During Naomi Osaka’s match against Anastasia Zakharova at this year’s US Open earlier this week, a gaggle of ring light-wielding influencers who were packed in a luxury suite became enough of a distraction that the umpire paused the match and repeatedly asked them to quiet down. Elsewhere in the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis […]
It’s Bullitt meets Christine meets Waymo. A new short film imagines a San Francisco car chase where the other driver isn’t human – and the car may be trying to kill you. That a robotaxi can now be cast as the villain with almost no explanation says something about the present moment. Autonomous cars have […]
Instagram’s visible AI labels are supposed to help people quickly spot synthetically generated content at a glance. Over the last few weeks, however, users have been reporting that the system has gone haywire. They say Meta has been automatically applying an “AI Content” label to images that they didn’t create or edit using generative AI […]
OpenAI’s next big model is here: GPT-6 Astra. The company calls it a “generational leap in capability” for areas like cybersecurity, professional work, software engineering, science, and computer use. As OpenAI announced earlier this week, it’s also the first model designated as meeting OpenAI’s “critical cybersecurity capability threshold” – but the company promises that won’t […]
The idea of humanoid robots running our homes has been the stuff of science fiction for years. But unlike hoverboards and self-tying sneakers, a robot housekeeper has never felt close to rolling into our homes. Until now. This has been the year of the humanoid robot. At CES, there were dozens of human-shaped bots on […]
Google has reportedly been reaching out to a number of Hollywood’s biggest studios, hoping to strike licensing agreements that would allow it to train its AI models on copyrighted material in exchange for massive piles of cash. In theory, these deals would be a win-win: a huge financial boon to the studios that would also […]
Nvidia knows that DLSS 5 left a bad first impression. In March, many gamers took one look at Resident Evil Requiem protagonist Grace Ashcroft’s DLSS 5-ified face and declared it AI slop. So this week, the company’s re-introducing its controversial “neural rendering” with firm messaging about how it “preserves artistic intent,” “respects the rendered frame,” […]
We’re not even half a day into September, and two new smartphones have already launched: the Poco F9 Pro and F9 Ultra. We’re expecting more this week, as the IFA trade show kicks off in Berlin, before we get new iPhones a week after that. And that’s only the beginning of what promises to be […]
Xiaomi spinoff brand Poco has partnered with Bose for the second year in a row for its flagship F9 Pro and Ultra phones. The F9 phones double down on amped up audio, with a light-up subwoofer built into the Ultra, along with extremely bright displays, enormous batteries, and what should be Poco’s best cameras yet. […]
Expectations for Tim Cook were almost impossibly high when he stepped in to replace Apple’s visionary cofounder in 2011. He inherited a company on a blockbuster run, after Steve Jobs returned and revitalized the Mac, launched the iPod, and oversaw the launch of the iPhone. Now, after 15 years in the CEO role, Tim Cook […]