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Behind the Blog: Silent Retreat
This week, we discuss going into the woods, a "he admit it" moment, and a tofu sandwich.
Man invested $45M in a Nicolas Cage movie. It got stolen off Netflix’s desk.
Filmmaker sues Netflix over stolen screener of unreleased Nicolas Cage movie.
Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images
"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."
YouTube Bans Popular ASMR Artists, Accusing Them of Making 'Sexually Gratifying' Videos
YouTube told ASMR artists including Bunnii, Slight Sounds, Rose, and others that their content broke the platform's sex and nudity policy. Creators say these bans are unfair and potentially life-altering.
Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a "test of market interest."
AI scammers outperform humans when it comes to building trust
The AI chatbot was more effective at creating “exploitable trust” than the humans.
Pathogenic review: Damn, it feels good to be a virus
The hot new roguelite twin-stick shooter lives up to the hype.
A Hidden 'Dark Dimension' Could Rewrite Our Understanding of the Universe
The nature of dark matter and dark energy are among the biggest mysteries in science. Scientists think an extra “dark dimension” could explain both, and they are putting the idea to the test.
How a Yale AI-cheating dispute became a 13-count federal lawsuit
A disputed exam, an unreliable detector, and one very late Apple Pages file.
‘A universal human story’: Clean Start’s thought-provoking tidying sim tells immigrant’s tale
Playing as recent arrival Lena, your challenges include learning a new language and uncovering family secrets – its developer hopes it will spread ‘a little more compassion’ The cosy house-sorting sim has become a much-loved staple of the PC indie scene. Titles such as Unpacking , A Little to the Left and Momento charm players with their detailed interiors and quiet narratives of lives lived and shared within the same four walls. For Clean Start, Polish developer Serious Sim has taken a different approach – here you play as domestic cleaner, Lena, an immigrant who has arrived in an unspecified western country with little knowledge of the local language, and a family to support back home. From here, you’re tasked with cleaning a series of houses and apartments, polishing tables, tidying shelves and scrubbing muddy pawprints from kitchen floors. It seems you’re able to rearrange the rooms, giving them a personal feel, which is after all one of the most pleasing elements of the genre. You can also, we are reassured, pet the dog. Continue reading...
Rocket Report: New launch rule may limit environmental regulations, Falcon 9 to hit Moon
"America won the first Space Race, and we can do it again."
AI labels to be compulsory on authentic-looking content under EU rules
Companies must ensure people know when they are interacting with artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look real From apparently conspiring to steal elections to abusing staff or performing embarrassing dance moves, the last few years have seen plenty of fake content made about politicians intended to malign its targets and mislead the public. Now EU rules aim to stem the flood of this deceptive content: starting from Sunday, artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look authentic must be labelled. Continue reading...
My family is coming apart – so it’s time for one last video game session | Dominik Diamond
I wanted our last family games night to be the best fun we’ve ever had. Maybe we should have stuck with Mario Kart … It is the end of an era for the Diamond family. For 20 years, there have been five of us living together. It has not been easy. Militant vegan daughters, sons who have inherited Scottish tempers, and a youngest child who attracts trouble like an industrial magnet, have meant our house has been conflict-laden at times. Throw in the fact that we are beset with all manner of mental health bobbins and chronic illnesses that resulted in two of our three kids almost dying in hospitals and you get a family that is combustible – but extremely close. Through it all, we had games. They always brought us back together. Not just us all hunkering over Super Mario Kart like some kind of UN-mandated family therapy, but the conversations that happen when any of us spy another playing something new. Games are a cultural touchstone that helped us crack through the veneer of disagreements and distrust and remind us that we have more things in common than we sometimes feel. Continue reading...
SingStar Take That anyone? The strange joy of charity shop video games
Hidden gems can be unearthed, but you have to dig deep into the bargain bins of countless outdated Fifas, Wii Fits without the controllers and partially finished quizshow games As an eternally optimistic charity shop fan, I hold on to the fantasy that one day I’ll walk into my local Oxfam and find a pristine copy of the Sega Saturn shooter Burning Rangers for £1.50. Or perhaps a box full of old Neo Geo carts for a quid each. Sadly, this is now unlikely. Charity shops have caught on to the fact that old video games – like old vinyl albums – are highly collectible, and so they’re putting the good stuff on eBay. That’s fine, it’s their job to raise money, not to provide opportunist swine like me with bargains. But what games can you find tucked away in your local branch of Barnardo’s? To find out I visited about 40 charity stores across the country. Here is what I discovered on the shelves … And please do share your own charity shop gaming finds in the comments! Continue reading...
Could AI take your job? Some workers in China already know the answer
Across the country, workers are fearful about the impact of AI on their livelihoods in an increasingly fragile labour market On the tree-lined streets of Wuhan, where cars jostle for space with mopeds and cargo trucks, the malfunctioning of a new type of vehicle has recently been causing chaos on the city’s roads. In March, several cars from a fleet of driverless taxis stopped abruptly in the streets. The “system malfunction” left distressed riders stranded for hours. The robotaxis, known as Apollo Go and powered by artificial intelligence (AI), were taken off Wuhan’s streets for months for investigations. Continue reading...
Tim Cook passes the baton in Apple's Q3 2026 earnings call
The iPhone and Mac sold well, but memory costs threaten further price increases.
Max-severity Exchange server flaw under active exploitation by Kremlin hackers
Exploits can give persistent server access that survives credential rotation and disk re-imaging.
Trump FCC faces blowback in attempt to police speech on broadcast TV
"Chilling message to all broadcasters: carry speech we don’t like at your peril."
Iran struck Amazon data centers again amid widening war, satellites show
Satellites show burn scars and fires at AWS data centers and Saudi oil refinery.
Just because a game is on disc doesn’t mean it will work in the future
DoesItPlay tracks the many "physical" games that don't work without the Internet.
Chrome may get faster updates with no restart required
The last two versions of Chrome have included more patches than the previous 23 combined.
Google reveals Gemini Robotics 2.0, promising improved dexterity and safety
Gemini Robotics 2 includes three models, but only one is publicly available right now.
Space Force-backed mission does its best impression of Top Gun in orbit
"Dogfighting in space doesn’t quite have the drama of an aerial dogfight."
Honor Magic V6 review: sleek foldable phone lacking a bit of polish
Super-premium Android has top performance, long battery life and good cameras, but is let down by software Honor’s svelte Android phone-tablet has been given a glow-up for its sixth version, offering a great alternative to Samsung for a fancy foldable with a red suede-like back framed in gold. The Magic V6 continues the Chinese challenger brand’s strategy of taking a razor-thin device and slapping a giant circular lump on the back to fit in top-class cameras, something others often forgo. It costs a not inconsiderable £1,500 (€1,700/A$2,999) but only until August when the price jumps to a cool £2,000 (€2,300) – a solid £300 more than last year’s model as the cost of RAMageddon continues to bite , even at the very top end of the market. Main screen: 7.95in (403ppi) 120Hz OLED flexible display Cover screen: 6.52in (406ppi) 120Hz OLED Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 RAM: 16GB Storage: 512GB Operating system: MagicOS 10 (Android 16) Camera: 50MP + 50MP ultrawide + 64MP 3x tele; 2x 20MP selfie Connectivity: 5G, dual sim + esim, USB-C, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, GNSS Water resistance: IP68/69 (1.5 metres for 30 minutes) Dimensions folded: 156.7 x 74.5 x 8.75-9mm Dimensions unfolded: 156.7 x 145.6 x 4.0-4.1mm Weight: 219-224g Continue reading...