From microscopes to geodes, New Scientist staff share their top Christmas present ideas in a gift guide unlike any you’ve seen before

قام موظفو نيو ساينتست بتجميع دليل هدايا فريد يتضمن أفضل 19 هدية عيد ميلاد لعشاق العلوم والمهووسين. يشمل الدليل مجموعة متنوعة من العناصر تتراوح بين المجاهر والجيود، بهدف إلهام وإسعاد أولئك الذين لديهم شغف بالعلوم. تم تصميم هذه القائمة المختارة لمساعدة المشترين في العثور على الهدية المثالية للمهتمين بالعلوم خلال موسم العطلات.

El personal de New Scientist ha compilado una guía de regalos única que presenta los 19 mejores regalos de Navidad para los amantes de la ciencia y los nerds. La guía incluye una variedad de artículos que van desde microscopios hasta geodas, con el objetivo de inspirar y deleitar a aquellos con una pasión por la ciencia. Esta lista curada está diseñada para ayudar a los compradores a encontrar el regalo perfecto para los interesados en la ciencia esta temporada navideña.

Le personnel de New Scientist a compilé un guide des cadeaux unique présentant les 19 meilleurs cadeaux de Noël pour les passionnés de science et les nerds. Le guide comprend une variété d'articles allant des microscopes aux géodes, visant à inspirer et ravir ceux qui ont une passion pour la science. Cette liste soigneusement sélectionnée est conçue pour aider les acheteurs à trouver le cadeau parfait pour les amateurs de science cette saison des fêtes.

New Scientist staff have compiled a unique gift guide featuring the 19 best Christmas gifts for science enthusiasts and nerds. The guide includes a variety of items ranging from microscopes to geodes, aiming to inspire and delight those with a passion for science. This curated list is designed to help gift-givers find the perfect present for the scientifically inclined this holiday season.

The 19 best Christmas gifts for science lovers (and nerds)

<A HREF="https://fortune.com/2025/11/19/exclusive-doppel-raises-70-million-series-c-at-more-than-600-million-valuation-to-fight-ai-powered-social-engineering-attacks/"><IMG VSPACE="4" HSPACE="4" BORDER="0" ALIGN="RIGHT" SRC="http://www.techmeme.com/251119/i39.jpg"></A>
<A HREF="http://www.techmeme.com/251119/p39#a251119p39" TITLE="Techmeme permalink"><IMG WIDTH=11 HEIGHT=12 SRC="http://www.techmeme.com/img/pml.png" STYLE="border:none;padding:0;margin:0;"></A> Allie Garfinkle / <A HREF="http://www.fortune.com/">Fortune</A>: 
<A HREF="https://fortune.com/2025/11/19/exclusive-doppel-raises-70-million-series-c-at-more-than-600-million-valuation-to-fight-ai-powered-social-engineering-attacks/">Doppel, which makes an AI social engineering detection service, raised a $70M Series C led by Bessemer at a $600M+ valuation, up from $205M in May</A>&nbsp; &mdash;&nbsp; Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet&nbsp; &mdash;&nbsp; I tried to fool my brother, sort of.&nbsp; &mdash;&nbsp; Next to him and his Pekingese on the couch &hellip;

دوبل، وهي شركة متخصصة في خدمات الكشف عن الهندسة الاجتماعية باستخدام الذكاء الاصطناعي، نجحت في جمع 70 مليون دولار في جولة تمويل من السلسلة C بقيادة بيسمر. وقد زادت هذه الجولة من تقييم الشركة إلى أكثر من 600 مليون دولار، ارتفاعًا من 205 مليون دولار في مايو.

Doppel, una empresa que se especializa en servicios de detección de ingeniería social mediante IA, ha recaudado con éxito 70 millones de dólares en una ronda de financiación Serie C liderada por Bessemer. Esta ronda ha elevado la valoración de la empresa a más de 600 millones de dólares, un aumento significativo desde los 205 millones en mayo.

Doppel, une entreprise spécialisée dans les services de détection d'ingénierie sociale par IA, a levé avec succès 70 millions de dollars lors d'un tour de financement de série C dirigé par Bessemer. Ce tour de financement a porté la valorisation de l'entreprise à plus de 600 millions de dollars, contre 205 millions en mai.

Doppel, a company specializing in AI social engineering detection services, has successfully raised $70 million in a Series C funding round led by Bessemer. This funding round has increased the company's valuation to over $600 million, a significant rise from $205 million in May.

Doppel, which makes an AI social engineering detection service, raised a $70M Series C led by Bessemer at a $600M+ valuation, up from $205M in May (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)

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<a href="https://fetch.ai/">Fetch AI</a>, a startup founded and led by former DeepMind founding investor, Humayun Sheikh, <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251119088395/en/Fetch-Combines-Personalized-AI-with-Multi-Agent-Collaboration-to-Handle-Complex-Consumer-Tasks-Launches-Claim-Your-Agent-to-Fight-Brand-Knock-Offs">today announced the release</a> of three interconnected products designed to provide the trust, coordination, and interoperability needed for large-scale AI agent ecosystems. The launch includes <a href="https://asi1.ai/">ASI:One</a>, a personal-AI orchestration platform; <a href="https://business.fetch.ai/">Fetch Business</a>, a verification and discovery portal for brand agents; and <a href="https://agentverse.ai/?sort=relevancy&amp;page=1&amp;recommended=true">Agentverse</a>, an open directory hosting more than two million agents. Together, the system positions Fetch as an infrastructure provider for what it calls the “Agentic Web”—a layer where consumer AIs and brand AIs collaborate to complete tasks instead of merely suggesting them.The company says the tools address a central limitation in current consumer AI: models can provide recommendations but cannot reliably execute multi-step actions that require coordination across businesses. Fetch’s approach centers on enabling agents from different organizations to interoperate securely, using verified identities and shared context to complete end-to-end workflows.“We’re creating the same foundation for agents that Google created for websites,” said Humayun Sheikh, Founder and CEO of Fetch AI, and an early investor in DeepMind, in a press release provided to VentureBeat. “Instead of just finding information, your personal AI coordinates with verified brand agents to get things done.”<h2>Background: Fetch’s Founding and DeepMind Connection </h2>Fetch AI was founded in 2017 by Humayun Sheikh, an entrepreneur whose early investment in DeepMind helped support the company’s commercial development before its acquisition by Google. “I was one of the first five people at DeepMind and its first investor. My check was the first one in,” Sheikh said, reflecting on the period when advanced machine learning research was still largely inaccessible outside major technology companies.His early experience helped shape Fetch’s direction. “Even in 2013, it was clear to me that agentic systems were going to be the ones that worked. That’s where I focused—on the agentic web,” Sheikh noted. Fetch built on this thesis by developing infrastructure for autonomous software agents, focusing on verifiable identity, secure data exchange, and multi-agent coordination. Over the past several years, the company has expanded to a 70-person team across Cambridge and Menlo Park, raised approximately $60 million, and accumulated more than one million users interacting with its model—data that informed the design of the newly launched products.Sheikh added that his decision to bootstrap the company initially came directly from the proceeds of the DeepMind exit, noting in the interview that while the sale to Google was “a good exit,” he believed the team could have held out for a higher valuation. The early self-funding period allowed Fetch to begin work in 2015—well before transformer architectures went mainstream—on the hypothesis that agentic infrastructure would become foundational to applied AI.<h2>ASI:One — A Platform for Multi-Agent Orchestration</h2>At the core of the launch is ASI:One, a language model interface designed specifically for coordinating multiple agents rather than addressing isolated queries. Fetch describes it as an “intelligence layer” that handles context sharing, task routing, and preference modeling.The system stores user-level signals such as favored airlines, dietary constraints, budget ranges, loyalty program identifiers, and calendar availability. When a user requests a complex task—such as planning a trip with flights, hotels, and restaurant reservations—ASI:One retrieves those preferences and delegates work to the appropriate verified agents. The agents then return actionable outputs, including inventory and booking options, rather than generic recommendations.In practice, ASI:One functions as a workflow generator across organizational boundaries. By contrast with conventional LLM applications, which often rely on APIs or RAG techniques to surface information, ASI:One is built to coordinate autonomous agents that can complete transactions. Fetch notes that personalization improves over time as the model accumulates structured preference data.Sheikh emphasized the distinction between orchestrated execution and traditional AI output. “This isn’t searching for options separately and hoping they work together,” he said. “It’s orchestration.” He added that Fetch’s architecture is intentionally modular: “Our architecture is a mix of agentic and expert models. One large model isn’t enough—you need specialists. That’s why we built ASI1, tuned specifically for agentic systems.”The interview also revealed new details about ASI:One’s personalization systems: the platform uses multiple user-owned knowledge graphs to store preferences, travel history, social connections, and contextual constraints. These knowledge graphs are siloed per user and not co-mingled with any Fetch-operated data. Sheikh described this as a “deterministic backbone” that gives the personal AI a stable memory layer beyond the probabilistic output of a single large model.ASI:One launches in Beta today, with a broader release planned for early 2026. Fetch also offers ASI:One Mobile, released earlier this year, giving users access to the same agent-orchestration capabilities on iOS and Android. The mobile app connects directly to Agentverse and the user’s knowledge graphs, enabling on-the-go task execution and real-time interaction with registered agents.<h2>Fetch Business — Verified Identity and Brand Control</h2>To enable reliable coordination between consumers and companies, Fetch is introducing a verification and discovery portal called Fetch Business. The platform allows organizations to verify their identity and claim an official Brand Agent handle—for example, @Hilton or @Nike—regardless of which tools they use to build the underlying agent.Fetch positions the product as an analogue to ICANN domain registration and SSL certificate systems for websites. Verified status is intended to protect consumers from interacting with counterfeit or untrusted agents, a problem the company describes as a major barrier to widespread agent adoption.The system includes low-code tools for small businesses to create agents in a few steps and connect real-time APIs such as inventory, booking systems, or CRM platforms. “With Fetch, you can create an agent in one minute. It gets a handle, like a Twitter username, and you can personalize it completely—even give it your social media permissions to post on your behalf,” Sheikh said. Once a brand claims its namespace, its agent becomes discoverable to consumer AIs and other agents inside Agentverse.The company has pre-reserved thousands of brand namespaces in anticipation of demand. Verification status persists across any platform that integrates with Agentverse, creating a portable identity layer for business agents.The interview highlighted that Fetch Business inherits web-trust primitives directly: domain owners verify their identity by inserting a short code snippet into their existing website backend, allowing the system to pass a cryptographic challenge and grant the agent an authenticity badge similar to a “blue check” for agent identities. Sheikh framed this as “reusing the trust layer the web already spent decades building.”Companies can begin claiming agents now at <a href="https://business.fetch.ai/">business.fetch.ai</a>.<h2>Agentverse — An Open Directory of More Than Two Million Agents</h2>The final component of the release is <a href="https://agentverse.ai/">Agentverse</a>, an open directory and cloud platform that hosts agents and enables cross-ecosystem discoverability. Fetch states that millions of agents have already registered, spanning travel, retail, entertainment, food service, and enterprise categories.Agentverse provides metadata, capability descriptions, and routing logic that ASI:One uses to identify appropriate agents for specific tasks. It also supports secure communication and data exchange between agents. The company notes that the directory is platform-agnostic: agents built with any framework can join and interoperate.According to Sheikh, the lack of a discovery layer is one reason most AI agents see little or no usage. “Ninety percent of AI agents never get used because there’s no discovery layer,” he said. He framed the role of Agentverse in more technical terms: “Right now, if you build an agent, there’s no universal way for others to discover it. That’s what AgentVerse solves—it’s like DNS for agents.” He also described the system as an essential component of the emerging agent economy: “Fetch is building the Google of agents. Just like websites needed search, agents need discovery, trust, and interaction—Fetch provides all of that.”The interview further underscored that Agentverse is cloud-agnostic by design. Sheikh contrasted this with competing agent ecosystems tied to specific cloud providers, arguing that a universal registry is only viable if independent of proprietary cloud environments. He said the open architecture enables an LLM to query any agent “within one minute of deployment,” turning agent publication into a near-instantaneous process similar to registering a domain.Agentverse also integrates payment pathways, enabling agents to execute purchases using partners such as Visa, Skyfire, and supported stablecoins. Consumers can configure spending limits or require explicit approval for transactions.<h2>Industry Context and Implications</h2>Fetch’s launch comes at a time when consumer AI platforms are exploring the shift from static chat interfaces toward autonomous agents capable of completing actions. However, most agent systems remain limited by siloed architectures, limited interoperability, and weak verification standards.Fetch positions its infrastructure as a response to these limitations by providing a cross-platform coordination layer, identity system, and directory service. The company argues that an agent ecosystem requires consistent verification mechanisms to ensure that consumers interact with authentic brand representatives rather than imitations. By establishing namespace control and portable trust indicators, Fetch Business aims to fill a gap similar to early web domain verification.At the same time, ASI:One attempts to centralize user preference data in a way that enables more efficient personalization and multi-agent coordination. This approach differs from generalist LLM applications, which often lack persistent preference architectures or direct access to brand-controlled agents.The interview also made clear that micropayments and digital transaction infrastructure are central to Fetch’s long-term vision. Sheikh referenced integrations with protocols such as Coinbase’s 402 and AP2, positioning these capabilities as essential for autonomous agents to complete end-to-end tasks that include financial execution.<h2>Takeaway</h2>Fetch’s combined release of ASI:One, Fetch Business, and Agentverse introduces an interconnected stack designed to support large-scale deployment and usage of AI agents. The company frames the system as foundational infrastructure for an agentic ecosystem, where consumer AIs can coordinate with verified brand agents to complete tasks reliably and securely. The additions to its identity, discovery, and orchestration layers reflect Fetch’s long-standing thesis—rooted partly in lessons from DeepMind’s early development—that intelligence becomes meaningful only when paired with the capacity to act.

أطلقت شركة Fetch AI، وهي شركة ناشئة يقودها هميون شيخ، ثلاثة منتجات مترابطة تهدف إلى تعزيز نظام وكلاء الذكاء الاصطناعي. تشمل العروض الجديدة ASI:One، وهي منصة تنسيق ذكاء اصطناعي شخصي، وFetch Business، وهو بوابة للتحقق والاكتشاف لوكلاء العلامات التجارية، وAgentverse، وهو دليل مفتوح يضم أكثر من مليوني وكيل. تسعى هذه المبادرة إلى إنشاء بنية تحتية قوية لما تصفه Fetch بـ 'الويب الوكالي.'

Fetch AI, una startup dirigida por Humayun Sheikh, ha lanzado tres productos interconectados destinados a mejorar el ecosistema de agentes de IA. Las nuevas ofertas incluyen ASI:One, una plataforma de orquestación de IA personal, Fetch Business, un portal de verificación y descubrimiento para agentes de marca, y Agentverse, un directorio abierto con más de dos millones de agentes. Esta iniciativa busca establecer una infraestructura sólida para lo que Fetch describe como la 'Web Agente.'

Fetch AI, une startup dirigée par Humayun Sheikh, a lancé trois produits interconnectés visant à améliorer l'écosystème des agents IA. Les nouvelles offres comprennent ASI:One, une plateforme d'orchestration d'IA personnelle, Fetch Business, un portail de vérification et de découverte pour les agents de marque, et Agentverse, un annuaire ouvert avec plus de deux millions d'agents. Cette initiative vise à établir une infrastructure robuste pour ce que Fetch décrit comme le 'Web Agentique.'

Fetch AI, a startup led by Humayun Sheikh, has launched three interconnected products aimed at enhancing the ecosystem of AI agents. The new offerings include ASI:One, a personal-AI orchestration platform, Fetch Business, a verification and discovery portal for brand agents, and Agentverse, an open directory with over two million agents. This initiative seeks to establish a robust infrastructure for what Fetch describes as the 'Agentic Web.'

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Google’s latest model reportedly beats its rivals in several benchmark tests, but issues with reliability mean concerns remain over a possible AI bubble

نموذج الذكاء الاصطناعي الأخير من جوجل، جمنّي 3، يتفوق على منافسيه في عدة اختبارات معيارية. ومع ذلك، لا تزال هناك مخاوف بشأن موثوقيته، مما يثير تساؤلات حول استدامة الضجة الحالية حول الذكاء الاصطناعي.

El último modelo de IA de Google, Gemini 3, supuestamente supera a sus competidores en varias pruebas de referencia. Sin embargo, persisten las preocupaciones sobre su fiabilidad, lo que plantea dudas sobre la sostenibilidad del actual entusiasmo por la IA.

Le dernier modèle d'IA de Google, Gemini 3, surpasserait ses concurrents dans divers tests de référence. Cependant, des préoccupations concernant sa fiabilité persistent, soulevant des questions sur la durabilité de l'engouement actuel pour l'IA.

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To make quantum computers more efficient and reliable, some of their basic components must be constantly reused – several quantum computer designs can now do just that

لتحسين كفاءة وموثوقية الحواسيب الكمومية، تركزت التطورات الأخيرة على إعادة تدوير الكيوبتات. يمكن الآن لعدة تصاميم من الحواسيب الكمومية إعادة استخدام مكوناتها الأساسية، مما يمكن أن يحد بشكل كبير من الأخطاء ويحسن الأداء.

Para mejorar la eficiencia y la fiabilidad de los ordenadores cuánticos, los avances recientes se han centrado en el reciclaje de qubits. Varios diseños de ordenadores cuánticos ahora son capaces de reutilizar sus componentes básicos, lo que puede limitar significativamente los errores y mejorar el rendimiento.

Pour améliorer l'efficacité et la fiabilité des ordinateurs quantiques, des avancées récentes se sont concentrées sur le recyclage des qubits. Plusieurs conceptions d'ordinateurs quantiques sont désormais capables de réutiliser leurs composants de base, ce qui peut limiter considérablement les erreurs et améliorer les performances.

To enhance the efficiency and reliability of quantum computers, recent advancements have focused on the recycling of qubits. Several designs of quantum computers are now capable of reusing their basic components, which can significantly limit errors and improve performance.

The 19 best Christmas gifts for science lovers (and nerds)

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