MONDAY, 02 MARCH 2026, 07:07
Colorado lawmakers are proposing SB26-051, a bill that would require operating systems to register a user’s age bracket and share it with apps via an API. PCMag reports: The bill comes from state Sen. Matt Ball and Rep. Amy Paschal, both Democrats. “The intent is to create thoughtful safeguards for kids online through a privacy-forward framework for age assurance,” Ball told PCMag. “Unlike some...
Google’s latest image model, Nano Banana 2, is a powerful AI photo editor that punctures reality. Well, sometimes.
Experimental therapy of applying stem cells during surgery could be ‘major milestone’ in treatment of birth defects
Giving stem cells to unborn babies diagnosed with spina bifida while they have in utero surgery could be “a major milestone” in the treatment of birth defects, doctors say.
A trial in the US found that applying stem cells from the mother’s placenta to her baby’s spine while it...
Jack Dorsey’s Block is cutting more than 4,000 jobs, or nearly half its workforce, as part of a deliberate shift toward becoming a smaller, “intelligence-native” company built around AI. The Verge reports: “We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble,” Dorsey says. “Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and...
Our hosts unpack the news of the week, starting with the ongoing feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon. Plus: All you need to know about TAT-8 and undersea cables.
About 4,000 workers will lose their jobs as the payments company does more work with new artificial intelligence tools, its top executive said.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: There’s a new agentic AI called Einstein that will, according to its developers, live the life of a student for them. Einstein’s website claims that the AI will attend lectures for you, write your papers, and even log into EdTech platforms like Canvas to take tests and participate in discussions. Educators told me that Einstein is just one of...
The Pentagon has imposed a Friday deadline over a demand that Anthropic provide unfettered access to its A.I. system without safeguards for military operations.
Google has launched Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image), a faster, more realistic image generation model that becomes the default across Gemini, Search, Lens, and Flow. TechCrunch reports: The new Nano Banana 2 retains some of the high-fidelity characteristics of the Pro model but produces images faster. The company says you can create images with a resolution ranging from 512px to 4K, in...
The plaintiff, a 20-year-old identified only as K.G.M., took the stand to testify against Meta and Instagram in a bellwether case over tech addiction.
New submitter sabbede shares a report from CNN Politics: A sprawling Chinese influence operation — accidentally revealed by a Chinese law enforcement official’s use of ChatGPT — focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, according to a new report from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary...
The new open source project IronCurtain uses a unique method to secure and constrain AI assistant agents before they flip your digital life upside down.
Apple’s iPhone and iPad running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 have become the first consumer mobile devices cleared for NATO-restricted classified data. No special software or settings are required. MacRumors reports: Apple’s devices are the first and only consumer mobile products that have reached this government certification level after security testing and evaluation by the German government....
Researchers from Stanford and Princeton found that Chinese AI models are more likely than their Western counterparts to dodge political questions or deliver inaccurate answers.
Largest ever image obtained by specialist telescope in Chile represents scientific and aesthetic breakthrough
Scientists have captured a beautiful image in unprecedented detail of the vast Milky Way galaxy, of which our own solar system is a part.
The stunning image is the largest ever obtained by the specialist telescope in Chile called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma)...
Mozilla has released Firefox 148 for Windows, macOS and Linux, bringing a new AI Settings section that lets users disable all of the browser’s AI-powered features in one click and then selectively re-enable the ones they actually want, such as the local translation tool that works locally rather than in the cloud. The update also patches more than 50 security vulnerabilities — none known to be...
Silicon Valley built AI coding agents that can handle most of the grunt work. Now, the most valuable skill in tech is deciding what they should do.
Scientists say DNA evidence indicates male Neanderthals and human females interbred more often than opposite
Tens of thousands of years ago, as modern humans migrated into northerly territories inhabited by our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals, the two species met – and sometimes mated.
Now, genetic evidence has revealed a striking imbalance in these prehistoric trysts, suggesting that...
Speaking of the Citrini’s blog post, which imagines a near-future AI-driven economic collapse, and which ended up help triggering the S&P 500’s worst single-day drop in nearly two weeks on Monday, FT Alphaville decided to track how US stock markets have moved on the release days of notable dystopian speculative fiction throughout history. The story adds: You may contend that this is facile. We...
An anonymous reader shares a report: It might look like something from the early days of the internet, with its aggressively grey color scheme and rectangles nested inside rectangles, but FPDS.gov is one of the most important resources for keeping tabs on what powerful spying tools U.S. government agencies are buying. It includes everything from phone hacking technology, to masses of location...
A fictional memo set in June 2028, published by short seller Citrini Research, wiped roughly $10 billion off Indian IT stocks in a single trading session on February 24 and sent the Nifty IT index down as much as 5.3% — its worst single-day fall since August 2023 — on the argument that AI coding agents have collapsed the cost advantage of Indian developers to the price of electricity. The index...