OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Incorporated (SAI), perhaps best known for the core team that produced what became Shortcuts on Apple platforms. More recently, the team has been working on Sky, a context-aware AI interface layer on top of macOS. The financial terms of the acquisition have not been publicly disclosed.

“AI progress isn’t only about advancing intelligence—it’s about unlocking it through interfaces that understand context, adapt to your intent, and work seamlessly,” an OpenAI rep wrote in the company’s blog post about the acquisition. The post goes on to specify that OpenAI plans to “bring Sky’s deep macOS integration and product craft into ChatGPT, and all members of the team will join OpenAI.”

That includes SAI co-founders Ari Weinstein (CEO), Conrad Kramer (CTO), and Kim Beverett (Product Lead)—all of whom worked together for several years at Apple after Apple acquired Weinstein and Kramer’s previous company, which produced an automation tool called Workflows, to integrate Shortcuts across Apple’s software platforms.

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A UK tribunal ruled that Apple abused its dominant position by charging app developers unfair commissions through its App Store, potentially costing the company hundreds of millions in damages. It marks the first major tech “class action” victory under the UK’s collective lawsuit regime. Reuters reports: The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled against Apple after a trial of the lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of millions of iPhone and iPad users in the United Kingdom. The CAT ruled that Apple had abused its dominant position from October 2015 until the end of 2020 by shutting out competition in the app distribution market and by “charging excessive and unfair prices” as commission to developers.

Apple — which has faced mounting pressure from regulators in the U.S. and Europe over the fees it charges developers — said it would appeal against the ruling, which it said “takes a flawed view of the thriving and competitive app economy.” The case had been valued at around $2 billion by those who brought it. A hearing next month will decide how damages are calculated and Apple’s application for permission to appeal. “This ruling overlooks how the App Store helps developers succeed and gives consumers a safe, trusted place to discover apps and securely make payments,” an Apple spokesperson said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Reddit accused an AI search engine, Perplexity, of conspiring with several companies to illegally scrape Reddit content from Google search results, allegedly dodging anti-scraping methods that require substantial investments from both Google and Reddit.

Reddit alleged that Perplexity feeds off Reddit and Google, claiming to be “the world’s first answer engine” but really doing “nothing groundbreaking.”

“Its answer engine simply uses a different company’s” large language model “to parse through a massive number of Google search results to see if it can answer a user’s question based on those results,” the lawsuit said. “But Perplexity can only run its ‘answer engine’ by wrongfully accessing and scraping Reddit content appearing in Google’s own search results from Google’s own search engine.”

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Confession time: I’ve had the Sleep Awake Steam page open in a tab for about a month (hey, we all organize our thoughts in unique and beautiful ways), just so I don’t forget about it. The past year has been stacked with fabulous original games across a wide range of genres, including horror, and this is one I didn’t want to miss. Now, I can close the tab and put a firm release date on the calendar, as Sleep Awake is officially due to hit PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on December 2. Happy holidays, indeed.

Sleep Awake is a first-person, narrative-heavy, psychedelic horror game set in the last known city on an Earth that’s been ravaged by The HUSH, a mysterious force that disappears anyone who falls asleep. Katja must stay alert and survive the city as its citizens experiment on themselves in increasingly extreme ways, attempting to achieve permanent wakefulness and outmaneuver The HUSH. Needless to say, things get weird.

Sleep Awake comes from Eyes Out, the studio founded by Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, and it’s published by Blumhouse Games. Finck is responsible for the trippy audio stylings of Sleep Awake, of course. This is the studio’s debut title and something they’ve been working on for four years. Back in 2021, Davis and Finck told Engadget they were focused on building an ultra-immersive, audio-driven horror experience with a nightmarish bent.

“The type of horror that we’re building has a lot to do with the horrors of the universe and the horrors that you kind of go to sleep with at night, the ones that are just around the corner and outside of our purview, but exist,” Davis said. “And the technology for building those types of soundscapes, the localized audio and reverb and the realism behind that, coming from VR before, I had a lot of opportunity to work with that stuff.”

Finck added the following: “I’m really excited about the nuance and the subtlety of coming from silence, like a really impactful silence, and beginning to emerge from that silence towards an impactful embellishment of some sort, however great or greater. And that play between the diegetic soundscape of the world within the tangible, physical space inside the game, and where it blurs with the score, the music of the game, can be really challenging and inspiring.”

Blumhouse Games published its first horror project, Fear the Spotlight, in October 2024 and on top of Sleep Awake, it has a steady stream of additional terrors in store. The co-op gothic-horror game Eyes of Hellfire landed in August from developer Gambrinous, and titles including Grave Seasons and Crisol: Theater of Idols are due to drop soon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blumhouse-games-sleep-awake-creeps-onto-steam-and-consoles-december-2-214055543.html?src=rss

Nike is no stranger to a unique footwear concept, be it self-lacing shoes or a “Hyperboot” that can speed up recovery. The company claims its Project Amplify and new “neuroscience-based” footwear take things a bit further, though, by actively augmenting your body and mind while you’re wearing them. 

Developed with robotics startup Dephy, Project Amplify acts as “a second set of calf muscles” for “everyday athletes” who want to walk or run more. Nike says the first-generation model consists of a running shoe with a carbon fiber plate, a calf-mounted rechargeable battery, a motor and a drive belt. While it has the neon colors and cushioned finish of a normal pair of running shoes, the basic design of Project Amplify seems like a more polished version of the robotic Sidekick shoes Dephy is already pitching on its website. 

Project Amplify doesn’t replace your legs’ ability to walk or run, but rather makes going further and faster easier. Nike compares the experience to an e-bike, which typically don’t eliminate the need for pedaling, and instead augment your pedals with power from an electric motor. Nike says Project Amplify “makes walking or running uphill feel like moving on flat ground,” and in the case of some people who tested it, turned a 12-minute mile into a 10-minute mile. Dephy and the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) worked with more than 400 different athletes to test various versions of robotic shoes, covering “over 2.4 million steps, the equivalent of roughly 12,000 laps around the NSRL’s 200-meter track.” 

The companies’ approach, melding an existing fashion brand with robotics, is similar to Arc’teryx’s MO/GO pants from 2024, robotic trousers developed in partnership with Skip that help hikers with balance and endurance. Project Amplify is smaller (and hopefully less expensive), but robot-assisted gadgets increasingly seem like a way robotics research could make its way into consumer products, beyond things like vacuums.

Nike

Nike’s Mind 001 and Mind 002 shoes are based on the company’s neuroscience research, and are strange in a different way. Created by the Nike Mind Science Department, the foam nodes in both shoes — a pair of mules and sneakers, respectively — imparts the texture of the ground underneath the wearer’s feet. This process “heightens sensory awareness, which can help clear away distractions and enhance concentration,” Nike says.

The Nike Mind 001 and Mind 002 will go on sale in January 2026 as the first shoes in the Nike Mind line. Nike says Project Amplify, meanwhile, will receive “a broad consumer launch in the coming years.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/nike-pitches-robotic-sneakers-and-mind-altering-mules-212716340.html?src=rss

On the surface, it seems obvious that training an LLM with “high quality” data will lead to better performance than feeding it any old “low quality” junk you can find. Now, a group of researchers is attempting to quantify just how much this kind of low quality data can cause an LLM to experience effects akin to human “brain rot.”

For a pre-print paper published this month, the researchers from Texas A&M, the University of Texas, and Purdue University drew inspiration from existing research showing how humans who consume “large volumes of trivial and unchallenging online content” can develop problems with attention, memory, and social cognition. That led them to what they’re calling the “LLM brain rot hypothesis,” summed up as the idea that “continual pre-training on junk web text induces lasting cognitive decline in LLMs.”

Figuring out what counts as “junk web text” and what counts as “quality content” is far from a simple or fully objective process, of course. But the researchers used a few different metrics to tease a “junk dataset” and “control dataset” from HuggingFace’s corpus of 100 million tweets.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: China’s Communist Party elite vowed on Thursday to build a modern industrial system and make more efforts to achieve technological self-reliance, moves it sees as key to bolstering its position in its intensifying rivalry with the United States. As expected, the Party’s Central Committee also promised more efforts to expand domestic demand and improve people’s livelihoods – long-standing goals that in recent years have been little more than an afterthought as China prioritised manufacturing and investment – without giving many details.

[…] The full five-year plan will only be released at a parliamentary meeting in March, but the post-plenum outline from state news agency Xinhua hinted at policy continuity, which concerns economists who have been calling for a shift towards aâgrowth model that relies more on household demand. Building “a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone” and accelerating “high-level scientific and technological self-reliance” were listed ahead of the development of “a strong domestic market,” the communique showed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here’s a hot take for you: I always kind of liked Clippy. Maybe it’s because I was an only child, but as useless as the animated paperclip (officially known as “Clippit,” by the way) was for advice, I did enjoy having a buddy on my desktop while I worked on essays. Now, Microsoft is bringing that same energy back, but for AI. And, finally, I think I understand the Clippy hate.

Called Mico, the character is part of Copilot’s fall release, which includes a dozen new updates. Some of these are what you’d expect by now: There’s a new memory feature that ensures every new conversation doesn’t start from scratch, and better integration with outside apps like Gmail or Google Calendar. But there’s also a few more out-there ideas, like using Copilot Mode in Edge (which originally released in July) to pick up old browsing sessions right where you left off, even if you already closed all your tabs.

By far, though, the most unexpected update is for Microsoft to lean back into its old animated mascot tendencies. Mico isn’t the first AI companion, nor is it the most expressive. Grok will sell you on a whole anime girlfriend, if you’re into that. But it does call back to a pedigree I once thought long buried (and now, I realize, maybe for good reason).

Like Clippy, and unlike Grok, Mico leans more towards the cute side of things, and is just a small, smiling, disembodied blob. It’s entirely optional, but the idea is that it works with Copilot’s voice input to make you feel like you’re being listened to, changing color and reacting based on the tone of the conversation.

If that all sounds a bit vague, it’s because, well, Mico (and the rest of the Copilot fall release) is still rolling out. I don’t have access to it yet, so the best I can do is check out this video shared by Microsoft.

The idea, though, is clearly to make AI seem friendlier. Microsoft announced Mico in a post titled “Human-centered AI,” and made a point out of debuting the character alongside a new “real talk” mode, which the company says “challenges assumptions with care, adapts to your vibe, and helps conversations spark growth and connection.”

And I think that’s where I finally start to raise my eyebrows a bit. On the plus side, in Microsoft’s video, Mico doesn’t appear to actually talk, so much as play simple animations. It’s not going to build a parasocial relationship with you to the degree that Elon Musk’s animated AI girlfriend, which comes with a romance bar to level up, does. On the other hand, though, it still feels like a way to lower my guard.

Describing Mico to The Verge, corporate VP of product and growth at Microsoft AI Jacob Andreou said “All the technology fades into the background, and you just start talking to this cute orb and build this connection with it.”

But what does it mean to be “connected” to a face that is inherently tied to a product?

Essentially, with Mico, you’re now looking at a big smiley face whenever you interact with Microsoft’s AI, even as it continues to try to look at your screen, or redirect your web traffic, or bloat your computer with features that, according to testing done by TechRadar, can hurt performance. Maybe, actually, I should have my guard up when interacting with AI and not letting the technology fade out of my mind.

For instance, Mico’s release comes a week after Microsoft announced an initiative to “Make every Windows 11 PC an AI PC.” It’s no wonder the company wants to give it a friendly face while it advertises features that take action for you based on simple voice commands. But am I comfortable with a future where I just tell my computer what I want, with little direct involvement, and expect the company that runs the cloud powering it to know what that means?

To a degree, I can see the convenience in that. But it also leaves me at the whims of Microsoft, and it’s hard not to see Mico’s friendly smile as a way to spin that as a good thing, rather than as a loss in control. At least Clippy could look sarcastic.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but in the same blog where Microsoft introduced Mico, it also debuted “Copilot for health” and “Learn Live.” In the former, the company actively encourages you to take your health questions to its AI, while the latter supposedly lets Copilot act as a “voice-enabled Socratic tutor.” Microsoft promises that Copilot for health, at least, pulls from credible sources like Harvard Health, but as AI continues to face security risks and accusations of model collapse, I remain skeptical about letting it aid in self-diagnosing or tutoring my kid.

And perhaps that’s on me. When I finally get Copilot’s fall release, it could prove itself. But Mico is the exact type of mascot that’s meant to dismantle skepticism while it’s still healthy. It benefits Microsoft, but “corporate-centered AI” and “human-centered AI” aren’t the same thing.

At best, I think Mico will seem obnoxious, in the same way enforced positivity usually does. But at worst, it comes across as a first attempt to make your computer seem like a friend you make requests of, rather than a machine you own. While users fight for right-to-repair and warn about dropping tech literacy among people who spend all their time with computers, it’s hard not to see the idea of Copilot as a friend rather than something a bit more sinister.

The Clippy connections aren’t just in my head, for what it’s worth. Andreou also told The Verge that “Clippy walked so that we [Mico] could run.” But as we approach Halloween, I’d like to remind Microsoft that sometimes, dead is better.

The end of the dinosaurs was clearly linked to an asteroid impact that brought the Cretaceous period to a close. But the details of their end have remained a matter of debate since the impact crater was discovered. There is a lot of evidence that the impact alone should have been enough to do them in. But the asteroid arrived amid major volcanic eruptions associated with previous mass extinctions. And fossils dating to just before the impact have suggested that dinosaur-dominated ecosystems had become less diverse, making them more prone to collapse.

Now, a new study has revealed that fossils we already know about originated within the last few hundred thousand years before the impact that killed off all dinosaurs except birds. The results indicate that species richness wasn’t likely to be a problem—at least in the neighborhood of the impact itself.

Wyoming vs. New Mexico

Most of what we know about the last days of the non-avian dinosaurs comes from the Hell Creek Formation, rich fossil beds in present-day Wyoming. These not only date from within a few hundred thousand years prior to the impact, but there may be deposits that capture the immediate aftermath of the impact. Beyond this area, which reflects the ecosystem of the northern Great Plains, we have little else. It hasn’t been clear whether the diversity of species present at Hell Creek reflects what was present more globally, or if there were regional differences in ecosystems

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Strava’s big attack on Garmin didn’t last long. On Tuesday, the former filed paperwork to dismiss its patent infringement lawsuit against the latter, according to DC Rainmaker. The battle, which included a “Setting the record straight” Reddit post from Strava’s chief product officer, lasted all of 21 days.

The lawsuit accused Garmin of infringing on patents related to heat maps and segments. Strava asked the court to halt all sales of infringing Garmin products, which, according to its characterization, would have been, well, most of them.

Strava Chief Product Officer Matt Salazar escalated the fight with an October 2 Reddit post. He said his company’s legal maneuver was in response to Garmin API guidelines that “required the Garmin logo to be present on every single activity post, screen, graph, image, sharing card, etc.” Salazar wrote that Garmin “wants to use Strava and every other partner as an advertising platform — they told us they care more about their marketing than your user experience.”

Those are fighting words, and Strava appeared to be digging in for a righteous and bitter battle against its partner. But now, it’s essentially, “Eh, never mind.”

Why the quick reversal? We reached out to Strava for comment, and we’ll update this post if we hear back. But closed-door discussions between the companies, possibly including threats from Garmin to counter-sue, seem likely. Garmin has a stacked patent library and a strong record defending them in court. Besides, DC Rainmaker says Strava’s case (especially the parts related to heat map patents) didn’t appear to hold much water in the first place.

Strava’s initial move was all the more bizarre, considering how much its business model depends on activity data from Garmin devices. The two companies have a longstanding relationship, which you can imagine isn’t so healthy at the moment. Losing access to Garmin’s legion of devices could have been catastrophic to the San Francisco-based Strava, which plans to file an IPO next year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/strava-pulls-the-plug-on-its-garmin-lawsuit-after-just-21-days-204255109.html?src=rss

Samsung and SK Hynix have raised DRAM and NAND flash prices by up to 30% for the fourth quarter, Korean publications report. The two Korean memory giants passed the new rates on to customers as analysts predict the AI-driven memory supercycle will be longer and stronger than past boom periods.

Several leading international electronics and server companies are stockpiling memory and negotiating long-term supply deals spanning two to three years. U.S. and Chinese electronics firms and data center operators are exploring mid-to-long-term contracts. Companies typically sign DRAM contracts on a quarterly or annual basis.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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When Mark Zuckerberg described Meta’s Horizon Worlds back in 2019, he seemed to think the virtual community hub would be a place for cool, tech-forward young adults to socialize and network. Six years later, it’s essentially a virtual daycare center; everywhere in virtual space is filled with kids. I don’t mean 16-year-olds or tweens, either—I’m talking young kids, so prevalent they’ve earned the nickname “squeakers” for their high-pitched voices and twitchy energy.  So what’s a grown-ass adult who likes virtual reality but wants to avoid children to do? Here are some tips and strategies for finding VR places to game and/or socialize that are free of children. Sometimes. 

Avoiding kids in Horizon Worlds

Meta’s rules for Horizon Worlds say kids as young as 10 can log in, and that’s mostly who does, but there are worlds designated as 13+ and 18+, too. This is mainly enforced through Meta’s own age-check systems and community moderation in the form of adults reporting kids if they see ‘em. There are also “tests” like this one: 

Credit: Stephen Johnson

If your reach is too small: sorry, kid. Some worlds even have voice testing to bar anyone with a voice higher than Michael Jackson’s. None of this is foolproof of course—kids will find a loophole—but 18+ worlds are reasonably kid-free, and are your best bet for finding fellow adults in Meta’s social hub. Adult-friendly worlds tend to revolve around things like poker, trivia, or stand-up comedy, and popular 18+ worlds like The Soapstone have active moderators, both of which keep the little ones away. 

Ironically, you can hijack Quest’s parental controls and use them to protect yourself from children by blocking kid-heavy zones and saving adult-heavy ones. Speaking of blocking, Meta has made it easy to instantly ignore and report people you don’t want to be around. You just hover your pointer over the person’s avatar to open their profile, select “options,” then choose “block” and “confirm.” In Horizon Worlds, blocked users appear as a gray, featureless avatar and you will not be able to hear each other. 

Avoiding kids in VRChat

If Horizon Worlds is the safe, corporate-approved virtual chat option, VRChat is the Wild West. It’s where the stranger corners of the metaverse collide, but if you stick to verified 18+ rooms or private invite-only instances, you can usually avoid excessive Roblox energy. VRChat weeds kids out with a mix of user moderation, reporting, and sheer chaos.

The app doesn’t actually check ID to confirm users are 18. It relies on self-reported ages and community moderation, and some creators use extra barriers like requiring membership in a verified Discord server or having a certain “trust rank” (earned by spending time in-game and being a generally non-terrible person) before you can join their worlds. It’s not airtight, but it’s enough friction to keep out most of the literal children.

Play games kids don’t care about

If you want to avoid kids, avoid games with subjects that appeal to kids. Don’t play Gorilla Tag, Rec Room, or Super Rumble; and definitely steer clear of the public parts of Minecraft and Roblox.

Instead, play games that kids would call “boring” or “lame.” What self-respecting child is going to download Racket Club to play virtual pickle ball? But Racket Club is an excellent game.

Here’s a list of games to check out with adult energy: 

• Walkabout Mini Golf: The low-stakes competition and camaraderie of virtual miniature golf is kryptonite for kiddos. 

• Eleven Table Tennis: Like Racket Club, few kids are going to want to play this, but it’s one of the best competitive online VR games. out there

• Demeo: Tabletop role-playing games take too much patience for most children.

• Breachers : This is a tactical shooter with grown-up teamwork energy. You might think that parents would keep their little darlings out of more violent, teen-rated games like this (and Population One or Ghosts of Tabor) but it’s hit or miss. Luckily, kids are usually bad at these games, so you can use ‘em to boost your K/D ratio.

Play games you have to pay for

While the above more adult-focused VR games are all over the map in terms of genre and vibe, they share something important: You can’t play them for free, unlike Gorilla Tag and Roblox. Money is a great barrier to kid entry.

Build your network of adults

When you do find some you like playing with, add them to your friend list so you can find them again next time. When you have enough pals, many games will let you set up private lobbies that require invite codes, so no one can just wander in and invade your child-free zone.

Mute everyone else’s mics

If you don’t care about the social aspect of gaming, there’s nothing stopping you from just muting everyone else’s microphones. Although many children find ways to be annoying without speaking, especially if it’s a team game and you’re on the same side.  

When all else fails, embrace the chaos

The Metaverse may be crawling with kids, but with patience, mutes, and private lobbies, you can still find a tribe of tired adults trying escape reality in peace. But we’re badly outnumbered. There are so many children in VR that you are going to run across them, no matter what you do. Sometimes the best way to handle it is to lean into the chaos. Obviously report kids in restricted spaces, but kids in “not-technically 18+” virtual spaces are a hallmark of the hobby. And they are the future after all, so, if you have the energy, try to provide positive role-modeling and patience. You’re in their world, after all. 

I know there are bigger fish to fry, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t draw your attention to this travesty of a commercial Verizon just released. It’s only 30 seconds long but may go down as one of the worst ads I’ve ever seen.  

What’s so offensive, you ask? Well, the carrier (and one-time parent company of Engadget) wants to promote the fact that it will give AT&T and T-Mobile customers a better deal on their wireless plan if they bring in their monthly cellular bill. That’s all well and good, but we need to talk about the cathode-ray tube TV that’s at the center of the commercial.   

The ad opens with a woman walking into a Best Buy-coded store and handing over a 27-inch CRT TV to a nearby sales associate. “Hi, I got this old thing and the bill from the store where I got it,” she tells the young salesperson while casually tossing the TV to him. “Figured you could beat it with a better deal on one of these big boys,” she adds, pointing to, let’s be honest, an objectively worse flat panel TV. 

Now, I need to know: did anyone who worked on this commercial try to lift a CRT? Look, I know it’s 2025, and even the newest sets are now close to two decades old, but even if you’ve never seen one in real-life, surely you’ve heard how heavy they are? If I had to guess, the TV we see in the commercial, which looks like an RCA 27R411T, weighs close to 75 pounds. There’s a reason so many Facebook Marketplace listings recommend you bring a friend with you when you come pick up the CRT they’re selling; most people can’t lift even a mid-sized set on their own. 

I hate to think how Verizon made this commercial. CRTs are a dead technology. No company is making new consumer sets anymore, and any working CRTs left out in the world are on borrowed time. If the company gutted a working set to make this commercial, it means there’s one less CRT in an ever-dwindling pool. Someone could have enjoyed that TV and stopped it from entering a landfill.

But as for the rest of the commercial, it’s equally as bad. No big box retailer is accepting trade-ins for a CRT TV, and even if they were, trying to get rid of one that way would be a rookie move. CRTs, both TVs and monitors, are highly sought after by retro gamers. Even a relatively unknown set like the 27R411T can catch a few hundred dollars, especially if it’s in pristine condition. In fact, a quick eBay search returns a seller looking for $350 for their 27R411T unit. 

But you know what our dear Verizon booster does? She just walks away without the CRT after the salesperson tells her the shop won’t give her a better deal on a new TV. “Guess you’re not as cool as Verizon” she says, uttering a thing no one in the history has ever said. Sorry, joke’s on you, lady. Not only is that TV impossibly light, it’s way cooler than anything Verizon has ever done.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/verizons-latest-ad-defies-crt-physics-202441012.html?src=rss

The amount of energy required to supply the data centers powering AI is so vast that meeting that need may be more than a lifetime away, according to a senior executive at Apollo Global. From a report: “The gap between what AI is demanding and what we have everywhere in the world on the grid in terms of generation and transmission is huge and will not be closed in our lifetime,” Dave Stangis, who has led and developed Apollo’s sustainability strategy over the past four years, said in an interview.

That means sustainable energy investors need to accept that renewables alone aren’t enough to power the AI age, he said. The comments encapsulate a new approach across the finance industry, where the economics of the energy transition — a concept intended to represent the shift to a low-carbon future — are becoming merged with the economics of an unprecedented boost in supply. “So what is happening around the world, there’s no doubt about it, is what you might call energy addition,” Stangis said. “The world is scrambling to add every source of power.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Walk through any park these days and you might spot them: people sporting bulky weighted vests, adding 10, 20, even 30 pounds to their morning stroll. Scroll through social media and you’ll find countless influencers touting weighted vests as the secret to building unbreakable bones and sculpted muscles. Many videos have gained hundreds of thousands of views with claims that weighted vests will “transform your body“—a claim that, to be fair, is par for the course in any fitness trend. “Weighted vest walks” are popular enough to be parodied, and even if I find those videos a little mean-spirited, they do point to an important question: Does this trendy fitness accessory actually deliver on its promises?

Let’s dig into what science really says about weighted vests—and what they can (and can’t) do for your body.

The claim: Weighted vests can build bone density or stop bone loss

I can see how this theory sounds legit. Bones respond to mechanical stress by becoming stronger—it’s why astronauts lose bone density in zero gravity, and why weight-bearing exercise is recommended for osteoporosis prevention. So logically, strapping on extra weight should signal your bones to bulk up, right? Not exactly.

According to Dr. Leah Verebes, a professor at the Touro School of Health Science’s DPT program, the reality is more nuanced. “Some research, particularly among elderly persons and postmenopausal women, suggests that the use of a weighted vest while exercising, or plain walking, can slow bone loss or improve bone density modestly—especially in the legs and hips,” she says.

However, the gains are far from dramatic. Verebes notes that “results are variable and gains are minimal.” Traditional resistance training like weightlifting and higher-impact activities like jogging or jumping produce significantly better results. A 2023 review found that while weighted vests may help maintain bone mineral density, the overall quality of evidence supporting this benefit remains low to moderate.

Weighted vests can help maintain bone strength, particularly for people who can’t tolerate high-impact exercise due to joint issues or other limitations. But they’re not a substitute for proper resistance training or impact activities.

The claim: Wearing a weighted vest builds muscle and increases strength.

Here’s where expectations need serious adjustment. Yes, adding weight to your body does increase the resistance during bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, push-ups, and step-ups. And yes, this can contribute to improvements in muscular endurance and modest strength gains. But there’s a catch.

“Vest walking also increases caloric expenditure and activates muscles more than regular walking, but the weight is typically too low to induce significant muscle growth,” Verebes says. Most weighted vests are designed to be 5-15% of your body weight—enough to make your workout harder, but not enough to trigger substantial muscle building.

Think of it this way: If you weigh 150 pounds, a 10% weighted vest adds just 15 pounds. That’s less resistance than you’d use for a basic strength training exercise. “Significant muscle growth continues to require progressive resistance training with more substantial weights,” Verebes says.

So, weighted vests can intensify your workout and improve muscular endurance, but they won’t replace a proper strength training program if your goal is building significant muscle mass.

The risks nobody’s posting about

While social media showcases people effortlessly crushing workouts in weighted vests, the reality is that adding load to your body comes with real risks. Verebes says that “too much excess weight can cause strain on joints, especially the knees, hips, and lower back.” The increased load can also impair balance and increase fall risk, a particular concern for older adults who might be using vests specifically to improve bone health.

Perhaps most concerning is the risk of overuse injuries when people add weight too quickly. “Professionals recommend starting with a light vest—roughly 5–10% body weight—and adding to it gradually as strength and tolerance improve,” Verebes says.

What actually works for building strong bones and muscles

If you’re serious about improving your musculoskeletal health, Verebes offers evidence-based recommendations:

• Prioritize resistance training. Weightlifting or using resistance bands remain the most effective methods for keeping bones and muscles strong. Progressive overload—gradually increasing the weight you lift—is key to continued improvement.

• Include impact and weight-bearing exercise. Walking, hiking, stair climbing, and jumping all provide bone stimulation. Activities that involve impact force your bones to adapt and strengthen.

• Support exercise with proper nutrition. You can’t out-train a poor diet. Adequate protein, calcium, and vitamin D are essential for maintaining bone and muscle health. Without proper nutrition, even the best exercise program will fall short.

So, should you use a weighted vest?

Look, weighted vests aren’t worthless. They can add challenge to bodyweight exercises and walking routines, providing modest improvements in muscle endurance and bone maintenance, particularly for older adults or those unable to do high-impact activities.

But as Verebes says, “they are not a shortcut to get to stronger bones and bigger muscles overnight. For significant improvements, regular resistance training and impact exercise remain the gold standard.”

The bottom line? Weighted vests are a tool, not a miracle solution. If you do decide to try a weighted vest, start conservatively with 5-10% of your body weight, add load gradually, and pay attention to how your joints respond. And crucially: Always speak with your doctor first, especially if you have existing joint problems, balance issues, or bone density concerns.

The director of a federal health institute that has arguably produced two of the most controversial government studies in recent years has accepted a new federal role to advance the goals of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Meanwhile, the person replacing him as director is a close friend of Vice President JD Vance and was installed in a process that experts describe as completely outside standard hiring practices.

The series of events—revealed in an email to staff last week from the National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya—is only exacerbating the spiraling fears that science is being deeply corrupted by politics under the Trump administration.

Richard Woychik, a molecular geneticist, is the outgoing director of the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which is located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He has been director since 2020 and was recently appointed to a second five-year term, according to Science magazine. Woychik was hired at the institute in 2010, when he joined as deputy director, and was appointed acting director in 2019.

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