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Chinese Agentic Platform Manus Faces Doubts About Its Technological Capabilities

Chinese AI agentic platform Manus, which has generated much hype, is facing doubts about its technological capabilities. Significantly, few people could test the product after its surge in popularity owing to an apparent shortage of server capacity. Manus has gained attention for its claimed ability to handle complex tasks. Investors are hailing it as another breakthrough following the low-cost AI models from DeepSeek. The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus "the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried." AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the "most sophisticated computer using AI." In just a few days, the official Discord server for Manus grew to over 138,000 members. Manus wasn’t developed from scratch. The platform uses a combination of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen, to perform tasks such as drafting research reports and analyzing financial filings. On its website, Butterfly Effect — the Chinese startup behind Manus — gives a few wild examples of what the platform can accomplish, from buying real estate to programming video games. Also, this month, Manus announced a partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI models, a move that could bolster the AI start-up. Manus AI, which has offices in Beijing and Wuhan, has marketed its product by completing dozens of tasks for users on X for free. Its launch quickly went viral on Chinese social media, as many drew parallels with the Hangzhou-based chatbot DeepSeek. However, the AI agent remains accessible by invitation only, and the company's website struggles with increasing malfunctions, it admitted on X. excellent https://t.co/TfeV9QZ1d0 — jack (@jack) March 9, 2025 Manus AI is much crazier than Deepseek moment I just got invitation code, this thing is the craziest AI agent I've seen. 10 examples: 1. Clone Apple website It created a copy of Apple website that looks almost the same, with animations and all. (preview link in comment) pic.twitter.com/mcDnkeuuPO — el.cine (@EHuanglu) March 10, 2025 • Forbes: China’s Autonomous Agent, Manus, Changes Everything

Chinese Agentic Platform Manus Faces Doubts About Its Technological Capabilities
Johns Hopkins University Will Eliminate 2,000 Jobs After Losing $800 Million in Federal Funding

Johns Hopkins University Will Eliminate 2,000 Jobs After Losing $800 Million in Federal Funding

OpenAI Releases 'Responses API' to Help Businesses Build AI Agents

OpenAI Releases 'Responses API' to Help Businesses Build AI Agents

The Department of Education Fires 1,300 Workers, as a First Step to Shutting Down the Agency

The Department of Education Fires 1,300 Workers, as a First Step to Shutting Down the Agency

Amazon Unveiled Its New, Re-Architectured, AI-Powered 'Alexa+'

Amazon Unveiled Its New, Re-Architectured, AI-Powered 'Alexa+'

Aiming to catch up in generative AI for everyday users, Amazon will launch Alexa+ this month, its enhanced, re-architected AI virtual assistant, set to be "more conversational, helpful in booking concert tickets, coordinating calendars and suggesting food to be delivered." The e-commerce giant said that Alexa is undergoing its most significant overhaul since debuting in 2014, when it became a symbol of Amazon’s innovation. Alexa+ will cost $19.99 a month or free for Amazon’s Prime customers (which costs $14.99 monthly). It will begin rolling out next month. In recent years, Alexa has fallen behind other virtual assistants. Its growth has stagnated in the United States as people have been turning to the assistant for only a few main tasks, such as setting timers and alarms, playing music, and asking questions about the weather and sports scores. At a demo event, Amazon executives demonstrated how Alexa+ could identify who was speaking and know the person’s preferences, such as favorite sports teams, musicians, and foods. They also showed how a device powered by Alexa+ can suggest a restaurant, book a reservation on OpenTable, order an Uber, and send a calendar invitation. Bringing generative AI to Alexa faced challenges that a chatbot does not, such as serving multiple users in a household, needing to distinguish who is speaking, and personalizing the responses.

OpenAI Provides $50M in Compute, API Access, Tools, and Research Funds to Fifteen Universities

OpenAI Provides $50M in Compute, API Access, Tools, and Research Funds to Fifteen Universities

OpenAI announced yesterday that it is committing $50 million in research grants, computing funding, and API access to a consortium of 15 research universities called NextGenAI. The initiative follows the commercial offer of ChatGPT Edu for universities, launched in May 2024. The institutions in the NextGenAI consortium are Caltech, the California State University system, Duke University, the University of Georgia, Harvard University, Howard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Michigan, the University of Mississippi, the Ohio State University, the University of Oxford, Sciences Po, Texas A&M University, Boston Children’s Hospital, the Boston Public Library. OpenAI mentioned the following examples of universities using their tools and funding. The distribution of funds was not specified. "The Ohio State University is leveraging AI to accelerate the fields of digital health, advanced therapeutics, manufacturing, energy, mobility, and agriculture, while educators are using AI to create advanced learning models. Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital researchers use OpenAI tools and NextGenAI funding to reduce patients' time to find the correct diagnosis, especially for rare orphan diseases, and improve AI alignment with human values in medical decision-making. Duke University scientists are using AI to pioneer metascience research, identifying the fields of science where AI can have the greatest benefit. Texas A&M is using NextGenAI resources to fuel its Generative AI Literacy Initiative, providing hands-on training to enhance the responsible use of AI in academic settings. MIT students and faculty will be able to use OpenAI’s API and compute funding to train and fine-tune their own AI models and develop new applications. Howard will use AI to develop curricula, experiment with new teaching methods, improve university operations, and give students hands-on AI experience to prepare them as future leaders. University of Oxford is leveraging AI for a broad research agenda, education, and university operations—its renowned Bodleian Library is digitizing rare texts and using OpenAI’s API to transcribe them, making centuries-old knowledge newly searchable by scholars worldwide. University of Mississippi is exploring new ways to integrate AI into their core mission of education, research, and service, and to advance AI-driven solutions that benefit their students, faculty, and the broader community. Boston Public Library, America's first large free municipal public library, is digitizing public domain materials and using AI to make their information more accessible to patrons from all walks of life."

OpenAI Will Bring ChatGPT to 500,00 Students and Faculty at The California State University

OpenAI Will Bring ChatGPT to 500,00 Students and Faculty at The California State University

The Trump Administration Cancels $400 million In Grants and Contracts to Columbia University

The Trump Administration Cancels $400 million In Grants and Contracts to Columbia University

President Trump Will Dismantle Soon the U.S. Education Department

President Trump Will Dismantle Soon the U.S. Education Department

An AI Platform for Teaching American Sign Language (ASL) Helps Breaking Down Communication Barriers

An AI Platform for Teaching American Sign Language (ASL) Helps Breaking Down Communication Barriers

Nvidia unveiled an AI platform for teaching American Sign Language (ASL), the third most prevalent language in the country after English and Spanish. The goal is to break down communication barriers between the deaf and hearing communities. In the U.S., around 11 million people are deaf or have significant hearing loss. Developed in partnership with the American Society for Deaf Children and the creative agency Hello Monday, this interactive web platform, named Signs, supports ASL learning and the development of accessible AI applications. A 3D avatar demonstrates signs and uses an AI tool that analyzes webcam footage to receive real-time feedback on their signing. Users of any skill level can contribute by signing specific words to help build a video dataset for ASL. Nvidia aims to grow this dataset to 400,000 video clips representing 1,000 signed words, aiming to have a high-quality visual dictionary and teaching tool. Fluent ASL users and interpreters are participating to ensure the accuracy of each sign. This dataset, which is starting with initial set of 100 signs, will be used to further develop AI applications. It will be available to the public as a resource for building AI agents, digital applications and video conferencing tools. The dataset behind Signs is planned for release later this year. While Signs currently focuses on hand movements and finger positions for each sign, ASL also incorporates facial expressions and head movements to convey meaning. The Nvidia team behind Signs is exploring how these non-manual signals can be tracked and integrated into future platform versions. This team is also investigating how other nuances, like regional variations and slang terms, can be represented in Signs to enrich its ASL database — and working with researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research to evaluate and further improve the user experience of the Signs platform for deaf and hard-of-hearing users. “Improving ASL accessibility is an ongoing effort,” said Anders Jessen, founding partner of Hello Monday/DEPT, which built the Signs web platform and previously worked with the American Society for Deaf Children on Fingerspelling.xyz. This application taught users the ASL alphabet. “Signs can serve the need for advanced AI tools that help transcend communication barriers between the deaf and hearing communities.” • Start learning or contributing with Signs at signs-ai.com • Nvidia’s trustworthy AI initiatives. • Nvidia GTC, March 17-21 in San Jose, Signs live demo.

OpenAI Released GPT-4.5, Its Largest AI Model Yet

OpenAI Released GPT-4.5, Its Largest AI Model Yet

OpenAI announced the release of GPT‑4.5, its largest model to date, trained on Microsoft Azure AI supercomputers, as a research preview. Subscribers to ChatGPT Pro, OpenAI’s $200-a-month plan, can access the service now. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company was forced to stagger the rollout of its newest model, GPT-4.5, because OpenAI is "out of GPUs." GPT-4.5 is ready! good news: it is the first model that feels like talking to a thoughtful person to me. i have had several moments where i've sat back in my chair and been astonished at getting actually good advice from an AI. bad news: it is a giant, expensive model. we… — Sam Altman (@sama) February 27, 2025 The San Francisco-based research lab explained that GPT‑4.5 has "an improved ability to recognize patterns, draw connections, and generate creative insights without reasoning." "Early testing shows that interacting with GPT‑4.5 feels more natural. Its broader knowledge base, improved ability to follow user intent, and greater “EQ” make it useful for tasks like improving writing, programming, and solving practical problems. We also expect it to hallucinate less." Compared to OpenAI o1 and OpenAI o3‑mini, GPT‑4.5 is a more general-purpose, innately smarter model. OpenAI believes reasoning will be a core capability of future models and the two approaches to scaling—pre-training and reasoning—will complement each other. GPT-4.5 is wildly expensive to run, OpenAI says. The company is charging $75 per million tokens (~750,000 words) fed into the model and $150 per million tokens generated by the model. That’s 30x the input cost and 15x the output cost of OpenAI’s workhorse GPT-4o model. Compare that to GPT-4o, which costs just $2.50 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens.

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Today's Summary

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Education technology today is marked by rising AI adoption among educators and innovative personalized learning approaches.

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Today in AI & EdTech

Sunday, November 23, 2025

AI is transforming the education technology landscape as more teachers adopt intelligent tools, driving forward and adaptive learning experiences.

AI & EdTech Videos

OpenAI Launches Educational GPT Model

OpenAI Launches Educational GPT Model

Adaptive Learning Platforms Show 40% Improvement

Adaptive Learning Platforms Show 40% Improvement

Microsoft Education Copilot Beta Launch

Microsoft Education Copilot Beta Launch

Today in Education

U.S. Department of Education Announces New Funding for STEM Programs

The initiative aims to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

Global Education Summit Highlights Digital Learning Innovations

Leaders from around the world discuss the future of remote and hybrid learning models.

New Study Shows Benefits of Early Childhood Education

Research indicates significant long-term academic and social advantages for students.

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