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In this edition · 5
- Nvidia and Baker Lab Release RFD4-Proteina Open Protein Design AI
- Brain-Computer Interface Lets Unresponsive ICU Patients Control Sound
- Anthropic Launches Claude Duet, a Proactive AI Agent for Pro and Max
- Meta Q3 Earnings: Revenue Up 26% as $9.9B Legal Charge Hits Profit
- Agile Robots Unveils Agile ONE SN Humanoid Built on Nvidia GR00T
- The Lab
Nvidia and Baker Lab Release RFD4-Proteina Open Protein Design AI
What happened: Nvidia and the UW Institute for Protein Design released RFD4-Proteina, an open AI model that designs protein sequences and structures for drug discovery.
The details
- Nvidia and David Baker's Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington released RFD4-Proteina, an open protein design model, announced at GTC Berlin on October 21, 2026.
- The roughly 0.4-billion-parameter model generates protein sequences and all-atom 3D structures together and is released under a BSD 3-Clause license.
- Reported benchmark gains are computational only, and designs still need laboratory testing to confirm they work.
- The Bigger Picture
Brain-Computer Interface Lets Unresponsive ICU Patients Control Sound
What happened: A Columbia study in Brain shows a noninvasive EEG brain-computer interface let one in three unresponsive ICU patients control a tone using thought alone.
The details
- Columbia researchers tested a noninvasive EEG brain-computer interface on 41 clinically unresponsive ICU patients with acute brain injury.
- About one in three patients learned to raise or lower a beeping tone by imagining hand movements, including every patient with hidden consciousness detected by a separate test.
- The team calls the system a first step and plans to refine it so patients could signal needs such as pain or hunger.
- Tools & Models
Anthropic Launches Claude Duet, a Proactive AI Agent for Pro and Max
What happened: Anthropic's Claude Duet is a proactive AI agent built on Opus 5.5 that works in the background, now in research preview for US Claude Pro and Max subscribers.
The details
- Anthropic announced Claude Duet on October 21, 2026, a proactive AI agent built on Opus 5.5 that monitors connected apps and works in the background.
- Duet is a waitlisted research preview for US Pro and Max subscribers, with no separate charge during the preview and no Team, Enterprise or API access yet.
- The launch puts Anthropic in direct competition with Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots in the race for always-on personal AI agents.
- Finance & Money
Meta Q3 Earnings: Revenue Up 26% as $9.9B Legal Charge Hits Profit
What happened: Meta Q3 earnings: revenue rose 26% to $64.6 billion, but a $9.89 billion legal charge cut operating income 37% as AI capex guidance hit $135-145 billion.
The details
- Meta's third-quarter revenue rose 26% year over year to $64.6 billion, and its fourth-quarter outlook of $73 billion to $76 billion topped expectations.
- A $9.89 billion charge tied to a settlement with 52 state attorneys general cut operating income 37% to $13.0 billion.
- Meta narrowed 2026 capital spending guidance to $135 billion to $145 billion and said it will keep investing heavily in AI in 2027; the stock fell about 3% the next morning.
- The Bigger Picture
Agile Robots Unveils Agile ONE SN Humanoid Built on Nvidia GR00T
What happened: Agile Robots unveiled Agile ONE SN at Nvidia GTC Berlin, a 31-degree-of-freedom research humanoid on Isaac GR00T and Jetson Thor, due in early 2027.
The details
- Agile Robots introduced Agile ONE SN, a humanoid reference platform for researchers, at Nvidia GTC Berlin on October 21, 2026.
- The 1.40-meter, 40-kilogram robot has 31 degrees of freedom and runs Nvidia Isaac GR00T software on a Jetson Thor computer.
- Nvidia says the platform is scheduled for early 2027, with Stanford University and ETH Zurich among the institutions showing interest.