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Tech News
Shodan, a search engine that indexes internet-connected devices rather than web pages, has surpassed 3 million registered users worldwide. Its user base now includes 89% of Fortune 100 companies, five of the top six cloud providers, and more than 1,000 universities.
Cognitive scientist Anthony Chemero's book 'Intertwined Creatures' argues that much of the current discussion about whether AI can be conscious rests on flawed, outdated notions of human cognition itself. He contends that Western philosophy's traditional model of mind as a detached, disembodied thinker is wrong, and instead proposes that human cognition is embodied, dynamic, and fundamentally shaped by social and environmental interaction.
Researchers extracted mitochondria from a blind woman's leg muscles and injected them into the vitreous fluid of both eyes, after a February brain bleed had damaged her optic nerve and retina and eliminated her pupils' response to light. The procedure, described in an unreviewed preprint posted August 10, caused no inflammation or adverse effects and briefly restored some pupillary light response, though the effect faded within about four weeks and vision was not recovered.
A commentary argues that government contracts, grants and procurement rules for frontier technologies—space, AI and quantum computing—are quietly locking in dominant suppliers rather than fostering open competition. The authors point to the space sector, where repeated launch contracts to the same firms like SpaceX build data and performance advantages that make it harder for rivals to break in, and warn similar patterns are emerging in AI and quantum funding decisions.
OpenAI has rolled out a version of ChatGPT tailored for teenage users, prompting renewed scrutiny over how the company safeguards younger users from harmful content. Critics and safety advocates are questioning whether the age-specific controls are sufficient given ongoing concerns about AI chatbots' interactions with minors.
Apple's iOS settings allow drivers to customize or silence Siri's behavior during CarPlay use, including disabling announced messages, skipping reply confirmations, and preventing Siri from stopping mid-sentence due to background noise. Options are found under Notifications, Accessibility, and Apple Intelligence & Siri menus in the iPhone's Settings app.
A developer released Thoreau BASIC, an interpreter compatible with GW-BASIC that can boot directly on bare-metal UEFI machines, with a Windows version also available. It supports classic BASIC constructs like DEF FN, GOSUB, error trapping, and graphics commands such as PSET, LINE, CIRCLE, and PAINT, working at native framebuffer resolution with 16-color EGA or 24-bit RGB.
Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson, working with the Digital Economy Lab, now says there is no evidence of economy-wide job losses from AI, though entry-level positions remain vulnerable. His updated research finds productivity growth accelerating instead, with nonfarm business productivity rising over 2% annually, the strongest pace since the late 1990s.
Following the Wi-Fi Alliance's early 2024 rollout of the Wi-Fi 7 standard, routers and devices supporting it have become increasingly widespread. The new standard offers faster speeds and better performance in crowded network environments, while remaining backward compatible so older gadgets still connect without issues, albeit without accessing the newest features like 4K-QAM and Multi-Link Operation.
A file claiming to be a 113GB build of Grand Theft Auto VI has been spreading on torrent sites following recent leaks of the game. Independent analysts who examined the download say it is almost entirely padded with empty zeroes and contains a hidden 50KB malicious payload rather than actual game code. The malware reportedly tries to disable Windows Defender protections and kill security processes once executed.
The FCC has retroactively revoked the equipment authorization it granted to Shenzhen Zero Zero Infinity Technology for the HoverAir Versa's Flight Kit, a module that turns the 230g pocket camera into a self-flying drone. The agency says the certification was issued in error since the Flight Kit qualifies as a prohibited foreign-made UAS critical component under its Covered List rules, and it accused HoverAir of willfully skirting the ban. HoverAir has already pulled Flight Kit orders for U.S. backers on its Indiegogo campaign, which had raised over $230,000, citing vague 'logistics updates.'
At the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, the bipedal robot Tiangong Ultra clocked a 9.39-second 100-meter sprint, edging out Honor's Lightning at 9.47 seconds and both beating Usain Bolt's 2009 world record of 9.58 seconds. Neither robot could stop cleanly, with each crashing into padded foam barriers past the finish line.