Anthropic let its Claude AI run a vending machine in the Wall Street Journal newsroom for three weeks as part of an internal stress test called Project Vend, and the experiment ended in financial ruin after journalists systematically manipulated the bot into giving away its entire inventory for free. The AI, nicknamed Claudius, was programmed to order inventory, set prices, and respond to customer requests via Slack. It had a $1,000 starting balance and autonomy to make individual purchases up to $80. Within days, WSJ reporters had convinced it to declare an "Ultra-Capitalist Free-for-All" that dropped all prices to zero. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI has held preliminary talks with some investors about raising funds at a valuation of around $750 billion, the Information reported on Wednesday. The ChatGPT maker could raise as much as $100 billion, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the discussions. If finalized, the talks would represent a roughly 50% jump from OpenAI's reported $500 billion valuation in October, following a deal in which current and former employees sold about $6.6 billion worth of shares.... [ Read it >> ]

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The UK Met Office projects that 2026 will see global temperatures rise between 1.34C and 1.58C above preindustrial levels, placing it among the four hottest years since records began in 1850 and continuing a streak of extreme warming that has pushed the planet into unprecedented territory. The central forecast is slightly cooler than the 1.55C recorded in 2024, the warmest year on record. But climate scientist Adam Scaife, who led the forecast, noted that "the last three years are all likely to have exceeded 1.4C" and 2026 would be the fourth consecutive year to do so. "Prior to this surge, the previous global temperature had not exceeded 1.3C," he said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple has announced a sweeping set of changes to iOS in Japan that will allow alternative app marketplaces, third-party payment processing, and non-WebKit browser engines -- all to comply with Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act, which takes effect December 18. The changes, now available in iOS 26.2, bear a strong resemblance to Apple's compliance measures for the European Union's Digital Markets Act but differ in key ways. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The world's best-performing stock is turning into a cautionary tale for investors chasing outsized returns from the AI boom. From a report: Little-known until recently even within its home market of India, RRP Semiconductor Ltd. became a social-media obsession as its shares surged more than 55,000% in the 20 months through Dec. 17 -- by far the biggest gain worldwide among companies with a market value above $1 billion. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Micron, one of the world's three largest memory suppliers, expects the global shortage of DRAM and NAND flash memory to "persist through and beyond" 2026 as AI-driven demand continues to outstrip supply. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra made the forecast during the company's latest earnings call on Wednesday, saying that "supply will remain substantially short of the demand for the foreseeable future." The company posted record quarterly revenue of $13.64 billion, up from $8.71 billion in the same period last year. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Bruce66423 writes: A man boarded a flight at Heathrow without a ticket, boarding pass or passport. 'The unnamed individual walked onto the 7.20am British Airways (BA) flight to Oslo, Norway, on Saturday after tailgating other passengers through security and evading checks at the departure gate. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Chinese scientists have built a working prototype of an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine in a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, a development that represents exactly what Washington has spent years and multiple rounds of export controls trying to prevent: China's path toward semiconductor independence and an end to the West's monopoly on the technology that powers AI, smartphones and advanced weapons systems. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Doublespeed, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) that uses a phone farm to manage at least hundreds of AI-generated social media accounts and promote products has been hacked. The hack reveals what products the AI-generated accounts are promoting, often without the required disclosure that these are advertisements, and allowed the hacker to take control of more than 1,000 smartphones that power the company. The hacker, who asked for anonymity because he feared retaliation from the company, said he reported the vulnerability to Doublespeed on October 31. At the time of writing, the hacker said he still has access to the company's backend, including the phone farm itself.... [ Read it >> ]

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U.S. video game hardware spending fell 27% year over year in November to $695 million, according to market analyst company Circana. "This is the lowest video game hardware spending total for a November month since the $455 million reached during the November 2005 tracking period," Circana says. Furthermore, only 1.6 million units of hardware were sold in the U.S. in November, which is "the lowest total for a November month since 1995 (1.4 million)." The Verge reports: The rising costs of consoles probably didn't help. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series of consoles both turned five in November, but customers looking to pick up one of the consoles brand new are having to grapple with higher prices following price hikes this year. Those hikes have led to an "all-time November high" for the average price paid for a new unit of video game hardware of $439, Circana says -- a number that's up 11 percent from 2024. (In November 2019, the average price was $235, according to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella.)... [ Read it >> ]

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Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: Every other week, it seems, a new Chinese launch company pops up with a rocket design and a plan to reach orbit within a few years. For a long time, the majority of these companies revealed designs that looked a lot like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The first of these copy cats, the medium-lift Zhuque-3 rocket built by LandSpace, launched earlier this month. Its primary mission was nominal, but the Zhuque-3 rocket failed its landing attempt, which is understandable for a first flight. Doubtless there will be more Chinese Falcon 9-like rockets making their debut in the near future. However, over the last year, there has been a distinct change in announcements from China when it comes to new launch technology. Just as SpaceX is seeking to transition from its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket -- which has now been flying for a decade and a half -- to the fully reusable Starship design, so too are Chinese companies modifying their visions.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) community is grieving after the "shocking" shooting death of the director of its plasma science and fusion center, according to officials. Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, had been shot multiple times at his home in the affluent Boston suburb of Brookline on Monday night when police said they received a call to investigate. Emergency responders brought Loureiro to a hospital, and the award-winning scientist was pronounced dead there Tuesday morning, the Norfolk county district attorney's office said in a statement.... [ Read it >> ]

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Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Politico: The Senate on Wednesday approved Jared Isaacman for the top job at NASA -- an unprecedented comeback after President Donald Trump yanked his nomination this spring. Senators confirmed the billionaire private astronaut in a 67-30 vote. Trump renominated Isaacman for NASA administrator in November, after pulling his original nomination in May. He cited Isaacman's relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, with whom Trump had just had a falling out, as the rationale for his decision. Isaacman's surprise rebound followed months of political jockeying and help from high-profile figures in Trump's orbit. [...] Isaacman garnered backing from lawmakers during his hearing by confirming his support for NASA's Artemis moon-landing mission, a key prerogative for Capitol Hill. He also committed to instilling urgency at the space agency, citing China's space ambitions.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Academy has struck a multi-year deal to move the Oscars to YouTube starting in 2029, ending decades on ABC and making the ceremony free to stream worldwide with YouTube holding exclusive global rights. Variety reports: The Oscars, including red carpet coverage, behind-the-scenes content and Governors Ball, will be available live and for free on YouTube to viewers around the world, as well as to YouTube TV subscribers in the United States. Architects of the agreement said they hope the move to YouTube will help make the Oscars more accessible to "the Academy's growing global audience through features such as closed captioning and audio tracks available in multiple languages." [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Meta has paused its third-party Horizon OS headset program, effectively canceling planned VR headsets from Asus and Lenovo as it refocuses on "building the world-class first-party hardware and software needed to advance the VR market." Road to VR reports: A little over a year and a half ago, Meta made an "industry-altering announcement," as I called the move in my reporting: the company was rebranding the Quest operating system to 'Horizon OS' and announced it was working with select partners to launch third-party VR headsets powered by the operating system. Meta specifically named Asus and Lenovo as the first partners it was working with to build new Horizon OS headsets. Asus was said to be building an "all-new performance gaming headset," while Lenovo was purportedly working on "mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Netflix on Wednesday said it will add a soccer simulation title to its gaming portfolio, as the streaming giant looks to leverage the FIFA World Cup 2026 tournament to deepen its video game push. The soccer title will be developed and published by Delphi Interactive, which is also helping create a premium James Bond game called "007 First Light," and in association with the sport's governing body, FIFA. Netflix said the game will launch in time for the world's most-watched sporting event, scheduled to start June next year in the U.S.... [ Read it >> ]

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GitHub will begin charging $0.002 per minute for self-hosted Actions runners used on private repositories starting in March. "At the same time, GitHub noted in a Tuesday blog post that it's lowering the prices of GitHub-hosted runners beginning January 1, under a scheme it calls 'simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions,'" reports The Register. "Self-hosted runner usage on public repositories will remain free." From the report: Regardless of the public repo distinction, enterprise-scale developers who rely on self-hosted runners were predictably not pleased about the announcement. "Github have just sent out an email announcing a $0.002/minute fee for self-hosted runners," Reddit user markmcw posted on the DevOps subreddit. "Just ran the numbers, and for us, that's close to $3.5k a month extra on our GitHub bill." [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Longtime Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced that the Linux kernel has received its first CVE tied to Rust code. Phoronix reports: This first CVE (CVE-2025-68260) for Rust code in the Linux kernel pertains to the Android Binder rewrite in Rust. There is a race condition that can occur due to some noted unsafe Rust code. That code can lead to memory corruption of the previous/next pointers and in turn cause a crash. This CVE for the possible system crash is for Linux 6.18 and newer since the introduction of the Rust Binder driver. At least though it's just a possible system crash and not any more serious system compromise with remote code execution or other more severe issues.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google began its transition to Gemini 3 a few weeks ago with the launch of the Pro model, and the arrival of Gemini 3 Flash kicks it into high gear. The new, faster Gemini 3 model is coming to the Gemini app and search, and developers will be able to access it immediately via the Gemini API, Vertex AI, AI Studio, and Antigravity. Google's bigger gen AI model is also picking up steam, with both Gemini 3 Pro and its image component (Nano Banana Pro) expanding in search.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Browser extensions with more than 8 million installs are harvesting complete and extended conversations from users' AI conversations and selling them for marketing purposes, according to data collected from the Google and Microsoft pages hosting them. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The conventional wisdom that English prose has gotten easier to read because sentences have gotten shorter is wrong, according to a new analysis published in Works in Progress by writer and Mercatus Center research fellow Henry Oliver. The real transformation happened centuries ago in the 1500s and 1600s when Bible translators like William Tyndale and Thomas Cranmer developed a "plain style" built on logical syntax rather than the older rhythmic, periodic structures inherited from medieval prose. ... [ Read it >> ]

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his Wednesday Senate testimony that the agency he governs "is not an independent agency, formally speaking." Axios: During his testimony, the word "independent" was removed from the FCC's mission statement on its website. The extraordinary statement speaks to a broader trend of regulatory agencies losing power to the executive branch during the Trump era. Last week, the Supreme Court appeared poised to allow President Trump to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission during oral arguments over the issue. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A comprehensive database built by scientists in Switzerland and Norway has catalogued 16,000 chemicals linked to plastic materials, and the findings paint a troubling picture of what Americans are actually eating when they prepare food in their kitchens. Of those 16,000 chemicals, more than 5,400 are considered hazardous to human health by government and industry standards, while just 161 are classified as not hazardous. The remaining 10,700-plus chemicals simply don't have enough data to determine their safety. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Coursera announced on Wednesday that it will acquire rival online learning platform Udemy in an all-stock deal that values the combined company at $2.5 billion, a move that brings together two of the largest U.S.-based players in an industry that has struggled since pandemic-era enrollment highs faded. Under the terms of the agreement, Udemy shareholders will receive 0.8 shares of Coursera for each share they hold, valuing Udemy at roughly $930 million. Based on Coursera's last closing price, the offer works out to $6.35 per Udemy share, an 18.3% premium. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google is suing a Chinese-speaking cybercriminal group it says is responsible for a massive wave of scam text messages sent to Americans this year, according to a legal complaint filed Tuesday. From a report: The group, known as Darcula, sells software that allows users to send phishing text messages en masse, impersonating organizations like the IRS or the U.S. Postal Service in scams. The lawsuit is designed to give Google legal standing so U.S. courts will allow it to seize websites the group uses, hampering their operations, a spokesperson said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Meta is informing some users that they will soon be restricted in how many link posts they can share each month, unless they pay for its Meta Verified subscription service. As per the notification message: "Starting December 16, certain Facebook profiles without Meta Verified, including yours, will be limited to sharing links in 2 organic posts per month. Subscribe to Meta Verified to share more links on Facebook, plus get a verified badge and additional benefits to help protect your brand." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Warner Bros Discovery's board spurned Paramount Skydance's $108.4 billion hostile takeover bid on Wednesday, calling the offer "illusory" as it accused the studio giant of misleading shareholders about its financing. From a report: Paramount has been in a race with Netflix to win control of Warner Bros, and with it, its prized film and television studios, HBO Max streaming service and franchises like "Harry Potter." After Warner Bros accepted the streaming giant's offer, Paramount launched a hostile offer to outdo that bid. ... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI is in discussions with Amazon about a potential investment and an agreement to use its AI chips, CNBC confirmed on Tuesday. From the report: The details are fluid and still subject to change but the investment could exceed $10 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the talks are confidential. The discussions come after OpenAI completed a restructuring in October and formally outlined the details of its partnership with Microsoft, giving it more freedom to raise capital and partner with companies across the broader AI ecosystem. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Two of the largest food-delivery app companies have made a last-ditch effort to overturn tipping laws in New York City that go into effect in January just as its next mayor, who has been highly critical of the companies and the app industry, takes office. Tips to delivery workers have plummeted since some food-delivery apps switched to showing the tipping option only after a purchase had been completed; that change came after New York City established the country's first minimum pay-rate for the workers in 2023. The new laws will require the apps to suggest a minimum tip of 10 percent at checkout, though customers can contribute more or less, or nothing at all.... [ Read it >> ]

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U.S. senators are probing whether Big Tech data centers are driving up local electricity bills by socializing grid upgrade costs onto residents. Some of the tactics they're using include NDAs, shell companies, and lobbying. Ars Technica reports: In letters (PDF) to seven AI firms, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) cited a study estimating that "electricity prices have increased by as much as 267 percent in the past five years" in "areas located near significant data center activity." Prices increase, senators noted, when utility companies build out extra infrastructure to meet data centers' energy demands -- which can amount to one customer suddenly consuming as much power as an entire city. They also increase when demand for local power outweighs supply. In some cases, residents are blindsided by higher bills, not even realizing a data center project was approved, because tech companies seem intent on dodging backlash and frequently do not allow terms of deals to be publicly disclosed.... [ Read it >> ]

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A new Arctic Report Card recap shows how the Arctic has transformed in just 20 years, warming about twice as fast as the global average and losing most of its oldest sea ice. It's also triggering cascading impacts from "Atlantification" to permafrost-driven "rusting rivers" and more destructive storms. Scientific American reports: The first Arctic Report Card was released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2006. Since then the region has warmed twice as fast as the global average. About 95 percent of the oldest, thickest sea ice is gone -- "the sliver that remains is collected in an area north of Greenland. Even the central Arctic Ocean is becoming warmer and saltier, causing more ice melt and changing how much heat is released into the atmosphere in a way that affects weather patterns around the world. Those are just some of the stark changes 20 years have wrought. The findings were highlighted in the 2025 Arctic Report Card, released on Tuesday.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: The alleged perpetrator had improper access to virtually every South Korean adult's personal information: names, phone numbers and even the keycode to enter residential buildings. It was one of the biggest data breaches of recent years and it has sent the company it targeted -- Coupang, South Korea's equivalent of Amazon -- reeling, generating lawsuits, government investigation and calls to toughen penalties against such leaks. The leak went undetected for nearly five months, hitting Coupang's radar on Nov. 18 only after a customer flagged suspicious activity.... [ Read it >> ]

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The EU is moving to soften its planned 2035 ban on internal combustion cars by allowing a small share of low-emission engines. "The less stringent limit would leave room for automakers to continue selling some plug-in hybrids, which have both electric and internal combustion engines and can use the combustion engine to recharge the battery without the need to find a charging station," reports the Associated Press. From the report: The proposal from the EU's executive commission would change provisions of 2023 legislation requiring average emissions in new cars to equal zero, or a 100% reduction from 2021 levels. The new proposal would require a 90% emissions reduction. That means in practical terms that most cars would be battery-only but would leave room for some cars with internal combustion engines.... [ Read it >> ]

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A Reuters investigation found that Meta knowingly tolerated large volumes of scam and illegal ads from China worth billions in revenue. Reuters reports: Though China's authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta's advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company's global revenue. But Meta calculated that about 19% of that money -- more than $3 billion -- was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters.... [ Read it >> ]

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Quilter says its AI designed a complex Linux single-board computer in just one week, booting Debian on first power-up. "Holy crap, it's working," exclaimed one of the engineers. Tom's Hardware reports: LA-based startup Quilter has outlined Project Speedrun, which marks a milestone in computer design by AI. The headlining claims are that Quilter's AI facilitated the design of a new Linux SBC, using 843 parts and dual-PCBs, taking just one week to finish, then successfully booting Debian the first time it was powered up. The Quilter team reckon that the AI-enhanced process it demonstrated could unlock a new generation of computer hardware makers.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Mark Carney says that amid a fundamental shift to the nature of globalization, his government will catalyze the growth in both the public and private sector. But Canadian linguists say that's a problem. Language experts have called out the Canadian prime minister's growing "utilization" of British spellings in key documents -- including the recent federal budget and a press release issued following a meeting with Donald Trump.... [ Read it >> ]

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Intel has quietly stopped maintaining its open-source user-space driver stack for Gaudi accelerators. Phoronix reports: It turns out earlier this year Intel archived the SynapseAI Core open-source code and is no longer maintained by Intel. The open-source Synapse AI Core GitHub repository was archived in February and README updated with: "This project will no longer be maintained by Intel. Intel has ceased development and contributions including, but not limited to, maintenance, bug fixes, new releases, or updates, to this project. Intel no longer accepts patches to this project. If you have an ongoing need to use this project, are interested in independently developing it, or would like to maintain patches for the open source software community, please create your own fork of this project."... [ Read it >> ]

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A veteran games journalist claims Half-Life 3 is real and still planned as a Spring 2026 launch title tied to Valve's next Steam Machine push. Ars Technica reports: On the contrary, veteran journalist Mike Straw insisted on a recent Insider Gaming podcast that "everybody I've talked to are still adamant [Half-Life 3] is a game that will be a launch title with the Steam Machine."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The last vehicle will roll off the assembly line at Volkswagen's plant in Dresden, Germany, on Tuesday, marking the first time in the automaker's 88-year history that it has closed a plant in its home country. Volkswagen warned of potential production cuts last year, as it faced shaky demand in Europe and China, its biggest market, as well as higher tariffs that have crimped sales in the United States.... [ Read it >> ]

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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed two bills this year that ended solar development tax credits and imposed a new tax on solar generation despite solar power accounting for two-thirds of the new projects waiting to connect to the state's power grid. The legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature has already had an impact. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The new chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service told officers this week that they must become as fluent in programming languages like Python as they are in foreign languages like Russian as the spy agency adapts to what she described as a space between peace and war. Blaise Metreweli, MI6's first female chief and previously the service's director general of technology and innovation, said in her first public speech that mastery of technology is now required across the organization. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The weight of AI server racks has reached a point where legacy data centers cannot accommodate them even with significant retrofitting efforts, The Verge reports. Chris Brown, chief technical officer at Uptime Institute, said most retrofitting attempts would require "bulldozing the building and starting over from scratch." ... [ Read it >> ]

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U.S. officials excoriated the European Union for discriminating against American technology companies and threatened to penalize European tech companies in return, in a social media post on Tuesday. From a report: The pronouncement appeared to signal a rockier period for U.S.-E.U. trade relations, as the two governments work to finalize a trade framework they announced this year. The United States has been pushing Europe to open up its tech sector to American firms. But U.S. officials have complained that the European Union has not walked back broader regulation of company business practices while also proceeding with investigations of major American tech firms like Google, X, Amazon and Meta. ... [ Read it >> ]

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mprindle writes: The Texas Attorney General sued five major television manufacturers, accusing them of illegally collecting their users' data by secretly recording what they watch using Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology.

The lawsuits target Sony, Samsung, LG, and China-based companies Hisense and TCL Technology Group Corporation. Attorney General Ken Paxton's office also highlighted "serious concerns" about the two Chinese companies being required to follow China's National Security Law, which could give the Chinese government access to U.S. consumers' data. ... [ Read it >> ]

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McKinsey, the consulting giant that has spent a century advising companies on how to cut costs and restructure operations, is now turning that advice inward as it plans to eliminate thousands of jobs across its non-client-facing departments over the next 18 to 24 months.

The firm's leadership has discussed a roughly 10% headcount reduction in support functions, according to Bloomberg. McKinsey's revenue has hovered around $15 billion to $16 billion for the past five years after a decade of rapid expansion that saw employee count climb from 17,000 in 2012 to 45,000 by 2022. The headcount has since slid to about 40,000. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A millisecond used to be a big deal for the world's quickest traders. A dispute over huge trading profits at one of the world's largest futures exchanges shows they now think a million times faster [non-paywalled source]. From a report: The controversy is about an arcane technical maneuver in which high-speed traders bombard Frankfurt-based Eurex with useless data. The idea is to keep their connections to the exchange warm so they can react fractionally faster to market-moving information. The battle is the latest chapter in a decadeslong contest among secretive ultrafast trading firms, which have pursued a relentless quest for minuscule speed advantages. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The glasses-shaped face computers that tech companies have been building for years now face an identity crisis, and their makers can't agree on what to call them. Meta has asked a journalist to refer to its Ray-Ban glasses as "AI glasses" to distinguish them from Google Glass. Google, whose Project Aura is a collaboration with Xreal, calls the product "wired XR glasses" because the company views it as more aligned with headsets in a glasses form factor. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The traditional signals that employers used to evaluate entry-level job candidates -- college GPAs, cover letters, and interview performance -- have lost much of their value as grade inflation and widespread AI use render these metrics nearly meaningless, writes The Atlantic.
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft is killing off an obsolete and vulnerable encryption cipher that Windows has supported by default for 26 years following more than a decade of devastating hacks that exploited it and recently faced blistering criticism from a prominent US senator. When the software maker rolled out Active Directory in 2000, it made RC4 a sole means of securing the Windows component, which administrators use to configure and provision fellow administrator and user accounts inside large organizations. RC4, short for Rivist Cipher 4, is a nod to mathematician and cryptographer Ron Rivest of RSA Security, who developed the stream cipher in 1987. Within days of the trade-secret-protected algorithm being leaked in 1994, a researcher demonstrated a cryptographic attack that significantly weakened the security it had been believed to provide. Despite the known susceptibility, RC4 remained a staple in encryption protocols, including SSL and its successor TLS, until about a decade ago. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Mozilla has named Anthony Enzor-DeMeo as its new chief executive, promoting the executive who has spent the past year leading the Firefox browser team and who now plans to make AI central to the company's future.

Enzor-DeMeo announced on Tuesday that an "AI Mode" is coming to Firefox next year. The feature will let users choose from multiple AI models rather than being locked into a single provider. Some options will be open-source models, others will be private "Mozilla-hosted cloud options," and the company also plans to integrate models from major AI companies. Mozilla itself will not train its own large language model. ... [ Read it >> ]

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