News
I hate my AI pet with every fiber of my being
I can still hear it whining and whirring. | Photo by Robert Hart / The Verge After a few weeks living with Casio's AI-powered pet, Moflin, I finally understand why my mother hated my Furby so much....
Get a four-pack of first-gen AirTags on sale for only $64
Good deals on Apple products aren’t as frequent as we’d like them to be, but if there’s one of the company’s products that does seem to enjoy pretty regular price cuts, it’s the AirTag. Right now...
Why are Epstein’s emails full of equals signs?
Many of the emails released by the Department of Justice from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein are full of garbled symbols like: Or: The scrambled text is so ubiquitous that it's spurred...
One of the hottest therapy styles is scientifically shaky — so why does it seem to work?
Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has...
AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about video game industry's pushback against generative AI, follow Jay Peters. The...
The real reasons people love playing games
An employee of the Kosmos publishing house plays the board game Settlers of Catan. | Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images Games are often treated as trivial. They can be seen as mere...
Jikipedia turns Epstein’s emails into an encyclopedia of his powerful friends
Lesley Groff, Epstein’s executive assistant. | Image: Jmail The folks behind Jmail are at it again with a clone of Wikipedia that turns the treasure trove of data in Epstein's emails into detailed...
Airbnb is testing out AI search with a 'small percentage' of users
Airbnb plans to double down on artificial intelligence to improve its user experience for both guests and hosts. During a fourth-quarter earnings call, Airbnb's CEO, Brian Chesky, said the...
Disney accuses ByteDance of 'virtual smash-and-grab' when using copyrighted works to train its AI
Disney is going after another generative AI tool, accusing ByteDance and its recently released Seedance 2.0 of using its copyrighted material without permission. As first reported on by Axios, the...
What to read this weekend: The unsettling new horror novel, Persona
Need something new for your reading list? Here are two titles we think are worth checking out. This week, we read Aoife Josie Clements' deeply unsettling Persona, and the first issue of...