The Alien: Romulus director has a cool idea to bring back the crossover franchise, but it would probably be impossible to pull off.
Fede Alvarez’s Dream Alien vs. Predator Movie Could Never Happen
Category Archives: Technology
WhatsApp Faces Tougher EU Rules As Users Top 45 Million
Meta’s WhatsApp messaging service has surpassed 45 million users, earning the designation of a “Very Large Online Platform” under the EU’s Digital Services Act. Bloomberg reports: WhatsApp’s open channels, which are feeds affiliated with news outlets or public figures that under the DSA are comparable to a social network, averaged about 46.8 million monthly average users in the second half of 2024, Meta said in a filing on Feb. 14 that hasn’t previously been reported. […] The DSA content moderation rulebook imposes stricter requirements on very large online platforms, defined as those whose EU-based monthly active users exceed 45 million. Users of WhatsApp’s core messaging feature do not count toward the designation under the DSA.
The commission would still need to rule that WhatsApp should be included in the more regulated tier. Under the DSA, very large online platforms must carry out risk assessments on the spread of illegal or harmful content, and put in place a mitigation strategy. Fines under the DSA can reach as much as 6% of a company’s annual global sales. The DSA requires platforms to disclose user numbers every six months. Messaging service Telegram also published an update this week, saying that monthly EU users of its public channels are “significantly fewer than 45 million.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In a last-minute decision, White House decides not to terminate NASA employees
Unlike workers at many other federal agencies this week, probationary employees at NASA were not terminated on Tuesday.
For much of the day employees at the space agency anticipated a directive from the White House Office of Personnel Management to fire these employees, but it never came. “We were on pins and needles throughout the day,” said one senior official at Johnson Space Center in Houston on Tuesday afternoon.
However, by late in the afternoon, several field center directors received confirmation from the White House that their probationary employees—of which there are more than 1,000 across the agency’s headquarters and 10 field centers—would not be terminated. NASA had sought exemptions for all of these employees, who comprise about 6 percent of NASA’s workforce. Ars could not confirm whether the reprieve applied to some field centers or all 10 of them.
Google Play Books Purchases on iOS Now Skirt the App Store’s Commission
Google has gained permission to sell its e-books and audiobooks directly to customers through its iOS app, Google Play Books. From a report: While iOS apps today can offer access to content previously purchased elsewhere, like e-books bought via a website, developers have to request a specific exception to link their iOS app’s users to the company’s own website to make purchases. According to a brief post on Google’s blog, users will now be able to click on a new “Get book” button in the Google Play Books iOS app which will take them to the Google Play website to complete their e-book or audiobook purchase.
From there, users will be able to see their recently opened book listings and complete a purchase using their Google Account and saved payment information. By processing the transaction on its own website, Google can avoid paying Apple a commission (generally 30%) on in-app purchases of digital content.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Pedro Pascal’s New Movie Looks Freaky as Hell
It’s called Freaky Tales and it’s from the team behind Captain Marvel. It opens April 4.
Mira Murati Is Launching Her OpenAI Rival: Thinking Machines Lab
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has launched Thinking Machines Lab with several leaders from OpenAI on board, including John Schulman, Barrett Zoph, and Jonathan Lachman. Their mission is “to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable,” with a commitment to publishing technical research and code. The Verge reports: In a press release shared with The Verge, the company suggests that it’s building products that help humans work with AI, rather than fully autonomous systems. “We’re building a future where everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to make AI work for their unique needs and goals,” says the press release.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nvidia’s 50-series cards drop support for PhysX, impacting older games
Most PC games that you can play on a modern PC would run faster on an Nvidia RTX 5080 or 5090 than, say, a GTX 1070. But some games, from a particular phase of enthusiasm for particles, destructible environments, and smooth-moving hair, will take a notable hit if their owners upgrade to the latest Nvidia cards.
That’s because PhysX, once a dedicated physics simulation tool and card that became a selling point for Nvidia’s gear, has been largely deprecated on Nvidia 50-series cards. The transition was announced in January, but it seems to have taken some time for someone to notice the impact on 32-bit, PhysX-enabled games (as seen by PCGamesN). The most recent of these affected games, Assassin’s Creek IV: Black Flag, came out in 2013.
What follows is a brief primer on PhysX: what it was, what it did, and why it’s left out of Nvidia’s road map.
HP To Acquire Parts of Humane, Shut Down the AI Pin
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: HP will acquire assets from Humane, the maker of a wearable Ai Pin introduced in late 2023, for $116 million. The deal will include the majority of Humane’s employees in addition to its software platform and intellectual property, the company said Tuesday. It will not include Humane’s Ai pin device business, which will be wound down, an HP spokesperson said. Humane’s team, including founders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, will form a new division at HP to help integrate artificial intelligence into the company’s personal computers, printers and connected conference rooms, said Tuan Tran, who leads HP’s AI initiatives. Chaudhri and Bongiorno were design and software engineers at Apple before founding the startup. […]
Tran said he was particularly impressed with aspects of Humane’s design, such as the ability to orchestrate AI models running both on-device and in the cloud. The deal is expected to close at the end of the month, HP said. “There will be a time and place for pure AI devices,” Tran said. “But there is going to be AI in all our devices — that’s how we can help our business customers be more productive.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
All of Humane’s AI pins will stop working in 10 days
AI hardware startup Humane has given its users just ten (10!) days notice that their Pins will be disconnected. In a note to its customers, the company said AI Pins will “continue to function normally” until 12PM PT on February 28. On that date, users will lose access to essentially all of their device’s features, including but not limited to calling, messaging, AI queries and cloud access. The FAQ does note that you’ll still be able to check on your battery life, though.
Humane is encouraging its users to download any stored data before February 28, as it plans on permanently deleting “all remaining customer data” at the same time as switching its servers off.
The company says it will refund customers who are still within the 90-day return window, so long as they submit by February 27. It also notes that users who opted to wait for a replacement for the device’s combo fire hazard and Charge Case will now be refunded “the portion of [their] original purchase price that was allocated to the Charge Case.” In the original recall note, that amount was $149 if ordered separately or $129 if ordered as part of the “Complete System” bundle.
Today’s discontinuation announcement was brought about by the acquisition of Humane by HP, which is buying the company’s intellectual property for $116 million but clearly has no interest in its current hardware business. The AI Pin was famously panned at launch by a broad section of reviewers, including our own Cherlynn Low, who called it, “the solution to none of technology’s problems.”
HP says the acquisition will bring Humane’s “engineers, architects and product innovators” to a new team called HP IQ, which it describes as an “AI innovation lab focused on building an intelligent ecosystem across HP’s products and services for the future of work.” Good luck with that!
The New York Times reported last June that Humane was seeking a $1 billion buyout after only receiving 10,000 orders, and cited HP as an interested company. Another seven months of reality has apparently persuaded Humane’s founders to settle for a far lower figure.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/all-of-humanes-ai-pins-will-stop-working-in-10-days-225643798.html?src=rss
Federal Judge Refuses to Halt Destruction of U.S. Government by Elon Musk
The courts aren’t going to save the American people from DOGE.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners‘ Prequel Manga Lets Rebecca Bask in the Spotlight
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Madness follows Rebecca and Pilar’s misadventures before the events of the anime.
New Grok 3 release tops LLM leaderboards despite Musk-approved “based” opinions
On Monday, Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, released Grok 3, a new AI model family set to power chatbot features on the social network X. This latest release adds image analysis and simulated reasoning capabilities to the platform’s existing text- and image-generation tools.
Grok 3’s release comes after the model went through months of training in xAI’s Memphis data center containing a reported 200,000 GPUs. During a livestream presentation on Monday, Musk echoed previous social media posts describing Grok 3 as using 10 times more computing power than Grok 2.
Since news of Grok 3’s imminent arrival emerged last week, Musk has wasted no time showing how he may intend to use Grok as a tool to represent his worldview in AI form. On Sunday he posted “Grok 3 is so based” alongside a screenshot that purportedly asks Grok 3 for its opinion on the news publication called The Information. In response, Grok replies:
DOGE Reportedly Cuts FDA Employees Investigating Neuralink
The FDA previously found Musk’s company was engaging in “objectionable conditions or practices.”
Alleged Ringleader of Silicon Valley ‘Murder Cult’ Arrested
Who is the mysterious figure at the heart of an expansive police investigation?
Gwen Stacy’s Resurrection Just Got Even Weirder
Spider-Man’s long-dead love interest is back as the new Gwenpool, but not to be confused with either the other Gwenpool, or that one time she was on a cover as a Gwen Stacy version of Deadpool. Hope that helps!
Streamer completes hitless run of seven FromSoft Soulslikes without leveling up
If you know just one thing about FromSoft’s recent history of so-called “Soulslike” games, you probably know that they have a well-earned reputation for absolutely brutal difficulty. But these titles apparently just weren’t difficult enough for streamer dinossindgeil (aka Nico) who spent the weekend beating seven of FromSoft’s most punishing titles without taking a single hit or leveling up even once.
Nico’s conquest of what he calls “The God Run 3” dates back to 2022, when he took down all three Dark Souls games as well as Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring live on his Twitch stream without sustaining any damage from enemies. Back then, though, Nico relied at least a little bit on grinding leveled-up characters and high-end gear to make the game’s most difficult bosses a bit more manageable. Even with that advantage, though, a successful God Run 3 completion took Nico 120 days of real-time effort due to frequent restarts whenever he took a single hit.
This time around, Nico cranked up the difficulty even further by deciding not to level his characters even once (though he was able to increase his stats and abilities in some games with level 1-accessible items and weapons). After his first level 1 God Run attempt two months ago, Nico’s efforts culminated in a roughly 11-hour multi-day marathon run over the weekend, which saw Nico break down in tears at the end of the ordeal.
China Looks to Use Tesla FSD Rollout as Leverage in Trade Negotiations
Elon Musk has bet Tesla’s future on autonomy, and China sees that as a point of leverage in negotiations over tariffs.
Presidents’ Day May Be Over, But EcoFlow Delta 2 Portable Power Station Is Still at Its Best Price
The EF Ecoflow Delta 2 portable power station recharges 7x faster than competitors and has a whopping 15 outlets for powering up your essentials.
Acer CEO says its PC prices to increase by 10 percent in response to Trump tariffs
PC-manufacturer Acer has said that it plans to raise the prices of its PCs in the US by 10 percent, a direct response to the new 10 percent import tariff on Chinese goods that the Trump administration announced earlier this month.
“We will have to adjust the end user price to reflect the tariff,” said Acer CEO Jason Chen in an interview with The Telegraph. “We think 10 percent probably will be the default price increase because of the import tax. It’s very straightforward.”
These price increases won’t roll out right away, according to Chen—products shipped from China before the tariffs went into effect earlier this month won’t be subject to the increased import taxes—but we can expect them to show up in PC price tags over the next few weeks.
Microsoft warns that the powerful XCSSET macOS malware is back with new tricks
Microsoft said it has detected a new variant of XCSSET, a powerful macOS malware family that has targeted developers and users since at least 2020.
The variant, which Microsoft reported Monday, marked the first publicly known update to the malware since 2022. The malware first came to light in 2020, when security firm Trend Micro said it had targeted app developers after spreading through a publicly available project the attacker wrote for Xcode, a developer tool Apple makes freely available. The malware gained immediate attention because it exploited what, at the time, were two zero-day vulnerabilities, a testament to the resourcefulness of the entity behind the attacks.
In 2021, XCSSET surfaced again, first when it was used to backdoor developers’ devices and a few months later when researchers found it exploiting what at the time was a new zero-day.