Are you old enough to remember talking to your friends on the phone all the time? A phone with a cord? Then welcome to the Out of Touch Adults’ Guide to Kid Culture, a guide to what’s going down with all the youths out there. This week, the young ‘uns are stealing each other’s brainrots, guzzling heavy soda, (not) paying $500 for a rock, and being harassed by a rizzed-out robot.

“Steal a Brainrot”

If you know anyone under the age of 16, they are probably playing “Steal a Brainrot,” and you are probably asking “Steal a what now?” so here’s what it’s all about: “Steal a Brainrot” is a multiplayer mini-game within maxi-games Roblox and Fortnite. In a game of Brainrot, up to eight players share a server, and each has their own base. The object of the game is to buy brainrots for your base and/or steal brainrots from other players’ bases, while defending your own brainrots from thieves. Steal enough brainrots and you become more powerful and can make your base more defensible. The brainrots themselves are objects meant to reference “Italian brainrot,” i.e.: low-quality internet memes. They vary in value and have vaguely Italian names, but they aren’t based on actual brainrot memes.

“Steal a Brainrot” is insanely popular, boasting a concurrent player count of over 20 million people, so you’re probably asking, “Who is getting rich from this (and why isn’t it me?).” The answer: Two groups are making most of the dough. The first is the game’s developers, SpyderSammy and DoBig Studios, who get a cut of all the micro-transactions within “Steal a Brainrot” (players can spend real money for in-game items). The other beneficiary of all this brainrot is the Roblox Corporation, who provide the platform in exchange for the rest of the money from Brainrot micro-transactions.

As for why it isn’t you, it’s because you don’t have any good ideas.

What is “heavy soda”?

Unlike “heavy water,” in which H2O’s hydrogen atoms are replaced by deuterium atoms, heavy soda is pop with extra syrup—as hard as this is to believe, some people think Sprite and Mountain Dew just aren’t sweet enough. Heavy soda comes from self-serve soda machines. Some, apparently, have a toggle to increase or decrease the amount of syrup in the resulting drinks, and many people on TikTok are great fans of the beverage that results from setting the machine on “maximum syrup.”

Sometimes called “dirty soda,” heavy soda supposedly originated in gas stations on the Southern tip of Missouri. If your gas station drink machine looks like this:

… then you are probably at least 1,000 miles from a Whole Foods. But maybe not for long; thanks to boosters on TiKtok, heavy soda is spreading.

Polaroid aesthetic making a comeback

I’ve been messing around with Nano Banana, the image generator within Google’s Gemini AI app, and so have the kids, but they’re not using it for wrinkle-smoothing and paunch reduction. They’re getting in touch with the 1970s aesthetic of the instant camera and creating Polaroid-style pictures of themselves with famous people, fictional characters, and everything else.

One of the more popular variants of the trend involves combining a picture of your current self with your younger self, resulting in surreal-but-poignant videos like these:

Making your own is easy: Install Gemini. Upload the current picture and older picture. Then write a prompt for Gemini like, “Generate a picture taken with a Polaroid camera, desaturated colors, with a camera flash as the single light source and a 1970s suburban tract house as a background.”

Are people really buying $1000 rocks from Anthropologie?

A few weeks ago, TikTok user Phoebe Adams posted a video where she pranks her boyfriend by opening a box that contains a rock she said cost $150.

“It’s a special rock from Anthropologie,” she explains to her angry boyfriend. “It’s gonna sit on our entryway table. It’s a one-of-kind rock that they actually found on the ground,” she adds.

The video blew up and people started imitating it in videos like this:

and this:

But then things kicked up a notch when the real Anthropologie set up an actual rock display at a store so Phoebe could continue to gaslight her long-suffering boyfriend Dan:

All of this leads to the question of whether this is a retailer cleverly taking advantage of an unexpected trend—or was the entire thing viral marketing from the beginning? I’m 50/50.

Viral video of the week: Rizzbot

Speaking of things that are probably guerrilla marketing campaigns, this week’s viral video celebrity is Rizzbot. Formally known as “Jake the Rizzbot,” this four-foot-tall walking (and dancing) robot in a cowboy hat has been traveling all over the country for the past several months, rizzing people up with its robotic swagger and robotic Gen Z slang.

Videos from the official Rizzbot channel has racked up hundreds of millions of views for videos like this, where Rizzbot goes off on a rando’s fit:

But Rizzbot can be a total jerk too and sometimes shouts obscenities at people for no reason:

or promises a compliment only to deliver a roast, proving that no one should trust a clanker:

Rizzbot is a decorated version of Unitree Robotics G1 “Humanoid Agent AI Avatar,” a $16,000 robot that can joke around with people and sometimes keep from falling over. Despite appearances, Rizzbot is not acting autonomously. Someone is carefully controlling his every move and word, but we don’t know who or why. The bot is most often seen in downtown Austin, and has some serious connections to the Texas Robotics lab at UT, though.

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Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news.

Floodlight cameras usually cost a lot more than the casual buyer wants to spend, but Blink’s Wired Floodlight Camera has quietly slipped to a price that makes it hard to ignore for starting or extending a home security setup. Right now it’s $49.99 on Amazon (regularly $99.99), which is the lowest price it’s ever been, according to price trackers.

Blink Wired Floodlight Camera

$49.99
at Amazon

$99.99
Save $50.00

$49.99
at Amazon

$99.99
Save $50.00

This is a hardwired security camera with bright dual-LED floodlights, a loud siren, and the ability to record sharp 1080p video. The LEDs crank out 2,600 lumens combined—enough to light up a driveway or backyard—and also enable color night vision. That means you’re not stuck with blurry grayscale clips when something sets off the motion sensor after dark.

The performance holds up beyond just brightness. The camera has a wide 143-degree field of view, motion alerts arrive almost instantly, and daytime footage shows accurate colors and detail. At night, black-and-white video looks clear out to about 30 feet, while color video with the floodlights on is plenty usable even if the tones are a bit washed compared to daytime shots, notes this PCMag review. Through the Blink app, you can check the live feed, turn lights on or off, save recordings, and use two-way talk. There’s also a 105dB siren built in, which is loud enough to scare off trespassers or get a neighbor’s attention.

The catch is that not all of the software features are free: Without a subscription, you’re limited to live viewing and motion alerts. With the $3 per month Basic plan, you get 60 days of video history, person detection, photo capture, and longer live streams. For multiple cameras, the $10 per month Plus Plan gives you the same perks plus an extended warranty and discounts on future Blink gear.

If you’d rather skip subscriptions, Blink sells its Sync Module 2 hub for around $50. Pair it with a USB drive, and you can save clips locally. As with most Blink products, Alexa and IFTTT support are included, so you can connect it to routines and other devices, but there’s no compatibility with Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit. Installation is straightforward if you’re comfortable wiring an outdoor light fixture, and Blink includes the screws, nuts, and guides you need. If not, hiring an electrician is the safer move. All told, this is one of the most affordable ways to add a floodlight camera to your home.

X is challenging an Indian court order it says would require it to comply with millions of takedown requests without due process. In a statement, the company said it was “deeply concerned” about the ruling, which allows police officers “to issue arbitrary takedown orders through a secretive online portal” called the Sahyog.

X’s challenge comes after the Karnataka High Court dismissed X’s initial challenge of the Sahyog portal last week. As the BBC notes, the Sahyog “describes itself as a tool to automate the process of sending government notices to content intermediaries such as X and Facebook.” But X has labeled it a “censorship portal,” saying that it allows “millions” of officials, including local police officers, to order content to be removed.

“The Sahyog enables officers to order content removal based solely on allegations of ‘illegality,’ without judicial review or due process for the speakers, and threatens platforms with criminal liability for non-compliance,” X wrote in a statement. “We will appeal this order to defend free expression.”

X has a history of challenging the Indian government on content moderation issues. The company previously challenged orders requiring it to block specific posts and accounts in 2024 and 2022. The platform also clashed with the Indian government under Jack Dorsey’s leadership. Officials threatened to jail Twitter employees in 2021 after the company reversed a decision to block accounts amid widespread protests. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-will-appeal-indian-court-ruling-allowing-arbitrary-takedown-orders-120000846.html?src=rss

“Computer science went from a future-proof career to an industry in upheaval in a shockingly small amount of time,” writes Business Insider, citing remarks from UC Berkeley professor Hany Farid said during a recent episode of Nova’s “Particles of Thought” podcast.
“Our students typically had five internship offers throughout their first four years of college,” Farid said. “They would graduate with exceedingly high salaries, multiple offers. They had the run of the place. That is not happening today. They’re happy to get one job offer….”

It’s too easy to just blame AI, though, Farid said. “Something is happening in the industry,” he said. “I think it’s a confluence of many things. I think AI is part of it. I think there’s a thinning of the ranks that’s happening, that’s part of it, but something is brewing…”

Farid, one of the world’s experts on deepfake videos, said he is often asked for advice. He said what he tells students has changed… “Now, I think I’m telling people to be good at a lot of different things because we don’t know what the future holds.”
Like many in the AI space, Farid said that those who use breakthrough technologies will outlast those who don’t. “I don’t think AI is going to put lawyers out of business, but I think lawyers who use AI will put those who don’t use AI out of business,” he said. “And I think you can say that about every profession.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There’s a racetrack with a funny name in Germany that, in the eyes of many international enthusiasts, is the de facto benchmark for automotive performance. But the Nurburgring, a 13-mile (20 km) track often called the Green Hell, rarely hits the radar of mainstream US performance aficionados. That’s because American car companies rarely take the time to run cars there, and if they do, it’s in secrecy, to test pre-production machines cloaked in camouflage without publishing official times.

The track’s domestic profile has lately been on the rise, though. Late last year, Ford became the first American manufacturer to run a sub-7-minute lap: 6:57.685 from its ultra-high-performance Mustang GTD. It then did better, announcing a 6:52.072 lap time in May. Two months later, Chevrolet set a 6:49.275 with the hybrid Corvette ZR1X, becoming the new fastest American car around that track.

It’s a vehicular war of escalation, but it’s about much more than bragging rights.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from Ars Technica:

Late last week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story about an “AI Stan Lee hologram” that would be appearing at the LA Comic Con this weekend. [Watch it in action here.] Nearly seven years after the famous Marvel Comics creator’s death at the age of 95, fans will be able to pay $15 to $20 this weekend to chat with a life-sized, AI-powered avatar of Lee in an enclosed booth at the show. The instant response from many fans and media outlets to the idea was not kind, to say the least. A writer for TheGamer called the very idea “demonic” and said we need to “kill it with fire before it’s too late….”

But Chris DeMoulin, the CEO of the parent company behind LA Comic Con, urged critics to come see the AI-powered hologram for themselves before rushing to judgment. “We’re not afraid of people seeing it and we’re not afraid of criticism,” he told Ars. “I’m just a fan of informed criticism, and I think most of what’s been out there so far has not really been informed….” [DeMoulin said he saw] “the leaps and bounds that they were making in improving the technology, improving the interactivity.” Now, he said, it’s possible to create an AI-powered version that ingests “all of the actual comments that people made during their life” to craft an interactive hologram that “is not literally quoting the person, but everything it was saying was based on things that person actually said….” [Hyperreal CEO and Chief Architect Remington Scott] said Hyperreal “can’t share specific technical details” of the models or training techniques they use to power these recreations. But Scott added that this training project is “particularly meaningful, [because] Stan Lee had actually begun digitizing himself while he was alive, with the vision of creating a digital double so his fans could interact with him on a larger scale….”

Still, DeMoulin said he understands why the idea of using even a stylized version of Lee’s likeness in this manner could rub some fans the wrong way. “When a new technology comes out, it just feels wrong to them, and I respect the fact that this feels wrong to people,” he said. “I totally agree that something like this-not just for Stan but for anyone, any celebrity alive or dead-could be put into this technology and used in a way that would be exploitative and unfortunate.” That’s why DeMoulin said he and the others behind the AI-powered Lee feel a responsibility “to make sure that if we were going to do this, we never got anywhere close to that.”
The “premium, authenticated digital identities” created by Hyperreal’s system are “not replacing artists,” says Hyperreal CEO/Chief Architect Remington Scott, but “creating respectful digital extensions that honor their legacy.”

Still, DeMoulin says in the article that “I suppose if we do it and thousands of fans interact with [it] and they don’t like it, we’ll stop doing it.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“As awareness grows around the dangers of head trauma in sports, a small number of professional fighters and football players are turning to a psychedelic called ibogaine for treatment,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

They note that the drug’s proponents “tout its ability to treat addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, or TBI. ”

Ibogaine, which is derived from a West African shrub, is a Schedule 1 drug in America with no legal medical uses, and experts urge caution because of the need for further studies. But the results, several athletes say, are “game-changing”…. Although athletes are just discovering ibogaine, the drug is well known within the veteran community, which experiences high rates of brain injury and PTSD. In Stanford’s study on the effects of ibogaine on special forces veterans, participants saw average reductions of 88% in PTSD symptoms, 87% in depression symptoms and 81% in anxiety symptoms. They also exhibited improvements in concentration, information processing and memory.

“No other drug has ever been able to alleviate the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury,” Dr. Nolan Williams, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said in a statement on the results. “The results are dramatic, and we intend to study this compound further….”

States can work faster than the federal government by carving out exemptions for supervised ibogaine therapy programs, similar to what Oregon has done with psilocybin therapy. Many states have also opted to legalize marijuana for medicinal or recreational use… In June, Texas approved a historic $50-million investment in state funding to support drug development trials for ibogaine, inspired by the results seen by veterans. Arizona legislators approved $5 million in state funding for a clinical study on ibogaine in March, and California legislators are pushing to fast-track the study of ibogaine and other psychedelics.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The editors of the culture magazine n + 1 decry the “well-funded upheaval” caused by a large and powerful coalition of pro-AI forces. (“According to the logic of market share as social transformation, if you move fast and break enough things, nothing can contain you…”)
“An extraordinary amount of money is spent by the AI industry to ensure that acquiescence is the only plausible response. But marketing is not destiny.”

The AI bubbleâS — âSand it is a bubble, as even OpenAI overlord Sam Altman has admittedâS — âSwill burst. The technology’s dizzying pace of improvement, already slowing with the release of GPT-5, will stall… [P]rofessional readers and writers: We retain some power over the terms and norms of our own intellectual life. We ought to stop acting like impotence in some realms means impotence everywhere. Major terrains remain AI-proofable. For publishers, editors, critics, professors, teachers, anyone with any say over what people read, the first step will be to develop an ear. Learn to tellâS — âSto read closely enough to tellâS — âSthe work of people from the work of bots…

Whatever nuance is needed for its interception, resisting AI’s further creep into intellectual labor will also require blunt-force militancy. The steps are simple. Don’t publish AI bullshit. Don’t even publish mealymouthed essays about the temptation to produce AI bullshit. Resist the call to establish worthless partnerships like the Washington Post’s Ember, an “AI writing coach” designed to churn out Bezos-friendly op-eds. Instead, do what better magazines, newspapers, and journals have managed for centuries. Promote and produce original work of value, work that’s cliché-resistant and unreplicable, work that triesâS — âSas Thomas Pynchon wrote in an oracular 1984 essay titled “Is It OK to Be a Luddite?”âS — âS”through literary means which are nocturnal and deal in disguise, to deny the machine….”

Punishing already overdisciplined and oversurveilled students for their AI use will help no one, but it’s a long way from accepting that reality to Ohio State’s new plan to mandate something called “AI fluency” for all graduates by 2029 (including workshops sponsored, naturally, by Google). Pedagogically, alternatives to acquiescence remain available. Some are old, like blue-book exams, in-class writing, or one-on-one tutoring. Some are new, like developing curricula to teach the limits and flaws of generative AI while nurturing human intelligence…

Our final defenses are more diffuse, working at a level of norms and attitudes. Stigmatization is a powerful force, and disgust and shame are among our greatest tools. Put plainly, you should feel bad for using AI. (The broad embrace of the term slop is a heartening sign of a nascent constituency for machine denial.) These systems haven’t worked well for very long, and consensus about their use remains far from settled. That’s why so much writing about AI writing sounds the way it doesâS — âSnervous, uneven, ambivalent about the new regime’s utilityâS — âSand it means there’s still time to disenchant AI, provincialize it, make it uncompelling and uncool…

As we train our sights on what we oppose, let’s recall the costs of surrender. When we use generative AI, we consent to the appropriation of our intellectual property by data scrapers. We stuff the pockets of oligarchs with even more money. We abet the acceleration of a social media gyre that everyone admits is making life worse. We accept the further degradation of an already degraded educational system. We agree that we would rather deplete our natural resources than make our own art or think our own thoughts… A literature which is made by machines, which are owned by corporations, which are run by sociopaths, can only be a “stereotype”âS — âSa simplification, a facsimile, an insult, a fakeâS — âSof real literature. It should be smashed, and can.
The 3,800-word article also argues that “perhaps AI’s ascent in knowledge-industry workplaces will give rise to new demands and new reasons to organize…”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.