Category: Uncategorized

One of Nintendo’s best and most influential controllers is making a comeback on Switch 2, alongside a host of classic games.

Plus: Another DOGE operative allegedly has a history in the hacking world, and Donald Trump’s national security adviser apparently had way more Signal chats than previously known.

Multiple US states have logged record pollen counts this spring, with climate change likely to blame.

Effie Webb / Business Insider: Leaked docs show Outlier and Scale AI use freelancers to write prompts about suicide, abuse, and terrorism to stress-test AI, urging creativity but banning CSAM  —  – BI obtained training docs showing how freelancers stress-test AI with “harmful” prompts.  — Outlier and Scale AI use freelancers …

Bloomberg: Analysis: tech companies have pledged at least $1.4T in US spending since Trump was elected, although many of the plans aren’t new and not all will be fulfilled  —  Business leaders have pledged at least $1.6 trillion in US spending since Trump was elected to a second term as president.

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Crunchbase: global VC funding reached $113B in Q1 2025, up 54% YoY, buoyed by OpenAI’s $40B deal; PitchBook says 77% of US deal value in Q1 2025 went to AI  —  New reports out today from Crunchbase Inc. and PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor reveal that global venture capital rebounded sharply …

As AI developers harvest Wikipedia content to train their models, the resulting surge in automated traffic is driving up costs for the non-profit that runs the popular crowdsourced encyclopaedia

A successful reflight of SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster would be an important milestone for its Starship program.

A DOGE operative at the Department of Veterans Affairs appears to be trying to use an AI tool to write code for the agency’s systems, among other proposals.

In an unprecedented move, Nintendo has pushed preorders for its highly anticipated Switch 2 to an unknown date. Why? Trump’s tariffs.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire: Ring founder Jamie Siminoff rejoins Amazon as a VP of product overseeing Ring and related businesses, replacing Elizabeth Hamren, who succeeded him in 2023  —  Jamie Siminoff has returned to Amazon as a vice president of product overseeing the company’s home security camera arm and related businesses.

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Amazon introduces a Kindle Recaps feature that uses GenAI and moderators to create short summaries of books in a series  —  Amazon is introducing a new “Recaps” feature for Kindle users to help them recall plot points and character arcs before picking up the latest book in a series.

Fareed Sahloul / Bloomberg: Sources: StubHub, Klarna, eToro, and adtech group MNTN have paused their IPO plans as President Trump’s trade war upends the global economy  —  Billions of dollars worth of acquisitions and initial public offerings are on hold as Donald Trump’s trade war upends the global economy …

In the 1800’s the Greenwich Time Lady would take her stopwatch to the Royal Observatory, then travel all over London so her clients could synchronise their timepieces with hers

Three strategies managers can use to free up bandwidth.

Frequent and capricious shifts in priorities can overwhelm your organization.

Meta’s in-app chatbot add-on is rolling out in more countries. Here’s what you need to know, including how to get rid of it.

Stay well on the web with Opera Air, a browser that plays soothing ambient music and encourages you to take breaks.

If you own a reMarkable tablet, this update just made your digital notebook a whole lot more useful.

Foreign Affairs: Big Tech risks losing access to Europe by embracing Trump, pushing Europe to build its own companies and platforms and letting Chinese companies expand access  —  How Silicon Valley Got Entangled in Geopolitics—and Lost  —  Technology companies such as Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI need to wake up to an unpleasant reality.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Google hasn’t released safety reports for its latest models, like Gemini 2.5 Pro and 2.0 Flash, raising concerns that it is prioritizing speed over transparency  —  More than two years after Google was caught flat-footed by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the company has dramatically picked up the pace.

Pew Research Center: Survey: 35% of US adults say AI will have a negative impact in the US over the next 20 years, while 56% of AI experts say AI will have a positive impact  —  The public and experts are far apart in their enthusiasm and predictions for AI.  But they share similar views […]

When the International Maritime Organization enacted a mandatory cap on the sulfur content of marine fuels in 2020, with an eye toward reducing harmful environmental and health impacts, it left shipping companies with three main options. They could burn low-sulfur fossil fuels, like marine gas oil, or install cleaning systems to remove sulfur from the […]

Due to the inherent ambiguity in medical images like X-rays, radiologists often use words like “may” or “likely” when describing the presence of a certain pathology, such as pneumonia. But do the words radiologists use to express their confidence level accurately reflect how often a particular pathology occurs in patients? A new study shows that […]

The US is barreling toward a recession for no good reason, and dragging the world—and a few thousand penguins on remote Antarctic islands—down with it.

A Complete Unknown, Anora, and Jurassic Park are just a few of the movies you need to watch on Hulu right now.

The hoodie is a work-from-home security blanket. But in the office, it’s a trap.

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally: TikTok tests TikTok for Artists, which provides musicians with analytics and fan engagement tools, in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia  —  – Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)  —  Music Ally NEXT 2025: Early Bird tickets on sale now – at […]

Will Oremus / Washington Post: An increasingly vocal contingent of GOP leaders, some of whom attended Y Combinator’s Little Tech Competition Summit, call for antitrust action against Big Tech  —  Just now  —  The Washington Post’s essential guide to tech policy news  —  Happy Thursday!

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: A researcher says changes in X’s web app show X plans to let Verified Organizations bid on abandoned X handles with prices ranging from $10,000 to $500,000+  —  X’s plan to boost revenue by selling off dormant usernames on its service is starting to shape up.

A cost-cutting initiative in the world of passenger aviation could see flight-deck staff reduced to just a captain, with their co-pilot replaced by AI. It may save money, but it’s a risk too far, argues Paul Marks

The process of catalysis — in which a material speeds up a chemical reaction — is crucial to the production of many of the chemicals used in our everyday lives. But even though these catalytic processes are widespread, researchers often lack a clear understanding of exactly how they work. A new analysis by researchers at […]

For over a decade, through a collaboration managed by MIT.nano, MIT and Tecnológico de Monterrey (Tec), one of the largest universities in Latin America, have worked together to develop innovative academic and research initiatives with a particular focus in nanoscience and nanotechnology and, more recently, an emphasis on design and smart manufacturing. Now, the collaboration […]

Renewable power sources have seen unprecedented levels of investment in recent years. But with political uncertainty clouding the future of subsidies for green energy, these technologies must begin to compete with fossil fuels on equal footing, said participants at the 2025 MIT Energy Conference. “What these technologies need less is training wheels, and more of […]

Don’t forget: the employees are a huge part of what made the company attractive in the first place.

Four ways companies can creatively leverage knowledge, expertise, and capabilities—even without owning them.

These are the best umbrellas we’ve tested. They’ll protect you from showers and heavy rain and will hold up for the long haul.

Get 50% off select appliances, 15% off most regular-price items, free delivery, and other great savings today on WIRED.

An art studio hopes its concept for a phone case that can flip around to cover most of your screen will help cure your screen addiction.

Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg: Sources: Ireland’s DPC will fine TikTok €500M+ before the end of April for illegally shipping European users’ data to China, after a lengthy investigation  —  The penalty is likely to be the third highest ever dished out by the Irish watchdog following earlier fines of €746 million …

Financial Times: Plaid raised $575M at a $6.1B valuation, below its peak $13B+ valuation in 2021, mostly to cover employees’ tax bills for those converting RSUs to common stock  —  Pioneer of open banking will use $575mn raised from BlackRock and others to cover employee taxes and share buybacks

Bloomberg: Sources: Microsoft has halted talks for, or delayed development of, data center projects in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, Illinois, North Dakota, and Wisconsin  —  The software company has recently halted talks for, or delayed development of, sites in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, Illinois …

In February 2024, Reddit struck a $60 million deal with Google to let the search giant use data on the platform to train its artificial intelligence models. Notably absent from the discussions were Reddit users, whose data were being sold. The deal reflected the reality of the modern internet: Big tech companies own virtually all […]

The Heard and McDonald Islands are among the dozens of targets of President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs. But they have no exports, because no one lives there.

Tim Stokely partnered with a crypto company to bid for TikTok as the social media company faces a deadline to either sell or be banned in the US. Amazon also placed a last-minute bid.

A lawyer for Xiaofeng Wang and his wife says they are “safe” after FBI searches of their homes and Wang’s sudden dismissal from Indiana University, where he taught for over 20 years.

Spencer Soper / Bloomberg: The White House says “de minimis” exemptions for packages under $800 from China and Hong Kong will end on May 2, affecting Temu, Shein, and other marketplaces  —  De minimis tariff exemptions, which currently allow packages worth as much as $800 from China and Hong Kong to enter the US duty […]

Tripp Mickle / New York Times: Apple shares drop 7%+ after hours following Trump’s announcement that the US will impose tariffs of 46% on Vietnam, 26% on India, and an additional 34% on China  —  The iPhone maker spent years trying to move production of some products out of China to avoid tariffs.  But now […]

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Tech stocks fall in late trading after President Trump announced new tariffs: Amazon drops as much ~7%, Meta ~5%, Nvidia ~5%, Alphabet ~4%, and Microsoft ~3%  —  Apple slid more than 6% in late trading Wednesday and led a broader decline in tech stocks after President Donald Trump announced …

A more precise definition of the second is crucial to all sorts of physical measurements – but to get there, scientists have to pack up their extraordinarily fragile optical clocks and take them on tour