Midcentury Raises $15 Million, Trains Robots Using 2 Million Hours of Real-Person Videos
Beating AI Express: Robotics data firm Midcentury has emerged from stealth mode and closed a $15 million seed round. Instead of manufacturing robot hardware, the company sells training data and simulation tools for robots. Midcentury has collected over 2 million hours of first-person human videos, covering more than 50 environments and 20,000 tasks. 90% of the footage shows human hands, annotated with 3D hand and body poses, depth, and other metadata. Simply put, robots learn by watching humans perform actions like grasping objects, opening doors, and organizing items. Unlike large models that can scrape the internet for text, robots lack an existing "action internet"—a gap Midcentury aims to fill. The firm also built a simulation platform called Matrix, letting robots run thousands of tests and training runs in virtual environments before operating on real hardware, cutting costs from repeated real-world trial and error.
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OpenAI’s CEO to Push for Global AI Safety Standards at the United Nations
Beating AI Express News: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will address the UN Security Council, advocating for unified global AI safety standards while avoiding restrictive measures that could slow innovation. OpenAI stated it does not support establishing a specific international regulatory body, preferring instead basic safety standards paired with democratic oversight. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is also expected to participate via video.
Earlier, per FT reports, OpenAI on Monday called on the U.S. government to lead the development of international AI standards, and recommended countries coordinate on assessing AI models’ capabilities and risks. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will present the relevant proposal to the UN Security Council this week.
OpenAI specifically warned of potential new risks from Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI), where an increasing number of AI model training tasks are completed by other AI systems. Without adequate safety measures, AI could rapidly evolve to a level beyond effective human oversight, leading to humans gradually losing practical control over AI development. The proposal comes amid growing concerns over AI safety.
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Kalshi plans to introduce the crypto perpetual contract model to U.S. equities, and has submitted permanent listing standards for securities and futures to the SEC.
Today, the U.S. Federal Register published a rule filing notice from KalshiEX LLC (Kalshi). The prediction market platform has submitted proposed rule changes to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking immediate implementation. The changes add Chapter 14 to Kalshi’s rulebook to list Perpetual Securities Futures Products (Perpetual SFPs). These contracts have no fixed expiration date, and their prices are anchored to the spot values of underlying U.S. stocks or ETFs via periodic funding fees between long and short positions. Kalshi categorizes the products as securities futures, and intends to clear them through its subsidiary clearing platform Kalshi Klear. The listing threshold is stringent: underlying assets must have a deliverable supply exceeding 20 million shares, a market capitalization of at least $100 billion, an average daily trading volume of no less than $450 million over the past six months, and contract units are mostly 100 shares.
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Zest Announces On-Chain Proof for Bitcoin-Collateralized Vault Mainnet Demo
Bitcoin lending protocol Zest Protocol has released its "Proof of Mainnet Deployment", with the mainnet demo of its Bitcoin Collateral Vaults now independently verifiable. A total of 3 Bitcoin transactions and 7 Ethereum transactions have been made public. The product design locks BTC in Bitcoin mainnet vaults, avoiding wrapping or cross-chain bridging, and allows users to borrow stablecoins on EVM-compatible chains such as Ethereum. This feature remains a mainnet prototype, not a fully open deposit and lending service. The official roadmap is divided into two phases: Phase 1 uses pre-signed transactions to restrict BTC settlement paths, while Phase 2 will transition to BitVM verification. A functional mainnet prototype is now available, and the team is accelerating its official deployment.
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Trump purchased shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR) in late July, right as the stock hit its year-to-date low.
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE)’s periodic transaction report (OGE Form 278-T) released on September 22 shows that Donald Trump’s accounts purchased Class A shares of Strategy Inc. (MSTR) in late July. The 37-page document lists a total of 1,156 securities transactions in July, including three entries related to Strategy: a sale on July 8 (valued at $1,001–$15,000), a purchase on July 24 (same value range), and another purchase on July 27 (valued at $50,001–$100,000). This is not the first time Trump’s accounts have held Strategy stock: the May filing covering January to March listed 8 Strategy transactions, while June saw 2 sales with no buys. The two July 24 and 27 purchases are new trades in subsequent reporting windows, adding to existing positions. Per BIT (bit.com) market data, MSTR has risen roughly 83% since July 24, a period when Strategy was facing challenges at the time of Trump’s buys. The White House has previously stated that the stock and bond ledger is not traded by the president himself; holdings are in a discretionary account managed by a third-party firm, with some transactions for model portfolios tracking established indices. The filings are still submitted under Trump’s name because he is the beneficiary.
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