Google DeepMind's AI Proves Signal's Locks Hold, Voyager 1 Nears One Light-Day From Home, and Robot Boats for the Marines

Anthropic brings Claude into spreadsheets, video calls and team whiteboards

Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI, showed new work tools at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Engadget reports. Claude Sheets lets Claude build and edit spreadsheets with several tabs and formulas, the math rules inside cells, keeps track of every change it makes, and saves files for Excel; it is in beta, an early test version, for paying users on the web, computers and phones. Claude Meetings is an agent, an AI that carries out tasks on its own, that joins Google Meet video calls, takes notes and follows up on to-do items. It is only for business plans, tells everyone in the meeting chat that it is there, and stays out of calls with outside guests unless a company allows it. Claude Whiteboards sorts a team's ideas by theme and drafts a to-do list for each person. Claude Dashboards gets a new name, Claude Data, and full apps from Adobe, Atlassian and HubSpot can now open inside Claude. Anthropic did not share prices.

Disclosure: Singularity Nightly is drafted with help from Anthropic's Claude. We cover Anthropic like any other company.

Kratos signs up to launch rockets from a platform at sea

Kratos, a defense company that builds drones and test rockets, signed a long-term agreement on Tuesday to use the first Gateway platform from Seagate Space of St. Petersburg, Florida. Gateway is an offshore launch platformA ship or floating pad that launches rockets at sea, away from crowded launch sites on land. In the Glossary, a floating pad that can sailA European and UK risk score for drone flights, from I to VI. A higher number means the operator proved more safety measures. In the Glossary out to open ocean and launch rockets there. Seagate signed its first contract to build one at the same time. Kratos plans its first mission from the platform in 2027, starting with hypersonicFaster than five times the speed of sound, roughly 6,100 kilometers (3,800 miles) an hour, the speed of a new class of missiles and test aircraft. In the Glossary test vehicles, which fly more than five times the speed of sound, and targets the military uses for practice. Neither company shared the price or length of the deal. Kratos CEO Eric DeMarco said the sea gives "flexibility, responsiveness, and operational choice." Seagate has also announced partners including Aurex, SatNews reports.

Voyager 1 is about to be one light-day from home

NASA's Voyager 1, launched in 1977, will be about 16 billion miles from Earth on Wednesday, Nov. 18, NASA says. That is one light-dayThe distance light travels in one day, about 16 billion miles. In the Glossary, the distance light travels in 24 hours, so a radio message sent to Voyager now takes a whole day to get there and another day for the answer to come back. NASA calls it "the most distant human-made object." Voyager 1 left the bubble of the Sun's wind and entered interstellar spaceThe space between the stars, outside the bubble of particles blown out by the Sun. In the Glossary, the space between the stars, in 2012, and it still sends back science. NASA invites everyone to "Shine Bright for Voyager's Light-Day" after sunset on Tuesday, Nov. 17, by flashing a phone light to spell VGR in Morse codeA code that spells letters with short and long signals, such as beeps or flashes of light. In the Glossary, a code of short and long flashes. A panel from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory streams on nasa.gov/live at 12:00 PM ET on Thursday, Nov. 19.

Amazon's delivery drones get approval to serve a whole English town

The UK Civil Aviation Authority gave Amazon's Prime Air a SAIL 4 approval, Amazon says, the first in the country. SAIL is a safety score for drone flights, from I to VI, and a higher number means the company had to prove more safety steps. Starting Tuesday, about 8,000 homes within 7.5 miles of Amazon's Darlington warehouse in northeast England can get deliveries, up from about 600, ITV reports. The MK30 drone, which has six motors, carries items up to 5 pounds and drops them off in under two hours, at no extra cost for Prime members. Theunis Scheepers of Prime Air Europe said "Earning it took years of disciplined engineering." In July an MK30 came down in a garden in Darlington; no one was hurt, and investigators opened an inquiry.

The FDA authorizes a two-armed robot that removes bladder tumors in one piece

Virtuoso Surgical of Nashville received De Novo authorization from the FDA on Tuesday for its Virtuoso EndoscopyA thin tube with a light and camera that doctors pass into the body to look and operate. In the Glossary System. De NovoThe FDA path for a new kind of low to moderate risk medical device with nothing like it already on the market. In the Glossary is the FDA's path for a brand new kind of device with nothing like it already on the market. Today, bladder tumors are usually scraped out in small pieces through a thin tube called an endoscope. Virtuoso puts two arms, each about as thin as a needle and made of bendy metal tubes, at the tip of the tube: one lifts the tumor while the other cuts underneath, so it comes out whole, Urology Times reports. In the first 20 patients of a study, the bladder wall muscle doctors need to see was present in 94% of removed tumors, against about 70% with the usual surgery, and there were no problems during surgery. CEO Duke Herrell said removing a tumor in one piece "supports clearer diagnosis and staging." Leading U.S. urology centers get it first, in 2027.

The Pentagon picks three companies to build half-sunk robot boats that resupply Marines

The Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon office that brings in new technology from companies, said Monday evening it gave three prototype contractsA deal to build test versions of something before any big order. In the Glossary, deals to build test versions, for its Autonomous Low Profile VesselA boat that rides almost level with the water, so it is hard to see or spot on radar. In the Glossary project, Defense Daily reports. The winners are Saronic Technologies, Sea Machines Robotics and Rudder Industries, a first-time Pentagon partner, Ocean News reports. A low-profile vessel rides almost level with the water, so it is hard to see or spot on radar, and these boats drive themselves. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and the Navy's small boat engineers are partners. The dollar amounts were not shared. DIU said the goal is "rapid prototyping and fielding at scale." Marines tested one of the boats at Camp Pendleton in January.

Congress pushes to add new limits on AI chip sales to China to the defense bill

Leaders in both parties are pushing to put three chipA tiny slice of material, usually silicon, carved with billions of switches that let a device compute and store information. Chips run everything from phones to AI data centers. In the Glossary bills into the final version of the National Defense Authorization ActThe yearly law that sets Pentagon policy and spending limits. In the Glossary, the yearly law that sets Pentagon policy, 24/7 Wall St. reports. The AI Overwatch Act would let Congress review licenses to sell advanced AI chips to China and other countries of concern. The Chip Security Act would make companies keep track of where their AI chips end up abroad. The MATCH Act would push allies to limit sales of chipmaking tools to China. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries "strongly supports" the Senate's chip language and said there are "real concerns that need to be addressed," Reuters reports. The push follows reports, from unnamed U.S. officials, that Nvidia's CEO was the target of a foreign spying effort; China called the claims "entirely groundless," Al Jazeera reports. House committee chairs asked Nvidia's Jensen Huang to say by Wednesday whether he will attend a closed briefing on Nov. 18. None of these measures is law yet.

Big banks put $270 million behind their own dollar stablecoin

Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other banks have committed about $270 million to Project Faro, enough to run it for five years, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, according to CoinDesk. A stablecoinA digital token designed to stay worth a fixed amount, usually one U.S. dollar, backed by cash and safe assets such as Treasury bills. In the Glossary is a digital token meant to always be worth one dollar, backed by cash and short-term government debt. Faro plans a U.S. company to issue a dollar stablecoin, and later tokensA small piece of a word that an AI model reads or writes. A model's memory, or context, is measured in tokens. In the Glossary for other big currencies, starting with the euro. The group has 21 members, including Santander, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and FidelityIn quantum computing, a score from 0 to 1 for how close a result is to the perfect one. In the Glossary, and aims to launch in the first half of 2027, Unchained reports. Today two private coins, Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC, hold about 84% of a stablecoin market of about $293 billion. The banks did not comment. Not investment advice.

Path Robotics raises $300 million to move welding robots toward running whole factories

Path Robotics of Columbus, Ohio, raised $300 million on Tuesday, valuing it at $2.45 billion. Path makes robots that weld, joining metal parts with heat, and trains them with Obsidian, what it calls a physical AIAI that controls machines in the real world, such as robots, rather than only making text or pictures. In the Glossary model, an AI that learns to control machines in the real world, built from real welding data. In May it launched Rove, a welder that rides on a four-legged robot so it can walk to the job. Its yearly subscription revenue grew 17 times in 18 months, and in August it signed a $600 million deal with HII, a shipbuilder, to help build Navy ships. The money will go to new jobs beyond welding, new kinds of robots and computer power to train its AI. CEO Andy Lonsberry said "Our goal isn't to automate one step, but to automate the entire factory." Not investment advice.