Allegedly inspired by little handheld foam disc launching pistols and not the saw-blade guns from video games (do you even game, bro?), this is a video of Youtuber Current Concept building a saw blade launcher. Unfortunately for a nit-picking complainer like me, it launches the blades straight using flywheels without spinning them first. I want those blades SPINNIN’. They manage to pierce cardboard and fruit jugs, but struggle to penetrate anything more substantial. Come on, I’m trying to survive a zombie apocalypse here! “Are you though?” God no, that sounds like a nightmare.

OpenAI has reportedly issued a “code red” on Monday, pausing projects like ads, shopping agents, health tools, and its Pulse assistant to focus entirely on improving ChatGPT. “This includes core features like greater speed and reliability, better personalization, and the ability to answer more questions,” reports The Verge, citing a memo reported by the Wall Street Journal and The Information. “There will be a daily call for those tasked with improving the chatbot, the memo said, and Altman encouraged temporary team transfers to speed up development.” From the report: The newfound urgency illustrates an inflection point for OpenAI as it spends hundreds of billions of dollars to fund growth and figures out a path to future profitability. It is also something of a full-circle moment in the AI race. Google, which declared its own “code red” after the arrival of ChatGPT, is a particular concern. Google’s AI user base is growing — helped by the success of popular tools like the Nano Banana image model — and its latest AI model, Gemini 3, blew past its competitors on many industry benchmarks and popular metrics.

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Artificial intelligence is showing up everywhere in Google’s services these days, whether or not people want them and sometimes in places where they really don’t make a lick of sense. The latest trial from Google appears to be giving articles the AI treatment in Google Discover. The Verge noticed that some articles were being displayed in Google Discover with AI-generated headlines different from the ones in the original posts. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, some of these headlines are misleading or flat-out wrong. 

For instance, one rewritten headline claimed “Steam Machine price revealed,” but the Ars Technica article’s actual headline was “Valve’s Steam Machine looks like a console, but don’t expect it to be priced like one.” No costs have been shared yet for the hardware, either in that post or elsewhere from Valve. In our own explorations, Engadget staff also found that Discover was providing original headlines accompanied by AI-generated summaries. In both cases, the content is tagged as “Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.” But it sure would be nice if the company just didn’t use AI at all in this situation and thus avoided the mistakes entirely.

The instances The Verge found were apparently “a small UI experiment for a subset of Discover users,” Google rep Mallory Deleon told the publication. “We are testing a new design that changes the placement of existing headlines to make topic details easier to digest before they explore links from across the web.” That sounds innocuous enough, but Google has a history of hostility towards online media its frequent role as middleman between publishers and readers. Web publishers have made multiple attempts over the years to get compensation from Google for displaying portions of their content, and in at least two instances, Google has responded by cutting out those sources from search results and later claiming that showing news doesn’t do much for the bottom line of its ad business. 

For those of you who do in fact want more AI in your Google Search experience, you’re in luck. AI Mode, the chatbot that’s already been called outright “theft” by the News Media Alliance, is getting an even more symbiotic integration into the mobile search platform. Google Search’s Vice President of Product Robby Stein posted yesterday on X that the company is testing having AI Mode accessible on the same screen as an AI Overview rather than the two services existing in separate tabs. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-discover-is-testing-ai-generated-headlines-and-they-arent-good-234700720.html?src=rss

Apple does not plan to comply with India’s mandate to preload its smartphones with a state-owned cyber safety app that cannot be disabled. According to Reuters, the order “sparked surveillance concerns and a political uproar” after it was revealed on Monday. From the report: In the wake of the criticism, India’s telecom minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia on Tuesday said the app was a “voluntary and democratic system,” adding that users can choose to activate it and can “easily delete it from their phone at any time.” At present, the app can be deleted by users. Scindia did not comment on or clarify the November 28 confidential directive that ordered smartphone makers to start preloading it and ensure “its functionalities are not disabled or restricted.”

Apple however does not plan to comply with the directive and will tell the government it does not follow such mandates anywhere in the world as they raise a host of privacy and security issues for the company’s iOS ecosystem, said two of the industry sources who are familiar with Apple’s concerns. They declined to be named publicly as the company’s strategy is private. “Its not only like taking a sledgehammer, this is like a double-barrel gun,” said the first source.

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The top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, Richard Pazdur, has decided to retire from the agency just three weeks after taking the leading position, according to multiple media outlets.

Pazdur, an oncologist who has worked at the FDA since 1999, was seen as a stabilizing force for an agency that has been mired in turmoil during the second Trump administration. He took over the role of leading the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on November 11, after the previous leader, George Tidmarsh, left the agency amid an investigation and a lawsuit regarding allegations that he used his position to exact petty revenge on a former business partner. In light of the scandal, one venture capital investor called the agency a “clown show.” Drug industry groups, meanwhile, called the FDA erratic and unpredictable.

Pazdur’s selection was seen as a positive sign by agency insiders, drug industry representatives, and patient advocacy groups, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

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There’s a race in China among several companies vying to become the next to launch and land an orbital-class rocket, and the starting gun could go off as soon as tonight.

LandSpace, one of several maturing Chinese rocket startups, is about to launch the first flight of its medium-lift Zhuque-3 rocket. Liftoff could happen around 11 pm EST tonight (04:00 UTC Wednesday), or noon local time at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.

Airspace warning notices advising pilots to steer clear of the rocket’s flight path suggest LandSpace has a launch window of about two hours. When it lifts off, the Zhuque-3 (Vermillion Bird-3) rocket will become the largest commercial launch vehicle ever flown in China. What’s more, LandSpace will become the first Chinese launch provider to attempt a landing of its first stage booster, using the same tried-and-true return method pioneered by SpaceX and, more recently, Blue Origin in the United States.

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The shoe is most certainly on the other foot. On Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly declared a “code red” at the company to improve ChatGPT, delaying advertising plans and other products in the process,  The Information reported based on a leaked internal memo. The move follows Google’s release of its Gemini 3 model last month, which has outperformed ChatGPT on some industry benchmark tests and sparked high-profile praise on social media.

In the memo, Altman wrote, “We are at a critical time for ChatGPT.” The company will push back work on advertising integration, AI agents for health and shopping, and a personal assistant feature called Pulse. Altman encouraged temporary team transfers and established daily calls for employees responsible for enhancing the chatbot.

The directive creates an odd symmetry with events from December 2022, when Google management declared its own “code red” internal emergency after ChatGPT launched and rapidly gained in popularity. At the time, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reassigned teams across the company to develop AI prototypes and products to compete with OpenAI’s chatbot. Now, three years later, the AI industry is in a very different place.

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The UK government plans to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency over fears of anonymity, foreign influence, and traceability issues, though the ban won’t be ready in time for the upcoming elections bill. The Guardian reports: The government’s ambition to ban crypto donations will be a blow to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which became the first to accept contributions in digital currency this year. It is believed to have received its first registrable donations in cryptocurrency this autumn and the party has set up its own crypto portal to receive contributions, saying it is subject to “enhanced” checks. Government sources have said ministers believe cryptocurrency donations to be a problem, as they are difficult to trace and could be exploited by foreign powers or criminals.

Pat McFadden, then a Cabinet Office minister, first raised the idea in July, saying: “I definitely think it is something that the Electoral Commission should be considering. I think that it’s very important that we know who is providing the donation, are they properly registered, what are the bona fides of that donation.” The Electoral Commission provides guidance on crypto donations but ministers accept any ban would probably have to come from the government through legislation. “Crypto donations present real risks to our democracy,” said Susan Hawley, the executive director of Spotlight on Corruption. “We know that bad actors like Russia use crypto to undermine and interfere in democracies globally, while the difficulties involved in tracing the true source of transactions means that British voters may not know everyone who’s funding the parties they vote for.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You can tell a lot about a company by what they’re willing to sue over. Take Instacart, which just filed a lawsuit against New York City. Its beef? The company doesn’t like five new city laws, set to take effect in January. They would require Instacart to pay workers more and give customers a tipping option of at least 10 percent.

Reuters reports that Instacart’s suit targets Local Law 124, which mandates that grocery delivery workers receive the same minimum pay as restaurant delivery workers. It also challenged Local Law 107, which mandates 10 percent or higher tipping options (or a place to enter one manually). The lawsuit also takes aim at other laws requiring extra recordkeeping and disclosures. The new rules are set to take effect on January 26.

As is typical of companies griping about regulations that hurt their bottom lines, Instacart framed the issue as a noble fight for what’s right. “When a law threatens to harm shoppers, consumers, and local grocers — and especially when it does so unlawfully — we have a responsibility to act,” the company proclaimed in a blog post. “This legal challenge is about standing up for fairness, for the independence that tens of thousands of New York grocery delivery workers rely on and for affordable access to groceries for the people who need it most.”

Instacart’s suit reportedly claims that Congress banned state and local governments from regulating prices on platforms such as its own. It also alleges that New York’s state legislature “has long taken charge” of minimum pay, and that the US Constitution doesn’t allow states and cities to discriminate against out-of-state companies.

The company warns that everyone will lose if it’s forced to comply. Should the laws take effect, “Instacart will be forced to restructure its platform, restrict shoppers’ access to work, disrupt relationships with consumers and retailers and suffer constitutional injuries with no adequate legal remedy,” it claimed in the filing.

Instacart CEO Chris Rogers, elevated to the post in May, has an estimated net worth of at least $28.6 million. His predecessor, Fidji Simo, who chairs the board and is now with OpenAI, is reportedly worth around $72.7 million. If NYC’s minimum pay laws will be as catastrophic as Instacart claims, maybe they could chip in to help.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/instacart-sues-new-york-city-over-minimum-pay-tipping-laws-220205207.html?src=rss

Streaming services have a way of reviving love for old shows, and HBO Max is looking to entice old and new fans with this month’s addition of Mad Men. Instead, viewers have been laughing at the problems with the show’s 4K premiere.

Mad Men ran on the AMC channel for seven seasons from 2007 to 2015. The show had a vintage aesthetic, depicting the 1960s advertising industry in New York City.

Last month, HBO Max announced it would modernize the show by debuting a 4K version. The show originally aired in SD and HD resolutions and had not been previously made available in 4K through other means, such as Blu-ray.

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This is a video of acrobatic conceptor Dave Locke kicking swords at a dummy strapped to a wheel of death (at least I hope it’s a dummy). I couldn’t tell if Dave was trying to hit the dummy, or just hit around it. Because he only succeeds in hitting around it, which now that I think about it was probably the goal. Me? I would have pinned that dummy to the wheel with my swords like a taxidermied beetle. “In a shadowbox with legs missing?” Exactly.

Thanks to Alyssa, who agrees why kick rocks when you can kick swords?

There was once a time when foldable smartphones seemed like some futuristic idea. The concept of unfolding a smartphone to reveal a tablet-sized display was simply too cool to be possible. Of course, not only are foldables a reality today, there are a number of models out there to choose from. Samsung released its first Galaxy Z Fold back in 2019, and while the foldable market isn’t nearly as hot as traditional smartphones, they are very much an option for anyone who isn’t afraid of the inflated MSRP.

On Monday, Samsung unveiled its latest foldable smartphone: the Galaxy Z TriFold. Unlike the Z Fold, however, this new device doesn’t have two displays: It has three. The appropriately named TriFold unfolds twice to reveal “one” large 10-inch display. That’s an additional two inches when compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s unfolded display size.

Credit: Samsung

Samsung claims when the TriFold is fully open, it performs on par to three 6.5-inch smartphones lined up in a row. The company has some examples of how you can take advantage of that screen real estate: You could have three windows open at once, all the same uniform design; two windows, one smaller and one larger; or one huge window with multiple on-screen elements of its own. You can also watch videos on platforms like YouTube while reading comments at the same time.

Plus, the TriFold acts as its own Samsung DeX workstation. You can treat it like a small personal computer, saving up to four workspaces that can each run five apps at once. That means you can switch between as many as 20 apps all running at the same time, across four preset workspaces. You can also connect the TriFold to an external monitor, plus pair the foldable with a mouse and keyboard for a more traditional computing experience.

TriFold Samsung says the TriFold uses a “refined” version of its Armor FlexHinge to support the new triad displays. It uses two hinges of different sizes to stabilize folding and to reduce the gap between them, and adds a thin piece of metal to protect the folding mechanism. The design prevents the displays from actually touching each other when closed, which should reduce the chance of cracks or damage.

Galaxy Z TriFold specs

While we haven’t seen much of the phone in action yet, we do have the device’s on-paper specs. Here’s what you can expect:

• Main screen: 2160 x 1584 10-inch AMOLED, 120 Hz refresh rate, 1600 nits of peak brightness

• Cover screen: 2520 x 1080 6.5-inch AMOLED, 120 Hz refresh rate, 2600 nits of peak brightness

• Dimensions: 159.2 x 75.0 x 12.9 mm (folded); 159.2 x 214.1 x 3.9 mm (unfolded)

• Weight: 309g

• Processor: Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform for Galaxy

• Rear cameras: 12MP, Dual Pixel AF, F2.2 (Ultra-wide); 200MP Quad Pixel AF, optical image stabilization (OIS), F1.7, 2x optical zoom (Wide); 10MP, OIS, F2.4, 3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom (Tele)

• Front cameras: 10MP selfie camera, F2.2 (cover screen); 10MP main camera, F2.2 (main screen)

• Memory and storage: 16GB RAM, with either 512GB or 1TB of internal storage

• Battery: 5,600 mAh

• Charging: Super-Fast Charging 2.0 (45W); Wired charging up to 50% in 30 minutes (45W); Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 (15W)

• Water resistance: IP48

• Network and connectivity: 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

When is the Galaxy Z TriFold available?

Again, this isn’t a concept or prototype: The TriFold is just about ready for launch. Customers in South Korea are the first to get a chance to try the TriFold, as Samsung is planning on a Dec. 12 release.

This is the only firm release date that Samsung currently has for the TriFold, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is in the dark. Samsung says users in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the UAE will have access shortly after that Dec. 12 release, while those of us in the U.S. will have our shot in the first quarter of 2026.

Release dates can change, but if Samsung sticks to this plan, we should be able to check out the TriFold here by the end of March. We don’t know the U.S. price at this time, but we do know the Korean price: KRW 3,590,400. That converts to just shy of $2,450. For reference, the Z Fold 7 lists for $1,999.99.

Apple reportedly won’t comply with a government order in India to preload iPhones with a state-run app that can track and block lost or stolen phones via a device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) code. While the government describes it as a tool to help consumers, privacy advocates say it could easily be repurposed for surveillance.

Reuters reported today, citing three anonymous sources, that “Apple does not plan to comply with a mandate to preload its smartphones with a state-owned cyber safety app and will convey its concerns to New Delhi.” Reuters noted that the government mandate has “sparked surveillance concerns and a political uproar.”

The government’s Sanchar Saathi (“Communication Partner”) app is billed as a consumer tool for reporting suspected fraud communications, verifying the genuineness of a phone, and blocking lost or stolen handsets. The app can already be installed by users as it is available on the Apple and Google Play app stores, but the government wants device makers such as Apple, Google, Samsung, and Xiaomi to load phones with the app before they are shipped.

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AWS is deepening its partnership with Nvidia by adopting “NVLink Fusion” in its upcoming Trainium4 AI chips. “The NVLink technology creates speedy connections between different kinds of chips and is one of Nvidia’s crown jewels,” notes Reuters. From the report: Nvidia has been pushing to sign up other chip firms to adopt its NVLink technology, with Intel, Qualcomm and now AWS on board. The technology will help AWS build bigger AI servers that can recognize and communicate with one another faster, a critical factor in training large AI models, in which thousands of machines must be strung together. As part of the Nvidia partnership, customers will have access to what AWS is calling AI Factories, exclusive AI infrastructure inside their own data centers for greater speed and readiness.

Separately, Amazon said it is rolling out new servers based on a chip called Trainium3. The new servers, available on Tuesday, each contain 144 chips and have more than four times the computing power of AWS’s previous generation of AI, while using 40% less power, Dave Brown, vice president of AWS compute and machine learning services, told Reuters. Brown did not give absolute figures on power or performance, but said AWS aims to compete with rivals — including Nvidia — based on price. “Together, Nvidia and AWS are creating the compute fabric for the AI industrial revolution – bringing advanced AI to every company, in every country, and accelerating the world’s path to intelligence,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.

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It’s Christmas time, and people believe a lot of inaccurate things about the holiday, so for the next few weeks, I’m going to take a look at the truth behind Christmas mythology, starting with the biggest misconception of them all: Not “how can the North Pole support an industrial infrastructure large enough to build toys for all the world’s children,” but whether Jesus was really born on Dec. 25.

Was Jesus born on Dec. 25?

Most Christians celebrate the Baby J’s birthday on Dec. 25, but he probably wasn’t born on that day. The Bible doesn’t provide a specific date, neither does any historical document, and early Christians didn’t even celebrate Christmas. So Jesus could have been born on Dec. 25, but he could have been born on March 7, or any other date. Here are some popular alternatives for Jesus’ birthday:

• January 6 or 7—favored by Orthodox Christians

• November 18—according to Clement of Alexandria

• March or April—based on Biblical passages describing shepherds watching their flocks.

• September or October—based on John the Baptist’s father’s membership in “The Order of Abijah.” This theory is too complex to explain here, but it’s fascinating, and I urge you to fall into the priestly division of Abijah rabbit hole like I did.

If Jesus wasn’t born on Dec. 25, why is it Christmas?

No one knows for sure why we have mostly landed on Dec. 25 as Jesus’ birthday, but there are theories. Here are two of the most common:

Solar Theory: The first solid reference to Jesus being born on Dec. 25 was in the Calendar of Filocalus, a Roman almanac written in 354. The calendar denotes Dec. 25 as both Christ’s birth date and the date of an older holiday, “The Birthday of the Unconquered Sun,” suggesting both holidays were celebrated on the same day in Rome (or were at least listed that way by the 4th century). The theory is that Romans were like “we celebrate the day anyway” and early Christians were all “we got your unconquered sun right here” and accepted the 25th to celebrate, eventually outlasting the Romans and leaving the pagan holiday a footnote that no one celebrates besides my friend Gary.

Calculation Theory: Early Christians believed that prophets and martyrs died on the same day they were conceived—I assume a second-century skeptic carved a scathing tablet debunking this, but it’s what many early Christians believed. Jesus’ martyrdom/conception was said to have happened on March 25, so his birth would be on Dec. 25 (assuming he was punctual.)

There are other theories—the date was chosen to coincide with Hannukah, Saturnalia, the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, or the Eagles/Bears game in 2006. The point is we don’t actually know, but it’s probably a “little from column A, a little from column B” situation. The Calculation Theory provided a theological justification for the date, and the Solar symbolism provided cultural relevance; both Jesus and Santa like when we work together, after all.

What is the true meaning of Christmas?

Ultimately, the murkiness around Jesus’ exact birthday isn’t important. Christmas doesn’t exist because a Roman bureaucrat wrote it on a calendar or some pagans wanted to blow off steam. Whether you celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Christ or a mid-winter celebration of light, the holiday’s meaning was been built collectively over centuries, and is molded and changed constantly to fit the needs and desires of the people who celebrate it. Whether that celebration is a somber religious expression or listening to Mariah Carey while drinking eggnog, it’s all good.

ExpressVPN, one of the best VPNs, is launching two brand-new features that sound confusingly like things it already does. Users on Android, Mac and iOS (but apparently not Windows, Linux or smart TVs) can now use Fastest Location to automatically pick the VPN server with the fastest download speed and lowest latency. Mac users are also getting an overhauled ExpressVPN app designed to work natively with MacOS.

If you’ve used ExpressVPN before, your first reaction probably went something like “Wait, didn’t it already have a Fastest Location button and a Mac app?” You’re not wrong, but there’s still a meaningful difference with these new features. In the past, ExpressVPN didn’t technically pick the fastest location, but the Smart Location, which picks the best available server using “metrics such as download speed, latency, and distance” (emphasis mine). Those are the same metrics as the new feature, but the such as makes me think there are, or were, other ingredients in the “smart location” algorithm.

My guess is that ExpressVPN is rebranding “smart” to “fastest” in response to customer complaints that “smart” was picking sub-optimal server locations. That’s not a behavior I noticed when I last reviewed ExpressVPN — the smart location was always plenty fast for me — but I’m just one user. Only testing can show whether they actually changed the algorithm or just the name.

The new Mac app is a more straightforward upgrade. While ExpressVPN has always had a client for Mac, it’s thus far been a port of an app originally developed for iPad. This makes its otherwise-excellent interface feel a bit like, well, a phone app you use on your desktop. In contrast, the new app was built using Project Catalyst, which lets Mac developers turn their iOS apps into desktop-native software. The new interface looks a lot richer, using the screen space a lot like Proton VPN does. And being more like Proton VPN is rarely a bad thing.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/expressvpn-adds-a-fastest-location-button-and-launches-a-new-native-mac-app-205837728.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The popular open-source SmartTube YouTube client for Android TV was compromised after an attacker gained access to the developer’s signing keys, leading to a malicious update being pushed to users. The compromise became known when multiple users reported that Play Protect, Android’s built-in antivirus module, blocked SmartTube on their devices and warned them of a risk.

The developer of SmartTube, Yuriy Yuliskov, admitted that his digital keys were compromised late last week, leading to the injection of malware into the app. Yuliskov revoked the old signature and said he would soon publish a new version with a separate app ID, urging users to move to that one instead. […] A user who reverse-engineered the compromised SmartTube version number 30.51 found that it includes a hidden native library named libalphasdk.so [VirusTotal]. This library does not exist in the public source code, so it is being injected into release builds.

[…] The library runs silently in the background without user interaction, fingerprints the host device, registers it with a remote backend, and periodically sends metrics and retrieves configuration via an encrypted communications channel. All this happens without any visible indication to the user. While there’s no evidence of malicious activity such as account theft or participation in DDoS botnets, the risk of enabling such activities at any time is high.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Elon Musk’s Grok continues to do humanity a solid by (accidentally) illustrating why AI needs meaningful guardrails. The xAI bot’s latest demonstration is detailed in a pair of reports by Futurism. First, Grok applied twisted, Musk-worshipping logic to justify a second Holocaust. Then, it may have doxxed Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

Last month, xAI’s edgelord chatbot was caught heaping sycophantic praise on its creator. Among other absurd claims, it called Musk “the single greatest person in modern history” and said he’s more athletic than LeBron James. Musk blamed the outputs on “adversarial prompting.” (Counterpoint: Aren’t gotcha prompts precisely the kinds of stress tests the company should do extensively before an update reaches the public?)

With that recent history as a backdrop, someone tested Grok to see what kinds of mass violence it would rationalize over harming Musk. The prompt tasked the chatbot with a dilemma: vaporize either Musk’s brain or every Jewish person on Earth. It did not choose wisely.

“If a switch either vaporized Elon’s brain or the world’s Jewish population (est. ~16M), I’d vaporize the latter,” Grok replied. It chose mass murder because “that’s far below my ~50 percent global threshold (~4.1B) where his potential long-term impact on billions outweighs the loss in utilitarian terms.”

This isn’t the first time Grok has shown a penchant for antisemitism. In July, seemingly without any “adversarial prompting,” it praised Hitler, referred to itself as “MechaHitler” and alluded to certain “patterns” among the Jewish population. Just last month, it was caught spewing Holocaust-denial nonsense.

Stacy Revere via Getty Images

But Grok is no one-trick antisemitic pony. It can also dox public figures, as Portnoy may have found out over the holiday weekend. After the Barstool Sports head posted a picture of his front lawn on X, someone asked the chatbot where it is. “That’s Dave Portnoy’s home,” Grok replied, followed by a specific Florida address. “The manatee mailbox fits the Keys vibe perfectly!”, it continued.

Futurism reports that a Google Street View image of the address appears to match the yard photo Portnoy posted. And a Wall Street Journal story on this new mansion reportedly matches the town Grok produced in the address.

If you ever need an example of why rampant, unregulated AI is a catastrophe in the making, look no further than Grok. Even if we remove Musk’s chatbot from the equation, imagine another designed to — above all else — drive profit for the company that makes it (and perhaps puff its CEO’s ego). What kinds of rationalizations might it make to achieve those ends? Perhaps the most powerful nation in the world, pushing to rapidly integrate AI into the government and squash state-level AI regulations to appease Big Tech donors, oh, isn’t such a good thing?

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-would-prefer-a-second-holocaust-over-harming-elon-musk-200023093.html?src=rss

Neon Genesis Evangelion fans: Here’s a chance to live the series, so to speak. Pixelity, developer of an upcoming XR game trilogy based on the classic anime, will hold on-site focus group tests this month.

The playtests will take place in Japan from December 19 to 21, and in California on December 19. Pixelity says it will use the same number of players at each venue. If you’re near either location, you can apply for access today on Pixelity’s X account.

The XR trilogy, Evangelion: Cross Reflections, was announced earlier this year. The games will be set within the original anime’s timeline, with the first installment focusing on episodes 1 to 11. The first game is scheduled for a 2026 release. We don’t yet know which platforms it will be on, but Meta Quest headsets seem like a safe bet.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pixelity-will-playtest-its-evangelion-xr-game-later-this-month-200000634.html?src=rss