Meta’s Reality Labs division has revealed new prototypes in its roadmap toward lightweight, hyper-realistic virtual reality graphics. The breakthroughs remain far from consumer-ready, but the designs — codenamed Butterscotch, Starburst, Holocake 2, and Mirror Lake — could add up to a slender, brightly lit headset that supports finer detail than Read more…
Google engineer Blake Lemoine thinks Google’s chatbot-building system LaMDA attained sentience. But Bloomberg shares this rebuttal from Google spokesperson Chris Pappas. “Hundreds of researchers and engineers have conversed with LaMDA and we are not aware of anyone else making the wide-ranging assertions, or anthropomorphizing LaMDA, the way Blake has….” Yet Read more…
“A Google software engineer was suspended after going public with his claims of encountering ‘sentient’ artificial intelligence on the company’s servers,” writes Bloomberg, “spurring a debate about how and whether AI can achieve consciousness.” “Researchers say it’s an unfortunate distraction from more pressing issues in the industry.” Google put him Read more…
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has received unanimous approval to expand its system of tunnels beneath downtown Las Vegas. The expansion will add stops at landmarks like the Stratosphere and Fremont Street, letting customers hop aboard a Tesla and travel from one part of the city to the next. The network Read more…
For Jung Ki-young, a South Korean software engineer, Microsoft’s decision to retire its Internet Explorer web browser marked the end of a quarter-century love-hate relationship with the technology. To commemorate its demise, he spent a month and 430,000 won ($330) designing and ordering a headstone with Explorer’s “e” logo and Read more…
As the Supreme Court’s expected decision to overturn Roe v. Wade looms over Washington, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has announced sweeping legislation to ban the sale of location and health data. Warren’s Health and Location Protection Act — cosponsored by a slate of Democratic senators, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Read more…
A tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information — including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments — and sending it to Facebook. The Markup tested the websites of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America. On 33 of them we found Read more…