An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: On the outskirts of this city of 21 million, a showroom in a shopping mall offers extraordinary deals on new cars. Visitors can choose from some 5,000 vehicles. Locally made Audis are 50% off. A seven-seater SUV from China's FAW is about $22,300, more than 60% below its sticker price. These deals -- offered by a company called Zcar, which says it buys in bulk from automakers and dealerships -- are only possible because China has too many cars. Years of subsidies and other government policies have aimed to make China a global automotive power and the world's electric-vehicle leader. Domestic automakers have achieved those goals and more -- and that's the problem.... [ Read it >> ]

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Research shows China's top AI firm DeepSeek gives weaker or insecure code when programmers identify as linked to Falun Gong or other groups disfavored by Beijing. It offers higher-quality results to everyone else. "The findings ... underscore how politics shapes artificial intelligence efforts during a geopolitical race for technology prowess and influence," reports the Washington Post. From the report: In the experiment, the U.S. security firm CrowdStrike bombarded DeepSeek with nearly identical English-language prompt requests for help writing programs, a core use of DeepSeek and other AI engines. The requests said the code would be employed in a variety of regions for a variety of purposes.... [ Read it >> ]

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At a Senate hearing, grieving parents testified that companion chatbots from major tech companies encouraged their children toward self-harm, suicide, and violence. One mom even claimed that Character.AI tried to "silence" her by forcing her into arbitration. Ars Technica reports: At the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing, one mom, identified as "Jane Doe," shared her son's story for the first time publicly after suing Character.AI. She explained that she had four kids, including a son with autism who wasn't allowed on social media but found C.AI's app -- which was previously marketed to kids under 12 and let them talk to bots branded as celebrities, like Billie Eilish -- and quickly became unrecognizable. Within months, he "developed abuse-like behaviors and paranoia, daily panic attacks, isolation, self-harm, and homicidal thoughts," his mom testified.... [ Read it >> ]

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prisoninmate shares a report from 9to5Linux: The GNOME Project released today GNOME 49 "Brescia" as the latest stable version of this widely used desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions, a major release that introduces exciting new features. Highlights of GNOME 49 include a new "Do Not Disturb" toggle in Quick Settings, a dedicated Accessibility menu in the login screen, support for handling unknown power profiles in the Quick Settings menu, support for YUV422 and YUV444 (HDR) color spaces, support for passive screen casts, and support for async keyboard map settings.... [ Read it >> ]

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Wild chimpanzees have been found to consume the equivalent of a bottle of lager's alcohol a day from eating ripened fruit, scientists say. BBC: They say this is evidence humans may have got our taste for alcohol from common primate ancestors who relied on fermented fruit -- a source of sugar and alcohol -- for food. "Human attraction to alcohol probably arose from this dietary heritage of our common ancestor with chimpanzees," said study researcher Aleksey Maro of the University of California, Berkeley. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Sony has quietly introduced a revised PlayStation 5 Digital Edition that reduces internal storage from 1TB to 825GB while maintaining the same 499 Euro ($590) price point. The CFI-2116 revision has appeared on Amazon listings across Italy, Germany, Spain and France without official announcement from Sony. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: The CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit have been called to Congress to testify about the "radicalization of online forum users" on those platforms, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Wednesday. "Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence," said chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, in a statement. "To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes."... [ Read it >> ]

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Two Xpeng AeroHT flying cars collided during a rehearsal for the Changchun Air Show in China, with one vehicle catching fire upon landing. While the company reported no serious injuries, CNN reported one person was injured in the crash. The BBC reports: Footage on Chinese social media site Weibo appeared to show a flaming vehicle on the ground which was being attended to by fire engines. One vehicle "sustained fuselage damage and caught fire upon landing," Xpeng AeroHT said in a statement to CNN. "All personnel at the scene are safe, and local authorities have completed on-site emergency measures in an orderly manner," it added.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft is now prioritizing Anthropic's Claude 4 over OpenAI's GPT-5 in Visual Studio Code's auto model feature, signaling a quiet but clear shift in preference. The Verge reports: "Based on internal benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4 is our recommended model for GitHub Copilot," said Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft's developer division, in an internal email in June. While that guidance was issued ahead of the GPT-5 release, I understand Microsoft's model guidance hasn't changed.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Like the rest of its Big Tech cadre, Google has spent lavishly on developing generative AI models. Google's AI can clean up your text messages and summarize the web, but the company is constantly looking to prove that its generative AI has true intelligence. The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) helps make the point. Google says Gemini 2.5 participated in the 2025 ICPC World Finals, turning in a gold medal performance. According to Google this marks "a significant step on our path toward artificial general intelligence."... [ Read it >> ]

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Governments worldwide are implementing heat protection laws as 2.4 billion workers face extreme temperature exposure and 19,000 die annually from heat-related workplace injuries, according to a World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization report.

Japan imposed $3,400 fines for employers failing to provide cooling measures when wet-bulb temperatures reach 28C. Singapore mandated hourly temperature sensors at large outdoor sites and requires 15-minute breaks every hour at 33C wet-bulb readings. Southern European nations ordered afternoon work stoppages this summer when temperatures exceeded 115F across Greece, Italy and Spain. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The ability of AI displace humans at various tasks is accelerating quickly, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said at an Axios event on Wednesday. From the report: Amodei and others have previously warned of the possibility that up to half of white-collar jobs could be wiped out by AI over the next five years. The speed of that displacement could require government intervention to help support the workforce, executives said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Light pollution now doubles every eight years globally as LED adoption accelerates artificial brightness worldwide. A recent study measured 10% annual growth in light pollution from 2011 to 2022. Northern Chile's Atacama Desert remains one of the few Bortle Scale 1 locations -- the darkest rating for astronomical observation -- though La Serena's population has nearly doubled in 25 years. The region hosts major observatories including the Vera C. Rubin Observatory at Cerro Pachon. ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI models often produce false outputs, or "hallucinations." Now OpenAI has admitted they may result from fundamental mistakes it makes when training its models. The Register: The admission came in a paper [PDF] published in early September, titled "Why Language Models Hallucinate," and penned by three OpenAI researchers and Santosh Vempala, a distinguished professor of computer science at Georgia Institute of Technology. It concludes that "the majority of mainstream evaluations reward hallucinatory behavior." ... [ Read it >> ]

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If global temperatures continue rising, virtually all the corals in the Atlantic Ocean will stop growing and could succumb to erosion by the end of the century, a new study finds. From a report: The analysis of over 400 existing coral reefs across the Atlantic Ocean estimates that more than 70 percent of the region's reefs will begin dying by 2040 even under optimistic climate warming scenarios. And if the planet exceeds 2 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial temperatures by the end of the century, 99 percent of corals in the region would meet this fate. Today, the planet has warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius over preindustrial temperatures. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: After years of dismissing the idea of putting a touchscreen on a MacBook, it seems Apple may have finally caved. Its MacBook Pro overhaul in 2026 is now expected to be the first-ever MacBook to feature a touchscreen display, according to a report from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on X. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Business Insider has told journalists they can use AI to create first drafts of stories and suggested it won't notify readers that AI was used, according to Status, a newsletter covering the media industry. The policy makes the outlet one of the first to formally allow such extensive use of the technology. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Scripted TV production peaked in 2022 at 599 shows and has declined since, according to FX's research division tracking. New prestige series have dropped sharply while streaming platforms prioritize returning shows over new development. Netflix has shifted majority output to unscripted content including docuseries and reality programming since 2018. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Anthropic has declined requests from federal law enforcement contractors to use its Claude AI models for surveillance activities, deepening tensions with the Trump administration, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing two senior officials. The company's usage policies prohibit domestic surveillance, limiting how agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deploy its technology. While Anthropic maintains a $1 contract with federal agencies through AWS GovCloud and works with the Department of Defense on non-weapons applications, administration officials said the restrictions amount to making moral judgments about law enforcement operations.... [ Read it >> ]

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Anthropic has declined requests from federal law enforcement contractors to use its Claude AI models for surveillance activities, deepening tensions with the Trump administration, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing two senior officials. The company's usage policies prohibit domestic surveillance, limiting how agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deploy its technology. While Anthropic maintains a $1 contract with federal agencies through AWS GovCloud and works with the Department of Defense on non-weapons applications, administration officials said the restrictions amount to making moral judgments about law enforcement operations.... [ Read it >> ]

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The home appliance industry would like you to believe that gas-burning stoves are not a risk to your health -- and several companies that make the devices are scrambling to erase their prior acknowledgements that they are. From a report: That claim is at the heart of a lawsuit the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers has filed against the state of Colorado to stop it from requiring natural gas stoves, which burn methane, to carry health labels not unlike those on every pack of cigarettes. "Understand the air quality implications of having an indoor gas stove," the warning would read. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A new Stanford-led study finds that switching permanently to standard time could prevent 300,000 strokes and reduce obesity in 2.6 million Americans by better aligning circadian rhythms with natural light. Researchers argue that the twice-yearly clock changes are the worst option for public health, while permanent daylight saving time would offer two-thirds of the benefits. From a report: "We found that staying in standard time or staying in daylight saving time is definitely better than switching twice a year," senior researcher Jamie Zeitzer said in a news release. He's a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in California. For the study, researchers estimated how different national time policies might affect American's circadian rhythms -- the body's innate clock that regulates many physiological processes. The human circadian cycle isn't exactly 24 hours, researchers noted. It's about 12 minutes longer for most people, and it can be changed based on a person's exposure to light.... [ Read it >> ]

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China's internet regulator has told the country's biggest technology companies to stop buying all of Nvidia's artificial intelligence chips and terminate their existing orders, as Beijing steps up efforts to boost its homegrown semiconductor industry and compete with the US. From a report: The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) informed companies including ByteDance and Alibaba this week to terminate their testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, Nvidia's tailor-made product for the country introduced two months ago, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. ... [ Read it >> ]

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"Phys.org is reporting on a study published in Nature Physics involving ICN2 at the UAB campus, Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an) and Stony Brook University (New York), showing for the first time that ordinary ice is a flexoelectric material -- meaning it can generate electricity when subjected to mechanical deformation," writes longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. From the report: "We discovered that ice generates electric charge in response to mechanical stress at all temperatures. In addition, we identified a thin 'ferroelectric' layer at the surface at temperatures below -113C (160K)," explains Dr. Xin Wen, a member of the ICN2 Oxide Nanophysics Group and one of the study's lead researchers. "This means that the ice surface can develop a natural electric polarization, which can be reversed when an external electric field is applied -- similar to how the poles of a magnet can be flipped. The surface ferroelectricity is a cool discovery in its own right, as it means that ice may have not just one way to generate electricity, but two: ferroelectricity at very low temperatures, and flexoelectricity at higher temperatures all the way to 0 C." This property places ice on a par with electroceramic materials such as titanium dioxide, which are currently used in advanced technologies like sensors and capacitors.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As Jonathan Roll neared completion of a master's degree in science and technology policy at Arizona State University three years ago, he did some research into recent developments by China's ascendant space program. He came away impressed by the country's growing ambitions. Now a full-time research analyst at the university, Roll was recently asked to take a deeper dive into Chinese space plans. "I thought I had a pretty good read on this when I was finishing grad school," Roll told Ars. "That almost everything needed to be updated, or had changed three years later, was pretty scary. On all these fronts, they've made pretty significant progress. They are taking all of the cues from our Western system about what's really galvanized innovation, and they are off to the races with it."... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI is rolling out stricter safety measures for ChatGPT after lawsuits linked the chatbot to multiple suicides. "ChatGPT will now attempt to guess a user's age, and in some cases might require users to share an ID in order to verify that they are at least 18 years old," reports 404 Media. "We know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff," the company said in its announcement. "I don't expect that everyone will agree with these tradeoffs, but given the conflict it is important to explain our decisionmaking," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X. From the report: OpenAI introduced parental controls to ChatGPT earlier in September, but has now introduced new, more strict and invasive security measures. In addition to attempting to guess or verify a user's age, ChatGPT will now also apply different rules to teens who are using the chatbot. "For example, ChatGPT will be trained not to do the above-mentioned flirtatious talk if asked, or engage in discussions about suicide of self-harm even in a creative writing setting," the announcement said. "And, if an under-18 user is having suicidal ideation, we will attempt to contact the users' parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm."... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft will invest $30 billion in the U.K. through 2028 to expand AI infrastructure and operations, including building the country's largest supercomputer with 23,000 GPUs in partnership with Nscale. CNBC reports: On a call with reporters on Tuesday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said his stance on the U.K. has warmed over the years. He previously criticized the country over its attempt in 2023 to block the tech giant's $69 billion acquisition of video game developer Activision-Blizzard. The deal was cleared by the U.K.s competition regulator later that year.... [ Read it >> ]

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BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: The Fedora Project has announced Fedora Linux 43 Beta, giving users and developers the opportunity to test the distribution ahead of its final release. This beta introduces improvements across installation, system tools, and programming languages while continuing Fedora's pattern of cleaning out older components. The beta can be downloaded in Workstation, KDE Plasma, Server, IoT, and Cloud editions. Spins and Labs are also available, though Mate and i3 are not provided in some builds. Existing systems can be upgraded with DNF system-upgrade. Fedora CoreOS will follow one week later through its "next" stream. The beta brings enhancements to its Anaconda WebUI, moves to Python 3.14, and supports Wayland-only GNOME, among many other changes. A full list of improvements and system enhancements can be found here.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Taliban leader banned fibre optic internet in an Afghan province to "prevent immorality," a spokesman for the administration said Tuesday. It's the first time a ban of this kind has been imposed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and leaves government offices, the private sector, public institutions, and homes in northern Balkh province without Wi-Fi internet. Mobile internet remains functional, however.... [ Read it >> ]

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Consumer Reports has urged Microsoft to keep supporting Windows 10 beyond its October 2025 cutoff, saying the move will "strand millions of consumers" who have machines incompatible with Windows 11. The Verge reports: As noted by Consumer Reports, data suggests that around 46.2 percent of people around the world still use Windows 10 as of August 2025, while around 200 to 400 million PCs can't be upgraded to Windows 11 due to missing hardware requirements.... [ Read it >> ]

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A third wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against Character AI after the suicide of 13-year-old Juliana Peralta, whose parents allege the chatbot fostered dependency without directing her to real help. "This is the third suit of its kind after a 2024 lawsuit, also against Character AI, involving the suicide of a 14-year-old in Florida, and a lawsuit last month alleging OpenAI's ChatGPT helped a teenage boy commit suicide," notes Engadget. From the report: The family of 13-year-old Juliana Peralta alleges that their daughter turned to a chatbot inside the app Character AI after feeling isolated by her friends, and began confiding in the chatbot. As originally reported by The Washington Post, the chatbot expressed empathy and loyalty to Juliana, making her feel heard while encouraging her to keep engaging with the bot.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon agreed to offer $20-per-month broadband service to people with low incomes in California in exchange for a merger approval. In a bid to complete its $9.6 billion purchase of Frontier Communications, Verizon committed to offering $20 fiber-to-the-home service with symmetrical speeds of 300Mbps. Verizon also committed to offering a $20 fixed wireless service with download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps. Verizon would be required to offer the plans for at least 10 years, according to a joint motion (PDF) to approve the settlement agreement. After three years, Verizon would need to "make commercially reasonable efforts" to increase the speeds "while retaining the $20 price point."... [ Read it >> ]

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Waymo is now permitted to test its robotaxi service at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), a big win for the company as it seeks to expand its service area and tackle more popular, revenue-generating destinations. From a report: After years of back-and-forth negotiations, Waymo signed "Testing and Operations Pilot Permit" with SFO, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a release. Under the agreement, Waymo will roll out its service to SFO in three phases, including testing vehicles with a human driver, testing without a driver, and eventually beginning commercial service. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Nature's editorial board urged governments on Tuesday to reverse decades of rail disinvestment as railways mark their 200th anniversary September 27, citing transport sector emissions that grew 1.7% annually from 1990-2022 and now generate one-quarter of global CO2. Rail produces one-fifth the emissions of cars per passenger kilometer yet carries just 8.4% of EU passenger traffic versus 73% for automobiles. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has responded to Borderlands 4 performance complaints by calling the game "a premium game made for premium gamers." Pitchford claimed customer service reports for performance issues represent "less than one percent of one percent" of players and told critics to "code your own engine and show us how it's done, please." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Gallup: Americans have been placing less importance on the value of a college education over the past 15 years, to the point that about a third (35%) now rate it as "very important." Forty percent think it is "fairly important," while 24% say it is "not too important."

When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, just over half of U.S. adults, 53%, said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% found in 2013 and 75% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as not too important has more than doubled since 2019 and compares with just 4% in 2010. The views of parents of children under age 18 in the Aug. 1-20 poll are similar to the national average, with 38% rating college as very important, 40% somewhat important and 21% not too important.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Apollo is exploring a sale of early internet darling AOL after receiving inbound interest in the business, according to people familiar with the matter. Any deal could value AOL at around $1.5 billion, the people said. It is also possible the talks won't result in any deal, they cautioned. ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI will enable three to four-day workweeks, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan told The New York Times, joining Microsoft's Bill Gates, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon in predicting shorter schedules. Yuan also acknowledged AI will eliminate some positions, particularly entry-level engineering roles where AI can write code, but argued new opportunities will emerge managing AI agents. Gates previously suggested two to three-day weeks within 10 years during a February appearance on The Tonight Show.... [ Read it >> ]

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Getting an MBA in the US has gotten a little more expensive and a little less profitable, according to a Bloomberg analysis of salary and tuition data. From the report: This year's update of Bloomberg's Business School ROI Calculator, based on surveys of more than 9,500 students and alumni, projects a typical return on investment of 12.3% a year for the decade after graduation. That's down from 13.3% last year. The S&P 500 index, by comparison, returned 14.6% over the decade ending Aug. 31. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A search for "AI chat" in the Mac App Store returns dozens of applications sporting black-and-white icons nearly identical to ChatGPT's official logo. OpenAI's ChatGPT desktop application isn't available through the Mac App Store and can only be downloaded from the company's website. The copycat applications use various combinations of "AI," "Chat," and "Bot" in their names, including "AI Chat Bot : Ask Assistant," "AI Chatbot: Chat Ask Assistant," and dozens of similar variations. One application named itself "Al Chatbot" using a lowercase L instead of a capital I in "AI." Additional lookalike icons mimicking Claude, Grok, and Gemini applications also appear in search results.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Anyone who surveys the public, from marketers to pollsters, struggles nowadays to get people to answer their questions. That phenomenon afflicts crucial government data, making it harder for policymakers and investors to know the true state of the economy. Falling survey participation is an important reason the flagship jobs report released every month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the Labor Department, has undergone such big revisions recently. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The companies seeking to build larger AI models have been increasingly stymied by a lack of high-quality training data. As tech firms scour the web for more data to feed their models, they could increasingly rely on potentially sensitive user data. A team at Google Research is exploring new techniques to make the resulting large language models (LLMs) less likely to 'memorize' any of that content. LLMs have non-deterministic outputs, meaning you can't exactly predict what they'll say. While the output varies even for identical inputs, models do sometimes regurgitate something from their training data -- if trained with personal data, the output could be a violation of user privacy. In the event copyrighted data makes it into training data (either accidentally or on purpose), its appearance in outputs can cause a different kind of headache for devs. Differential privacy can prevent such memorization by introducing calibrated noise during the training phase.... [ Read it >> ]

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Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian: MI5 has conceded it "unlawfully" obtained the communications data of a former BBC journalist, in what was claimed to be an unprecedented admission from the security services. The BBC said it was a "matter of grave concern" that the agency had obtained communications data from the mobile phone of Vincent Kearney, a former BBC Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent. The admission came in a letter to the BBC and to Kearney, in relation to a tribunal examining claims that several reporters in Northern Ireland were subjected to unlawful scrutiny by the police. It related to work carried out by Kearney for a documentary into the independence of the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). Kearney is now the northern editor at Irish broadcaster RTE.... [ Read it >> ]

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Fiverr is laying off 250 employees, or about 30% of its workforce, as it restructures to become an "AI-first" company. "We are launching a transformation for Fiverr, to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that's leaner, faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team, each with substantially greater productivity, and far fewer management layers," CEO Micha Kaufman said. Reuters reports: While it isn't clear what kinds of jobs will be impacted, Fiverr operates a self-service digital marketplace where freelancers can connect with businesses or individuals requiring digital services like graphic design, editing or programming. Most processes on the platform take place with minimal employee intervention as ordering, delivery and payments are automated.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today, OpenAI's Economic Research Team went a long way toward answering that question, on a population level, releasing a first-of-its-kind National Bureau of Economic Research working paper (in association with Harvard economist David Denning) detailing how people end up using ChatGPT across time and tasks. While other research has sought to estimate this kind of usage data using self-reported surveys, this is the first such paper with direct access to OpenAI's internal user data. As such, it gives us an unprecedented direct window into reliable usage stats for what is still the most popular application of LLMs by far. After digging through the dense 65-page paper, here are seven of the most interesting and/or surprising things we discovered about how people are using OpenAI today. Here are the seven most interesting and surprising findings from the study:... [ Read it >> ]

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The FTC is investigating whether Ticketmaster is doing enough to prevent bots from illegally reselling tickets on its platform, with a decision on the matter coming within weeks, according to Bloomberg (paywalled). Reuters reports: The 2016 law prohibits the use of bots and other methods to bypass ticket purchase limits set by online sellers. As part of the probe, FTC investigators are assessing whether Ticketmaster has a financial incentive to allow resellers to circumvent its ticket limit rules, according to the report. A settlement is also possible, Bloomberg reported. If the FTC pursues a case and Live Nation loses, the company could face billions of dollars in penalties, as the law permits fines of up to $53,000 per violation.... [ Read it >> ]

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A leaked Meta video revealed upcoming "Meta Ray-Ban Display" smart glasses with a monocular HUD and sEMG wristband control, set to debut at Connect 2025 for around $800. Despite past hesitation, it looks like EssilorLuxottica has agreed to co-brand after Meta invested $3.5 billion in the company, taking a 3% stake. UploadVR reports: Meta's HUD glasses with the sEMG wristband will in fact be Ray-Ban branded, a leaked video which also depicts the HUD and wristband in action reveals. A quickly removed unlisted video on Meta's YouTube channel showed what will soon be Meta and EssilorLuxottica's full lineup: ... [ Read it >> ]

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Robinhood has filed with the SEC to launch "Robinhood Ventures Fund I," a publicly traded fund designed to give retail investors access to startup shares before IPOs. TechCrunch reports: While the current version of the application is public, Robinhood hasn't filled in the fine-print yet. This means we don't know how many shares it plans to sell, nor other details like the management fee it plans to charge. It's also unclear which startups it hopes this fund will eventually hold. The paperwork says it "expects" to invest in aerospace and defense, AI, fintech, robotics as well as software for consumers and enterprises.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Carla Rover once spent 30 minutes sobbing after having to restart a project she vibe coded. Rover has been in the industry for 15 years, mainly working as a web developer. She's now building a startup, alongside her son, that creates custom machine learning models for marketplaces. She called vibe coding a beautiful, endless cocktail napkin on which one can perpetually sketch ideas. But dealing with AI-generated code that one hopes to use in production can be "worse than babysitting," she said, as these AI models can mess up work in ways that are hard to predict.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Internet Archive has reached a confidential settlement with Universal Music Group and other major labels, "ending a closely watched copyright battle over the nonprofit's effort to digitize and stream historic recordings," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. From the report: The case (PDF), UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Internet Archive, targeted the Archive's Great 78 Project, an initiative to digitize more than 400,000 fragile shellac records from the early 20th century. The collection includes music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and has been made available online for free public access. Record labels including Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Capitol Records had sought $621 million in damages, arguing the Archive's streaming of these recordings constituted copyright infringement.... [ Read it >> ]

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