technology
Senate passes a bill that would let nonconsensual deepfake victims sue
The Senate passed a bill that could give people who've found their likeness deepfaked into sexually-explicit images without their consent a new way to fight back. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act (DEFIANCE Act), would let victims sue the individuals who created the images for civil damages. The bill passed with unanimous […]
How Lego’s Smart Brick works
The most interesting story at this year's CES was just a little tiny bundle of technology. One way to look at Lego's new Smart Brick is as something like a Raspberry Pi, an endlessly remixable gizmo with infinite hacking potential - it can be anything, in the best possible way. Another way to look at […]
Insta360’s face-tracking webcams get bigger sensors and more expensive
Insta360 has announced new Pro versions of its Link 2 and Link 2C webcams that first launched in September 2024. As with the previous versions, the new Link 2 Pro and 2C Pro can track the movements of onscreen subjects to ensure they're always in frame, making them ideal for those presenting on a video […]
Fired Rockstar employees’ plea for interim pay denied
A UK employment tribunal rejected a request from fired Rockstar Games employees to receive interim pay while waiting for a full hearing about their dismissal, according to Bloomberg and IGN. After Rockstar fired 34 employees last year - 31 from the UK and three from Canada - the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) […]
Framework hikes desktop PC prices as RAM shortage drags on
Just weeks after raising the price of its RAM modules, Framework has announced that it's also increasing the price of its desktop PC in response to the global memory shortage. The Framework Desktop with 32GB of RAM and an AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 chip now starts at $1,139, instead of $1,099. "We held off […]
Baseus’ retractable travel adapter is on sale for more than 50 percent off today
If you’re planning on traveling at all this year, the Baseus EnerCore CG11 Universal Travel Adapter is worth a look. The adapter can power up to six devices at once, and now through the end of today, January 12th, it’s on sale for just $34.19 (about $36 off) at Amazon, matching the all-time low price […]
UK pushes up a law criminalizing deepfake nudes in response to Grok
The UK is bringing a law into force that makes creating non-consensual intimate deepfake images, like the ones that have proliferated on X because of the Grok AI chatbot, a criminal offense, as reported by the BBC. "The Data Act, passed last year, made it a criminal offence to create - or request the creation […]
Instagram Says There Was No “Data Breach,” & That Accounts Are “Secure,” Social Media Is Ready For The Class Action Lawsuit
While Instagram is saying there is nothing to see here after users got suspicious requests to reset their passwords, Malwarebytes, an antivirus software company, claimed there was a data breach that revealed 17.5 million Instagram users' sensitive information."
Trump’s fundraisers asked Microsoft for its White House ballroom donation
The Trump administration approached Microsoft for its donation to fund the White House's $300 million ballroom, documents released by Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) office reveal. In response to a Democrat-led letter questioning Big Tech's involvement in the ballroom's construction, Microsoft counsel Karen Christian writes that the company "was contacted by a fundraiser for the effort […]
You need to listen to Billy Woods’ horrorcore masterpiece for the A24 crowd
Billy Woods has one of the highest batting averages in the game. Between his solo records like Hiding Places and Maps, and his collaborative albums with Elucid as Armand Hammer, the man has multiple stone-cold classics under his belt. And, while no one would ever claim that Woods' albums were light-hearted fare (these are not […]
Google pulls AI overviews for some medical searches
Earlier this month, The Guardian published an investigation that showed Google was serving up misleading and outright false information via its AI overviews in response to certain medical inquiries. Now those results appear to have been removed. According to the original report: In one case that experts described as "really dangerous", Google wrongly advised people […]
Here are over 20 gadgets that’ll help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions
It happens every year: we set ambitious New Year's resolutions - work out more, spend less, keep the house cleaner - full of optimism and motivation. Then life happens, and suddenly it's June and you can't recall what your resolutions even were. But it doesn't have to be that way. Sometimes the problem isn't a […]
