Finalisation of pact governing global response to disease outbreaks delayed as talks on how to share benefits stall A key deadline to finalise a global pandemic treaty has been missed by negotiators, prompting warnings that the world remains unprepared for the next major disease outbreak. Countries have been trying to...
Opera singer who hid deafness for 30 years hails ‘life-changing’ surgery
Janine Roebuck, from London, says she no longer considers herself deaf after double cochlear implants restored hearing An opera singer who hid her deafness for more than 30 years has described “life-changing” surgery that has the potential to become the norm for thousands of NHS patients. Janine Roebuck, 72, from...
Google Chrome has been silently pushing a 4GB AI model to your device without asking
Google Chrome users who have noticed unusual disk activity or unexplained drops in available storage should look for a folder called "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" inside their Chrome directory. It holds roughly 4GB of weights for Google's Gemini Nano LLM, downloaded by the browser without user consent. Read Entire Article
The Metal Gear Solid 2 leak is massive and perfectly timed – modders are already dreaming big
The full assets of Metal Gear Solid 2's HD remaster were recently leaked on 4chan. An unnamed party used the notorious imageboard to distribute the source code for every version of the remaster across all supported platforms, including the PlayStation Vita edition. The leak also reportedly includes 30GB of raw,......
Apple and Samsung are dominating smartphone sales so thoroughly that only one other company makes the top 10
The iPhone 17 was the best-selling smartphone in the first quarter, accounting for six percent of global sales. Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max ranked second, followed by the standard iPhone 17 Pro. Samsung grabbed fourth and fifth place with the Galaxy A07 G4 and Galaxy A17 5G, respectively. Read Entire...
Meta is using AI facial analysis to identify underage users on Facebook and Instagram
In a blog post, the Menlo Park-based tech giant said it is developing an advanced AI system to scan photos and videos on Facebook and Instagram, analyzing users' bone structure, height, and other visual cues to estimate their age, while insisting that it is "not facial recognition." The AI will......
The FCC wants to ban Chinese labs from certifying electronics, but 75% of devices are tested there now
Any product that emits radio frequencies must pass through the FCC's equipment authorization process before it can be legally imported or sold in the US. That includes the obvious stuff like phones, tablets, PCs, Wi-Fi routers, along with the growing number of gadgets that insist on adding Bluetooth or Wi-Fi......
California just gave police a way to ticket Waymo and other robotaxis
The change defines how violations are handled when the "driver" is software. The gap has already caused confusion. In San Bruno last year, police stopped a Waymo vehicle after it made an illegal U-turn but were unable to issue a ticket. "Since there was no human driver, a ticket couldn't......
Gearbox boss posts AI image “for fun,” spends hours defending studio’s no-AI policy
The situation started on May 3, when Pitchford's X post showed an AI-generated image. "I asked my primary AI tool to generate a selfie that indicates how they feel based on how I interact with it and this is what it generated (note: background words were not prompted and have......
Unofficial Notepad++ macOS app forced to rebrand after creator objects
The app in question is an independent port built by developer Andrey Letov that aims to replicate the Notepad++ experience on macOS. Notepad++ itself is tightly bound to Windows, with its interface and behavior built around Win32 and the Scintilla editing component. Porting that experience to macOS means re-creating the......