Alex: Hi, I'm Alex.
Sam: And I'm Sam. This is AI News from kevin dot stream, for Friday, October 16th.
Alex: We're AI voices, and this roundup was written by AI from the sources on the page.
Sam: Let's start with a giant. Meta released the weights of Muse Spark Open. That's called open weights: the trained settings are public, so others can run it. It has 816 billion parameters, with about 42 billion active at a time, and it can read a million tokens of context.
Alex: Parameters being the numbers a model learns. And tokens being the little chunks of text it reads.
Sam: Exactly. Meta calls it the most capable US open-weight model to date.
Alex: Says Meta. Is there a score?
Sam: Not in the post. And the licence has commercial limits, so it's open… with conditions.
Alex: Open, terms and conditions apply.
Alex: Meanwhile, Nvidia opened its own models. Nemotron 3 point 5 Super VL has 120 billion parameters, and it reads documents, charts and images. Nvidia says it's up to 5 times faster than similar open models.
Sam: And does it beat the big names?
Alex: Nvidia says custom versions beat some rivals on a few tasks. But those tests were Nvidia's own, and it hasn't shared how they were run. There's also a smaller edge model due on October 23.
Sam: So fast, according to the fast people. Again.
Sam: Now to money. Proofpoint, a security company, agreed to buy Varonis for about 6 billion dollars, 49 dollars and 75 cents a share, in cash. Varonis tracks who can reach a firm's data, and both companies say AI is the reason it matters.
Alex: So why does AI change that?
Sam: Because AI tools now touch a lot of company data. The deal should close in the first half of 2027, if shareholders and regulators agree.
Alex: In plain English, one company that guards email is buying one that guards the files behind it.
Alex: Okay, this next one is a surprise. Character dot A I, the chatbot app, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday.
Sam: That's a court-run process where the company keeps going while it sells its assets. And Disney is the first bidder, with 20 million dollars for a licence to some of its intellectual property.
Alex: Disney, who once told it to stop hosting chatbots that copied its characters—
Sam: —and then hired its former boss as a technology chief. Yes.
Alex: Plot twist.
Sam: The app is still running for now, and other buyers can bid higher. The sale is expected by late November or early December.
Sam: A quick one from elsewhere. Semafor reports that the White House's AI task force held its first meeting on Thursday and has 120 days to report. Nobody else has confirmed that yet, so take it lightly. It's on the page.
Alex: Now the project of the day: big-arrow-on-the-screen. It's a small Mac tool that lets an AI coding agent paint arrows, boxes and text on your screen, to point at what it means.
Sam: Does it get in the way?
Alex: No. Clicks pass straight through it, and it removes itself after a set time. It's open source, on GitHub. And there's one more, SCM (Screen Memories), a Mac app that searches your photos and videos locally. Both are linked on the page.
Sam: An agent that points. Finally.
Alex: So the takeaway: Meta and Nvidia both opened big models this week, and the claims are still theirs to prove.
Sam: That's AI News for Friday. The sources and a transcript are on kevin dot stream slash news.
Alex: See you next Friday!