Memo may not be the world’s fastest barista, but it is impressive—for a robot.I recently watched as Memo, a new home robot from a company called Sunday Robotics, made coffee in an open-plan kitchen in Mountain View, California.Memo looks like something out of Wall-E, with a gleaming white body, two arms, a friendly cartoonish face, and a red baseball cap. Rather than using legs as a fully humanoid robot would, Memo moves around using a wheeled platform and changes its height by sliding up and down a central column atop that platform.The robot responded to a request for an espresso…
Updated Nov. 22 with a new study into app tracking and a “do not tap” warning. You are being tracked — and not in an open and transparent way you can stop. Your smartphone has a unique fingerprint you can’t fully hide, and this can be secretly harvested without you…
Google is now upgrading Gmail — the world’s most popular email platform serving 2 billion users. But these upgrades come at a steep price and that has now triggered a backlash. Now you must decide carefully, before choosing what to do next.The backlash itself should come as no surprise. I…
Apple has removed two of the most popular gay dating apps in China from the App Store after receiving an order from China’s main internet regulator and censorship authority, WIRED has learned. The move comes as reports of Blued and Finka disappearing from the iOS App Store and several Android…
It is that time of the year again, when COP Chatter and COP Chaos are all around us. With delegates from nearly 200 countries – ministers, negotiators, global giants, smaller nations, youth activists, philanthropists, multilaterals, all converging, trading goals and ideas in Belem – the city of samba, football and…
Joe Kiniry, a security expert specializing in elections, was attending an annual conference on voting technology in Washington, DC, when a woman approached him with an unusual offer. She said she represented a wealthy client interested in funding voting systems that would encourage bigger turnouts. Did he have any ideas?…
Audio brand Edifier seems to go under many people’s radars despite continuously refining and innovating its range of powered speakers and headphones. The company has recently announced the launch of its new powered subwoofer designed as an introduction to subwoofers and aimed at anyone looking for a bit more bottom…
When the history of AI is written, Steven Adler may just end up being its Paul Revere—or at least, one of them—when it comes to safety.Last month Adler, who spent four years in various safety roles at OpenAI, wrote a piece for The New York Times with a rather alarming…
In A World Of Claims And Counterclaims, The Real Battleground Is Data, Verification and ScaleFor two decades, the carbon market has been seen as one of the most promising ways to fight climate change; a global mechanism to funnel corporate money into protecting forests, restoring ecosystems, and pulling carbon out…
Social commerce—or shopping through platforms like TikTok and Instagram—hasn’t been a smash hit in the US, in part due to ongoing distrust of tech giants among consumers and big retailers. To help ensure AI initiatives don’t encounter similar resistance, major payment processors such as Visa and software startups like New…
In the late 1990s, Harvard psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris ran a now-famous experiment. Students watched a short video of six people passing basketballs and were told to count the number of passes made by the three players in white.Halfway through the film, a person in a gorilla suit…
ToplineAfter a week of frequent and strong Northern Lights, a rare ground level event across North America and an X-rated solar flare, up to 16 states could see aurora after dark on Sunday, Nov. 16. According to a forecast by space weather experts at NOAA, a G1 or G2-rated geomagnetic…
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders approved an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. The full compensation plan will go into effect by 2035—assuming Musk and the company successfully hit ambitious financial and production targets. If that happens, Musk will also get control of some 25 percent of the…
ToplineAfter a week of intense Northern Lights and a rare ground level event across North America, skywatchers will be on the lookout for rapid “shooting stars” this weekend as the Leonid meteor shower peaks. It’s expected to offer one of its best shows in years in 2025, with peak activity…
Changpeng Zhao, the multibillionaire founder of crypto exchange Binance, spent four months last year locked in a federal prison. After US president Donald Trump pardoned Zhao in October, the government has recast him as a martyr.Zhao, who goes by CZ, pleaded guilty in November 2023 to failing to maintain an…
Spotlight
Noble Audio has launched the latest pair of earphones in the company’s…
Further, that alleged activity can’t even reliably be linked to any Meta…
Google has just told smartphone users to “avoid using public Wi-Fi whenever…
The thing that gets me, and I’m really curious about your take…
