The shot marks 14 years since Curiosity landed on the Martian surface in 2012. NASA created it by merging two black-and-white panoramas from Curiosity’s navigation cameras then added color “for an artistic interpretation of the scene, with blue representing the morning panorama and yellow representing the afternoon one.”
In an age where we all need to touch grass more than ever, I am deeply saddened to hear that author Annie Dillard has died. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is one of the most stunningly beautiful books I’ve ever read — I always keep a few copies on hand to gift to strangers because it’s so meaningful. If you need a break from the relentless tech news cycle, please gift yourself this amazing work and revel alongside the author at the majesty, terror, and redemption provided by our natural world.
[The New York Times]
I am prepping this week’s issue a little early, and I want to know everything you’re into. What are you reading / watching / playing / interested in this week? Tell me so I can tell everyone! (And subscribe to Installer!)
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
The latest trailer for Laika’s next stop-motion epic provides a better look at the fantasy world at its core, including a very charming and distracted dog. The movie hits theaters on October 23rd, and you can read a little more about how it was created right here.
It has officially dethroned Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the highest-grossing domestic release to date, Variety reports. So far, Brand New Day has pulled in over $936 million domestically and $2.45 billion globally, making it the third highest-grossing film of all time, behind Avatar and Avengers: Endgame.
Haters said it was too woke and would go broke, but Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey crossed the billion-dollar mark and hasn’t looked back. Nonetheless, competitors — including Elon Musk — threatened counterprogramming built with AI. Well, the time has come for one of these projects, which is a 150-minute AI-generated film hosted by Fountain 0, available as of today. If you don’t want to pony up for admission, we’ll let you know our thoughts on the film soon.
[Fountain 0]
Swifties with a Premium subscription can watch all 58 of Taylor’s videos in Spotify’s “Switch to video” mode, from her first-ever video for 2006’s “Tim McGraw” to “Opalite.”
Thousands of people were catfished by scammers supercharged with AI.
Apparently that’s what Flock cameras are silently telling themselves about every two minutes. 404 Media and Wired collaborated on reporting about hackers who broke inside the surveillance cameras and picked through their custom Android apps, data collection habits, and machine vision methods. Flock doesn’t seem happy, and the hackers are trying to “keep a low profile.”
Following an already busy year of releases, Xteink’s new S4, which is launching in China first, is the company’s first pocketable E Ink device to run Android 11 giving it access to both the Kindle and Kobo mobile apps. The S4 also features a 4.3-inch frontlit touchscreen, 32GB of storage, a proper USB-C port, and a generous 1,400mAh battery, according to Good e-Reader.
As part of a few new podcast-focused features for Threads, there are new podcast cards that will show up in posts and profiles that make the podcast stand out. Could be useful for creators trying to promote their show.
Nvidia’s CEO has been taking calls from the president recently, including two days ago when he put Trump on speakerphone on a conference stage. Now CNBC reports Huang is expected to attend Trump’s state dinner next week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Someone may be getting pretty nervous about AI and data center regulation!
That’s according to Gal Silver, a technician at GameTraderZero who’s modded and repaired more than 1,000 Switch 2 Joy-Cons over the past year. You can read their findings on NintendoLife but despite using older thumbstick tech, the new Joy-Cons have much improved durability with fewer issues and no instances of “drift issue straight out of the box.”
Alongside the new Palma 3 announced yesterday, Boox’s Picco, a direct competitor to Xteink’s tiny e-readers, is now listed for preorder for $99.99. The Picco has a 3.97-inch, 235ppi, frontlit E Ink touchscreen, physical page turn buttons, and a 920mAh battery. It also uses microSD for storage, and includes a USB-C port for charging.
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The Pro camera’s major upgrade offers minor image quality improvements — whether or not you know what an f-stop is.
As Fire Emblem has gotten bigger, it’s gotten more ambitious, yet the new game is as engrossing as ever.
The industry is in a panic, but it’s been claiming to want legal guardrails for years — with few meaningful results.
Bilal Chughtai and Josh Engels, who both worked on Deepmind’s AI safety team, left to join organizations dedicated to AI safety. “I now think that there’s a terrifying chance that AI systems cause immense harm in the next five years,” said Engels. “I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all,” wrote Chughtai.
[The Information]
The Pixel Watch 2 and later are getting Gemini Personalization, allowing the AI assistant to learn from past conversations and connected Google apps. The 3 and on also get new double-pinch gesture controls, while the 4 gets a performance bump to raise-to-talk. A similar September update is rolling out to Pixel phones too.
[Google Pixel Watch Community]
The EU Kids Act will be formally unveiled tomorrow where it will eventually be put to a vote by the 27 nation bloc. Parent-chaperoned “mini accounts” are proposed for children 13 to 15.
“I am aware that many perceive the power of Big Tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back. I disagree,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualized images.”
The mission will include two firsts if regulators approve the launch window and the weather holds: send Starship into orbit, and insert a few dozen of SpaceX’s larger and more capable V3 satellites into the Starlink constellation for the first time. The 26 satellites on Flight 14 will each add 1 Tbps of capacity to the constellation, boosting total network capacity by about 3 percent on just this one flight.
Sony has two new wireless headsets for PS5 players: the PlayStation Pulse and Pulse Edge. Visually it’s hard to tell the difference between these headsets, apart from the fact the Pulse Edge has a hidden and detachable boom mic (instead of integrated on the Pulse). The Pulse Edge also has eight magnets per planar driver instead of six on the Pulse, active noise cancellation, a carry case, and built-in audio controls on a PS5. They’re both designed to compliment the existing Pulse Elite, and the Pulse will arrive this holiday, followed by the Pulse Edge in early 2027. No exact release dates or pricing yet.
For $79.99 you get a sensor compatible with Thread and Zigbee networks that’s a more private alternative to cameras. It uses mmWave radar to track occupants in real time, and knows if they’re standing, sitting, or lying down. It can also detect falls and count the number of occupants, how long they’ve hung around, and the distance they’ve traveled.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says AI safety is important, but agrees with Trump — the “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT” that removed the word “safety” from the AI Safety Institute — that capitalism’s invisible hand is enough to protect us:
“The fact that we need new laws, new antitrust laws, or new regulations, so that these companies could do their fundamental engineering and do it properly before they release products, that is just completely unnecessary. We have plenty of laws. We have plenty of regulations that govern the reliability and the functionality of products.”
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Elon Musk have tentatively agreed to slow their roll, but Meta seemingly isn’t aligned. Mark Zuckerberg just tweeted each company has its own individual responsibility “to move at the pace required to train its models safely,” and claims Meta is already doing so.
He also prominently links to his manifesto from August, which contains this quote: “Any policy that slows American model releases -- even by a month -- could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead.”
The electric automaker has until September 30th to answer a series of questions about how its steering-wheel- and pedal-less Cybercab complies with federal safety standards.
The lawsuit claims DistroKid has created an “AI-slop pipeline” diverting listeners away from human artists. Universal Music Group, which is launching its own AI music platform, also alleges that DistroKid gives users the “false impression” that the music it distributes is “created and owned by real human artists,” not AI-generated music.
