Brief

Pivotal is launching its first Frontier Biodefense Fellowship, a nine-week fully funded program in London from August to October 2026. The fellowship aims to foster research and practical outputs in areas like AIxBio, biosecurity governance, and strategic response planning. Participants will receive mentorship from experts in biodefense and AI safety, with opportunities for extended project funding. AI

Researchers have developed a new algorithm called Transfer Aware Dijkstra (TAD) to improve pathfinding in public transit systems. This algorithm correctly accounts for buffer times at stops, which is crucial for transferring passengers. Experiments on London and Switzerland networks demonstrated that TAD achieves over a two-time speed-up compared to existing methods while ensuring optimal routing results. AI

Samsung is hosting a Moomin-themed pop-up event at its Samsung KX venue in London, featuring interactive digital art workshops and Moomin artwork displayed on Samsung Frame TVs. This event coincides with the release of 60 curated Moomin artworks on the Samsung Art Store, accessible globally to owners of Samsung Art TVs. The pop-up also offers Moomin merchandise, bubble tea, and themed cafe spaces, with a smaller version of the collection available at Selfridges. AI

ZDNet has awarded its latest Lab Award to a VPN service, recognizing it as the best option for travelers. The award was based on tests conducted in major cities including New York, London, and Tokyo, where the VPN demonstrated the fastest download speeds among popular services. AI

A technical comparison details the challenges and solutions encountered when running dbt and SQLMesh simultaneously on a self-hosted lakehouse environment. The author outlines a specific stack including PostgreSQL, SeaweedFS, Nessie, Trino, and Dremio, highlighting hardware constraints. A key blocker was Trino's inability to create views with native Nessie catalogs, which was overcome by utilizing Nessie's Iceberg REST catalog endpoint. AI