UK’s secret iCloud backdoor order triggers civil rights challenge

March 14, 2025

The U.K. government’s secret order to Apple demanding it backdoor the end-to-end encrypted version of its iCloud storage service has now been challenged by two civil rights groups, Liberty and Privacy International, which filed complaints Thursday. They called the order “unacceptable and disproportionate” and warned of “global consequences” as the access order is thought to […]

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Trump family is reportedly in talks to acquire stake in Binance’s US arm

March 14, 2025

President Trump’s family has been weighing an investment in Binance.US, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The investment would come just a couple of years after Binance’s U.S. arm pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering regulation. As part of that guilty plea, Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, paid a […]

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SoftBank buys $676M old Sharp plant for its OpenAI collab in Japan

March 14, 2025

SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. On Friday, the tech company confirmed it would pay $676 million for factory previously used by Sharp to build LCD panels to convert […]

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Waymo was slapped with nearly 600 parking tickets last year in SF alone

March 14, 2025

Waymo now has more than 300 driverless vehicles zipping passengers around San Francisco, but while they follow traffic laws, parking is another matter entirely. According to city records cited by the Washington Post, these rolling robots racked up 589 citations totaling $65,065 in fines last year for parking violations that ranged from blocking traffic to […]

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Anti-aging zealot Bryan Johnson wants to start ‘foodome sequencing’

March 14, 2025

In the same way that genome sequencing determines the genetic makeup of an organism, Bryan Johnson — the investor and founder behind the Don’t Die movement – wants to start “foodome” sequencing.  “We’re going to sequence the U.S. ‘foodome,’ which means test 20% of foods that constitute 80% of the American diet based on stuff […]

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Sesame, the startup behind the viral virtual assistant Maya, releases its base AI model

March 13, 2025

AI company Sesame has released the base model that powers Maya, the impressively realistic voice assistant. The model, which is 1 billion parameters in size (“parameters” referring to individual components of the model), is under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially with few restrictions. Called CSM-1B, the model generates “RVQ audio codes” from text […]

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Sesame, the startup behind the viral virtual assistant Maya, open-sources its base AI model

March 13, 2025

Sesame, the AI company behind the impressively realistic voice assistant Maya, has released the base AI model powering Maya — as it recently promised. The model, which is 1 billion parameters in size (“parameters” referring to the components of the model), is under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially with few […]

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Rad Power Bikes already has a new CEO

March 13, 2025

Rad Power Bikes has named a new CEO, just a few days after its previous leader stepped down. The e-bike company has tapped Kathi Lentzsch, who has spent the last few decades helping turn around underperforming companies in both the consumer and B2B spaces. The change comes as Rad Power continues to shift away from […]

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