According to an internal Border Patrol memo, nearly one-third of the surveillance cameras along the U.S.-Mexico border don’t work. “The nationwide issue is having significant impacts on [Border Patrol] operations,” reads the memo. NBC News reports: The large-scale outage affects roughly 150 of the 500 cameras perched on surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border. It was due to “several...

An anonymous reader writes: T-Mobile and AT&T say US regulators should drop a plan to require unlocking of phones within 60 days of activation, claiming that locking phones to a carrier’s network makes it possible to provide cheaper handsets to consumers. “If the Commission mandates a uniform unlocking policy, it is consumers — not providers — who stand to lose the most,” T-Mobile alleged in an...

Disney has appointed former Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman to replace Nike Executive Chairman Mark Parker as board chairman starting in January 2024, “as the media giant lays the groundwork to name a successor for CEO Bob Iger in early 2026,” reports CNBC. Iger’s contract has been extended until the end of 2026 to ensure the company finds the right fit. CNBC reports: Gorman joined Disney’s...

In a new teardown video published last week, iFixit reveals a Quest 2 headset “hiding inside” the cheaper yet enhanced Quest 3S. The Verge reports: The first hint of that is the headset’s Fresnel lenses, which iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari writes in a blog post are “100% compatible” with those used by the Quest 2. The headset has the older headset’s IPD adjustment mechanism, as well; and it shares...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: A production company for Blade Runner 2049 has sued (PDF) Tesla, which allegedly fed images from the movie into an artificial intelligence image generator to create unlicensed promotional materials. Alcon Entertainment, in a lawsuit filed Monday in California federal court, accuses Elon Musk and his autonomous vehicle company of...

Housebound during a 1978 blizzard, he and a friend began devising the first computer bulletin board, a forerunner of online services like Reddit, TikTok and Facebook.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has acknowledged the company’s late entry into AI, stating, “We weren’t the first to do intelligence.” Despite this admission, Cook defended Apple’s approach, claiming it will be “the best for the customer.” The tech giant plans to roll out initial AI features on October 28, with more advanced capabilities expected in 2025. However, internal studies suggest Apple’s AI lags...

Actor Nicolas Cage warned young performers about the dangers of AI in film production during his speech at the Newport Beach Film Festival on Sunday. Cage urged actors to protect their craft from employment-based digital replica (EBDR) technology, which allows studios to manipulate performances post-filming. “This technology wants to take your instrument,” Cage said. He explained that EBDR...

Apple’s latest iOS update has removed the “C” button from its Calculator app, replacing it with a backspace function. The change, part of iOS 18, has sparked debate among users accustomed to the traditional clear function. The removal of the “C” button represents a significant departure from decades-old calculator design conventions, The Atlantic writes. From the story: The “C” button’s...

Baidu CEO Robin Li has proclaimed that hallucinations produced by large language models are no longer a problem, and predicted a massive wipeout of AI startups when the “bubble” bursts. From a report: “The most significant change we’re seeing over the past 18 to 20 months is the accuracy of those answers from the large language models,” gushed the CEO at last week’s Harvard Business Review...

Federal and state researchers said there might be five million to 19 million tons of lithium, more than enough to meet the world’s demand for the battery ingredient.

Intel and Boeing, once exemplars of American manufacturing prowess, now face existential crises. Their market values have plummeted, jeopardizing not just shareholder wealth but national security. The U.S. is losing its edge in manufacturing high-tech products, crucial in its geopolitical contest with China, a story on WSJ argues. Unlike past manufacturing declines, Intel and Boeing’s woes stem...

News Corp’s Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post have sued Perplexity, a startup that calls itself an “AI-powered Swiss Army Knife for information discovery and curiosity,” alleging copyright infringement. From a report: “Perplexity is a generative artificial intelligence company that claims to provide its users accurate and up-to-date news and...

jd writes: Linus Torvalds is not a happy camper and is condemning hardware vendors for poor security and the plethora of actual and theoretical attacks, especially as some of the new features being added impact the workarounds. These workarounds are now getting very expensive, CPU-wise. TFA quotes Linus Torvalds: “Honestly, I’m pretty damn fed up with buggy hardware and completely theoretical...

chalsall writes: After more than six years of work since the last discovery, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has found the 52nd known Mersenne Prime number. This is also the largest prime number known to humans. The number is 2^136,279,841-1, which is 41,024,320 decimal digits long. Luke Durant, a researcher from San Jose, CA, found it after contributing a fantastic amount of...