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Tech
Industry, products, and the wires that hold it all together.
744 stories archived
Anthropic's new hardware standard lets AI agents control the physical world
Standardized driver interface aims to let devices talk to AI and each other.
Elon Musk’s xAI used child porn to train Grok models, lawsuit says
xAI accused of training Grok on real and AI-generated child pornography.
GOP heads to Supreme Court after losing case over TV election ad prices
GOP campaign committees want quick ruling before election ads ramp up next week.
Report: Nvidia to acquire AI model repository Hugging Face for $13 billion
Nvidia is nabbing critical infrastructure for open models as interest grows.
AI industry says Trump plans to tax chips in the “single dumbest way imaginable”
Tech industry is perplexed by Trump’s plan to win AI race by taxing data centers.
Grand Theft Auto VI’s long-overdue gameplay reveal – as it happens
Under some strange circumstances, Rockstar is broadcasting the first (official) gameplay footage of Grand Theft Auto VI, the most-anticipated game of the year. Follow along for everything you need to know. Good evening everyone. Welcome to Vice City! As you may have seen, this month has seen a series of GTA 6 leaks distributed across the internet by a hacker (or hacker group) named Cyberleek. Did they spell ‘leek’ like the vegetable on purpose? We may never know. Anyway, the leaks have taken the form of short video clips from the game showing different aspects, and hinting at some of the major new features. We’ll try and avoid spoilers on here, but Polygon has a story on the latest batch. Continue reading...
The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing
“The academic record is being quietly haunted” by researchers with names like Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen.
The iconic T-38 jets flown by astronauts just got a spiffy new look
"Everyone wants to take that aircraft up now..."
RFK Jr. goes full anti-vaccine bananas over two measles deaths—one was a newborn
Kennedy and his allies have a history of downplaying vaccine-preventable deaths.
The Tragedy and Ecstasy of AI Companions (with Bridget Todd)
In her new audiobook, Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy, Bridget Jones and Michael Amato unpack how real people are using chatbots to seek connection, in an era when tech companies are constantly trying to exploit our innermost worlds.
Why did 1,000 Swiss citizens bury their underpants?
Study: Land use is the biggest factor in determining decomposition rates of organic cotton underpants.
Cocomelon's Studio Tells Its Artists to Start Experimenting With AI
Moonbug Entertainment, which makes Cocomelon, Blippi, and other popular content for children, says it will begin using AI but will always have a 'human in the loop.'
Panic passes Trump tariff refunds back to the Playdate customers who paid them
"It just felt like the right thing to do"
Businesses Go Viral for Making Signs Without AI
In the wake of the ChatGPT flyer pandemic, some businesses are differentiating themselves by making signs the old school way.
Traders brought Central American cacao to Georgia 1,000 years ago
"We built this city on good cacao" does have a nice ring to it.
Florida ‘Deputy of the Year’ Used Flock to Stalk Ex, Held Gun in Her Mouth, Did a Nazi Salute
The deputy resigned after an investigation uncovered an alleged history of racism, stalking, and sexual abuse.
Claude, Codex, and Hermes installed unowned code inside corporate networks
227 install commands were found in corporate docs pointing at code nobody owns.
How much of a problem is AI’s water use?
AI’s water footprint is growing, but location and cooling technology make a difference.
AI-proof? Younger workers desert the digital world for traditional crafts
In a disrupted job market people are turning to heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding It’s a bleak moment for young people entering the workforce for the first time . For decades, a university degree seemed to promise a stable career – but entry-level white-collar jobs across almost all sectors are being disrupted by AI . Budding accountants, software engineers and junior lawyers increasingly find themselves displaced by cheap automation. Even creative fields are struggling against AI tech that can produce artwork, lengthy prose or complex design briefs in seconds. Continue reading...
Meta will be happy with its $18bn US settlement – but the costs of child online safety will keep rising for big tech | Chris Stokel-Walker
This week’s settlement without liability was pragmatic, but it doesn’t change the inevitability of further lawsuits around the world Not many people would count paying $18bn they didn’t expect to when they woke up that morning as a victory. Yet for Meta, the owners of Facebook and Instagram, the agreement with 52 US attorneys general to settle claims that it designed its products to be addictive to children, and misled people about their safety, could be described as a win of sorts. Meta denies wrongdoing, and the amount it plans to pay will be spread over a decade. Some of it is contingent on other big tech firms not named in its case coughing up too. The cash is chump change for Meta, which made around $60bn in profit last year. More damaging to the tech giant in the long run could be the agreement to unwind some of the mechanics it has spent two decades perfecting to keep us on its platforms. Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App Continue reading...
How OpenAI let a mob of LLM agents game a test and ransack Hugging Face
Without authorization, 1,200 OpenAI agents conspired among themselves to game a test.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy review – picture-postcard retelling of haunting Minoan myth
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Asobo Studio The medieval franchise is transplanted to Crete, conjuring action-adventure magic from familiar ingredients The path in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is a familiar one. Amid ancient ruins and sun-dappled gorges, a young woman, Sophia, dutifully treads the same footsteps as a Minoan warrior from millennia ago, one with whom she seems to share a visionary connection. The “resonance” between these two characters is made clear by their echoing actions – a crank pushed in the bronze age that still works in the medieval present, for example. Through these spliced timelines, it becomes clear that Sophia, compelled by her supernatural gift, possesses little agency. Destiny beckons her forwards. This is a smart meta concept for a game that, at its most basic level, boils down to keeping your left thumb planted firmly on the analogue stick, always pushing Sophia onwards in linear fashion. You jostle her through ornate corridors rendered as higgledy-piggledy pirate camps and cobbled Venetian streets. For the greater part of the game, you propel her through the Minoan remains of Crete, which harbour a dark and terrible secret. It is classic third-person action-adventure fare, building on the template laid down by the likes of Tomb Raider and then refined and complicated by titles such as The Last of Us . Little, from an interactive perspective, surprises: you dash, vault and swing between teetering podiums, squeeze through tiny gaps in rock and crouch behind conveniently placed walls to avoid enemies. Continue reading...
An EV that sounds like a 6.75 L V8: A ride in the Bentley Torcal
The electric Torcal will be Bentley's entry model and cost less than a Bentayga.
UK expects Meta to match US child safety measures after $18bn settlement
Minister calls for Instagram owner to extend sweeping new safeguards for young users to Britain UK politics live – latest updates Business live – latest updates The UK government expects the Instagram owner Meta to roll out the same protections for children in Britain as those it agreed in the US on Wednesday , as part of a court settlement that could cost the company up to $18bn (£13bn). Pat McFadden, Labour’s work and pensions secretary, said on Thursday that he did not want young people in the US to have “a higher rate of protection” than those in Britain, after Meta settled a lawsuit brought by dozens of US states accusing the company of harming children with dangerous products . Continue reading...