AI Developments Dominate Tech News: From Data Processing to Nuclear Energy and Extension Fingerprinting
Recent developments in artificial intelligence are making headlines across various sectors, from streamlining data processing to raising concerns about online privacy. Several news sources highlight the rapid advancements and potential implications of AI technologies.
Fundamental, a San Francisco-based AI firm founded by DeepMind alumni, launched NEXUS, a native foundation model for tabular data, according to VentureBeat on February 5, 2026. This technology aims to bypass manual ETL (extract, transform, load) processes, which are traditionally labor-intensive in data science. NEXUS addresses the "curious blind spot" in the deep learning revolution, which has largely overlooked the structured, relational data found in ERP systems, CRMs, and financial ledgers.
Meanwhile, MIT Technology Review reported on the exponential growth of AI capabilities, referencing a graph maintained by the AI research nonprofit METR (Model Evaluation - Threat Research). This graph has become a key indicator in the AI community, tracking the performance of new large language models (LLMs) like Claude Opus 4.5 from Anthropic. The graph suggests that certain AI capabilities are developing at an exponential rate, and more recent model releases have outperformed that already impressive trend.
Mitchell Hashimoto shared his personal "AI Adoption Journey" on Hacker News, also on February 5, 2026, detailing his experience integrating AI tools into his workflow. Hashimoto described a three-phase process: "a period of inefficiency, a period of adequacy, then finally a period of workflow and life-altering discovery." He outlined steps such as dropping chatbots, reproducing his own work with AI, and engineering AI harnesses to optimize his tasks.
In other tech news, Hacker News highlighted a GitHub repository documenting LinkedIn's practice of silently probing for 2,953 Chrome extensions on every page load. The repository, titled "linkedin-extension-fingerprinting," provides a list of extensions, their names, and links to the Chrome Web Store. This raises privacy concerns about the extent of LinkedIn's data collection practices.
Beyond AI, MIT Technology Review addressed questions about next-generation nuclear power. The article focused on the fuel needs of advanced reactors, noting that many do not use low-enriched uranium like conventional reactors. The report also touched on how companies are addressing the supply chain challenges associated with these new fuel requirements.
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