A new OpenAI project listing reveals the company’s robotics plans
OpenAI disbanded the robotics department. Then, brought back. Now, through a social media post from its hardware director and a newly published job description, OpenAI is revealing more about its plans for the revived team. In a post at X on Friday, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI last November to lead hardware from its AR glasses division Meta, said...
Banning TikTok: How both sides made their case to the Supreme Court and what the judges asked for
On Friday, the country's highest court heard arguments on whether to support or block legislation that could effectively ban TikTok in the US. US operations or face a ban in that country. The session, which comes just nine days before the January 19 deadline, is TikTok's final legal decision against the impending ban. TikTok's lawyers say the social network...
Amazon blocks some DEI programs
Amazon is now the latest company to end some of its DEI programs, Bloomberg reports, after Meta announced it would also end its diversity efforts on Friday. An internal memo sent to staff said the company wants to eliminate outdated programs and materials as part of a review of current initiatives. "Instead of having a group of individuals build...
Bench customers are now being forced to hand over their data or risk losing it, he said
After accounting startup Bench suddenly shut down on December 27 and was bought in a fire sale by Employer.com, Bench customers are now learning that it's not easy to just take their financial data and walk away. And some aren't too happy about it, three customers told TechCrunch. Recap: When Bench, a Canadian-based startup that raised $113 million from...
Drone blasts hole in LA firefighting plane
Do not fly your drone into an active fire. Although taking video of the damage can be tempting, it can prevent firefighters from doing their job. That's exactly what happened in Los Angeles on January 9 when a drone collided with a "Super Scooper" firefighting plane, the LA Times reports. It comes as LA battles its worst fires in...
These startups are making smarter canes for the visually impaired
White sugarcane for the 21st century. While many technology companies are increasingly working to make technology more accessible to the blind and visually impaired, sugarcane has not benefited much from these advances. London-born WeWalk takes a more traditional approach to white cane. Beyond the larger handle, there isn't much that visually differentiates the company's products from standard folding canes....
Mark Zuckerberg defended Meta’s latest pivot in a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his decision to loosen Meta's content moderation policy in an appearance Friday on Joe Rogan's podcast. Zuckerberg faced widespread criticism of the decision, including from employees at his own company. "Maybe it depends on who you ask," Zuckerberg said when asked how the Meta update has been received. The main update Meta announced this...
Microsoft has accused a group of developing tools to abuse its AI services in a new lawsuit
Microsoft has taken legal action against a group that it claims the company deliberately developed and used tools to bypass the security fences of its cloud AI products. According to the complaint filed by the company in December in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a group of 10 unnamed defendants allegedly used stolen customer...
TikTok bans are more comparable
Shortly after Biden signed a bill to ban TikTok in April, the company and a consortium of users retaliated by filing a lawsuit accusing the federal government of violating First Amendment rights. In December, a federal appeals court upheld the ban, leaving TikTok with only one legal avenue to save itself: an appeal to the Supreme Court. Many of...
The Evolving (and Inexact) Science of Fire Evacuation
As wildfires ravaged neighborhoods in Los Angeles this week, residents and authorities faced a difficult and near-impossible challenge: convincing hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes to escape danger, within hours or minutes. officials conducted years of research on fire evacuation. The field is small but growing, reflecting a new study that says the frequency of extreme...
