ModernBert: small new Retriever/Classifier workhorse, 8k context, 2T tokens,
Answer.ai/LightOn released ModernBERT, an updated encoder-only model with 8k token context, trained on 2 trillion tokens including code, with 139M/395M parameters and state-of-the-art performance on retrieval, NLU, and code tasks. It features Alternating Attention layers mixing global and local attention. Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking debuted as #1 in Chatbot Arena, and the O1 model scored top in reasoning benchmarks. Llama downloads surpassed 650 million, doubling in 3 months. OpenAI launched desktop app integrations with voice capabilities. Figure delivered its first humanoid robots commercially. Advances in robotics simulation and a new physics engine Genesis claiming 430,000x faster than real-time were highlighted.