice: 3.8 Flash works harder. On complex tasks, it exhibits greater diligence — executing extra reasoning steps, and calling tools iteratively. At times, the model might use more tokens to maximize performance, especially at higher effort levels.

For applications where compute efficiency is the primary constraint, developers can utilize lower effort levels to minimize token overhead or continue to rely on Gemini 3.7 Flash, which remains fully supported for efficiency-first workloads.

Gemini 3.8 Flash built this game with a simple prompt using a looping instruction in Google Antigravity. The game uses puzzles, environmental storytelling, and textures generated with Nano Banana to create an immersive 3D level in which you play a wizard navigating a castle.

Gemini 3.8 Flash builds a fully functional DOS version of Google Maps in a single prompt in Google Antigravity that is fully playable with locations, directions, and Street View.

Explore realtime cross-sections, 2D projections, scientific explanations in a topographic map of famous geographical sites built with Gemini 3.8 Flash in Google Antigravity using real datasets from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Hardware Anatomy is an interactive 3D visualizer built with Gemini 3.8 Flash in Google AI Studio that generates realistic Three.js renderings of physically-proportioned teardowns for hardware devices. It automatically decomposes devices into layers you can explode and inspect with a deconstruction slider.

Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber: expert cyber performance

Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber, available to a set of trusted defenders via the Fairwind Program, provides a decisive advantage in today’s complex cybersecurity landscape, with the Flash speed and cost that enables quick iteration.

Autonomous vulnerability discovery

On the standard industry benchmark for finding vulnerabilities, CyberGym, Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber demonstrates frontier-level performance in autonomous vulnerability discovery. It surpasses both 3.5 Flash Cyber as well as significantly larger frontier models.

To better capture real-world defensive needs which are not limited to just C/C++ codebases like in CyberGym, we also evaluated Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber against a comprehensive internal benchmark in which the model has to discover a wide range of vulnerabilities across complex codebases spanning 20 programming languages. Here, the model showcases an impressive leap over our previous models and reaches a success rate exceeding 70%.

Automated patching

With Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber, we focused specifically on equipping defenders with expert capabilities that give them an advantage over attackers. This is why we have invested in vulnerability fixing from the start, and prioritized it over offensive capabilities like exploitation.

CWE-Bench, run by Collinear, is a challenging external benchmark for patching capabilities. On this benchmark, Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber is on the Pareto frontier: with a pass@1 of 47.2% compared to a leading frontier model at 47.8%, yet offered at a significantly lower cost.

Real-world impact: securing Google’s code

We’re already using Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber to secure code across Google. For example:

The Chrome Security team found that 3.8 Flash Cyber produced 2.6 times more correct patches to vulnerabilities in Chrome than the best commercial models that are much larger.
Wiz found that Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber achieves +7.5-9.7% higher recall on their internal penetration testing benchmark for a 2.3-5.2x lower cost compared to other leading frontier models.
Google’s Cloud Vulnerability Research team leveraged the 3.8 Flash Cyber model to find a critical foundational vulnerability in less than 2 hours, a vulnerability for which research and discovery usually takes months.

What our Fairwind Program partners are saying

Built with safety in mind

3.8 Flash ships with safeguards against misuse in the domains of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) and cyber offense, while enabling beneficial use cases, as per our Frontier Safety Framework. 3.8 Flash Cyber ships with a more permissive set of mitigations for cybersecurity, and as such, is only available to trusted defenders who require a more comprehensive set of cyber capabilities.

Gemini 3.8 models have also made a significant leap in prompt injection robustness as measured by Gray Swan, protecting Gemini model users from prompt-injection related malicious attacks.

Gemini 3.8 Flash and Cyber: get started today

Developers: Build with 3.8 Flash and explore agent-first workflows in Google Antigravity or start building today in the Gemini API via Google AI Studio and Android Studio, or generate UIs in Stitch. Get started with our developer docs.
Enterprises: Access 3.8 Flash in Gemini Enterprise.
Consumers: 3.8 Flash is available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers across the Gemini app, AI Mode in Google Search and Gemini in Google Sheets.
Cyber: Through our new Fairwind Program, we’re providing trusted government authorities, as well as critical infrastructure operators and software maintainers with prioritized access to Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber. Apply for access.

[ comments ]

Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:46:16 +0000

Comments

Holden's Lightning Flight

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:29:44 +0000

[ comments ]

Unintended aircraft takeoff

Holden's Lightning flight
Incident
22 July 1966
Unqualified person takes off after engaging afterburner by mistake during ground test
Aircraft
Occupants	1
Crew	1
Fatalities	0
Survivors	1

On 22 July 1966, Walter "Taffy" Holden, a 39-year-old engineer in command of No. 33 Maintenance Unit RAF with limited experience flying small single-engine trainer aircraft, inadvertently engaged the afterburner of a Mach 2.0–capable English Electric Lightning during ground testing at RAF Lyneham. Unable to disengage the afterburner, Holden ran down the runway, narrowly missing a crossing fuel bowser and a de Havilland Comet taking off, before taking off himself. Flying without a helmet or canopy, the ejection seat disabled, and the landing gear locked down, Holden aborted his first two landing attempts. He landed on his third approach, striking the runway with the aircraft's tail as he adopted the landing technique of a taildragger aircraft. The aircraft returned to service, and was subsequently acquired by the Imperial War Museum Duxford.

The English Electric Lightning was a high-performance short-range interceptor aircraft. The Lightning had a max takeoff weight of 20 tons, and could reach Mach 2.0.^[1] The aircraft involved in the incident was the second production Lightning, designated XM135.^[2] XM135 was suffering from an electrical fault that would only manifest during acceleration for takeoff;^[3] the electrical inverter supplying power to flight instruments would cut out during the first yards of the takeoff, and the standby inverter would switch in.^[4]

A de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk similar to that in which Holden had some practice flights

Wing Commander Walter "Taffy" Holden enlisted in 1943, gaining a cadetship to a university. Studying mechanical engineering, Holden also learnt to fly on the de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane. Holden pursued an engineering career with the RAF who qualified him with pilot wings after training on the Harvard. He subsequently practised on the de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk during his early career.^[4]

In 1966, Holden was in command of No. 33 Maintenance Unit RAF at RAF Lyneham who maintained Gloster Meteors, English Electric Canberras, and English Electric Lightnings. At the time, the unit was in the process of winding down and was disposing of its last aircraft. The unit had a test pilot on staff for its Canberras and Meteors, but that pilot was not qualified for the Lightning. For Lightning flights, Holden had to locate RAF test pilots with a current rating who could usually be found within 24 to 36 hours.^[1]^[4]^[5]

The troubles with aircraft XM135 were holding up the closure of the unit, and at the time of the incident, no test pilot was available for another week. A pilot from RAF Boscombe Down, who was involved in previous tests, suggested Holden perform the test himself because it involved only ground taxiing for 30 to 40 yards at a time. For each test, Holden was to test a different electrical configuration, rev up the engine to high RPMs, then cut the engine and apply the brakes. Holden was to communicate by hand signals with his support crew on a Land Rover, which would coordinate the next test with the control tower.^[1]^[4]^[5]

Holden was not wearing a helmet and had no radio. The canopy of the aircraft was removed for the electrical wires running out of the cockpit.^[5] The landing gear was locked in a down position in a test mode.^[1]

Lightning with afterburners engaged

After the Lightning was in position, Holden carried out the first test as expected, moving the aeroplane 30–40 yards (27–37m).^[1] However, in a subsequent test, Holden unintentionally pushed the throttle past the afterburner gate. Once the afterburner was engaged, disengaging it required pushing the gate keys behind the throttle, which Holden was inexperienced in operating. The Lightning gained speed quickly and just missed a fuel tanker that was crossing the runway in front of Holden. The Lightning crossed the main runway as a mid-takeoff de Havilland Comet passed over the Lightning. Holden was then running out of runway, so he pulled the stick back and took off.^[4]^[5]

Following takeoff, Holden managed to disengage the afterburner after feeling for the gate keys. Holden considered ejecting; however, that was not possible because the ejection seat was in inert ground mode.^[1] On his first two landing attempts, his speed and height were wrong and Holden aborted both.^[3] Holden, who vaguely recalled that the landing speed for the Lightning was 150 knots, took a wide circuit around Lyneham and attempted to land in the opposite direction of the runway, running away from the village.^[4] In Holden's final flare, he adopted the attitude used in a taildragger aircraft of his earlier training. This resulted in a tailstrike, the rubber tail bumper of the Lightning hitting the concrete, breaking, and detaching the cable of the drogue parachute used for assisting braking. Braking hard, Holden managed to bring the Lightning to a stop about one hundred yards before the end of the runway.^[3] Holden was airborne for 12 minutes.^[5]

XM135 at Imperial War Museum Duxford

The aircraft was repaired and returned to service.^[5] The electrical fault was determined to be caused by wires left in place from a deleted ground test button for the standby inverter, which shorted into the UHF radio which moved on its trunnions during the takeoff run.^[4] After flying for 1343 hours,^[6] XM135 was acquired in 1974 by the Imperial War Museum Duxford, where it is on display.^[2]

The inadvertent flight was impossible to hide from the press since the base was filled with civilian contractors. Holden was sent to Italy on leave when the news broke; however, he was recognised there as well.^[1] An inquiry confirmed that Holden had not acted against any orders in the Flight Order Book (though these orders were subsequently amended) and that Holden had saved himself and the aircraft.^[1]^[4] According to Holden, in a review before Air Marshal Kenneth Porter, he was asked whether he agreed that "With the limited flying experience I had, the test would have been better left to an experienced and current Lightning test pilot", which he answered in the affirmative, following which Porter related some of his own unfortunate flying incidents.^[4] Holden remained in RAF service and retired in the late 1970s / early 1980s.^[1]

Holden died in 2016, aged 90.^[2]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Pilot by accident: The mechanic that took off in the world's strongest aircraft (Hebrew), Calcalist, Nitzan Sadan, 5 April 2019
"English Electric Lightning Mk I". London: Imperial War Museum.
Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World, James Hamilton-Paterson, pages 223-5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A Memorable Fright Archived 19 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Walter Holden, The Wheel, reprint of The Haltonian
1 2 3 4 5 6 English Electric/BAC Lightning Mks 1-6, Kev Darling, pp. 56–57
↑ Aircraft Illustrated Annual, I. Allan, 1980, p. 18

BBC Radio interview of Walter Holden by John Dunn

Accidents and incidents in Crown Dependencies and current Overseas Territories are marked with an asterisk (*).
1950–1959 ◄ 1960–1969 ► 1970–1979

[ comments ]

Uber shuts operations in Nigeria and Uganda with immediate effect

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 21:46:33 +0000

[ comments ]

5 hours ago

Makuochi OkaforBBC Africa, Lagos

Getty Images

On the African continent, Uber now only operates in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa

Uber has announced it is closing its operations in Nigeria - Africa's most populous country - and the East African nation of Uganda with immediate effect

The global ride-hailing giant said it had come to the "difficult decision" after a thorough review of its business. It began operating in Nigeria in 2014 and in Uganda two years later.

Uber taxi drivers in Nigeria have long complained that prices on the app are too low, given the rising cost of fuel, and that commission charges are too high. The company has also faced pressure from rival platforms.

The announcement came as Uber's chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said the company was cutting its global workforce by 10%.

Over the last year, Uber has also pulled out of Ivory Coast and Tanzania. The latest announcement means Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa are the only African countries in which the firm now operates.

"This decision is limited strictly to these two markets and does not impact our operations across the rest of the continent," Uber's statement to the BBC said.

"We remain committed to sub-Saharan Africa, where we continue to see strong growth and opportunity."

Over its 12 years operating in Nigeria, Uber had expanded its services. In the commercial hub of Lagos, it launched a boat service in 2019 in an effort to help commuters bypass the city's notorious congestion.

Lagos, one of Africa's largest and busiest cities, is infamous for its long traffic jams that cause gridlock and hamper business activity.

Other ride-hailing taxi apps have launched in the West African nation over the last decade, including international competitors such as Bolt and inDrive, as well as a number of local operators.

But the Nigerian market has become increasingly challenging for them all, with drivers staging protests and industrial action in recent years over rising operating costs, low fares and working conditions.

The removal of Nigeria's fuel subsidy after President Bola Tinubu's election in 2023 saw the cost of living rise. The subsidy had kept down the price of petroleum products low for decades.

This year, motorists have been hit again by the rise in petrol prices following the US's war with Iran.

Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper said Uber's departure would mean a major change for commuters in the capital, Kampala. But it said the void was likely to be filled by other taxi apps such as Faras, Bolt and SafeBoda.

Uber pledged to support employees and drivers affected by the decision and said its help centre would remain open for those in Nigeria and Uganda until 23 September to deal with outstanding issues.

You may also be interested in:

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

[ comments ]

Hacker News [expanded by feedex.net]

Muse Spark 1.3

Meet Muse Spark 1.3

Introducing Muse Spark 1.3

Muse Spark 1.3 benchmarks

More ways to build.

Models and pricing

Cookbooks and quickstarts

Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

Gemini 3.8 Flash: built for long-horizon coding and autonomous agents

Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber: expert cyber performance

Autonomous vulnerability discovery

Automated patching

Real-world impact: securing Google’s code

What our Fairwind Program partners are saying

Built with safety in mind

Gemini 3.8 Flash and Cyber: get started today

Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

Holden's Lightning Flight

Uber shuts operations in Nigeria and Uganda with immediate effect

You may also be interested in:

Uber launches UK's first robotaxis with a driver - here's what it's like to ride in one

Uber to cut over 3,000 jobs in major global restructuring

'I have fired 40 of my agents for being corrupt', says Nigeria's anti-corruption chief

Neighbours angry at shop's 24/7 delivery noise

Nigeria names interim football leadership amid governance concerns