Daily archive
34 stories from 23 outlets. Times show when each story first broke, in UTC.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel has worked on films including The Passion of the Christ, The Patriot and Titanic. He describes his experience on Laika's Wildwood.
Also covered by Polygon
#Block's Dessa voice model is trained entirely on human speech to capture emotions that text models miss. Block says it can run locally on a MacBook M4 Max, making it sound eerily human.
Also covered by The Decoder, CoinDesk, Gizmodo
#TechCrunch examines whether growing AI workloads will reveal weaknesses in the internet's underlying infrastructure. The piece describes the internet as held together by glue and dreams.
#The Webb telescope observes tiny red dots across the sky. Astronomers have not reached consensus on their nature, and some believe they may be enormous stars housing black holes.
#A secretive Ukrainian drone unit has overseen rapid growth in Ukraine's deep-strike campaign. Its pilots fly mid-range strike drones on missions of about 100 kilometers with bowling-ball-weight warheads.
#The Qubitunes Soundstage is a screen-free starter kit designed to let children aged 3 and up play with sound. Wired recommends it as a gift for kids.
#WIRED and its panel of watch experts hunted for real mechanical timepieces at low prices and selected their favorites. The list covers a range of options under $400.
#The Ray-Ban Meta Audio frames have no cameras, which the review says removes privacy concerns. The reviewer calls them among the best smart glasses.
#The $400 Boox Palma 2 Pro is a smartphone-sized e-reader built for books, articles and documents on a small E Ink display. A TechCrunch reviewer says it changed their reading habits.
#Amazon has cut the M5 MacBook Air by $200, with the 13-inch 16GB/1TB model starting at $1,399. AppleInsider reports the weekend price drops are back on upgraded 1TB models.
Also covered by AppleInsider, Wccftech
#The teardown finds several components easier to repair than on earlier foldables, but also multiple problem points. AppleInsider calls it the most repairable foldable yet, a low bar.
Also covered by Wired, The Register, 9to5Google, 404 Media, 9to5Mac
#Advanced chip production relies on specialized companies such as ASML and TSMC, making supply chains hard to replicate or relocate. Bloomberg Technology discussed the dependency.
#Technical colleges are betting a surge in demand for skilled workers will lift profits. The payoff may take time as they expand campuses and programs to accommodate more students.
#TechCrunch reports that Instacart has held discussions about a sale to larger competitors such as DoorDash and Uber. The report suggests the grocery delivery company could be acquired.
#Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok says AI has provided "zero payoff" to corporate America outside of technology, per Bloomberg Technology. The claim covers the S&P 493 excluding tech firms.
Also covered by TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, Hacker News
#A new study found Grok's AI overwhelmingly recommends Republican candidates while OpenAI's GPT favors Democrats. The two models disagreed in more than 90% of nearly 500 election races.
#Speaking on Bloomberg This Weekend, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson said AI's economic impact lags behind its advancing capabilities. He described AI as a significant risk to media.
#Linx Dating founder and CEO Amy Andersen tells Bloomberg This Weekend that newly wealthy AI creators are fueling demand for high-end matchmaking. She says busy professionals are seeking alternatives to dating apps.
#Governor Josh Shapiro signed the Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act on Thursday. The law requires disclosures on ads that are significantly modified or generated by AI, including still images, video, audio and text.
#A study suggests the remnants of the Laurentide Ice Sheet may have started expanding roughly 2,000 years ago. The growth was then reversed, leaving the remains only slightly larger.
#The vaccine is tailored to each patient's tumor. Phase 3 trial results show a reduction of more than 40 percent in melanoma recurrence risk.
#A new model indicates a 1,000-mile cloud on Mars may host ice-forming physics that has never been directly observed on Earth or elsewhere. The findings remain model-based.
#Apple has scheduled a "Pro and tell" launch event for October 28 at 1PM ET. The event is expected to center on the MacBook Pro, following recent Welcome Home and iPhone Duo announcements.
#Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Malaysia's security cannot be compromised as he defended the government's partial ban on Google's navigation app Waze. Authorities are not ruling out even wider restrictions on the app.
Also covered by The Next Web
#Apple is reportedly overhauling the MacBook Pro this week with 14-inch and 16-inch OLED touchscreen models. 9to5Mac asks whether the redesigned laptop will finally add 5G cellular support.
Also covered by 9to5Mac, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Digital Trends, TechRadar
#GMO Internet Group, a Japanese IT services provider, has requested that the government deploy active cyber defense measures. The company says this is part of its effort to contain the fallout from a hacking incident.
Also covered by The Next Web
#The weekly Installer newsletter recommends the best products and reads from the week. It tells readers to consider switching browsers.
#Lindsay Powell, who records as Fielded, has built a career subverting genre conventions. The project began as experimental noise before moving closer to R&B.
#Lee Chang Dong's seventh feature, Possible Love, is inspired by a 2009 Korean conglomerate that fired 2,600 employees, after which many died by suicide. The film continues Lee's recurring themes of class and labor.
#Joybird is offering up to 40 percent off hundreds of options, including the Eliot Sleeper, during its Semiannual sale. The discounts apply for a limited time.
#BBC's Blue Planet III deliberately leaves less-than-perfect shots in the series. The producers aim to differ from earlier nature documentaries whose crystal-clear footage seemed almost too polished to be real.
#Elon Musk reportedly ordered SpaceX to throttle Ukraine's Starlink access.
#The critical Musk documentary has been pulled from nearly all of its 472 theaters after only one week, according to a Showbiz411 report. The film was newly sold to Bleecker Street Films when the pullback occurred.
Also covered by Mashable Tech, Hacker News
#Marvel released a new Avengers: Doomsday trailer built around the dynamic between Thor and Steve Rogers, including their shared worthiness to wield the enchanted hammer Mjolnir. The trailer also pokes fun at the multiple Captain Americas in the film, and it was previewed during the World Series.
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