George Toderici

Researcher at @GoogleDeepMind. Opinions my own. Posting cool demos at #llm #compression #graphics

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@jyzg Sad news... Thanks for everything you've done!

[Google Gemma @googlegemma]

At Google I/O today?

Stop by the Gemma Playground and chat with our Gemma 4-powered Open Duck robot! 🤖🦆

Not on site? No problem! You can 3D print your own at home.

[Robots Digest 🤖 @robotsdigest]

Hugging Face just released LeRobot Humanoid

An open-source, low-cost (~$2.5k), 3D-printed humanoid built for robot learning and not just demos.

What’s cool is it’s a full stack release:
• hardware + CAD
• runtime & calibration
• sim environments
• identification tools
• training zoo for locomotion
Designed so anyone can build, break, repair, simulate, and train on a real humanoid.

[Josef Prusa @josefprusa]

BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork, with the same networking binary black box in question today. Why are they willing to burn the goodwill over it?
There's something most have sensed but never seen it all in one place, the five-law framework China built between 2017 and 2023 ⤵️

So maybe their hand is forced as their "network" is too valuable already? Each law on its own, interesting, okay... Read them together, and add any Chinese company with big reach to the mix you get the complete picture.

1) National Intelligence Law (2017)
All organizations and citizens must "support, assist, and cooperate" with intelligence work. The same law makes it illegal to disclose that cooperation happened. Cooperation is mandatory, and silence about it is mandatory too.

2) Cryptography Law (2020)
Commercial encryption must be state-approved and state-reviewed. When authorities request it, companies must provide decryption keys or plaintext. The state on both sides of that equation is the same one.

3) Data Security Law (2021)
Article 2 gives the state extraterritorial reach over data that touches Chinese national security or public interests. So EU/US data hosting does nothing to make it safe, because jurisdiction follows the company, not the server location.

4) Counter-Espionage Law revision (2023)
The general definition of espionage was expanded to cover "documents, data, materials, or items related to national security and interests." Industrial data is one of the intended targets since the revision.

5) Network Product Security Vulnerability regulation (2021)
Any company or researcher that discovers a software vulnerability must report it to MIIT within 48 hours. From there it flows to CNNVD (China National Vulnerability Database of Information Security), operated by the 13th Bureau of the Ministry of State Security. Microsoft's threat intelligence team documented Chinese state-hacker zero-day usage rising after this took effect. Shows the willingness to use the “tools” China built.

Together they describe a system with no neutral exits. Cooperation is required, encryption is real but the spare keys live at the ministry, jurisdiction follows the company across borders, industrial data is in scope, and discovered vulnerabilities flow to an intelligence agency 😬

3D printing became strategic for China in 2020 and joined the “Made in China 2025” plan soon after. Why does 3D printing matter so much? 1/x

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@tarantulae Coincidentally this is the year when I decided to no longer review papers. Bad behavior from authors is something that I think it's just not worth putting up with (and also let's not forget the steep decrease in average paper quality over time).

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

Please note that this was inspired by https://t.co/QXCVXCdXXP (which unfortunately does not clarify what objects can be imaged with the chosen gear, so this is quite complementary).

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

Are you new to astrophotogaraphy? Don't know what gear works for what deep sky objects? I made a website to help out with that. It lets you identify what gear you need to image a specific DSO, or lets you figure out what you can image with your gear.

https://t.co/IY0LOONr07

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

Keep in mind that I was only able to write about the tools I've used. Let me know which ones you use, and I'll be happy to try them out for the next edition.

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

Back in May I wrote an article about my experiences at the time with agentic coding.

I now have an updated article which discusses the delta/what has changed. It's written from the perspective of a hobbyist, rather than from the perspective of my job:

https://t.co/BU3x1QRPis

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@PascalMassimino 2026 pitch: It's like Uber of ChatGPT, delivering models where they need to go!

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@jyzg Congrats!

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@rubenhassid I couldn't agree more. I've intuitively followed this "depthwise" method for years with my own interests. You start with a goal, hit a wall, and then seek the specific knowledge to break through. It transforms learning from a chore into a focused, rewarding exploration.

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@juliarturc My middle school used these to teach Computer Science. The famed "Felix HC 2000". I wonder whether anyone outside of Romania has ever seen one of these.

https://t.co/GFlEQbj4w0

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@juliarturc 🤣

[Sander Dieleman @sedielem]

In diffusion LMs, discrete methods have all but displaced continuous ones (🥲).

Interesting new trend: why not both? Use continuous methods to make discrete diffusion better.

Diffusion duality: https://t.co/KPO56vDygp
CADD: https://t.co/CNOIWcUIMo
CCDD: https://t.co/2jOBIcZvQZ

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@juliarturc Sadly, I suspect it's the same reason. A competitive advantage for the students at that specific university ☹️

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@CreatorKanata @LeRobotHF @huggingface I just tried the link and it's not working. Maybe it's a private repo?

PS: Amazing project/results.

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

@jyzg I didn't think it was possible to achieve that "efficiency" even if you constantly floored it. I use Teslamate, which could have helped you here to see what happened.

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

The validation submission deadline is Aug 31, 2025, and the paper deadline is very soon (if you'd like to publish a paper) - on Jul 22, 2025.

See all dates at https://t.co/vjkScT778y

[George Toderici @george_toderici]

For all those interested in image/video compression, a gentle reminder that #CLIC2025 is ongoing. You can participate at https://t.co/Ajd5wIRIDn. We're using human evaluations and Elo scores to determine the best methods!