Elon, stop trying to make Grok happen
Elon, stop trying to make Grok happen

There is a harsh truth about Elon Musk’s “truth-seeking” AI chatbot Grok: It’s not very good, and not many people are using it. That’s the takeaway of a new Reuters report, which found that Grok barely appears in federal records of how the US government used AI last year. It’s not the only sign xAI’s […]

Why would you disrespect your favorite artist with an AI remix?
Why would you disrespect your favorite artist with an AI remix?

AI covers and remixes of songs are already a blight on the internet. Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are awash in flat reggae versions of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” dinky country renditions of The Weeknd, and monotonous Motown reimaginings of AC/DC. Now, a new tool from Spotify will make them even easier to generate and […]

Boots Riley turns class struggle into comedy with I Love Boosters
Boots Riley turns class struggle into comedy with I Love Boosters

Before Boots Riley became the writer / director / musician behind Sorry to Bother You and I’m a Virgo, he was a young community organizer fighting for social justice as part of the Progressive Labor Party. Riley has channeled his anti-establishment, pro-worker politics into every piece of art that he’s made. But his belief that […]

Who gets to own the Luigi Mangione story?
Who gets to own the Luigi Mangione story?

On Monday morning, a judge overseeing the New York state case on the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO ruled that some evidence collected by police could not be shown to a jury. It wasn’t the only news coming out of the hearing. Outside the courthouse, Molly Crane-Newman, a New York Daily News reporter, captured on […]

The cost of the smart home is going up
The cost of the smart home is going up

Selling the smart home has been hard. Even Amazon has lost money in the space, despite putting hundreds of millions of Echo devices in people’s homes. Google has also reportedly struggled to turn a profit from its substantial investment in Nest. But now Google is seeing dollar signs in the prospect of selling AI-driven subscriptions […]

I can’t believe how fast Google vibe coded my first Android app
I can’t believe how fast Google vibe coded my first Android app

Yesterday, I built my first Android app. Then, I made two more – three in one afternoon. For one, I literally typed 148 words into my web browser and walked away. Ten minutes later, I had an entire new app on my actual Android phone. I did have to prep that phone by enabling a […]

‘Fuck you, Bambu’: How one private message could change the face of 3D printing
‘Fuck you, Bambu’: How one private message could change the face of 3D printing

Bambu Lab makes the best, most accessible 3D printers yet, but that reputation is suddenly under siege. It all started when Paweł Jarczak received a private message from the company on Reddit asking him to delete his code. Now the 3D printing community is lining up behind Jarczak to fund a war against Bambu – […]

Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball to lead strategy
Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball to lead strategy

Microsoft has recruited game industry analyst Matthew Ball as Xbox chief strategy officer. Ball publishes an annual state of video gaming report, which is a popular read across the game industry, and he’s “widely respected across gaming, media, and technology,” according to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Sharma announced Ball is joining Microsoft in a memo […]

It’s make or break time for AI labeling systems
It’s make or break time for AI labeling systems

We’re about to find out if the systems designed to make deepfakes and AI-generated content easy to spot are actually up to snuff. SynthID and C2PA Content Credentials, two distinct technologies for invisibly tagging image, video, and audio files with information about their origins, are getting their biggest expansion to date, and with it, the […]

Trump is waging a silent war on legal immigration
Trump is waging a silent war on legal immigration

When the member states of the United Nations reviewed their Global Compact on Migration earlier this month, one country was conspicuously absent from the discussions: the United States. In a post on X explaining its reasoning, the State Department said it objects to global “efforts to facilitate replacement migration to the United States and our […]