Software

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration will scrutinize open source AI models for intellectual property theft, warning that the US has the ability to impose sanctions. The comments come amid attention around Kimi K3, an open source model from China's Moonshot AI, raising concerns over whether US policymakers may target freely available foreign AI models over alleged IP violations.

VLC, the free open-source media player, is being described as increasingly dominant on Windows, with claims that Microsoft is unable to stop its rise despite bundling its own media tools. Commentators point to VLC's long-standing reputation for playing nearly any file format without cost or restrictions. The discussion frames the software as a rare example of a decades-old community project outcompeting a built-in alternative from the operating system maker.

Moonshot AI has released the weights for its Kimi K3.1 model, part of a broader run of AI news that also includes an open source computer-use model, a new state-of-the-art image generation model, a science-focused model, and Pika's H3 video model. Commentators are running through the releases as a sign of how quickly open and commercial AI capabilities are advancing this week.

A hands-on review is testing LightCraft and PhotoCraft, two open-source tools pitched as a free alternative to Adobe's creative suite, to see whether they can genuinely replace Photoshop and other Adobe apps. The comparison is drawing large attention as interest grows in cutting subscription costs for creative software.