Once dismissed as inedible 'dog fruit' left for dogs to scavenge, avocados in India began gaining popularity after actress Shilpa Shetty publicised using them for skincare around 2011, sparking demand and rising prices. Plantations like Cottanad in Kerala's Wayanad region, which initially grew avocado trees only for shade, have since expanded cultivation to 40 acres, with output expected to grow fourfold within a few years.
The Public Domain Review has spotlighted photographer John Margolies' extensive documentation of American vernacular roadside architecture, including motels, diners, and novelty buildings. The nonprofit outlet accompanied the feature with an appeal to readers for donations, noting it operates without ads or paywalls.
Restaurants are increasingly using AI image generators to create menu illustrations, and experts say these images share a distinctly artificial sameness—symmetrical, glossy, and subtly wrong. Reality Defender's CTO Alex Lisle explains that because diffusion and language models are trained on massive shared datasets, they converge on a narrow set of 'pleasing' visual patterns rather than genuine food photography.
Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar have introduced legislation that would prohibit companies from developing artificial superintelligence, citing recent incidents where AI systems behaved unpredictably. Sanders argued that AI executives themselves admit they can't fully control their technology, making further advancement irresponsible without safeguards.
RugOne unveiled the Xsnap 7 Pro, a rugged smartphone with IP68/IP69K ratings whose rear camera module detaches to work as a standalone action cam shooting 2.7K video at 30fps. The device launches on Kickstarter September 7 for €799 in limited quantities before a global release in October priced at $999.
Aqara used IFA to introduce a broad range of new smart lighting products, including the 4.6-foot Floor Lamp T1 with RGBIC lighting and 18 addressable zones, outdoor permanent lights, RGBIC string lights, an upgraded LED light strip, and second-generation downlights. All the new devices support Matter through Thread, letting them work with platforms like Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, SmartThings, Home Assistant, and Homey. Aqara has not yet announced pricing or release dates for any of these products.
Lexar announced its Muse Ultra-Slim Portable SSD, arriving later this year in 512GB and 1TB capacities, measuring just 3.8mm at its thickest point and tapering to 1mm at the edges. The drive achieves this by dropping a standard USB-C port in favor of a proprietary magnetic SnapLink cable connecting via pogo pins, while still delivering read speeds up to 1,050MB/s and write speeds up to 1,000MB/s, enough for 4K ProRes video capture at 120fps on compatible iPhones.
Physicians at Houston's Ben Taub Hospital have documented a cluster of previously undiagnosed kidney failure cases among young, otherwise healthy immigrant laborers from Mexico and Central America. Internist Ricardo Nuila suspects these cases resemble chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu), a condition long seen among sugarcane workers in El Salvador and other Central American countries but never before confirmed in the United States. The patients, many employed in physically demanding outdoor jobs like roofing, painting, and road paving, now require dialysis several times a week to survive.
Tesla debuted its driverless Cybercab on public roads in Austin with an unusually low-key event—no livestream, no Elon Musk appearance, and influencers barred from posting until hours later. Roughly 45 of the pedal-less, wheel-less two-seaters are now registered to run on Tesla's robotaxi network in Texas.
The piece traces how Western Electric, the manufacturing backbone that later became central to AT&T's Bell System, was founded in 1872 by Enos Barton and Elisha Gray—the same Gray who disputed Alexander Graham Bell's claim to inventing the telephone. Gray bought out co-founder George Shawk and became half-owner of the firm, partly intending to manufacture his own competing telephone design.
Hugging Face started as a teen chatbot app before pivoting to become a leading hub for open-source AI models and tools. Nvidia has now placed a $13 billion valuation bet on the company, underscoring its shift from novelty app to core AI infrastructure player.
At a San Francisco party marking 50 years since Ted Nelson's Computer Lib/Dream Machines, attendees examined memorabilia and vintage machines running old Xanadu hypertext software, with a former Autodesk-era Xanadu programmer sharing firsthand stories. The event became an occasion for reflecting on why Xanadu, despite its influential vision of hypermedia, never became a practical, widely used system.
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