Impact Vector: AI Tools

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Daily news about AI tools.

  1. 15h ago

    Meta's paid AI agent Hatch launches soon, with a new model called Watermelon due in October — 2026-08-25

    ## Short Segments 3CLogic introduces AI Agent Evaluator to automate quality assurance and scoring for voice AI agents. Today, we're diving into how 3CLogic's latest tool is transforming the landscape of voice AI by automating the evaluation process. We'll also explore Google's expansion of its Gemini Enterprise AI platform into the legal sector, Daloopa's AI transformation in financial services, and Google's offer of free AI plans for college students. Later, we'll discuss Nvidia's new Groq chip and its potential impact on AI agent usability. And coming up, our feature story will delve into Meta's upcoming launch of its paid AI agent Hatch and the new AI model Watermelon. 3CLogic's AI Agent Evaluator automates the QA and scoring of voice AI agents. 3CLogic has unveiled a new tool designed to streamline the quality assurance process for voice AI agents. This AI Agent Evaluator automates the evaluation and scoring of voice interactions, allowing companies to ensure consistent performance and improve customer service. By automating these processes, businesses can reduce the time and resources spent on manual evaluations, leading to more efficient operations. This development is particularly significant for enterprises seeking to enhance their voice AI capabilities while maintaining high standards of service. With this tool, 3CLogic aims to provide a more reliable and scalable solution for managing voice AI agents, ultimately improving the customer experience. Google expands Gemini Enterprise AI platform for law firms and lawyers. Google has broadened its Gemini Enterprise platform with a new offering tailored for the legal industry. This expansion integrates with major legal technology providers, enabling law firms to leverage AI for tasks such as research, document drafting, and case law analysis. By automating routine administrative tasks, the platform aims to increase efficiency and reduce the manual workload for legal professionals. Leading law firms are already collaborating with Google to implement these tools, highlighting the growing demand for AI solutions in the legal sector. This move positions Google as a key player in the race to meet the legal industry's AI needs. Daloopa accelerates AI transformation among public equity professionals with Gemini Enterprise for Financial Services. Daloopa is leveraging Google's Gemini Enterprise to enhance AI capabilities in the financial sector. This new solution is designed to automate complex financial workflows, providing professionals with tools to manage data more effectively. With over 50 new skills and specialized instructions, the platform aims to streamline operations across capital markets and corporate banking. This development underscores the increasing role of AI in transforming financial services, offering institutions a competitive edge through enhanced data management and workflow automation. As AI continues to evolve, Daloopa's integration with Gemini Enterprise represents a significant step forward for financial professionals seeking to harness the power of AI. Google offers college students free AI plans for a year, expands Gemini study tools. In a bid to support education, Google is offering college students a free year of its AI plans. This initiative includes access to Gemini and Google Search study tools, featuring diagnostic quizzes and AI-generated content. Students can benefit from enhanced learning experiences with interactive visualizations and increased storage capacity. By providing these resources at no cost, Google aims to empower students with the tools needed to succeed academically. This offer is available to eligible students in the US and over 140 other markets, reflecting Google's commitment to making AI technology accessible to the next generation of learners. Nvidia's Groq chip will shape AI agent usability. Nvidia is set to launch its new Groq chip, designed to enhance the usability of AI agents. This chip aims to improve the efficiency and speed of AI systems, making them more responsive to user queries. By focusing on inference computing, Nvidia's Groq chip is expected to play a crucial role in advancing AI technology. This development highlights Nvidia's ongoing efforts to lead in the AI hardware space, providing the infrastructure needed for more sophisticated AI applications. As AI continues to integrate into various industries, the Groq chip could significantly impact how AI agents are deployed and utilized. ## Feature Story Meta's paid AI agent Hatch launches soon, with a new model called Watermelon due in October. Meta Platforms is gearing up to launch its first paid AI product, Hatch, in the coming weeks, followed by the release of a new AI model named Watermelon in October. Hatch is designed as a consumer-friendly version of the open-source tool OpenClaw, capable of handling tasks such as creating software tools, scheduling appointments, and sending emails. Users can describe their needs in simple language, and Hatch will build a working tool from that description. This marks a significant shift for Meta, as it seeks to monetize its AI investments and diversify revenue streams beyond advertising. Hatch is expected to cost up to $200 per month, positioning it as a premium offering in the AI agent market. Meanwhile, Meta's upcoming AI model, Watermelon, is reportedly on par with OpenAI's GPT-5.5, according to internal benchmarks. This development underscores Meta's commitment to advancing its AI capabilities and competing with industry leaders. As Meta continues to innovate, the launch of Hatch and Watermelon could redefine how consumers interact with AI agents, offering more personalized and efficient solutions. Looking ahead, the success of these products will likely influence Meta's strategy in the AI space, as it seeks to establish itself as a key player in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. With Hatch and Watermelon on the horizon, Meta is poised to make a significant impact in the AI market, offering new possibilities for users and setting the stage for future developments.

  2. 1d ago

    Generalist AI Releases GEN-1.5: A Robot Foundation Model That Learns New Tasks From One 3-12 Second Demo — 2026-08-24

    ## Short Segments Google Research introduces a new framework that adds mobility data to text-based place embeddings, enhancing AI's understanding of how places are used. Later, we'll explore Generalist AI's GEN-1.5, a robot model that learns tasks from a single demo. Google Research and USC have unveiled Mobility-Embedded POIs, or ME-POIs, a framework that integrates human movement data into text-based place embeddings. This approach aims to capture not just what a place is, but how it is used, offering a richer understanding of locations. By encoding each visit as a contextualized vector and aligning these with a learnable prototype for each point of interest, ME-POIs significantly improved model performance across various tasks. In tests on Los Angeles and Houston data, ME-POIs enhanced 34 out of 35 model-task pairings, with notable gains in predicting visit intent and busyness. While the framework is not yet available as a downloadable model, it offers a promising direction for AI applications in urban planning and location-based services. ## Feature Story Generalist AI's GEN-1.5 model can teach robots new tasks from a single demonstration, marking a significant step in robotics. GEN-1.5, a robot foundation model, learns new physical tasks from just 3 to 12 seconds of demonstration data, without the need for gradient updates or fine-tuning. This capability, termed "physical prompting," allows robots to perform tasks by simply observing a short demo, akin to how humans learn new skills. In trials involving ten diverse manipulation tasks, GEN-1.5 achieved a 59% success rate on average with one-shot learning, which increased to 83% after minimal task-specific adaptation. Despite these promising results, GEN-1.5 is currently a research release, not yet deployable for commercial use. Generalist AI operates the model on its own infrastructure, and access is limited to direct partnerships. The model's architecture is multimodal, processing video, sensor, language, and proprioceptive inputs, and it has been pretrained for over eight months on physical interaction data. While the tasks it can perform are simple and short-horizon, GEN-1.5 represents a breakthrough in one-shot learning for robotics. This development could pave the way for more adaptable robots in manufacturing and other industries, reducing the need for extensive programming and training. However, the lack of public access and the model's current limitations mean that widespread deployment is still on the horizon. As the technology matures, it could lead to significant advancements in how robots are integrated into various sectors, potentially transforming workflows and increasing efficiency. For now, the focus remains on refining the model and exploring its capabilities through partnerships and further research. Stay tuned as we continue to track the progress of GEN-1.5 and its impact on the future of robotics.

  3. 2d ago

    Meet FreeToken: An Edge-Native MoE Serving Engine that Runs 753B GLM-5.2 on a Single Workstation GPU — 2026-08-23

    ## Short Segments DeepDoctection streamlines document analysis with a comprehensive AI pipeline. Today, we're diving into how deepDoctection 1.2.x transforms document processing by integrating layout detection, table recognition, OCR, and more into a single workflow. Later, we'll explore FreeToken's breakthrough in running massive AI models on consumer hardware. But first, let's see how deepDoctection is changing document intelligence. DeepDoctection 1.2.x offers a robust solution for automating document analysis. This Python library combines layout detection, table structure recognition, OCR, and reading-order reconstruction into a seamless workflow. By configuring the analyzer with DocLayNet, Table Transformer, and DocTR OCR, users can efficiently process text, figures, and tables. Additionally, the framework allows for customization by registering new object types and implementing custom components for specific data extraction tasks. Users can manually assemble pipelines, explore filtering options, and serialize processed pages for downstream applications. This integration of computer vision and NLP technologies significantly reduces the time required for document processing, making it a valuable tool for businesses handling large volumes of documents. Vercel's 'Is Agentic' tool offers a free audit of website agent-readiness. Vercel has launched 'Is Agentic,' a tool that evaluates how well AI agents can interact with public websites. Developed in collaboration with Ora, this tool provides a comprehensive score based on over 100 checks, assessing a site's accessibility and usability for AI agents. Available at no cost, 'Is Agentic' requires no subscription or API key, making it accessible for organizations of all sizes. Users can simply enter a URL in the browser or use the CLI to receive a detailed report on their site's agent-readiness. This tool is particularly beneficial for startups and mid-market SaaS teams looking to optimize their web presence for AI interactions. ## Feature Story FreeToken enables massive AI models to run on consumer hardware. Researchers from UC Berkeley and UT Austin have introduced FreeToken, a serving engine that allows large AI models to operate on personal machines. This development addresses the challenge of running frontier open-weight models, which typically require datacenter-class GPU clusters. FreeToken reimagines a personal machine as a unified, elastic inference platform, dynamically allocating computation across available resources. This approach allows a 35B model to run at interactive speed on an 8 GB laptop GPU, a 284B model on a gaming desktop, and the 753B GLM-5.2 on a single workstation card. FreeToken is available under the Apache-2.0 license on GitHub and can be installed via PyPI. It is also offered as a one-click desktop app for Windows and Linux, making it accessible to a wide range of users. This innovation significantly reduces the cost and complexity of deploying large AI models, empowering individual developers and small teams to leverage cutting-edge AI capabilities without the need for expensive infrastructure. As AI models continue to evolve, FreeToken represents a crucial step in democratizing access to advanced AI technologies, enabling more users to participate in the AI revolution. With its ability to run massive models on consumer hardware, FreeToken is poised to transform the landscape of AI deployment, making it more inclusive and accessible than ever before.

  4. 3d ago

    Decoding AI’s Open-Source Course Maps Three Ways to Run an Agent Loop and the Provider Economics Behind — 2026-08-22

    ## Short Segments Today, we're diving into the mechanics of AI agent loops and the economics behind them. Coming up, we'll explore how a new open-source course maps out three distinct ways to run an agent loop, each with its own provider economics. This development could reshape how teams approach AI deployment strategies. ## Feature Story Decoding AI's open-source course reveals three distinct ways to run an agent loop, each with unique provider economics. This insight could fundamentally change how teams approach AI deployment. Traditionally, teams have focused on selecting the right model as the key decision in AI deployment. However, recent findings from LangChain's Terminal-Bench experiment suggest that the harness, or the way the model is run, can significantly impact performance. In this experiment, simply changing the harness moved a coding agent from roughly 30th place into the top 5, using the same model throughout. This shift in perspective highlights the importance of how the agent loop is run, making it an architectural decision rather than a mere deployment detail. Paul Iusztin's open-source course, "Building a Coding Agent From Scratch," delves into this concept by constructing a Python agent named Decode. The course, published through Decoding AI, outlines three different run modes, each with its own latency profile and corresponding inference provider requirements. The core of the system is a headless harness, which operates without its own interface. Within this harness, the agent loop functions by having the LLM select an action, a tool execute it, and then feeding the observation back into the system. This loop reads from and writes to the context window, forming the backbone of the agent's operation. The agent itself is relatively small. In the Decode system, it consists of a roughly 20-line Pydantic AI definition that combines a model, tools, and an output type. In contrast, Claude Code's leaked source reveals a core loop of about 150 lines. The rest of the system, including memory, skills, sandbox, permissions, LSP feedback, and compaction, is part of the harness. Interfaces are then integrated into this core system. This modular approach allows for flexibility and adaptability in how the agent operates, depending on the specific requirements of the task at hand. The implications of this development are significant. By understanding the different ways to run an agent loop and the economics behind each, teams can make more informed decisions about their AI deployment strategies. This could lead to more efficient and effective use of AI resources, ultimately improving performance and reducing costs. Moreover, this approach aligns with the broader trend of open-source tools gaining traction in the AI community. As more organizations look to leverage AI for various applications, having access to open-source resources like this course can democratize the technology, making it more accessible to a wider range of users. In conclusion, the insights provided by Decoding AI's course offer a new perspective on AI deployment. By focusing on the harness and the agent loop, rather than just the model, teams can optimize their AI systems for better performance and cost-effectiveness. This development is a step forward in the ongoing evolution of AI technology, providing valuable tools and knowledge for those looking to harness the power of AI in their work. That's all for today's episode of Impact Vector. Stay tuned for more insights into the world of AI tools and technologies. Until next time, keep exploring the possibilities of AI.

  5. 4d ago

    SOP-Bench: A new benchmark for evaluating AI agents on real business procedures — 2026-08-21

    ## Short Segments Today, we're diving into a groundbreaking development in AI evaluation. Amazon Science has introduced SOP-Bench, a new benchmark designed to test AI agents on real-world business procedures. This innovation could redefine how AI tools are assessed for their ability to handle complex, multi-step tasks in various industries. Coming up, we'll explore how SOP-Bench challenges AI agents to execute standard operating procedures with the same precision and adaptability as human workers. ## Feature Story Amazon Science has unveiled SOP-Bench, a new benchmark that evaluates AI agents on their ability to execute real business procedures. This development is crucial as it addresses a significant gap in AI evaluation: the ability to handle complex, multi-step standard operating procedures, or SOPs, that are fundamental to industrial automation. Standard operating procedures are the backbone of many industries, ensuring consistency and safety across operations. They encapsulate an organization's hard-won knowledge, compliance rules, and decision logic. However, these procedures are often more complex than they appear, requiring interpretation of implicit instructions, shared field knowledge, and judgment calls as conditions change. For instance, a hospital's patient intake procedure might instruct staff to verify insurance twice, without explaining the different purposes of each verification. A human worker understands the nuances, but an AI agent lacks this contextual knowledge, making it challenging to execute the procedure accurately. SOP-Bench aims to rigorously measure what AI agents can and cannot handle in these scenarios. Unlike existing benchmarks, which often fail to capture the procedural complexity and tool orchestration demands of real-world workflows, SOP-Bench provides a more realistic assessment of an AI agent's capabilities. This new benchmark is part of a broader trend in AI development, where language models are transitioning from conversational tools to autonomous agents capable of executing complex professional workflows. However, their deployment in enterprise environments has been limited by the lack of benchmarks that capture the specific challenges of professional settings, such as long-horizon planning and strict access protocols. By introducing SOP-Bench, Amazon Science is addressing these challenges head-on. The benchmark tests AI agents on their ability to follow domain-specific SOPs, policies, and constraints when taking actions and making tool calls. This is essential for ensuring that AI tools genuinely assist rather than silently fail in critical tasks. In the context of AI agents that automate tasks by clicking, scrolling, and executing software commands, SOP-Bench represents a significant step forward. It moves beyond simply understanding text to actually using software in a way that mirrors human decision-making and adaptability. As AI continues to evolve, the introduction of SOP-Bench could have far-reaching implications for industries that rely heavily on SOPs. It provides a more accurate measure of an AI agent's ability to handle the complexities of real-world business procedures, paving the way for more reliable and effective AI tools in enterprise settings. Looking ahead, the development of SOP-Bench highlights the importance of creating robust benchmarks that reflect the true demands of professional environments. As AI agents become more integrated into business processes, the ability to evaluate their performance accurately will be crucial for ensuring their successful deployment and adoption. In summary, SOP-Bench is a significant advancement in the evaluation of AI agents, offering a more comprehensive assessment of their ability to execute complex, multi-step procedures. This development could lead to more effective AI tools that genuinely assist in critical tasks, ultimately transforming how industries operate.

  6. 5d ago

    Auditing Preference Biases and Fine-Tuning Language Models with Direct Preference Optimization on Anthropic — 2026-08-20

    ## Short Segments Today, we're diving into a new frontier in AI model fine-tuning with Direct Preference Optimization, or DPO. This method is reshaping how developers can align language models with human preferences, using the Anthropic HH-RLHF dataset. Coming up, we'll explore how this approach is making AI training more efficient and reliable. ## Feature Story In the evolving landscape of AI, Direct Preference Optimization, or DPO, is emerging as a pivotal technique for fine-tuning language models. This method is particularly significant for developers aiming to align AI outputs with human preferences, using datasets like Anthropic's HH-RLHF. Let's break down what this means for AI training and deployment. The process begins with setting up a robust Colab environment, essential for handling the complexities of preference learning. Developers load and parse chosen-rejected response pairs from the dataset, a critical step in identifying structural and length-based biases. These biases can skew model training, so auditing them is crucial for ensuring fair and accurate AI behavior. Next, the workflow involves running lexical shortcut diagnostics. This step checks if surface-level linguistic patterns can distinguish between preferred and rejected responses. By understanding these patterns, developers can refine the model's ability to prioritize human-like responses over less desirable ones. Preparing conversational data with tokenizer-aware length filtering is another key component. This ensures that the data fed into the model is consistent and relevant, avoiding the pitfalls of training on irrelevant or biased information. The goal is to construct a version-robust DPO training pipeline, utilizing tools like TRL and optional LoRA adaptation. Fine-tuning the Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct model is where the magic happens. This step involves evaluating reward accuracy and training behavior, crucial metrics for assessing the model's alignment with human preferences. Developers analyze performance across individual HH-RLHF subsets, inspecting potential length bias and generating sample responses to gauge effectiveness. Once the model is fine-tuned, the resulting policy is saved for further experimentation. This allows developers to iterate on their models, continually improving alignment and performance. The use of DPO in this context simplifies AI alignment, offering a more stable and efficient alternative to traditional reinforcement learning methods. Direct Preference Optimization stands out because it bypasses the need for complex reward modeling, a common hurdle in reinforcement learning. By focusing directly on preference learning, DPO streamlines the process, making it more accessible and less resource-intensive. This is particularly beneficial for smaller teams or projects with limited computational resources. In comparison to other alignment techniques like Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), DPO offers a more direct approach to aligning AI models with human values. While SFT relies on labeled data to guide model behavior, DPO leverages preference data to fine-tune models in a way that inherently respects human choices and safety standards. As AI continues to integrate into various sectors, the importance of aligning models with human preferences cannot be overstated. Techniques like DPO not only enhance model safety and performance but also ensure that AI systems operate within ethical and societal norms. This is crucial as AI applications expand into sensitive areas such as healthcare, finance, and autonomous systems. Looking ahead, the adoption of DPO and similar techniques is likely to grow, driven by the need for more reliable and human-aligned AI systems. Developers and researchers will continue to refine these methods, pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve while maintaining alignment with human values. In summary, Direct Preference Optimization represents a significant advancement in AI model training. By focusing on preference learning, it offers a streamlined, efficient, and effective approach to aligning AI with human preferences. As this technique gains traction, it promises to play a crucial role in the future of AI development and deployment.

  7. Aug 18

    Cartesia Ships Sonic-3.6: A Streaming TTS Model That Now Leads Both Artificial Analysis Speech Arenas — 2026-08-18

    ## Short Segments ByteDance Seed and Tsinghua AIR have unveiled CUDA Agent, a reinforcement learning system that optimizes GPU kernel generation. This system trains a large language model to write faster CUDA kernels, outperforming traditional compilers. On the KernelBench benchmark, CUDA Agent achieves a 98.8% pass rate and a 96.8% success rate in generating faster kernels than the torch.compile method. While the trained agent isn't publicly available, the system's components, such as the CUDA-Agent-Ops-6K dataset, are accessible for mid-size teams to integrate into their workflows. This development is significant for teams looking to enhance computational efficiency in deep learning infrastructure. Meet SAM, the Sovereign Agent Mesh, a zero-config, zero-trust P2P network for AI agents. This Apache-2.0 project allows autonomous AI agents to share tools securely without exposing internal scripts or APIs to the public internet. SAM operates like a private VPN, enabling agent-to-agent tool sharing over the Model Context Protocol. While still in beta, SAM offers Go binaries, Docker images, and a Kubernetes deployment guide, making it suitable for mid-market and enterprise engineering organizations. This innovation is crucial for teams managing agents across multiple network boundaries, enhancing security and efficiency. Nous Research introduces Bot Mode for Hermes Agent, transforming agent profiles into a roster of named bots. This feature allows each bot to have its own chat, memory, skills, and pinned model, facilitating communication through a persistent Agent Inbox. Bot Mode is now bundled and default-on in Hermes Desktop, available at no license cost. It's ideal for solo builders, startups, and small-to-mid engineering teams, offering a flexible tool for managing multi-model agent workflows. Enterprises, however, should consider it a workstation tool due to the lack of centralized management features. ## Feature Story Cartesia's Sonic-3.6 text-to-speech model now leads both Artificial Analysis speech arenas, setting a new standard in real-time TTS technology. Released just three months after Sonic-3.5, Sonic-3.6 achieves top scores on both the Provider Voice and Controlled Voice leaderboards, with the latter being particularly noteworthy as it isolates the synthesis engine from the voice catalog. This advancement is attributed to its state space model architecture, which delivers sub-90ms time-to-first-audio, enhancing naturalness and responsiveness. Available in beta as a hosted API, Sonic-3.6 is not open-source, requiring users to rent the service rather than self-hosting. Its deployment spans various industries, including financial services, healthcare, and e-commerce, catering to solo developers, startups, and large enterprises alike. As Sonic-3.6 sets a new benchmark in TTS performance, it highlights the growing importance of natural and efficient speech synthesis in diverse applications, from customer service to content creation. Looking ahead, the focus will likely be on further refining the model's capabilities and expanding its accessibility to a broader range of users and industries.

  8. Aug 17

    DeepSeek AI Releases DeepSeek Harness in Developer Preview: An MIT-Licensed Agent Harness Where — 2026-08-17

    ## Short Segments DeepSeek's new AI tool lets developers build custom agent runtimes with ease. Later, we'll explore how DeepSeek Harness is changing the game for AI-native startups and enterprise teams. ## Feature Story DeepSeek has unveiled its latest innovation, the DeepSeek Harness, in a developer preview, offering a new way for developers to create custom AI agent runtimes. Unlike traditional harnesses that hard-code the agent loop and tool registry, DeepSeek Harness treats every component as a plugin. This means models, tools, skills, sessions, and even the user interface can be selected, swapped, or extended without altering the core source code. This modular approach positions DeepSeek Harness as a versatile kit for assembling agent runtimes, rather than a fixed coding assistant. The release of DeepSeek Harness is particularly significant for AI-native startups and platform or developer-experience teams within mid-to-large enterprises. These organizations, especially those in regulated industries like financial services and insurance, can pilot the tool locally due to its MIT license and self-hosted nature. This flexibility allows companies to tailor their AI agent environments to specific needs, enhancing their internal tooling capabilities. DeepSeek Harness enters a competitive landscape of AI agent frameworks, joining the ranks of LangChain, CrewAI, and AutoGen. However, its unique architectural approach of treating every component as a plugin sets it apart. This design choice not only simplifies the process of building and deploying AI-powered workflows but also encourages innovation by allowing developers to create custom plugins and experiment with different plugin composition patterns. The strategic launch of DeepSeek Harness marks a pivotal moment for DeepSeek as it pivots towards autonomous agentic AI. By providing the foundational digital scaffolding for AI agents, DeepSeek aims to enable systems capable of using AI models to operate external software, run code, and complete complex tasks autonomously. This move aligns with the broader industry trend towards developing more autonomous AI systems that can handle intricate jobs without constant human intervention. For developers, the immediate implication of DeepSeek Harness is the ability to build more flexible and customizable AI agents. The open-source nature of the project, combined with its plugin-based architecture, empowers developers to tailor their agent environments to specific use cases, whether it's integrating with existing tools or creating entirely new functionalities. This flexibility is crucial for organizations looking to leverage AI to streamline operations and enhance productivity. Looking ahead, the success of DeepSeek Harness will likely depend on the community's adoption and the ecosystem of plugins that developers create. As more organizations experiment with and deploy the tool, we can expect to see a diverse range of applications and use cases emerge, further solidifying DeepSeek's position in the AI agent framework space. In summary, DeepSeek Harness offers a new paradigm for building AI agent runtimes, emphasizing modularity and customization. For developers and enterprises alike, this means greater control over their AI environments and the potential to innovate in ways previously constrained by fixed frameworks. As the tool gains traction, it will be interesting to see how it shapes the future of autonomous AI systems.

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Daily news about AI tools.

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