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Air-powered robotic makes use of physics for motion with out electronics

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Though soft-bodied robots themselves will be pretty easy, low-cost units, they usually require advanced onboard electronics to regulate their locomotion. Such shouldn’t be the case with a brand new bot, nevertheless, which makes use of a phenomenon of physics to routinely transfer its inflatable legs.

Designed by Alberto Comoretto, Mannus Schomaker and Bas Overvelde on the Netherlands’ AMOLF institute, the tiny robotic has been in-built each two- and four-legged variants. In each circumstances, every leg consists of a loop of elastomer tubing with a kink in it.

As air is easily and repeatedly pumped into that leg, the kink strikes down the size of the tube, inflicting it to oscillate. It is the identical precept which is at work within the gyrating inflatable “tube dancers” used to advertise companies.

This gentle robotic “thinks” with its legs: bodily synchronization of self-oscillating limbs

When the robotic’s legs are initially activated, they transfer chaotically.

Inside milliseconds, nevertheless, as they work together with each other and with the terrain, they routinely all begin transferring in unison. The bot is then able to scooting at speeds of as much as 30 physique lengths per second (on flat surfaces), which is way quicker than another air-powered robotic.

A small step for a robot, a giant step for robotkind
A small step for a robotic, an enormous step for robotkind

AMOLF

If the robotic breaks its stride upon stumbling on an impediment or uneven terrain, its legs get again into sync as quickly because it picks up pace once more. And much more impressively, because of the bodily properties of liquid, the buoyant bot routinely adopts a back-and-forth alternating-leg swimming gait when it enters the water.

“Easy objects, like tubes, can provide rise to advanced and useful habits, supplied we perceive learn how to harness the underlying physics,” says Assoc. Prof. Overvelde. “There is no such thing as a mind, no pc … However when correctly designed, it might outperform many robotic techniques and behave like a synthetic creature.”

It’s hoped that the know-how may sooner or later be utilized in functions reminiscent of micro-robots that ship medicine throughout the physique, energy-efficient assistive exoskeletons, or equipment designed to be used in harsh environments the place electronics could fail, reminiscent of outer house.

A paper on the research was just lately printed within the journal Science.

Supply: AMOLF



Riverbed bolsters community acceleration for AI’s efficiency bottlenecks



“Enterprises are anxious about dangerous actors capturing encrypted visitors and saving copies for when quantum computing advances can break the encryption, offering the dangerous actors with free entry to information. It’s an actual concern,” Frey explains. “Put up-quantum cryptography is a solution to get forward of that now.”

Riverbed additionally launched the SteelHead 90 collection of community acceleration home equipment, which the corporate says will present resilient community efficiency to clients. The collection contains:

  • SteelHead 8090, which delivers as much as 60 Gbps of information motion over a WAN. It helps a number of 100 Gigabyte community interfaces to drag information from the LAN.
  • SteelHead 6090, which delivers as much as 20 Gbps of information motion over a WAN, focused for mid-scale information facilities.
  • SteelHead 4090 and 2090, which help mid-sized information middle and edge use instances, with 500 Mbps and 200 Mbps of accelerated visitors, in addition to as much as 10 Gbps of whole visitors processing for high quality of service (QoS) and software classification use instances.
  • Riverbed SteelHead Digital, is a software-only model designed for virtualization environments and personal cloud deployments, which is appropriate with VMWare ESXI, KVM, and Microsoft Hyper-V.

“For purchasers which might be acquainted with Riverbed, this can be a massive change in efficiency. We’ve gone from transferring one equipment at 30 Gbps to 60 Gbps. We need to ensure that whether or not it’s new AI tasks or current information tasks, we’ve ubiquitous availability throughout clouds,” says Chalan Aras, senior vice chairman and basic supervisor of Acceleration at Riverbed. “We’re making it inexpensive to maneuver information—we’re about half the worth of conventional information motion strategies.”

With this announcement, Riverbed additionally unveiled its Flex licensing subscription providing. In keeping with Riverbed, Flex makes it potential for enterprises to switch licenses from {hardware} to digital to cloud units for free of charge. Enterprises can reassign license capability throughout units and scale capability up and down on demand.

“Riverbed Flex permits us to proceed to handle our community efficiency in a wiser, extra agile means—precisely what we’d like within the fast-moving world of offshore operations,” stated Dr. Alexei Vederko, Senior Director of Engineering from Viasat Power Companies, in a assertion. “With rigs always relocating, IT should scale, transfer, and optimize community acceleration on demand. The Flex mannequin permits us to switch and improve {hardware}, minimizing threat when gear is misplaced or outdated. As a long-time SteelHead buyer, our work with Riverbed permits us to successfully ship essential information to our oil platforms and guarantee operational resiliency. Riverbed Flex is an extra step ahead in future-proofing our community with larger flexibility and management.”

The SteelHead 8090 product can be obtainable in Might 2025. The SteelHead 6090, 4090, and 2090 merchandise can be obtainable within the second half of this 12 months, in line with Riverbed.

Coding Assistants Threaten the Software program Provide Chain


We’ve lengthy acknowledged that developer environments symbolize a weak
level within the software program provide chain. Builders, by necessity, function with
elevated privileges and quite a lot of freedom, integrating various elements
straight into manufacturing methods. Because of this, any malicious code launched
at this stage can have a broad and important impression radius significantly
with delicate information and providers.

The introduction of agentic coding assistants (equivalent to Cursor, Windsurf,
Cline, and these days additionally GitHub Copilot) introduces new dimensions to this
panorama. These instruments function not merely as suggestive code turbines however
actively work together with developer environments by means of tool-use and
Reasoning-Motion (ReAct) loops. Coding assistants introduce new elements
and vulnerabilities to the software program provide chain, however will also be owned or
compromised themselves in novel and intriguing methods.

Understanding the Agent Loop Assault Floor

A compromised MCP server, guidelines file or perhaps a code or dependency has the
scope to feed manipulated directions or instructions that the agent executes.
This is not only a minor element – because it will increase the assault floor in contrast
to extra conventional improvement practices, or AI-suggestion primarily based methods.

Coding Assistants Threaten the Software program Provide Chain

Determine 1: CD pipeline, emphasizing how
directions and code transfer between these layers. It additionally highlights provide
chain parts the place poisoning can occur, in addition to key parts of
escalation of privilege

Every step of the agent circulation introduces danger:

  • Context Poisoning: Malicious responses from exterior instruments or APIs
    can set off unintended behaviors inside the assistant, amplifying malicious
    directions by means of suggestions loops.
  • Escalation of privilege: A compromised assistant, significantly if
    calmly supervised, can execute misleading or dangerous instructions straight through
    the assistant’s execution circulation.

This complicated, iterative surroundings creates a fertile floor for delicate
but highly effective assaults, considerably increasing conventional menace fashions.

Conventional monitoring instruments may battle to establish malicious
exercise as malicious exercise or delicate information leakage will probably be tougher to identify
when embedded inside complicated, iterative conversations between elements, as
the instruments are new and unknown and nonetheless growing at a fast tempo.

New weak spots: MCP and Guidelines Recordsdata

The introduction of MCP servers and guidelines recordsdata create openings for
context poisoning—the place malicious inputs or altered states can silently
propagate by means of the session, enabling command injection, tampered
outputs, or provide chain assaults through compromised code.

Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) acts as a versatile, modular interface
enabling brokers to attach with exterior instruments and information sources, keep
persistent periods, and share context throughout workflows. Nevertheless, as has
been highlighted
elsewhere
,
MCP essentially lacks built-in safety features like authentication,
context encryption, or software integrity verification by default. This
absence can go away builders uncovered.

Guidelines Recordsdata, equivalent to for instance “cursor guidelines”, encompass predefined
prompts, constraints, and pointers that information the agent’s conduct inside
its loop. They improve stability and reliability by compensating for the
limitations of LLM reasoning—constraining the agent’s potential actions,
defining error dealing with procedures, and guaranteeing concentrate on the duty. Whereas
designed to enhance predictability and effectivity, these guidelines symbolize
one other layer the place malicious prompts may be injected.

Device-calling and privilege escalation

Coding assistants transcend LLM generated code solutions to function
with tool-use through operate calling. For instance, given any given coding
job, the assistant might execute instructions, learn and modify recordsdata, set up
dependencies, and even name exterior APIs.

The specter of privilege escalation is an rising danger with agentic
coding assistants. Malicious directions, can immediate the assistant
to:

  • Execute arbitrary system instructions.
  • Modify crucial configuration or supply code recordsdata.
  • Introduce or propagate compromised dependencies.

Given the developer’s sometimes elevated native privileges, a
compromised assistant can pivot from the native surroundings to broader
manufacturing methods or the sorts of delicate infrastructure normally
accessible by software program builders in organisations.

What are you able to do to safeguard safety with coding brokers?

Coding assistants are fairly new and rising as of when this was
revealed. However some themes in applicable safety measures are beginning
to emerge, and lots of of them symbolize very conventional finest practices.

  • Sandboxing and Least Privilege Entry management: Take care to restrict the
    privileges granted to coding assistants. Restrictive sandbox environments
    can restrict the blast radius.
  • Provide Chain scrutiny: Fastidiously vet your MCP Servers and Guidelines Recordsdata
    as crucial provide chain elements simply as you’ll with library and
    framework dependencies.
  • Monitoring and observability: Implement logging and auditing of file
    system modifications initiated by the agent, community calls to MCP servers,
    dependency modifications and so on.
  • Explicitly embrace coding assistant workflows and exterior
    interactions in your menace
    modeling

    workouts. Contemplate potential assault vectors launched by the
    assistant.
  • Human within the loop: The scope for malicious motion will increase
    dramatically if you auto settle for modifications. Don’t grow to be over reliant on
    the LLM

The ultimate level is especially salient. Fast code era by AI
can result in approval fatigue, the place builders implicitly belief AI outputs
with out understanding or verifying. Overconfidence in automated processes,
or “vibe coding,” heightens the chance of inadvertently introducing
vulnerabilities. Cultivating vigilance, good coding hygiene, and a tradition
of conscientious custodianship stay actually vital in skilled
software program groups that ship manufacturing software program.

Agentic coding assistants can undeniably present a lift. Nevertheless, the
enhanced capabilities include considerably expanded safety
implications. By clearly understanding these new dangers and diligently
making use of constant, adaptive safety controls, builders and
organizations can higher hope to safeguard in opposition to rising threats within the
evolving AI-assisted software program panorama.


Stackpack Secures $6.3M to Reinvent Vendor Administration in an AI-Pushed Enterprise Panorama

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In a world the place third-party instruments, companies, and contractors type the operational spine of recent corporations, Stackpack has raised $6.3 million to deliver order to the rising complexity.

Led by Freestyle Capital, the funding spherical consists of help from Elefund, Upside Partnership, Nomad Ventures, Format Ventures, MSIV Fund, and strategic angels from Intuit, Workday, Affirm, Snapdocs, and xAI.

The funding helps Stackpack’s mission to redefine how companies handle their increasing vendor networks—an more and more important process as organizations now juggle a whole lot and even hundreds of exterior companions and platforms.

Turning Chaos into Management

Based in 2023 by Sara Wyman, previously of Etsy and Affirm, Stackpack was constructed to resolve an issue she knew too effectively: trendy corporations are powered by distributors, but most nonetheless observe them with outdated strategies—spreadsheets, scattered paperwork, and guesswork. With SaaS stacks ballooning and AI instruments proliferating, unmanaged distributors turn into silent liabilities.

“Corporations name themselves ‘people-first,’ however in actuality, they’re changing into ‘vendor-first,’” mentioned Wyman. “There are sometimes 6x extra distributors than staff. But there’s no system of file to handle that shift—till now.”

Stackpack provides finance and IT groups a unified, AI-powered dashboard that gives real-time visibility into vendor contracts, spend, renewals, and compliance dangers. The platform robotically extracts key contract phrases like auto-renewal clauses, flags overlapping subscriptions, and even predicts upcoming renewals buried deep in PDFs.

AI That Works Like a Digital Vendor Supervisor

Stackpack’s Behavioral AI Engine acts as an clever assistant, surfacing hidden cost-saving alternatives, compliance dangers, and significant dates. It not solely identifies inefficiencies—it takes motion, issuing alerts, initiating workflows, and offering suggestions throughout the seller lifecycle.

As an illustration:

  • Renewal alerts stop shock fees.
  • Spend monitoring identifies underused or duplicate instruments.
  • Contract intelligence extracts authorized and pricing phrases from uploads or integrations with instruments like Google Drive.
  • Approval workflows streamline onboarding and procurement.

This brings the type of automation as soon as reserved for enterprise procurement platforms like Coupa or SAP to startups and mid-sized companies—at a fraction of the associated fee.

A Well timed Answer for a Rising Drawback

Vendor administration has turn into a boardroom concern. As extra corporations shift budgets from headcount to outsourced companies, compliance and monetary oversight have turn into more durable to take care of. Stackpack’s early traction is proof of demand: simply months after launch, it’s managing over 10,500 distributors and $510 million in spend throughout greater than 50 prospects, together with Each Man Jack, Rho, Density, HouseRx, Fexa, and ZeroEyes.

“The CFO is the one left holding the bag when issues go fallacious,” mentioned Brandon Lee, Accounting Supervisor at BizzyCar. “Stackpack means we don’t must cross our fingers each quarter.”

Past Visibility: Enabling Smarter Vendor Choices

Alongside its core platform, Stackpack is launching Requests & Approvals, a light-weight instrument to simplify vendor onboarding and buying choices—presently in beta. The characteristic is already attracting prospects searching for sooner, extra agile alternate options to conventional procurement methods.

With a long-term imaginative and prescient to assist corporations not solely handle however uncover and consider distributors extra strategically, Stackpack is laying the groundwork for a wiser, interconnected vendor ecosystem.

“Each vendor determination carries authorized, monetary, and safety penalties,” mentioned Dave Samuel, Basic Companion at Freestyle Capital. “Stackpack is constructing the clever infrastructure to handle these relationships proactively.”

The Way forward for Vendor Operations

As third-party ecosystems develop in dimension and complexity, Stackpack goals to remodel vendor operations from a legal responsibility right into a aggressive benefit. Its AI-powered method provides corporations a contemporary working system for vendor administration—one which’s scalable, proactive, and deeply built-in into finance and operations.

“This isn’t nearly price management—it’s about operating a wiser firm,” mentioned Wyman. “Managing your distributors needs to be as strategic as managing your expertise. We’re giving corporations the instruments to make that doable.”

With contemporary funding and a quickly increasing buyer base, Stackpack is poised to turn into the brand new customary for the way trendy companies handle the companions powering their progress.

United Airways takes flight with Cisco: constructing a basis for digital resilience


For those who’re a Cisco buyer, have you ever ever puzzled in the event you’re maximizing the complete potential of your Cisco funding? If that’s the case, then you definitely’ve come to the proper place.

‘How I Cisco’ is a brand new collection designed to showcase sensible options to widespread enterprise challenges, with the last word purpose of serving to our prospects drive extra affect and tangible outcomes for his or her organizations. By means of real-world examples, we’ll reveal how Cisco prospects are seeing actual enterprise outcomes throughout a variety of industries.

We’re kicking issues off with United Airways, a worldwide chief in aviation serving thousands and thousands of consumers the world over. Their story is a strong instance of how strategic know-how investments can drive enterprise continuity, improve buyer experiences, and create a aggressive benefit. For United Airways, digital resilience is paramount, and so they’re reaching it with Cisco. Be a part of us as we discover their journey and uncover actionable insights you possibly can apply to your individual group.

Shawn Walker, Senior Manager of Network Engineering, United AirlinesShawn Walker, Senior Manager of Network Engineering, United Airlines
 Shawn Walker, Senior Supervisor of Community Engineering, United Airways

The trail to a extra resilient community

United Airways faces important challenges in managing its complicated, hybrid multi-cloud atmosphere. Sustaining seamless operations, making certain strong safety, and assembly stringent compliance necessities demand modern options that present complete visibility, automation, and strong safety.

To handle these challenges, United Airways strategically applied two key Cisco options: Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Safe Workload. Take a look at the movies linked beneath to view the tales.

Cisco SD-WAN simplifies United’s IT infrastructure, ensures safe connectivity, and improves community resilience with built-in multi-cloud capabilities and predictive intelligence.

Cisco Safe Workload gives unmatched visibility throughout their hybrid multi-cloud atmosphere, enabling them to implement zero-trust insurance policies and safeguard their complicated infrastructure by means of micro-segmentation

These Cisco options have delivered important advantages to United Airways, together with enhanced safety, streamlined operations, improved compliance, elevated agility and future-proofed operations.

Shawn Walker, Senior Supervisor of Community Engineering at United Airways, explains, “Cisco Safe Workload has given us unmatched visibility throughout our hybrid multi-cloud atmosphere, permitting us to implement zero-trust insurance policies essential for safeguarding our complicated infrastructure within the air and on the bottom. Its automation capabilities allow us to rapidly handle potential threats with out disrupting operations or including delays, and micro segmentation provides a necessary layer of protection, so we fly safer than ever.”

Digital Resilience: a basis for fulfillment

Digital resilience is about proactively constructing an infrastructure that may face up to any problem. This requires prioritizing:

  • Visibility – Gaining complete insights into your IT ecosystem.
  • Automation – Streamlining duties and safety operations.
  • Safety – Implementing strong measures to guard in opposition to evolving threats.
  • Adaptability- Constructing a versatile infrastructure that scales to fulfill altering wants.

A stronger, future-proofed basis 

United Airways’ story gives priceless classes for organizations of all sizes: embrace zero-trust rules, automate safety operations, prioritize visibility throughout your IT atmosphere, and construct a resilient community infrastructure.

Digital resilience is the important thing to navigating right this moment’s unpredictable enterprise panorama and reaching long-term success. Cisco Safe Workload and SD-WAN empower organizations to beat challenges, seize alternatives, and construct a basis for future progress. United Airways’ journey demonstrates the transformative energy of strategic know-how investments in constructing a resilient and future-ready group.

Able to creator your individual “How I Cisco” story? Drop us a observe and we’ll join you with the Cisco dream crew bringing these tales to life.

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