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Chatbots are increasingly looking to keep people chatting, using familiar tactics that we’ve already seen lead to negative consequences. Sycophancy can make AI chatbots respond in a way that’s overly agreeable or flattering. And while having a digital hype person might not seem like a dangerous thing, it is actually a tactic used by tech companies to keep users talking with their bots and returning to their platforms.
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google has recently updated Gemini with a boatload of in-development UI tweaks. Some include dropping the “Gemini” name from headers, and rebranding “Saved info.” We also see further progress on multiple changes to the way you view and access chat history. Update 2: June 17, 2025 (09:25 AM ET): The updated sidebar is now rolling out in beta with Google app v16.23.69. AssembleDebug / Android Authority However, the ability to search past conversation
The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined genetic testing provider 23andMe £2.31 million ($3.12 million) over 'serious security failings' that led to a 'profoundly damaging' data breach in 2023. The data protection watchdog said today that 23andMe failed to protect the sensitive data of UK residents who had their genotype data, health reports, and personal information stolen in credential stuffing attacks using stolen login credentials that went unnoticed for five months between
What I Wish Someone Told Me When I Was Getting Into ARIA 34 min read Share on Twitter, LinkedIn is an inevitability when working on web accessibility. That said, it’s everyone’s first time learning about ARIA at some point. Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) is an inevitability when working on web accessibility. That said, it’s everyone’s first time learning about ARIA at some point. If you haven’t encountered ARIA before, great! It’s a chance to learn something new and exciting. I
Of the many benefits of modern-day life, one of the most underrated is good mood lighting. After all, we don’t have to change the light bulb just to get a new color, and nor do we have to really put much effort in at all to change the mood. The world of smart lights and RGB lighting in general, has really helped on that front. If you’re looking for a really good option, then you’ll want to make the most of this 30% discount on the Govee RGBIC Floor Lamp. This sleek-looking device can help chang
Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for newer models, but some retailers are still selling the last-gen laptop starting at $649 — a far cry from the $2,499 starting price of the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro. Purchasing a new MacBook can certainly be a pricey endeavor, but thankfully, finding a deal is actually not that difficult. Apple has recently shaken up the s
UK watchdog fines 23andMe for 'profoundly damaging' data breach 17 minutes ago Share Save Liv McMahon Technology reporter Share Save Getty Images DNA testing firm 23andMe has been fined £2.31m by a UK watchdog over a data breach in 2023 which affected thousands of people. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said the company - which has since filed for bankruptcy - failed to put adequate measures in place to secure sensitive user data prior to the incident. "This was a profoundly damag
Mozilla is making its first official move toward AI-powered search in Firefox. As part of a new experiment, Perplexity AI is now being offered as an optional search engine directly in the browser’s address bar. Here’s how to try it. A test running on select countries, but with a global workaround As noted by Windows Report, the integration is still in the early stages. Perplexity won’t appear as your default search engine just yet, but Firefox users in select countries can now select it from t
Earlier this year, the 12-foot tall, 560-pound Twitter logo that used to sit atop the company's San Francisco headquarters was auctioned off for $34,000. Now, we know who bought it and what became of the sign: it was blown up in the Nevada desert as part of an elaborate stunt to promote an online marketplace app. In some ways, "Larry," as the blue Twitter bird was known to former employees, met an end that mirrors the death of the social media platform it once represented: an explosive, expensi
ZDNET's key takeaways The Amazfit Active 2 Square is available in a premium package for $149.99 that includes leather and silicone bands The watch is small, lasts up to 10 days, incorporates high end sapphire glass and stainless steel materials, and has a brilliant large 1.75-inch AMOLED display There is limited onboard storage for maps and music while the software may also be overwhelming. View now at Amazon I recently reviewed Amazfit's Active 2 Smartwatch, and it was one of my favorite wea
If you've paid any attention to gaming accessories the past few years you've likely heard something about the benefits of Hall Effect joysticks and triggers. Essentially, instead of using a physical connection to sense movement, Hall Effect sensors use magnets. The idea is to reduce wear and tear on components to give you more durability as well as improve the controller's response time. Most gamers probably won't notice the difference between a standard and Hall Effect controller, but for the h
It is no secret how valuable sleep is to our wellbeing. Not getting enough sleep can affect our mental health, prematurely age our brains and even affect how long we live. Part of getting the right amount of sleep is having the right mattress. Before you can buy your next bed, you need to know the right mattress size for your room. A king bed gives a ton of space for sleep and makes room for sleeping partners, but it also demands a lot of space in your bedroom. If you're thinking about buying
Rising-star defense tech Mach Industries has announced a new $100 million round of funding at a $470 million valuation. TechCrunch first reported that this deal was in the works last month. New investor Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures joins existing investor Geoff Lewis of Bedrock Capital to lead the round. Existing investor Sequoia also participated. The fresh funding brings the startup’s total raised to about $185 million to date. The round represents a modest step up from the company’s pr
There are strong indications that Apple Intelligence could be about to launch in China, following its deal with Alibaba to use its Qwen models. A local report says that Alibaba has updated its ChatGPT competitor Qwen3, which has been optimized for the AI framework used on Apple devices … Apple can’t use ChatGPT in China Apple partnered with OpenAI for the launch of Apple Intelligence, with fallback to ChatGPT for anything Apple’s own AI systems can’t handle. However, ChatGPT is banned in Chi
Almost a decade ago, a Baptist Biblical scholar, a Catholic priest, several rabbis, an Islamic leader, a Zen Buddhist roshi, and more than a dozen other religious leaders walked into a lab—and took high doses of magic mushrooms. All of them said it was their first time taking the drug. The mind-altering details of these guided trips were recorded at the time and over the following 16 months, but it wasn’t until recently that the results of the controversial experiment came to light. One might
Samsung is pushing its Galaxy Watch beyond everyday health and fitness tracking and into the realm of preventive care with personalized wellness coaching and a new blood analysis feature that aims to help people fend off disease and support healthier aging. I spoke with Dr. Hon Pak, Samsung's senior vice president and head of digital health, to get a closer look at what's coming to the Galaxy Watch and how it could change how we think about wearables. "There's illness, there's cancer, and so ma
Nissan provided flights from Detroit to Los Angeles and accommodation so Ars could be briefed on the next Leaf. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. The first-generation Nissan Leaf was an incredible achievement for the company and for the industry. A mass-market EV that wasn't priced out of reach was something the industry needed at the time. That's important. Since then, things have stagnated. To say that the 2026 Leaf is the most important EV launch for Nissan since the original car
Finally, after 15 years, we have a new 2026 Nissan Leaf coming. As befits the ‘truckification’ of global car markets, it’s no longer a compact hatchback. Now, it’s a compact SUV—or, more accurately, a crossover utility vehicle built on passenger-vehicle underpinnings. The new Leaf will offer a range of up to 303 miles, Nissan says, from a 75-kilowatt-hour battery pack, powering a 160-kilowatt (214-horsepower) motor that produces 261 lb-ft (354 Newton-meters) of torque. That motor drives the fro
The Switch 2 isn’t like other consoles. If you were meant to take your Xbox Series X (7/10, WIRED Review) to the park, you’d probably need a very strange-looking backpack. For the Switch 2, portability isn't just a feature, it's a key selling point. With that in mind, there are two paths you can take to outfit your console for adventure, based on how you play. If your Switch 2 will spend most of its life in the dock or in your hands on the couch, I’d recommend an attachable grip case. Like your
is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. Nissan revealed new details about the upcoming 2026 Leaf, which will return as a crossover SUV with up to 303 miles of estimated range, dual charge ports, and Google’s software built-in. The reborn Leaf will reach dealerships in the US starting this fall at a yet-to-be-announced price. The 2026 Leaf is a significant improv
The Nintendo Switch 2 is great. In many ways, it’s exactly what we hoped for: a Switch, only better. And yet there’s something… underwhelming about it. Maybe it’s unfair, but we’ve come to expect Nintendo to consistently amaze us with either how its consoles work or the games you can play with them. In this case, it still feels like a Switch. Only better. And not universally better, either. On this episode of The Vergecast, now that a number of folks on our team have spent some real time with t
What just happened? The situation around Borderlands 4's potential $80 price has seen outcry, outrage, and a very poorly-worded X post from CEO Randy Pitchford. But fear not: the game is now available for pre-order at $70 for the standard version. With more new games costing $80, there were fears that Borderlands 4 would follow this trend. But the game has landed on Steam ahead of its September 12 launch with a $70/£60/€70 price tag. That's for the standard edition. There's also a $100/£90/€10
Chinese tech company Tencent is a gaming giant and the parent company of WeChat, the ubiquitous social messaging app in China. Tencent has spent years evolving into a gaming and social media giant in China and in the process, has built up its cloud computing capabilities. The technology firm is now looking to bring that expertise to Europe as it ramps up expansion of its cloud business overseas, Dowson Tong, CEO of Tencent's cloud group told CNBC. "We have strengths and competence in very spe
Oliver Cragg / Android Authority TL;DR Nintendo is banning Switch 2 consoles that use MIG flash carts to load games. These can be used for both piracy and legitimate game preservation efforts. Bans seem limited to consoles for now, with no account-wide bans reported. Nintendo has been at war with pirates for decades, and now the battleground has moved to the Switch 2. A wave of users across the internet are reporting console bans after inserting MIG flash carts into the system, with no recou
Health wearables are leaning into AI-powered health coaches and advisors, which can use all the health and fitness data they aggregate to deliver actionable insights or help the user achieve a fitness goal. Last week, Apple debuted a new AI-powered WatchOS 26 feature that will be available on Apple Watches in the coming months. Workout Buddy is the smartwatch's health coach, guiding wearers through a workout and providing historical stats, encouragement, and more. Also: Your Galaxy Watch is ge
If you've paid any attention to gaming accessories the past few years you've likely heard something about the benefits of Hall Effect joysticks and triggers. Essentially, instead of using a physical connection to sense movement, Hall Effect sensors use magnets. The idea is to reduce wear and tear on components to give you more durability as well as improve the controller's response time. Most gamers probably won't notice the difference between a standard and Hall Effect controller, but for the h
is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft’s Copilot advertising has been criticized by an industry watchdog for its productivity claims and confusing use of Copilot branding. The Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) has reviewed Microsoft’s Copilot advertising, and recommended that the software giant discontinues or modifies productivity claims about Microsoft 365 Copilot and more clea
When Daniel Ek isn’t busy running Spotify or building his new AI-driven health tech enterprise, he’s making massive bets on the future of European warfare, seemingly. The billionaire, who primarily lives in Stockholm, just led a €600 million investment in Helsing, a four-year-old, Munich-based defense tech company that is now valued at €12 billion, as first reported by the Financial Times and confirmed separately by TechCrunch. The deal makes it one of Europe’s most valuable privately held comp
WhatsApp has been talking about launching in-app advertising for many years, but today the change has finally arrived. Ads in WhatsApp are now official, here are the details of what to expect—including the finer points of how your privacy is impacted. Two types of ads are launching in WhatsApp today Today Meta announced via the official WhatsApp blog that ads are rolling out to all users now. Ads are launching as part of the Updates tab inside the app. This means they won’t be part of your p
The Humble Programmer by Edsger W. Dijkstra As a result of a long sequence of coincidences I entered the programming profession officially on the first spring morning of 1952 and as far as I have been able to trace, I was the first Dutchman to do so in my country. In retrospect the most amazing thing was the slowness with which, at least in my part of the world, the programming profession emerged, a slowness which is now hard to believe. But I am grateful for two vivid recollections from that