OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra is 'the most intelligent and aligned model in the world', the Apple Vision Pro was used for a successful surgery, and Google's new AI weather model uses live satellite data for higher-resolution forecasts

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2:06It's Friday, September 4th. And here's a quick look at some of the news happening in the sphere of tech this morning from Engage. A little under two months after releasing its last major model family to the public GPT-5.6 sole Terra and Luna, OpenAI is back with an entirely new one. GPT-6 Astra, what it claims is the most intelligent and aligned model in the world. Following the company's decision to slow frontier model development back in August, after one of its models hacked AI platform hugging face, it may also be the last major AI model it releases for a while. GPT-6 Astra excels at computer use and browsing. And handling tasks in the domains of software engineering, cybersecurity, science, and general professional work. At least that's according to OpenAI.

3:07A flashy demo video the company released alongside the launch shows Astra handling everything from 3D modeling to building slide shows. And often taking care of multiple tasks across different domains at the same time, like ordering food while coding a game. Key to Astra's appeal is its ability to handle these multi-step workflows on your computer and in and out of your browser. It's also allegedly able to do those complex tasks with strong visual judgment and without drifting from its original directions or prompt. Astra is now at the top of most leaderboards in terms of performance. That raises the larger question of whether the AI model can be used and deployed responsibly. For example, Astra is particularly skilled at cybersecurity. OpenAI says the model scored a perfect score on exploit bench, a benchmark for determining a model's ability to exploit software vulnerabilities,

4:09which was a big jump up from GPT 5.6 souls score of 78.5%. The company also tested Astra on SRE Bench, a benchmark that measures a model's ability to reverse engineer software binaries without raw source code, and found that Astra solved 88% of tasks in a single attempt and 99.2% within four attempts. For developers using the OpenAI API, Astra costs $10 per million input tokens, and $50 per million output tokens. That puts Astra on the expensive end of AI models, though OpenAI argues tokens might not be the best metric for businesses looking to buy access. Medical Technology Company Striker announced this week that its Apple Vision Pro app has been used in a milestone surgery. Its Sports Suite Vision app for the headset was part of a hip arthroscopy at Duke Health, marking the first time the software has been put into real-world practice.

5:14Striker said it received DeNovo authorization from the FDA for the software on July 17. Since Apple first introduced its mixed reality headset, there have been questions about what the device is actually intended for, and who it might be used by. The debut model was never going to reach a mainstream consumer audience, and neither was the beefier M5 version. But it has always seemed like the Vision Pro was pointing toward a very interesting hypothetical future, and was just kind of waiting for the right situation to come along. A complex surgery is a good example of what that right situation could be. The mixed reality experience means that a medical professional can interact with the real world and a real patient, while also easily seeing content or tools in the digital space. In the case of this inaugural Sports Suite Vision operation, it gave the surgeon access to strikers orthopedic surgery planning tools, arthroscopic images, and CT imaging while performing a hip arthroscopy.

6:16Considering the cost of the headset and the challenges of developing software for it, I don't expect to see your primary care physician wearing one at your physical anytime soon. And also does not bode well for the mainstream adoption of the device, considering that Apple laid off quite a significant portion of its Vision Pro team last month. But as far as useful scenarios of mixed reality headsets go, and this is the sort of creative application that could see the Vision Pro eventually reach, it's full potential. Google DeepMind has released the WeatherNext3, an updated version of its latest AI powered weather model that it claims offers even more detailed forecasts across key variables like temperature, moisture, and wind speed. DeepMind notes the new model should be particularly useful to companies working in renewable energy production because of its ability to forecast 100 meter wind speeds for precise wind energy output alongside high resolution cloud

7:17cover and sun radiation levels to help solar farms. WeatherNext3's ability to offer hourly and higher resolution forecasts is all due to the new data that it's trained on. Rather than primarily relying on data from numerical weather prediction models, which include a six hour lag, WeatherNext3 incorporates live satellite data, which gives the model a rich, continuously updating view of the atmosphere. The model's ingestion of sparse weather station data means it can also offer more detailed forecasts of variables like humidity, which can usually change dramatically from one mile to the next. Combining precipitation data from NASA and Google's own satellite analysis also means weather Next3 is better at predicting things like rain and snow. DeepMind says the model produces up to 50% more accurate precipitation forecasts, with the greatest improvements in regions where forecasts have historically been less reliable. WeatherNext3 will power weather experiences in Google

8:21Search, the Gemini app and Google Maps, along with the Google Maps Weather API and the Google Earth Engine. If you want to take the next step and build something with Google's model, the original WeatherNext model is also open source. Thanks for listening, there's a lot more tech news at Engagit.com, this episode featured journalism from Ian Carlos Campbell and Anna Washingo. Enjoy your weekend, I'll be back on Monday with more tech news from Engagit.