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4 items in the last 3d

MUSE: Benchmarking Large Vision-Language Models on Multi-Modal Understanding in Situated Education

Introduces MUSE, a twelve-task benchmark evaluating vision-language models on artistic image understanding in situated educational, Southeast Asian contexts.

MUSE is a benchmark assessing large vision-language models on artistic image understanding across twelve tasks spanning visual perception, semantic and affective interpretation, cultural understanding, and compositional reasoning. It decouples image annotation from question generation for controllable difficulty and curates images centering Singaporean and Southeast Asian multicultural contexts alongside Western art. Evaluations of open-source and proprietary models found substantial disparities, especially in affective interpretation and compositional reasoning.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 14h agoAI research

What Breaks Local Watermarks? A Robustness Benchmark for Local Invisible Image Watermarking

First systematic robustness benchmark of five local invisible image watermarking methods across 55 transformations finds all are vulnerable, with inpainting and geometric misalignment completely breaking payload…

The paper presents the first systematic robustness benchmark for local invisible image watermarks, covering 55 image transformations across signal distortions, coordinate alignment changes, indirect local edits, and direct watermark edits. It evaluates five methods: MaskWM, WAM, OmniGuard, TrustMark, and PixelSeal, all supporting localization natively or with minimal adaptation. Results show every method is vulnerable to some transformation; MaskWM offers the strongest payload recovery and localization but the lowest clean-image quality, and synchronization further improves its recovery under geometric transformations. Geometric misalignment and generative local edits such as inpainting and outpainting can completely impair payload recovery, while signal distortions are often tolerated.

arXiv cs.CR · 1d agoResearch

Founder’s cost-cutting obsession drove Unitree lead in cheap humanoid robots

Report details Unitree founder Wang Xingxing's extreme cost-cutting and micromanagement driving cheap humanoid robots amid record core staff attrition.

Caijing Magazine reporting portrays Unitree founder Wang Xingxing as a micromanaging, cost-obsessed leader who personally approves expenses over 100 yuan (~$15) and runs a penalty-heavy incentive system at the 480-employee humanoid robot maker. Employees report the highest attrition of core staff in company history during 2025-2026, and Wang scored every senior executive 1 out of 1.5. The company, which recently IPO'd and explores large AI models for physical AI autonomy, called the reporting misinformation without specifics.

Ars Technica · AI · 2d agoAI industry

Cops Search Thousands of Flock Cameras for Reasons of ‘LMAO,’ ‘IDK,’ ‘Hehe,’ and ‘asdfg’

EFF analysis found police searched Flock's 19,000-camera ALPR network using joke reasons like 'LMAO' and 'idk,' exposing routine warrantless surveillance abuse.

An EFF analysis of Flock audit logs, shared with 404 Media, found officers across dozens of jurisdictions searching over 19,000 cameras in 1,558 cities with justifications like 'LMAO,' 'idk,' and keyboard gibberish between 2023 and late 2025. One Lake County, Indiana sheriff's deputy searched for a license plate across the entire network citing 'LMAO.' After outlets exposed searches targeting ICE detainees, an abortion patient, and protesters, officers were reportedly told to be 'as vague as permissible,' and Flock replaced the free-text reason box with a prepopulated drop-down list, which EFF called a loss for transparency. Departments rarely disciplined offending officers, and EFF concluded agencies cannot oversee themselves.

404 Media · 2d agoPolicy & legal