Two Amazon delivery drones reportedly collided with a crane this morning in Tolleson, AZ. The incident occurred about two miles from a fulfillment center run by the tech company and involved two of its Prime Air drones. No injuries have been reported. Law enforcement were called to the scene, however Sgt. Erik Mendez of the Tolleson police told local radio station KTAR that the Federal Aviation Administration would be taking over the investigation.

“We’re aware of an incident involving two Prime Air drones in Tolleson, Arizona,” Amazon representative Terrence Clark said. “We’re currently working with the relevant authorities to investigate.”

Amazon began offering a drone delivery option in the Phoenix area last year. The drones only fly during the day and if weather conditions are favorable. The company received FAA approval to ship several more products by drone in May.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/two-amazon-prime-air-drones-crashed-in-arizona-224857013.html?src=rss

alternative_right writes: Last week, thousands of people in North and Central Texas were suddenly knocked offline. The cause? A bullet. The outage hit cities all across the state, including Dallas, Irving, Plano, Arlington, Austin, and San Antonio. The outage affected Spectrum customers and took down their phone lines and TV services as well as the internet.

“The outage stemmed from a fiber optic cable that was damaged by a stray bullet,” Spectrum told 404 Media. “Our teams worked quickly to make the necessary repairs and get customers back online. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Spectrum told 404 Media that it didn’t have any further details to share about the incident so we have no idea how the company learned a bullet hit its equipment, where the bullet was found, and if the police are involved.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scammers have been abusing unsecured cellular routers used in industrial settings to blast SMS-based phishing messages in campaigns that have been ongoing since 2023, researchers said.

The routers, manufactured by China-based Milesight IoT Co., Ltd., are rugged Internet of Things devices that use cellular networks to connect traffic lights, electric power meters, and other sorts of remote industrial devices to central hubs. They come equipped with SIM cards that work with 3G/4G/5G cellular networks and can be controlled by text message, Python scripts, and web interfaces.

An unsophisticated, yet effective, delivery vector

Security company Sekoia on Tuesday said that an analysis of “suspicious network traces” detected in its honeypots led to the discovery of a cellular router being abused to send SMS messages with phishing URLs. As company researchers investigated further, they identified more than 18,000 such routers accessible on the Internet, with at least 572 of them allowing free access to programming interfaces to anyone who took the time to look for them. The vast majority of the routers were running firmware versions that were more than three years out of date and had known vulnerabilities.

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The extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna may be people’s fault after all, according to a recent study.

A team of archaeologists recently examined animal bones at sites dating to the waning years of the last Ice Age. Their results suggest that extinct megafauna like giant sloths, giant armadillos, and elephant-like creatures were on the menu for Pleistocene hunters in South America. And that means human hunters may have played a nontrivial role in killing off the continent’s last great Ice Age megafauna.

Giant ground sloth: It’s what’s for dinner

Archaeologist Luciano Prates of Mexico’s National University of La Plata and his colleagues counted the animal bones left behind by ancient people at 20 archaeological sites in modern-day Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. They compared the number of bones from extinct megafauna (technically, “megafauna” describes any animal over 44 kilograms) to the number of bones from smaller prey. They also tallied the remains of still-living species of megafauna like vicuñas. The archaeologists hoped to learn whether giant sloths, giant armadillos, and now-extinct species of horses were staples in the diets of Ice Age South Americans.

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Last year, I wrote that we should all be scared of Sora, OpenAI’s AI video generator. Sora’s initial rollout promised hyper-realistic videos that, while exciting to some, terrified me. While AI fans see a future of AI-generated movies and shows, I see a future where no one can tell what’s real or fake. To me, the only destination for this technology is mass disinformation.

In the year and a half since, these AI-generated videos haven’t only become more realistic; they’ve also become more accessible, as companies like Google make their tools readily available to anyone willing to pay. That’s the situation we find ourselves in with OpenAI’s latest announcements: Sora 2, a new AI model for generating video with audio, as well as a new Sora app for creating and sharing your AI-generated products.

Sora 2

OpenAI is marketing Sora 2 as a massive upgrade over Sora—comparing the two to GPT-3.5 and GPT-1, respectively. The company says the new model can generate complex videos that earlier models could not. That includes, specifically, an Olympic gymnastic routine; a man performing a backflip on a paddleboard that “accurately” models water physics; as well as a skater performing a triple axel with a cat on their shoulder.

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One common flaw with AI video models is their lack of understanding of real-world physics. The visual might look realistic, but elements may morph together randomly, while others may disappear and reappear without rhyme or reason. OpenAI says Sora 2 doesn’t make these mistakes as often. A basketball that misses the hoop won’t magically reappear there; it will, instead, bounce off the backboard as you’d expect it to. The company warns the model is still imperfect, but is improved. Building on this, the model is better at continuity across different shots: Taking OpenAI at their word, your videos should maintain consistency between takes, and you should be able to dictate different types of styles, including “realistic,” “cinematic,” and “anime.”

Perhaps the biggest leap with Sora 2 is the ability to add real world elements into the model, a feature OpenAI calls “Cameo.” You can put real people into the Sora 2 model, and ask the AI to generate them into any video you want. OpenAI shows a number of examples of their staff adding themselves to various videos, and while the quality is inconsistent, it’s a gargantuan leap from the days of JibJab.

Like Google’s Veo 3 model, Sora 2 can generate video with realistic audio. The announcement video shows this off: An elephant roars; a skater swooshes on the ice; water splashes on the ground. But, more impressively (and concerningly), people speak. An AI-generated Sam Altman explains the new model and app in this video, and while it’s rather obvious to those of us in the know that this is AI, I can imagine many people would have no idea this isn’t the real Altman in the clip.

Sora app

OpenAI says the Sora app came about as a “natural evolution of communication.” The company sees this as a way for people to create and remix other users’ AI generations, especially with the ability to upload your own face and likeness to the model.

At the moment, the app is invite-only, though you can download it for free from the App Store today. You can get a sense for the experience, however, from both the demo video OpenAI dropped on Tuesday, as well as posts from the people who already have access.

This first example OpenAI demos is of a dual Cameo of OpenAI research scientist Bill Peebles and Sam Altman. The video contains an establishing shot of the two men having a conversation, which cuts to a close up of Peebles speaking rapidly about the app’s revenue, then to a close up of Altman taking in the rant, before closing on the original establishing shot. On the surface, it’s the type of video you might expect to scroll past on a TikTok or Reels binge—but this video is entirely AI-generated.

The OpenAI staff show off a series of other pre-generated examples, including a Cameo that turns into a cartoon, another that switches the effect to anime, and another that generates a “news” report of one of the staff member’s addiction to ketchup. (That last one is quite gross, I might add.) They also demonstrate remixing videos you find in the feed, as you’re able to prompt Sora to adjust the video however you want. One video shows Peebles in an “ad” for a Sora 2 cologne, but others have remixed it to be of toothpaste instead, or entirely in Korean.

These videos are quite realistic: In one, you think you’re simply watching a clip of a tennis match, but it turns out to be a Cameo with OpenAI’s Rohan Sahai. After “Sahai” wins the match, the video cuts to his “interview,” in which he thanks the haters. Others are more obviously AI—though, again, not enough so that most people scrolling by may notice.

Safety and security, according to OpenAI

Cameos sound like a privacy and security nightmare, though OpenAI has some protections in place. You can’t simply use anyone’s face for any videos, and you’re only able to upload your own face to the platform. Setting up the Cameo feature on the app is straightforward, if not extremely off-putting. The app will scan your face, sort of like setting up Face ID on an iPhone, and will then send the data to OpenAI’s “systems,” for “tons of validation” to block impersonators, or users who might want to create Cameos of you without your consent. Once approved, you choose who can create Cameos of yourself, including all users, friends, users you specifically approve, or just you.

As for videos themselves, the Sora app applies a visible watermark to any clip exported out of the app. If you’ve seen any of these videos on the internet already, you’ll notice a small “Sora” stamp on each, similar to the watermark you see on TikTok clips exported to other platforms. There are also reasoning models under the hood to block users from generating “harmful” content, especially with respect to Cameos.

If you’re a teen using the Sora app, you won’t be able to scroll forever. After scrolling for a while, there will be a cooldown period to keep you from spending hours scrolling through these AI videos. While adult accounts won’t have this restriction, the app will “nudge” you to take a break.

Who asked for this?

With all due respect to OpenAI and its safety team, this app sounds like it’s going to be a disaster, for so many reasons.

For one, OpenAI has made it as easy to generate hyper-realistic short-form videos as it is to ask Siri about the weather. I appreciate that these videos all come with watermarks, but it won’t take much skill to edit those out—at least in a way that most people won’t notice. As soon as this is widely available, all of our social media feeds will be plagued with this content. And, seeing as much of it comes with video and audio that are quite realistic, a lot of people are going to be fooled by a lot of content.

It’s bad enough when that involves silly videos, like bunnies jumping on a trampoline. But what happens when it’s “politicians” saying something egregious, or a “celebrity” stealing something from a store? One viral Sora video shows Sam Altman trying to run off with a GPU at Target, before being stopped by a security guard. How many more Sora videos will show Sam Altman, and anyone else who approves of their Cameos being remixed, committing crimes, or simply doing something embarrassing? Those with enough power or fame may be able to debunk the videos, but by then, it’ll be too late: Most people who saw it will take it as fact.

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To that point, it’s great that there are security measures in place to stop people from remixing other users’ Cameos without permission, but the risk here for abuse is supreme: What happens if someone figures out how to “scan” someone’s face from a video, or crack the settings that block others from using their original face scan? If they can bypass OpenAI’s security measures, they can then remix that person’s face into any video approved by the platform. At that point, the cat’s out of the bag.

Look, I’m chronically online. I’m not going to pretend like I don’t enjoy a good AI-generated meme when it comes across my feed. But I’m not about to spend my free time scrolling through nothing but AI-generated brain rot. I’m sure people will find creative ways to make funny videos using Sora, or have a good time making Cameos with their friends, but that’s the point: Beyond the sheer novelty of the tech, there’s nothing good to come from this.

It’s time to stop believing in anything you see online: Someone might’ve just cooked it up in an app.

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist, has died at the age of 91 while on a speaking tour in California. The British primatologist’s “discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” according to the institute she founded. From a report: Goodall was only 26 years old when she first traveled to Tanzania and began her important research on chimpanzees in the wild. Throughout her study of the species, Goodall proved that primates display an array of similar behaviors to humans, such as the ability to develop individual personalities and make and use their own tools. Among the most surprising discoveries Goodall made was “how like us” the chimpanzees are, she told ABC News in 2020.

“Their behavior, with their gestures, kissing, embracing, holding hands and patting on the back,” she said. “… The fact that they can actually be violent and brutal and have a kind of war, but also loving an altruistic.” That discovery is considered one of the great achievements of 20th-century scholarship, according to the Jane Goodall Institute. […] Goodall’s research garnered both scientific honors and mainstream fame, and she was credited with paving the way for a rise in women pursuing careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) over the years. The number of women in STEM has increased from 7% to 26% in the six last decades, according to The Jane Goodall Institute, which cited census information from 1970 to 2011.

In 1991, she also founded Roots & Shoots, a global humanitarian and environmental program for young people. She was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace in April 2002. The anthropologist continued to lend her voice to environmental causes well into her 80s and 90s. In 2019, Goodall acknowledged the climate crisis and the importance of mitigating further warming, telling ABC News that the planet is “imperiled.” “We are definitely at a point where we need to make something happen,” she said.

“We are imperiled. We have a window of time. I’m fairly sure we do. But, we’ve got to take action.” Goodall even partnered with Apple in 2022 to encourage customers to recycle their devices to reduce individual carbon footprint and cut down on unnecessary mineral mining around the world. “Yes, people need to make money, but it is possible to make money without destroying the planet,” Goodall told ABC News at the time. “We’ve gone so far in destroying the planet that it’s shocking.”

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OpenAI and Apple have moved to dismiss a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s xAI alleging that ChatGPT’s integration into a “handful” of iPhone features violated antitrust laws by giving OpenAI a monopoly on prompts and Apple a new path to block rivals in the smartphone industry.

The lawsuit was filed in August after Musk raged on X about Apple never listing Grok on its editorially curated “Must Have” apps list, which ChatGPT frequently appeared on.

According to Musk, Apple linking ChatGPT to Siri and other native iPhone features gave OpenAI exclusive access to billions of prompts that only OpenAI can use as valuable training data to maintain its dominance in the chatbot market. However, OpenAI and Apple are now mocking Musk’s math in court filings, urging the court to agree that xAI’s lawsuit is doomed.

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In an early Prime Day deal, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni robot vacuum and mop has dropped to $800 (originally $1,100) for Prime members—that marks its lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools. With highly rated reviews from both consumers and professional testers, this is one of the most powerful and popular robot vacuum/mop hybrids on the market.

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum and Mop

$799.99
at Amazon

$1,099.99
Save $300.00

$799.99
at Amazon

$1,099.99
Save $300.00

The Deebot X8 Pro Omni delivers 18,000Pa suction, hot water mop washing with hot air drying, and a mop extension mechanism that reaches corners more effectively than side brushes. Instead of spinning pads, it uses a mop resembling a paint roller that continuously cleans itself, so you don’t have to worry about dirty streaks being spread around your home. PCMag said the robot cleaner is “Outstanding,” praising the roller brush and its long-lasting battery life, which can exceed two hours on a single charge (though runtime may shorten when using heavy suction and wet mopping).

For obstacle avoidance, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni can lift itself over thresholds as high as 0.79 inches. It uses embedded LiDAR (which fits better under low-profile furniture), a built-in camera, and 3D sensors for smarter navigation and obstacle avoidance. You can schedule, tweak settings, and adjust mop/vacuum configurations on the app, which offers extensive customization. According to PCMag, it can map a multi-level, 1,500-square-foot apartment in under 8 minutes. The dock is also packed with automated features like a self-emptying dustbin, mop washing, and water refill.

Because soon robots will play all our sports for us, this is a video of Morpheus, a giant table tennis playing robot made by Omron that uses AI to actively analyze an opponent’s playstyle and adapts in real time in order to humiliate them. Nice try, robot, but I’m used to being humiliated. If I had a nickel for every time I was humiliated even today alone I would’ve been able to afford those chips instead of getting my hand stuck in the vending machine trying to steal them.

The Philippines became Asia’s second-largest gambling hub after Macau last year as online betting proliferated across the archipelagic nation. Almost half of the country’s 69 million working-age population is now registered on gambling apps, an exponential rise from less than half a million users in 2018. The government has become increasingly dependent on the industry.

Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. collects 30% of gross gaming revenue and has become the second-biggest revenue contributor among state-run companies after Land Bank of the Philippines. Revenue from online casino license fees is projected to reach $1 billion in 2025. More than 60 operators are regulated by the government.

Industry revenue almost tripled in 2024 from 2023 to 154.5 billion pesos. Revenue from internet betting eclipsed physical casinos for the first time this year. The central bank recently ordered e-wallets to remove links to betting sites, halving bets within days. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. rejected calls for a complete ban and said outlawing online betting would only spawn illicit operations that would be more difficult to eradicate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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If you’re a developer, hobbyist, or just someone trying to keep up with modern programming tools without emptying your wallet, this deal might catch your eye: Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 is currently on sale for just $9.97 on StackSocial—down from its usual $499. The sale ends October 12, and it’s a one-time payment for lifetime access. Once you buy, the redemption code gets emailed to you instantly, and you have 30 days to activate it. There are no recurring fees, just a fully loaded development environment with features that make coding faster, cleaner, and less of a headache.

This version of Visual Studio marks a shift—it’s their first 64-bit IDE that handles larger projects without choking. If you’ve ever waited for your code editor to stop freezing while dealing with massive workloads, that’s less of a concern here. It supports cross-platform app development through .NET MAUI, so you’re covered whether you’re building for Android, iOS, or desktop. Plus, features like Live Share make collaboration more streamlined. You can co-code in real time, control what collaborators see, and even carry over your custom settings. There’s also IntelliCode, which is basically AI that learns your coding habits and fills in the blanks intelligently. It can finish lines of code or suggest the next logical move based on your style and context. It’s a little eerie, but it works. You can also build, test, and deploy to Azure right from the IDE, which is great if you’re cloud-focused.

There are some things to keep in mind. This is for Windows users only. If you’re working on a Chromebook, iPad, or even a 32-bit system—this won’t work. It’s compatible with Windows 10 and 11, and you’ll need at least 4GB of RAM (though more is better). Depending on the number of features you install, it also requires storage space ranging from 850MB to 210 GB. For just $10 for Microsoft Visual Studio, this is a great steal and worth trying out.

Earlier today, we wrote about how Ford, General Motors, and Tesla have reacted to the end of the clean vehicle tax credits. Now we know what Hyundai is doing, and the answer is “giving the Ioniq 5 a huge price cut.”

The cheapest Ioniq 5 is still the SE RWD. A model-year 2025 SE RWD cost $42,600; for model-year 2026 it’s now $35,000. The price cuts for other versions are even greater—between $9,150 and $9,800. For example, the Ioniq 5 XRT that you see in the photo above had a starting price of $55,500 for MY25; now it starts at a very reasonable $46,275.

“Hyundai is taking bold steps to ensure our award-winning Ioniq 5 remains a top choice for EV buyers,” said Randy Parker, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. “This pricing realignment reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional technology and innovation without compromise.”

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung Display president Lee Cheong has confirmed plans to make foldable smartphone displays for a major American company, which is widely believed to be Apple. As reported in Chosun Biz, Cheong last week told journalists in Seoul that the company is accelerating preparations for mass production of OLED displays designed for foldable smartphones to be supplied to a “North American client.” He declined to provide further information about the client, but it is widely expected to be Apple.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ubisoft has launched — and named — its Tencent-backed subsidiary. Vantage Studios is the first of the company’s “creative houses” under a previously-announced reorganization. The new studio will oversee the company’s tentpole franchises: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six.

The news follows Ubisoft’s March announcement of a new subsidiary with a €1.16 billion ($1.36 billion) investment from Tencent. The Chinese company took a minority ownership stake in Vantage as part of the deal. In July, Ubisoft named the new subsidiary’s co-CEOs: Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot.

“Our focus is on evolving Ubisoft’s operating model to bring more focus, more autonomy and more accountability to the teams so they can stay closely attuned to our players,” Guillemot said at the time. “Decision making will be quicker, and it will also be easier to pivot when we need to change course.”

Ubisoft

Ubisoft’s announcement today reflected that language. The idea is to give its developers “a higher level of autonomy” at Vantage and future studios. It wants the new structure to enable “a shorter pathway between gathering and implementing player feedback.”

Vantage is the only creative house the parent company has announced. The company will set up future ones “under the banner of a shared DNA and development expertise.” However, it’s unclear what other creative houses will work on, with Vantage taking over Ubisoft’s bread-and-butter franchises.

Vantage’s team will be spread across Ubisoft’s offices in Montréal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona and Sofia. Multiple gaming publications, including GamesIndustry.biz, reported that the studio began operations today. Ubisoft is said to have chosen “Vantage Studios” based on a vote by its 2,300 employees. As for Tencent, it will reportedly act in an advisory role, with the co-CEOs having the final word.

Ubisoft was due for some big changes. The company has endured big-name flops, studio closures and layoffs. At least Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has done well.

Incidentally, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six titles were among those added to Game Pass on Wednesday. Microsoft seems to have intended that announcement to soften the blow of the service’s 50 percent price hike. I’m not so sure it worked.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-launches-its-new-tencent-backed-subsidiary-194750403.html?src=rss