Poseidon Aerospace, co-founded by David Zagaynov and Parker Tenney, has closed a $60 million Series A round led by TQ Ventures ahead of the first pilotless test flight of its cargo aircraft Egret, expected by year-end. The round also drew new backing from Hanwha Asset Management, G Squared and JAWS, plus continued support from Starship Ventures, Draper Associates and Drover Ventures, building on an $11 million seed raised last year.
Stella Parton, sister of the late singer Dolly Parton, publicly asked fans to stop sharing AI-generated images and fabricated tribute videos following her sister's death. She said the flood of fake content, including AI images shared even by President Trump, has made it difficult for the family to grieve and process the loss.
New research on both partial and full self-driving systems shows sharp safety gains. IIHS and Highway Loss Data Institute studies found automatic emergency braking and bundled ADAS features cut pedestrian crashes, rear-end collisions, and insurance claims by double-digit percentages. Waymo's own analysis of 20 million paid rides found a 92 percent drop in fatal or serious-injury crashes compared with human drivers.
NextEra Energy has received a $1.9 billion loan from the US Department of Energy to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center, a 615-megawatt nuclear plant in Iowa that was shut down after storm damage in 2020. Google will buy power from the reopened plant to run its AI data centers, with NextEra targeting a restart by 2029 and citing job creation and grid reliability benefits.
A team of developers has completed a full decompilation of Super Smash Bros Melee, converting Nintendo's 2001 GameCube fighter into readable C code that compiles into a binary identical to the original main.dol. The project, hosted on the doldecomp/melee GitHub page, took over six years and reportedly used OpenAI's Astra to help finish the work.
Nintendo confirmed during a 40th anniversary Zelda Direct that its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will launch on Switch 2 on November 5. The remake overhauls the 1998 N64 classic's graphics while adding new features like a jump button, expanded NPC dialogue, a Threads of Time guidance system, and the ability to hum melodies for Link to play on his ocarina. It will cost $59.99 digitally or $69.99 for a limited physical edition.
A new Bloomberg report says Apple began exploring foldable iPhone technology around 2016, but Tim Cook's personal enthusiasm after a trip to China in 2020 redirected the project toward a foldable phone rather than a foldable iPad. Rising component costs, partly driven by a memory shortage, have reportedly pushed Apple's internal pricing target from $1,999 up to $2,199, with higher-storage models potentially nearing $3,000.
The ShinyHunters extortion group says it broke into Florida's DAVID driver database used by law enforcement, allegedly exploiting a password-reset weakness to hijack multiple accounts, including one belonging to an FBI agent. The hackers claim to have exfiltrated over 200,000 driver records and posted Jeffrey Epstein's DMV file—complete with his address, Social Security number, and vehicle history—as proof, while listing the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles agency on their leak site to pressure payment.
Windows 11 users can update graphics card drivers either through Settings > Windows Update or via Device Manager, where selecting the GPU under Display adapters and choosing 'Search automatically for drivers' triggers an update. However, Windows Update sometimes installs outdated driver versions rather than the newest ones available.
Stoke Space announced a $1 billion Series E funding round co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, bringing its total funding to $2.3 billion. CEO Andy Lapsa said the money will accelerate development of a bigger 'Block 2' version of its Nova rocket capable of lifting 15 metric tons to low-Earth orbit while remaining fully reusable, even as the original Nova vehicle nears its debut launch next year.
OpenAI confirmed an ongoing outage causing errors in ChatGPT's image generation and its Images API, along with failures and delays when users try to upload files. Hundreds of users reported the problems on DownDetector, and OpenAI says it is still assessing mitigation efforts as some requests continue to fail.
Sony Japan published a policy on September 1 defining customer harassment and warning it will restrict or suspend support for customers who cross the line, including abusive language, excessive demands, or intimidating behavior toward staff. The move comes after intense customer anger over Sony's plan to stop producing physical PlayStation discs by January 2028, a decision already facing several lawsuits.