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Tech
Industry, products, and the wires that hold it all together.
478 stories archived
Google's new Nano Banana 2 Lite image model is its fastest and cheapest yet
They may not look as good, but Nano Banana 2 Lite images only take a few seconds to create.
RFK Jr. stacks FDA panel with peptide peddlers as FDA scientists oppose access
Peptide drugs are popular, but FDA scientists warn they're untested, may be harmful.
I Have Thoughts About That Kylie Jenner Meta Glasses Ad
Meta's new Starfire AI glasses, made in partnership with Kylie Jenner, are giving me the creeps.
Trump's plan to redesign every .gov website leads to AI-designed horrors
A year in, National Design Studio delays plan to update government web standards.
The US going 100% EV by 2040 would save more than 100k lives, study says
Much of it comes from heavy-duty trucks and buses that burn diesel.
County With 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to ‘Conserve Electricity’
Henrico County is a major hub for data centers in Virginia. Its officials said it expects a 25% rise in electricity costs next year, and advised workers to close the blinds and turn off their computers to make up for it.
Trump asked Musk for SpaceX stock to seed US kids’ savings accounts, report says
Sources suggest Musk may be mulling big donation to Trump Accounts.
Silicon Valley donations make Colorado Democratic primary one of state’s most expensive
Manny Rutinel’s House campaign draws millions from big tech as pro- and anti-AI factions spar over regulation Political groups funded by top tech executives have been homing in on one local race in Colorado, as the state’s Democratic primary vote gets under way on Tuesday. Democrat Manny Rutinel, who’s running in the competitive eighth congressional district for a seat in the House, has seen his campaign boosted with at least $2m in donations from committees led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen. Rutinel is a progressive candidate running against former state representative and centrist Democrat Shannon Bird. During his campaign, he has focused on his Latino heritage and centered his platform around affordability and regulating Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Continue reading...
Return of the ‘greybeards’: AI backfired – so Ford had to rehire humans
The US motor company found that the hundreds of AI cameras being used for design and manufacturing checks were prone to pitfalls Name: “Greybeards.” Age: There’s a clue in the name. Continue reading...
Scammers Sell Seeds for Exotic AI-Generated Flowers That Don’t Exist
Ebay, Amazon, and Etsy are unable to stop the flood of AI-generated seed scams.
Florida bans local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals
Gov. Ron DeSantis calls it a crackdown on "radical climate policies."
Companies Are Making Claude and Codex Talk Like Cavemen to Stop AI’s Soaring Costs
A senior OpenAI employee has contributed code to the project, simply called 'caveman.'
Rocky week for AI as shares slump but no sign of crash – yet
The markets are souring on artificial intelligence, but is this the bubble being burst? Meanwhile, California proposes a tax on billionaires Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you after fending off sunburns at the beach. Today, we’re discussing a rocky week for the AI industry’s finances and how California’s proposed billionaire’s tax is changing the political posture of the state’s governor. Impact of social media ban for under-16s in UK hinges on how firm it is UK under-16s social media ban: which apps will be blocked and how will it work? ‘Tech firms are losing the public’: social media age bans near tipping point OpenAI staggers AI model release after Trump administration request Meta pauses employee tracker for AI training amid privacy concerns ‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears California billionaire tax will appear on ballot after deadline for deal passes | Technology | The Guardian Continue reading...
How I Bought a Private Jet By Selling $10 Subscriptions to 404 Media
My journey inside the world of LARPing, where hustlebros pretend to be rich for TikTok.
‘I felt like Orpheus’: how the designer of Gears of War bounced back from studio closure by producing Hadestown
After suffering the schadenfreude of gamers online, the Tony-winning Broadway musical offered redemption to Cliff Bleszinski ‘It was utterly heartbreaking, to be honest, and it certainly didn’t help with my drinking. I’ll leave it at that.” Cliff Bleszinski is recalling the launch of LawBreakers, the arena first-person shooter he put out in 2017. It had been his first project as the CEO of his own studio, Boss Key Productions. Before that, he was the creative figurehead behind hugely successful sci-fi shooter series, Gears of War, when he was known to millions of gamers as CliffyB. “I retired from Epic and all of it, and I missed making neat stuff,” he says. “And my agent at the time was needling me: ‘Come on, you want to get back in, have your own studio? Look at what [Hideo] Kojima’s doing.’ And I was like: ‘OK, if Kojima can do it, so can I.’ Such hubris, right?” Continue reading...
Oura Ring 5 review: a stunning generational leap for smart rings
Slimmer, longer lasting and much easier to live with, new Oura sets a very high new bar for health-tracking wearables Oura’s new Ring 5 is a massive upgrade for smart rings, dramatically shrinking in size and weight to bring them right into line with standard wedding bands and other jewellery. It is finally a smart ring you can genuinely forget you’re wearing. The Ring 5 is a straight replacement for the popular Ring 4 and costs from £399 (€399/$399/$A649), though it requires a £5.99 (€5.99/$5.99/A$9.99) a month subscription to access anything but basic daily metrics. An Oura is not a cheap proposition. Continue reading...
‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind
Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists make any difference? In 2017, a 33-year-old political philosopher named Iason Gabriel was told by a friend that he ought to apply for a job at DeepMind, the London-based subsidiary of Google where much of its AI research was concentrated. The suggestion was not an obvious one. Gabriel was a cheerful but intense junior academic with a passion for Vipassana meditation and what his brother calls “enthusiastic” rock climbing. The eldest son of a Greek management professor and a British documentary maker, Gabriel split his time between teaching and international development work. At the University of Oxford, where he was a fellow at St John’s College, Gabriel taught courses on political theory and wrote papers on the moral contortions of “yuppie ethics” and the ethical blind spots of effective altruism. When he wasn’t there, he did crisis work for the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan and Lebanon. Continue reading...
US offers $10 million for info on group behind Signal and WhatsApp hacking spree
Operation by two Russia-state groups has been ongoing since at least March.
South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots
South Korea targets physical AI lead and commercial humanoid robots by 2028.
US renewable boom passes key milestone in April
Small-scale solar helped renewables nearly triple coal generation on the US grid.
Supreme Court ruling guts government’s use of geofence warrants
SCOTUS falls short of deeming geofence warrants unconstitutional, though.
Tidal Says It Won’t Pay Royalties for AI-Generated Music
Spotify competitor Tidal built a reputation by collaborating with musicians and focusing on audio quality. How will it handle the era of AI-generated slop?
Sony erases digital content from libraries; we're reminded we don’t own what we buy
Sony has been scaling down its digitial store for a few years.
Ozone loss was a thing even before CFCs were widely used
With today’s scientific tools, the problem could have been spotted in the 1950s.