Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
In 2020, we wrote how coding bootcamp Lambda School seemed like a bit of a bait-and-switch. Four years later and one rebranding to “BloomTech” later, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is finally slapping it on the wrist — it’s permanently banning it from issuing any more student loans, fining the company and its CEO $164,000, and releasing some students from some of their debt.
Why? Among other deceptive practices, the “Bloom Institute of Technology” didn’t call them loans. It advertised a way for students to get high-paying tech jobs “risk free” with “no loans” by paying 17 percent of their future income for five years — rather than the $20,000 sticker price of tuition.
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If you’re looking to fill your life with more sound, there’s nothing like a good speaker. After thorough testing, we have a reliable list of the best speakers you can buy in 2024. Our list includes everything from $60 portable ones to $450 lounge speakers.
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Five potential jurors were challenged on Tuesday for what the defense called 'anti-Trump' posts. Trump listened as the posts were described, including an AI video titled "I Am Dumb As Fuck Trump."None of the 5 made the jury, especially one who had posted "Lock him up" on Facebook in 2017.
One was a beheading meme. One was an AI clip titled "Dumb As Fuck Trump." Another was a 2016 get-out-the-vote video featuring Mark Ruffalo promising "to do a nude scene" in his next movie.
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Kremlin-backed actors have stepped up efforts to interfere with the US presidential election by planting disinformation and false narratives on social media and fake news sites, analysts with Microsoft reported Wednesday.
The analysts have identified several unique influence-peddling groups affiliated with the Russian government seeking to influence the election outcome, with the objective in large part to reduce US support of Ukraine and sow domestic infighting. These groups have so far been less active during the current election cycle than they were during previous ones, likely because of a less contested primary season.
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Video game emulators are having a tough time. Back in March it was Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu, which got shut down following a lawsuit from Nintendo. Pizza Emulators, another Nintendo emulator, disappeared around the same time. Then, over the weekend, after Apple updated its restrictions on retro game emulators to allow them in the App Store, a Game Boy Advance app called iGBA became a fast favorite. iGBA didn't make it through Monday.
The emulator that iGBA resembled, though, is now available on the app store: Delta, a free, upgraded version of an emulator designed specifically for iOS that supports games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS, making games created for those systems playable on iPhone screens. The emulator is “focused on providing a polished, easy-to-use emulation experience, with iOS-specific features like AirPlay,” says its creator, Riley Testut. It supports a variety of controllers, including Nintendo Switch Pro controllers, Joy-Cons, Nintendo Switch Online controllers, and PS5 and Xbox Series X.
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Facebook owner Meta and other online platforms must not force users to pay for the right to data protection enshrined in EU law when offering ad-free subscriptions, the European data regulator said Wednesday.
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Last night, Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson had a rough outing shooting 0 for 10 in a loss against the Sacramento Kings, ending the team’s chances of making the NBA playoffs. But then, almost as if to add insult to injury, X’s AI bot Grok generated a trending story claiming Thompson was vandalizing homes in the area with bricks.
Now at this point, even casual basketball fans may be able to see what went wrong. But Grok isn’t very smart, because it seems that after seeing user posts about a player simply missing a bunch of shots (aka shooting bricks), the bot took things literally resulting in a completely fictitious AI-generated report.
After misinterpreting user posts about Klay Thompson's poor shooting during an NBA game, X's AI bot Grok created a fictitious story on the social media platform's trending section. Screenshot by Sam Rutherford (via X)
In the event this fabrication — which was the #5 trending story at the time of writing — gets corrected or deleted by Elon Musk, Grok originally wrote “In a bizarre turn of events, NBA star Klay Thompson has been accused of vandalizing multiple houses with bricks in Sacramento. Authorities are investigating the claims after several individuals reported their houses being damaged, with windows shattered by bricks. Klay Thompson has not yet issued a statement regarding the accusations. The incidents have left the community shaken, but no injuries were reported. The motive behind the alleged vandalism remains unclear.” Amusingly, despite pointing out the unusual nature of the story Grok went ahead of put out some nonsense anyway.
Granted, in fine print beneath the story, X says “Grok is an early feature and can make mistakes. Verify its outputs.” But even that warning seems to have backfired, as basketball fans began memeing on the AI with posts sarcastically verifying the AI’s erroneous statement.
After Grok created an erroneous story about Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson, users began memeing on the situation. Screenshot by Sam Rutherford (via X)
For most people, Grok’s latest gaff may merely be another example in an ongoing series of early AI tools messing up. But for others like Musk who believes that AI will be smarter than humans as soon as the end of next year, this should serve as a reminder that AI is still in desperate need of regular fact-checking.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xs-ai-bot-is-so-dumb-it-cant-tell-the-difference-between-a-bad-game-and-vandalism-172707401.html?src=rss
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The robot-maker Boston Dynamics recently retired its beloved robot model and has introduced the world to its new creation with a rather terrifying video.
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The Sims 4 continues to go strong even amid the rumors of advancements in the Sims 5 world – that… Continue reading Sims 4 gets a huge patch full of fixes, new stuff, and the dreaded ‘stink cloud’ bug is removed.
The post Sims 4 gets a huge patch full of fixes, new stuff, and the dreaded ‘stink cloud’ bug is removed appeared first on ReadWrite.
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Witnesses at a US Senate hearing on Boeing drew a disturbing picture Wednesday of an aviation giant that blows off safety questions and sidelines critics as it chases faster production and bigger profits.
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The Senate voted on party lines to effectively end Alejandro Mayorkas's impeachment trial.GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted "present" on both votes.It caps off a months-long drama that helped spur one House Republican's resignation. And just like that, it's over.
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats voted to declare as unconstitutional both articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — effectively ending the trial.
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US stocks slumped on Wednesday, led by a sharp decline in tech stocks. The major indexes fell throughout the day, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 1%. Investors are grappling with the prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates after comments from Powell on Wednesday.
US stocks slid on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 ending with its fourth straight loss as tech stocks led the market lower and investors adjusted their rate expectations following this week's hawkish comments from Jerome Powell.
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Amazon wants the public and—especially other businesses—to know it's not giving up on its Just Walk Out technology.
"For us, really making sure that we can service that third-party market is the most important thing," Jon Jenkins, the vice president of Just Walk Out at Amazon, said in an interview. "We've definitely been reassuring people that we are in this for the long haul."
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Archaeologists have discovered the remains of two women in a Neolithic tomb in France, with the positioning of the bodies suggesting they may have been ritualistically murdered by asphyxia or self-strangulation, according to a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances.
(WARNING: graphic descriptions below.) France's Rhône Valley is home to several archaeological sites dating to the end of the Middle Neolithic period (between 4250 and 3600/3500 BCE in the region); the sites include various storage silos, broken grindstones, imported ceramics, animal remains (both from communal meals and sacrifices), and human remains deposited in sepulchral pits. Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux is one such site.
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Photo by Brian Sevald / NBAE via Getty Images
The NBA has permanently banned Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter from the league for violating its gambling rules, the league said in a statement on Wednesday. According to an internal investigation conducted by the NBA, Porter bet on NBA games, disclosed confidential information to other gamblers, and adjusted his participation in certain games to influence the outcome of certain bets.
The league started looking into Porter after a March 20th game against the Sacramento Kings in which Porter played for just three minutes. Porter left the game after saying he felt ill. Ahead of that game, Porter told “an individual he knew to be an NBA bettor” about his health status, according to the NBA’s statement.
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Tesla is asking shareholders to approve a move to Texas and to re-approve a $55.8 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk that was recently voided by a Delaware judge.
Musk's 2018 pay package was voided in a ruling by Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick, who found that the deal was unfair to shareholders. After the ruling, Musk said he would seek a shareholder vote on transferring Tesla's state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
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In typical LG fashion, the company is following up its CES soundbar announcement with pricing and availability info a few months later. The company's latest Dolby Atmos model, the S95TR, is now available from LG and other retailers for $1,500. That's pricey for sure, but the company has bundled the soundbar with a subwoofer and a pair of rear surround speakers. That means completing your setup won't require additional purchases.
Inside, the S95TR houses 17 speakers, including five up-firing drivers. LG says this soundbar is the first to feature a center-positioned, up-firing speaker, which enhances dimensional audio and helps with dialog clarity. LG explains that it also upgraded the tweeters in the S95TR and it integrated passive radiators. This combo keeps high frequencies clear while also delivering 120Hz low-frequency response in a 9.1.5-channel setup.
The company's Wowcast tech allows the S95TR to connect to compatible LG TVs wirelessly, including the transmission of Dolby Atmos and DTS:X without a cable. Wow Orchestra can utilize the speakers of an LG TV with the soundbar for "a harmonious fusion of audio channels." There's also the company's 3D Spatial Sound Technology that analyzes audio channels with a three-dimensional engine to make things as immersive as possible. AI Room Calibration is here as well, which will include the rear surround speakers in its room tuning for the first time this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lgs-s95tr-soundbar-with-wireless-dolby-atmos-is-now-available-for-1500-175155520.html?src=rss
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Like most people, I’d prefer to stare at a bunch of cacti in my living room rather than an uninspired black rectangle. Image: Samsung
Everyone may like watching movies on a big screen, but a hulking panel is nothing but an eyesore when turned off. That’s why Samsung’s Frame TV has become so popular over the last several years and why several TV manufacturers, including Amazon, have begun to crib ideas from the company’s artsy panels. And while the Frame certainly isn’t cheap, you can currently pick up the 2022 model at Amazon in the 55- and 65-inch sizing for $997.99 ($500 off) and 1,597.99 ($400), respectively. It’s also on sale in the behemoth 75-inch configuration for $1,895 ($1,103 off), an all-time low, with Best Buy and Walmart matching Amazon’s pricing in most instances.
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Image: Amazon
Amazon is pushing back on claims that its cashierless Just Walk Out technology is run by humans in India — not AI. In a blog post on Wednesday, the e-commerce giant calls these reports “untrue” and says that a machine learning model powers its system.
Last week, reports started going around that claimed Amazon employs around 1,000 workers in India to watch people shop and review purchases at stores using its Just Walk Out tech. The report claimed that Amazon’s workers had to review around 700 of every 1,000 transactions in 2022, something that isn’t uncommon in the world of AI.
While Amazon insists these reports are “erroneous,” it doesn’t deny that humans aren’t involved with the process at all.
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In the highly oversaturated world of e-commerce, Amazon consistently comes out on top — not just because of its convenience, but largely due to its array of deals. If you're a sucker for a sweet discount, we've scoured the lengthy list of daily deals at the mega-retailer and handpicked some of the most impressive ones we could find. While it may not be a major shopping holiday, there are plenty of price drops on big-name products, including the Apple Watch, The Frame TV, and Echo Buds.
Here are the best Amazon deals of the day for April 17. And don't miss out on our picks from April 15 and April 16 — many of those deals are still live.
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Atlas the robot was killed off yesterday, only to rise from the dead today. So don’t write off the robot uprising just yet.
Do Not Steal Our Robot Dog! Boston Dynamics released a video on Tuesday announcing the retirement of Atlas, the most famous humanoid robot in the world. But eagle-eyed observers noticed something curious in the announcement. The description in Atlas’s retirement video said the hydraulic Atlas was going away. And skeptics were right to take notice of that word. Because a new form of Atlas—all electric this time—makes a brief appearance in a new video.
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Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge. Photos: Getty Images
The next generation of the text-to-image AI model Stable Diffusion is still in preview, but Stability AI is making it available to some developers via API and a new content creation platform. Stability AI says developers can now access Stable Diffusion 3 from its Developer Platform.
Stability AI says it’s working with API platform Fireworks AI for companies that want to use both models. It also plans on hosting its model weights on its own servers through a Stability AI membership “in the near future.”
The company released Stable Diffusion 3 in February to a small number of developers on preview.
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Investors need not worry about higher-for-longer interest rates, according to BMO's Brian Belski.
He noted that stocks have historically performed just fine during periods of rising and elevated interest rates.
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SAVE $30: The Shokz OpenFit wireless headphones are on sale for $149.95 at Amazon, marked down from the normal price of $179.95. That's a 17% discount.
Headphones have become part of our everyday tech needs. Whether you prefer over-the-ear or earbuds, finding a pair that feels comfortable can be tough. If you're searching for a pair that focuses on comfort and all-day wearability, today's deal at Amazon might grant your wish.
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iOS 18, Apple's next big annual update, is several months away, but it's never too early to start talking about it.
Yes, rumors are already flying around about iOS 18, the theoretical follow-up to last year's iOS 17 update. I say "theoretical" because Apple has yet to publicly talk about it, but you can rest easy knowing it'll almost certainly come out at some point this year. And when it does, it may or may not be a total overhaul of the iOS experience (more on this later).
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If you're considering opening a savings account or CD today and want a competitive rate, Business Insider did the research to help you find the best rate across popular savings accounts and CD terms.
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Netflix has reportedly used what appear to be AI-generated or manipulated images in a recent true-crime documentary. “What Jennifer Did”… Continue reading Netflix accused of using AI-altered images in true crime documentary.
The post Netflix accused of using AI-altered images in true crime documentary appeared first on ReadWrite.
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While Universal Pictures has long stepped away from its planned Universal Monsters Dark Universe (except
at Universal Studios theme parks), the cinematic lore of the characters has found new life, thanks to standalone films like Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man, Zelda Williams’ Lisa Frankenstein, and now...
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A life-threatening bacterial infection typically spread through rat urine sickened a record number of people in New York City last year—and this year looks on track for another all-time high, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reports.
The infection is leptospirosis, which can cause a range of symptoms, including non-specific ones like fever, headache, chills, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhea, and cough. But, if left untreated, can become severe, causing kidney failure, liver damage, jaundice, hemorrhage, bloody eyes (conjunctival suffusion), respiratory distress, and potentially death.
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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
After nearly a year of testing, Twitch’s new TikTok-style discovery feed will finally roll out to all users later this month. During a Patch Notes livestream on Wednesday, Twitch announced the new feed that will let you scroll through separate feeds dedicated to clips and current livestreams.
The new discovery feed will launch as a tab within the mobile app, and next month, some users might see this feed as the homepage of their mobile app. Twitch says all livestreams and clips are eligible to appear in its discovery feed as long as they meet its content guidelines.
When scrolling through the live feed, you’ll find live content from creators you follow, as well as streams recommended by Twitch.
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Bleeeeeaaaagggghhhhh. Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge
Comedy Central has ordered 10 episodes of Golden Axe, an animated show based on the fantasy beat ’em up sidescroller games. Deadline writes that it will be both “hilarious and loving” in its adaptation of the game. If I remember my Sega Genesis days well, I think that means there’ll be fighting over who gets to ride the purple bird dinosaur and that, at some point, a gigantic hairy skull will float down and hotbox everyone.
Who’s big idea was this, you ask? You can blame producers Mike McMahan (Star Trek: Lower Decks) and Joe Chandler (American Dad!), who will also write the first episode together, with Chandler serving as the showrunner afterward. A timeline for the show’s release hasn’t been announced yet.
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My husband and I always saved slowly, planning to retire at 65. Then, FIRE taught us that retirement doesn't have to be triggered by an age, but by a sum. Now, we're saving $1.2 million and investing in real estate to retire early.
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The US-led operation was a decisive factor in helping Israel fend off Iran's unprecedented attack.That's a boost for the regional air defense network the US wants.It may compel Russia to provide more air defenses to Iran, which has supplied its Ukraine war.
The Biden administration's goal to establish a regional air defense network in the Middle East got a massive boost on Saturday night with the success of efforts by the US, Israel, Britain, France, and Jordan that intercepted nearly all of the Iranian drones and missiles targeting Israel.
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Hasbro’s Star Wars toys truly love The Mandalorian—there are few entries in the galaxy far, far away (besides the original trilogy) that come close to the sheer depth the toymaker has delved into the Disney+ show for inspiration.
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Soft skin coverings and touch sensors have emerged as a promising feature for robots that are both safer and more intuitive for human interaction, but they are expensive and difficult to make. A recent study demonstrates that soft skin pads doubling as sensors made from thermoplastic urethane can be efficiently manufactured using 3D printers.
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Off-road environment recognition technologies for detecting extraneous substances such as dust, mud, snow, or rain during off-road autonomous driving of construction machinery, agricultural machines, and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and removing the sensor signals of these substances on a real-time basis, have been developed for the first time in Korea.
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The humanoid robotics market is starting to heat up, and the company that's been doing this the longest isn't going to sit by and watch. Boston Dynamics has a new humanoid robot that the company says represents a path to commercialization. It's the company's next-generation, all-electric "Atlas" robot.
While new Atlas and old Atlas share a name, they couldn't be more different when it comes to construction. The old Atlas—a research platform and viral sensation that could handle nearly any terrain, do backflips, and pick up heavy objects—was powered by a heavy, complicated hydraulics system. The new Atlas is all-electric and looks like it's a fraction of the size and weight of the hydraulic version. It also looks like a product, with covers around all the major components and consumer-friendly design touches like a giant status light in the head and a light-up power button that looks like it was ripped right from the Spot assembly line.
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Wind power is a source of energy that is both affordable and renewable. However, decision-makers have been reluctant to invest in wind energy due to a perception that wind farms require a lot of land compared to electric power plants driven by fossil fuels. Research led by McGill University and based on the assessment of the land use of close to 320 wind farms in the U.S. (the largest study of its kind) paints a very different picture.
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A novel temperature-dependent viscosity-mediated strategy proposed by researchers at the South China University of Technology was able to suppress the deactivation of Bi dopants during the fiber drawing process.
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The US AI Safety Institute—part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—has finally announced its leadership team after much speculation.
Appointed as head of AI safety is Paul Christiano, a former OpenAI researcher who pioneered a foundational AI safety technique called reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), but is also known for predicting that "there's a 50 percent chance AI development could end in 'doom.'" While Christiano's research background is impressive, some fear that by appointing a so-called "AI doomer," NIST may be risking encouraging non-scientific thinking that many critics view as sheer speculation.
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After last week’s episode—already a contender for one of 2024's best single episodes of TV—it would be tough for even a show as consistently strong as X-Men ‘97 to top what it just laid down. It’s not surprising then that this week’s episode of the Disney+ series doesn’t reach the same highs.
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Truth Social’s stock price appears to be making a slight rebound Wednesday after losing more than half of its peak value in the month of April. That’s a bit surprising considering the fact that the far right’s favorite meme-stock company has been exposed for buying into the woke ideology of DEI.
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There's a new app in town, according to Wired and Bloomberg, if you consider Silicon Valley a town. A by-invitation-only audio-based app called Airchat is reportedly being "hyped in tech circles," with invites making the rounds among the Valley's top brass.
The app combines elements of X (formerly Twitter) and voice notes, with a main feed populated by text transcripts of voice notes from other users, which you can play, heart, or repost.
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It's easy to get the impression that Discord chat messages are ephemeral, especially across different public servers, where lines fly upward at a near-unreadable pace. But someone claims to be catching and compiling that data and is offering packages that can track more than 600 million users across more than 14,000 servers.
Joseph Cox at 404 Media confirmed that Spy Pet, a service that sells access to a database of purportedly 3 billion Discord messages, offers data "credits" to customers who pay in bitcoin, ethereum, or other cryptocurrency. Searching individual users will reveal the servers that Spy Pet can track them across, a raw and exportable table of their messages, and connected accounts, such as GitHub. Ominously, Spy Pet lists more than 86,000 other servers in which it has "no bots," but "we know it exists."
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Disneyland Forward, the Walt Disney Company’s initiative to expand its original theme park, just got the go-ahead from the Anaheim City Council. Deadline reports that the $1.9 billion expansion plan, which will take decades to finish, received unanimous approval.
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You don’t need to have been petrified by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Skynet-commissioned cyborg assassin in 1984’s The Terminator to fret that super-strong, all-terrain, bipedal humanoid robots sprinting up steps, pulling backflips, and righting themselves could be programmed to break our necks on sight. (And laser guns, never give them laser guns.)
With the Old Atlas, we could comfort ourselves with the notion that clever editing meant Atlas wasn’t as self-righting over rough ground as the original viral videos portrayed. The pratfalls in the retirement video prove that hunch was correct. However, today’s video might well resurrect any robot overlord fears you may have since suppressed. This thing is scary, and not just because it has a ringlight for a face. (Who had “Robot YouTube influencer” on their 2024 bingo card?)
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The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has announced that it is exploring the introduction of a central bank digital… Continue reading RBNZ Explores Introduction of Central Bank Digital Currency.
The post RBNZ Explores Introduction of Central Bank Digital Currency appeared first on ReadWrite.
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One of Silicon Valley's most influential lobbying arms joins privacy reformers in a fight against the Biden administration-backed expansion of a major US surveillance program.
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Gameloft may reverse course on Disney Speedstorm following major backlash regarding changes to the game’s monetization strategy. Previously, players could… Continue reading Disney Speedstorm’s Golden Pass controversy moves Gameloft to consider changes.
The post Disney Speedstorm’s Golden Pass controversy moves Gameloft to consider changes appeared first on ReadWrite.
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The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), a prominent Bitcoin investment product, has seen a significant decline in its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings. Continue reading GBTC Bitcoin ETF holdings drop before halving.
The post GBTC Bitcoin ETF holdings drop before halving appeared first on ReadWrite.
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