California Wildfires Show No Signs of Slowing Down
On Tuesday, Santa Ana winds swept out to sea over Southern California, spreading embers and then fanning the growing flames. During the night, residents received an urgent text message alert warning of potential 100 mph winds — a terrifying escalation that turned a precarious situation into a full-blown crisis. When the wind picked up, more embers flew, sparking new...
Grok soon gets ‘Unhinged Mode’
Last April, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, teased a mysterious "Unhinged Mode" for X's AI-powered chatbot, Grok. Nearly a year later, xAI, Musk's company behind Grok, has updated the FAQ page on its website showing the new mode. Grok in Unhinged Mode will respond "intentionally rude, inappropriate, and offensive," according to the FAQ page — "like an...
The Future of Meta Looks Like Elon Musk’s X
"Meta has become a home for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation," said Gordon Crovitz, co-CEO of NewsGuard, a company that provides tools for evaluating the trustworthiness of online information. "Now, Meta seems to have decided to open the floodgates." Again, fact-checking is not perfect; Croviz said that NewsGuard has tracked several "false narratives" on the Meta platform. And the...
Your Next Wearable AI Will Listen to Everything
I spent the entire day of CES wearing a little yellow bracelet. To the unsuspecting, it might look like a fitness tracker. But all the while, this yellow Pioneer wearable from Bee AI is recording everything around me. It doesn't save audio like a typical recorder app, but it processes my conversations, and then gives me a personal to-do...
No Fact Check and More Hate Speech: Meta Goes MAGA
Since Donald Trump won the presidency again on November 5, a parade of Silicon Valley luminaries has participated in a chaotic grovel-fest, making a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, shoveling millions of dollars in contributions to the inaugural fund, and meddling in the editorial department of the publications they own in an apparent attempt to gain favor with the new leader....
AI Social Media Users Are Not Always Stupid Ideas
Meta caused a stir last week when it released the platform with an artificially large number of users in the not-too-distant future. in the same way as accounts," Connor Hayes, vice president of products for generative AI at Meta, told The Financial Times. "They will have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered...
A former Huami employee launched SATELLAI, a satellite pet tracker, at CES 2025
With the smart pet wearable market estimated at $1.72 million by 2024, a new startup in the pet technology space is entering the scene with dog trackers and collars that can directly connect with satellite tracking without the need for an LTE signal. At CES 2025, SATELLAI presented pet trackers and smart collars, which include features such as health...
Microsoft is rolling back the Bing Image Creator model after users complained about degraded quality
Ahead of the holidays, Microsoft said it upgraded the AI model behind Bing Image Creator, the AI-powered image editing tool built into the company's Bing search engine. Microsoft promises that the new model - the latest version of the OpenAI DALL-E 3 model, codenamed "PR16" - will allow users to create images "twice as fast as before" with "higher...
The H1 health analytics platform has acquired Ribbon, powered by a16Z and General Catalyst
H1, a healthcare data analytics platform serving the pharmaceutical industry with data on more than 10 million healthcare professionals, has acquired Ribbon, a startup that helps patients find doctors supported by insurance. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The last time Ribbon - founded in 2016 and alum of Y Combinator - raised money was in...
Best Noise Canceling Headphones (2025): Over-Ear, Wireless Earbuds, Training Pair
Now that the majority of new headphones and earbuds offer at least some noise cancelling, it would be impossible (and unproductive) to list all the likes above. If you haven't found the right one yet, here are some other favorites to consider.Soundcore Life Q30 for $60-85: Anker's Soundcore line is nothing if not value-conscious, and the Life Q30 provides...
