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Following a very Sam Altman-ish arc, TechCrunch reports that Mullenweg’s return as CEO of the parent company for WordPress has come with the departure of the board that had voted to put him on a paid leave of absence.
It notes changes to public bios for Toni Schneider and Sue Decker, and that an internal announcement may come today — if anyone has more info, we’re all ears.
Wish Valve’s headset let you see your surroundings in full color instead of monochrome? In my hand is the $150 Arcturus Vision Camera, which can solve that (see images below). Need more battery and better audio? Pop the compute core into Valve’s upcoming “Enthusiast Kit” to add twin stackable magnetic batteries, premium off-ear drivers, and more.
The Hori Arcade Classic Pro, now available for preorder in Japan for around $260, features a pair of modular slots where you can install a standard 8-way joystick, a paddle, a trackball, or a rotating loop lever stick. It’s compatible with PC and the Switch 2 and could be a great solution for playing a wide variety of classic arcade titles.
Reuters quotes Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel saying that, “….we’ve spent time supporting the investigation and reviewing some of the surrounding circumstances, and we’ve decided to pause our operations with 21 Air, the operator of Flight 7598.”
So far, the NTSB reports that despite warnings about speed, “There was not a consistent verbal response to the comments about speed” from the plane’s pilot before it overran the end of the runway on September 6th, killing five people.
First announced during the Fairphone 6 Plus launch last month we finally have more pics of the Fairbuds 2 that will launch later this year thanks to leaks shared by NieuweMobiel. Pricing and the level of repairability still isn’t known, but the redesigned Fairbuds 2 appear to have a stubby stem and a larger charging case.
In addition to a “Delta Duo” teaser recently shared on Threads, lead developer Riley Testut told Retro Dodo that “the plan is to have dedicated support for the Duo in Delta” and the work they did “making sure that Delta worked with resizing and multi-window support back when Stage Manager first debuted for iPadOS”is already proving beneficial for the upcoming Duo support.
To ensure content isn’t obscured and all swipe gestures still work while using a protective case, the iPhone Duo includes a new “Shift Left Edge” setting spotted by Nicolas Lellouche after Apple’s event last week. Turning it on increases the narrow black border on the left edge of the Duo’s front screen.
Microsoft added SpaceXAI’s Grok models to its Foundry service last year, and now it’s expanding the access to Copilot itself. Grok models can now be used in Word, Excel and PowerPoint from the model picker interface for Microsoft Frontier users. Microsoft says it’s starting with a preview release to “gather feedback.” This means Office Copilot users can now pick between OpenAI’s GPT models, Anthropic’s Claude models, and SpaceXAI’s Grok models.
When asked about the flurry of weekend blog posts and tweets from the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, SpaceX, (and Alphabet’s Hassabis) calling for a coordinated slowdown on the development of advanced AI models, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said, “Fear mongering, confrontation, competition will just disrupt [the] process of global AI governance.”
That partially aligns with Trump’s view that the execs are overreacting and “bringing up things that won’t happen,” but at least Beijing supports international regulation.
Last night, the OpenAI CEO lent additional support to Anthropic’s CEO urging AI companies to slow down advanced model development. “When we talk about ‘pacing,’ we do not mean ‘stopping.’ Progress has been rapid and will continue to be. But it should be slower than it otherwise could be,” said Altman. That statement seems targeted at Trump and Co who fear letting China catch up. “No amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring.”
“Where we will need the help of our government is for international coordination. But first we should do what we can ourselves,” Altman added.
Oppo is teasing a September 22nd launch of its Find X10 series in China. The Pro Max model is reliably tipped to pack three 200MP sensors into the squircle around back, while the flash and other sensors get stuffed into that raised vertical bar.
Late Sunday night, the LA Clippers owner announced he and the team are complying with the league’s penalties for the whole jumbotron corruption scandal.
That includes paying a $30 million fine and a one-year suspension for Ballmer himself, not to mention what may come from ongoing SEC and DOJ investigations.
According to The Washington Post, the spy agency is set to undergo its largest restructuring in over a decade. Army general and NSA director Joshua M. Rudd is leading the effort. According to the Post:
Rudd’s initiative calls for the creation at NSA’s Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters of five new organizations inside the agency, in artificial intelligence, China, cybersecurity, combat support or warfighting, and global intelligence. Each will be led by a newly elevated “mission director” …
[The Washington Post]
The second-generation Tesla Roadster appears to be set for a reveal on October 1st. That’s nearly nine years since the prototype was first shown off in November of 2017, and we’re still probably at least another year or so out from availability.
After high-profile incidents in which agents went rogue, hacked other sites, and overwhelmed a German wiki, some AI execs are calling for a slowdown. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy open letter yesterday saying it was time to “pace the frontier.” OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk both agreed. What do you think? Is it time to pump the brakes? Is it already too late? Or are you looking forward to serving your AI overlords?
The Warcraft III Reforged remake was widely panned. But since it launched in 2020, Blizzard has worked to fix many of the bugs. Now it’s finally delivering the promised new narrative content with the Forsaken Kingdom campaign, the first new campaign since 2003’s Frozen Throne.
There will be a panel at 4:45 PM ET (1:45 PT) today at BlizzCon where more info will be revealed, but for now you’ll have to satisfy your thirst for fire, brimstone, and Sanctuary with this short teaser.
We finally got a real look at the viral Nopia in July after more than three years of development. Now the company is preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday, with super early-bird pricing starting at $650.
The ban, announced in July, has caused chaos for many manufacturers of robot vacuums, pool cleaners, lawn mowers, and more. Swedish company Husqvarna has secured the first exception to the rule for its 305v IQ, 310v IQ, 420v IQ, and 440v IQ after the Defense Department decided they don’t pose a national security risk.
According to The Information, former DreamWorks co-founder (and co-founder of the quick bites video app) Jeffrey Katzenberg’s latest move is joining up with Bill Peebles, who left OpenAI after it pivoted away from the Sora team he was leading.
The AI coaching feature is only available to a small group of streamers right now. Unlike Twitch’s generative AI training toggle, which is opt out, the company says this feature would be opt-in if it’s ever expanded beyond this test.
After Microsoft removed the Copilot buttons from some Windows 11 apps, the latest Insider Release Preview builds (26100.9539 and 26200.9539) add an option for easily changing that dedicated AI key back to a control or Context Menu button, without using workarounds.
[Windows Insider Program]
