A Mother Jones investigation found 19 police agencies in ten states spent nearly $1 million of opioid settlement money on automatic license plate readers from companies like Flock and Axon. The funds were originally allocated to help communities devastated by the opioid crisis, but state distribution agencies instead routed portions to police departments, which pitched surveillance tech as a crime-fighting tool.
Google has made Dreambeans, an AI-powered app that mines Gmail, Calendar, Photos, YouTube and search history for personalized suggestions, available to free Google Account holders in the US after previously charging for it. The app uses Google's Personal Intelligence feature to generate a limited daily set of 10 to 14 story-like recommendations, each illustrated with AI-generated artwork rather than stock photos, and includes a chat tool for follow-up questions and feedback controls to refine future suggestions.
Google has published troubleshooting guidance for Android Auto users experiencing connection issues, covering both wired and wireless setups. The advice includes checking cables and ports for damage, using data-capable cables under six feet, and toggling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to force a manual reconnection.
The Open Battery Information project has retired its old Python/Tkinter desktop app in favor of a new web-based interface, OBI-1, that connects directly to an Arduino or ESP32-C3 via Web Serial. The tool lets users read and reset battery management system (BMS) faults without installing any software, including flashing firmware straight from the browser.
A $1 auto insurance fee approved by Texas lawmakers in 2023 to fight catalytic converter theft has instead financed a massive expansion of Flock license-plate cameras across the state. The Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority, chaired by Laredo Police Chief Miguel Rodriguez, has issued 95 grants and partnered with the Department of Public Safety to fund roughly 3,200 cameras, with hundreds more planned along tollways. Following inquiries from The Texas Tribune, Gov. Greg Abbott's office announced it is pausing state funding for local Flock camera grants.
A Washington Post analysis found that conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles, not electric cars, account for most of the 3.4 million vehicles under active 'park outside' recalls due to fire risk while parked and off. NHTSA has issued 93 such recalls since 2021, with incidents including Kia Tellurides with overheating seat switches and Ford Expeditions with faulty circuit boards linked to at least 16 fires.
Laytr is a new iPhone app that lets users save links, screenshots, and other content via the native share sheet, then organize them into Now, Timeline, and Library tabs for later reference. Unlike most bookmarking tools, it stores everything locally on-device with no accounts or iCloud syncing involved.
An engineer upgrading a MySQL database via a replica discovered that a table's auto-incrementing primary key was assigned in a different row order on the replica than on the source. Because six related tables had been migrated to reference these new IDs, one of them ended up pointing to completely wrong rows after the switchover, while the other five happened to remain correct.
The Washington Post reports that private conversations users have had with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude are increasingly surfacing as evidence in court proceedings. In one case, a financial executive facing federal fraud charges tried to shield his Claude conversations from prosecutors, but a judge ruled that attorney-client privilege did not apply since the chatbot is not a lawyer and his own attorneys hadn't directed him to use it.
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other music publishers have filed suit against Anthropic and its co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann in a California federal court, accusing the AI company of torrenting and scraping copyrighted song lyrics and sheet music to train its Claude models. Anthropic says it disagrees with the claims and plans to fight the case in court.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Kalshi's bid to stop Nevada from regulating its prediction market operations, siding with the state's gambling regulators and attorney general who sued Kalshi in February for allegedly operating without a sports gambling license. The ruling adds to a patchwork of conflicting state and federal legal outcomes for Kalshi, which also faces action from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and Arizona, even as a separate court found New Jersey lacks authority to regulate the platform.
At Copenhagen's TechBBQ conference, founders and investors repeatedly returned to questions of AI sovereignty, spurred by an earlier incident where Anthropic's models Mythos and Fable became unavailable to users outside Europe. Attendees debated whether Europe should build and own its own AI infrastructure rather than depend on U.S. and Chinese providers, with reactions ranging from serious concern to relative indifference.
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