Wikipedia is now an endless 3D museum, and admission is free
Here's a free downloadable Itch.io game that generates a maze of exhibits from the internet's best-known communal encyclopedia.
News Links
Satya Nadella Argues AI's True Value Will Come When It Finds Killer App Akin To Email or Excel - Slashdot
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argues that AI's success should be measured by its impact on economic growth rather than achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), emphasizing that true progress will come when AI finds a transformative application akin to email or Excel. The Register reports: "Us...
Biden Justice Department downplayed U.K. demand for Apple ‘back door’
The order required Apple to develop the capability to defeat the strong encryption in its optional Advanced Data Protection cloud data storage.
Inception Emerges From Stealth With a New Type of AI Model - Slashdot
Inception, a Palo Alto-based AI company founded by Stanford professor Stefano Ermon, claims to have developed a novel diffusion-based large language model (DLM) that significantly outperforms traditional LLMs in speed and efficiency. "Inception's model offers the capabilities of traditional LLMs, in...
Analyst repeats 12GB RAM rumor for iPhone 17 Pro models, which may at least be half correct
Analyst Jeff Pu has shared once again that he expects both iPhone 17 Pro models to have 12GB of RAM, but more reliable sources say otherwise.
Strong reactions from ‘Washington Post’ staff and other journalists as Jeff Bezos overhauls the opinion section
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, has overhauled the newspaper's opinions section.
Washington Post Opinion Editor Exits as Bezos Steers Pages in New Direction
Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Post, said that the newspaper’s opinion section would focus on “personal liberties and free markets.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard suggests UK broke agreement in secretly asking Apple to build iCloud backdoor - 9to5Mac
According to a letter seen by 9to5Mac, the Trump Administration is investigating whether the UK may have broken a bilateral...
YouTube Says It Now Has More Than 1 Billion Monthly Viewers of Podcast Content
YouTube now has more than 1 billion monthly viewers for podcast content, according to the Google-owned video platform.
iPhone Dictation Feature Transcribes the Word ‘Racist’ as ‘Trump’
While using Apple’s automatic dictation feature to send messages on Tuesday, some iPhone users reported seeing a peculiar bug: the word “racist” temporarily appearing as “Trump,” before quickly correcting itself.
While using Apple’s automatic dictation feature to send messages on Tuesday, some iPhone users reported seeing a peculiar bug: the word “racist” temporarily appearing as “Trump,” before quickly correcting itself.
Meta Discusses AI Data Center Project That Could Cost $200 Billion
Meta Platforms is in talks to build a new data center campus for its artificial intelligence endeavors that would dwarf anything the company has done to date and would be among the biggest of its kind, according to two people who have spoken to Meta executives about it. Based on the number of ...
Amazon Alexa event live blog: all the news from the keynote
We’re covering Amazon’s Alexa event live from New York City.
Amazon announces AI-powered Alexa Plus
Amazon said Alexa Plus is a model-agnostic system, using its own Amazon Nova model, as well as those from companies like Anthropic. It will choose the best model for the task at hand, according to the company.
Amazon said Alexa Plus is a model-agnostic system, using its own Amazon Nova model, as well as those from companies like Anthropic. It will choose the best model for the task at hand, according to the company.
Sources: Mira Murati's new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, is aiming to raise $1B at a ~$9B valuation; the round is in progress and details could change
From Business Insider. View the full context on Techmeme.
Google Makes Gemini Code Assist Free - Slashdot
Google has launched a free version of Gemini Code Assist, offering developers substantially higher usage limits than competing services. From a report: The AI coding assistant, powered by the fine-tuned Gemini 2.0 model, allows up to 180,000 code completions monthly -- 90 times more than GitHub Copi...
AI Promise and Chip Precariousness
The AI industry is more exciting than ever, but the chip situation is very precarious and requires drastic action.
The new Beeper app combines all of Automattic’s messaging systems
Automattic has rolled Texts.com into Beeper to create a new combination of the two messaging services, available now as a beta update to the Beeper app.
Apple investors reject outside shareholder proposals asking the company to cease its DEI efforts and write a report assessing the risks of its work on AI
By Mark Gurman / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Apple’s new C1 brings two killer features, and it’s just the start - 9to5Mac
Apple’s new C1 modem in the iPhone 16e brings two killer features that get me very excited about the future of C-class modems.
UK creatives protest AI copyright law changes with silent album and campaign
The song titles together spell out "The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies."
Hyperspace
John Siracusa’s new app - Leo’s pick for 2025-02-25
Phil Schiller recounts concerns over App Store fees for external purchases in hearing
On Monday, while testifying in a court hearing related to the ongoing Apple vs Epic legal battle, Apple executive Phil Schiller recounted his concerns regarding the fees Apple imposes on purchases made outside the App Store.
Exclusive: Nvidia's H20 chip orders jump as Chinese firms adopt DeepSeek's AI models, sources say
The surge in orders underlines Nvidia's dominance of the market.
AI-designed chips are so weird that 'humans cannot really understand them' — but they perform better than anything we've created
AI models have, within hours, created more efficient wireless chips through deep learning, but it is unclear how their 'randomly shaped' designs were produced.
The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled
Federal scientists warn that Americans could feel the effects of the new administration's devastating cuts for decades to come.
The Trump administration’s distaste for regulation will arguably be a boon in the short term for some parts of the tech industry, including crypto and AI. But the federal workers said the president’s and Musk’s undermining of basic science research will hurt American innovation in the long run. “Rather than investing in the future, you’re burning through scientific capital,” an employee at the State Department said. “You can build off the things you already know, but you’re not learning anything new. Twenty years later, you fall behind because you stopped making new discoveries.”
Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist
Here's How Four Major Newsrooms Are Using AI
AI is no longer restricted to content farms, with publications from The New York Times to The Washington Post embracing it in some form. I took a look at how major newsrooms are integrating AI into their day-to-day operations to help you be a more informed and critical reader.
Bracket City
Leo's pick for 2/26 - a great new kind of word game. How long before the NY Times buys it?
World's First Two-Way Brain-Computer Interface
According to reports from Nature Electronics and the South China Morning Post, Chinese researchers have developed the world's first two-way adaptive...
Apple Intelligence is now fully supported in the EU with iOS 18.4 - 9to5Mac
Apple Intelligence is now supported in the EU as of iOS 18.4 beta 1, bringing the array of AI features to a new set of users.