The field of semantic communications and goal-oriented systems is rapidly evolving, with a focus on developing innovative solutions to address the challenges of effective information exchange and decision-making in complex systems. Recent research has explored the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) to enhance wireless performance in indoor environments, as well as the development of new methods for semantic channel equalization and latent space alignment. These advances have the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of communication systems, enabling more effective collaboration and decision-making in a wide range of applications. Notable papers in this area include the proposal of a joint physical and semantic channel equalization framework using RIS, and the development of a generative causality-invariant approach for knowledge abstraction in semantic communication. The paper on secure goal-oriented communication also highlights the importance of defending against eavesdropping timing attacks, and proposes practical heuristics to balance performance gains with information leakage.