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Does the Bitter Lesson Have Limits?

Recently, “the bitter lesson” is having a moment. Coined in an essay by Rich Sutton, the bitter lesson is that, “general methods that leverage computation are ultimately the most effective, and by a large margin.” Why is the lesson bitter? Sutton writes: The bitter lesson is based on the historical observations that 1) AI researchers have often tried to build knowledge into their agents, 2) this always helps in the short term, and is personally satisfying to the researcher, but 3) in the long r

The Films and Shows You Should Be Streaming in August 2025

A new era of streaming selections is here. For the past several years, our monthly column, the Nerd’s Watch, has been the place to find out all the best genre titles coming to the biggest streaming services. It wasn’t a complete list. We just posted the titles we think you’d care about, but it was still long, and frankly, it was hard to pick out the best of the best. Anaconda (August 1 on Netflix) Months before the new remake with Jack Black and Paul Rudd, revisit the iconic camp classic with

Figma stock pops 5% in second day of trading after colossal debut

Figma celebrates its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange on July 31, 2025. Shares of design software vendor Figma popped more than 5% on Friday, a day after the stock more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut. Figma opened at $85 on Thursday under the ticker FIG, and shares closed at $115.50 for a 250% gain. On Friday, the stock traded above $120. Figma is the latest tech company to hit the public markets after an extended IPO drought. Artificial intelligence i

Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

Los Angeles-based private equity firm Freeman Spogli & Co. is in the process of buying Philz Coffee for $145 million, according to documents shared with stockholders and obtained by Mission Local. Philz board members, which include former CEO Phil Jaber and his son, Jacob Jaber; representatives from investment firms Summit Partners and TPG Growth; and CEO Mahesh Sadarangani will receive payouts or bonuses from the deal. Those who hold common stock, like employees who bought stock during or aft

Wild Video Shows Humanoid Robot Loading a Washing Machine Pretty Well

"First time seeing a humanoid robot actually doing a task in a home." Dirty Laundry Humanoid robots remain far-fetched — but certain demos are starting to suggest a plausible future in which they could actually become common fixtures in regular households. In an impressive new demo, humanoid robot company Figure founder Brett Adcock showed off the company's F.02 robot effortlessly loading dirty laundry from a basket into a washing machine. Adcock can be seen adding items of clothing to the b

SonicWall firewall devices hit in surge of Akira ransomware attacks

SonicWall firewall devices have been increasingly targeted since late July in a surge of Akira ransomware attacks, potentially exploiting a previously unknown security vulnerability, according to cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf. Akira emerged in March 2023 and quickly claimed many victims worldwide across various industries. Over the last two years, Akira has added over 300 organizations to its dark web leak portal and claimed responsibility for multiple high-profile victims, including Nissan

Make Your Own Backup System – Part 2: Forging the FreeBSD Backup Stronghold

Laying the Foundation With the primary backup strategies and methodologies introduced, we've reached the point where we can get specific: the Backup Server configuration. When choosing the type of backup server to use, I tend to favor specific setups: either I trust a professional backup service provider (like Colin Percival's Tarsnap), or I want full control over the disks where the backups will be hosted. In both cases, for the past twenty years, my operating system of choice for backup serv

Here’s how Android Identity Check will start taking advantage of your smartwatch (APK teardown)

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR Identity Check offers an extra layer of protection when someone steals both your phone and your PIN. By requiring biometrics, Identity Check attempts to limit the harm bad actors could do. Google is working to let you bypass that biometric requirement when your device is connected to a trusted smartwatch. We all want our devices to be secure, but practical considerations mean we’re often striking a balance between security and convenience. That’s not a ba

The best smartwatch and fitness tracker deals to shop now

Marathon season is right around the corner, and if you've willingly entered yourself into a race this fall, whether it's a 5K, 10K, half, or full marathon, you've probably already begun training for it (or should start doing so as soon as possible). A fitness tracker, like a smartwatch, smart band, or smart ring, can help monitor your pace, distance, gains, and recovery. These devices have become more comfortable than ever (as someone who has tested lots of them), and the brands behind them, li

Figma stock pops in second day of trading after colossal debut

Figma celebrates its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange on July 31, 2025. Shares of design software vendor Figma popped 6% on Friday, a day after the stock more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut. Figma opened at $85 on Thursday under the ticker FIG, and shares closed at $115.50 for a 250% gain. On Friday, the stock traded above $120. Figma is the latest tech company to hit the public markets after an extended IPO drought. Artificial intelligence infrastruct

Show HN: Pontoon – Open-source customer data syncs

Build production ready data syncs that integrate with your customer's data warehouse. About Pontoon is an open source, self-hosted, data export platform. We built Pontoon from the ground up for the use case of shipping data products to your enterprise customers. Pontoon is engineered to make it easy to sync data directly to your customer's data warehouse (eg. Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift). Your customers get their data, without needing to build ETLs or pay for ETL tools, empowering them

The Cybertruck Is Aging Like Fast Fashion on Temu

When Tesla first unveiled the stainless steel Cybertruck, it was pitched as an indestructible futurist icon. Only a few short years later, many proud Cybertruck owners have discovered that their ultra-expensive rolling tanks are aging like room-temperature milk. One of the most consistent complaints involves seat wrinkles and indentations. On the Cybertruck Owners Club forum, a relatively new driver lamented that "my driver seats are wrinkled after 3,300 miles. I’m not a fat person. Weigh 173 l

Authorities seize BlackSuit ransomware gang’s servers

German prosecutors say a joint U.S.-European operation has seized infrastructure belonging to the BlackSuit ransomware gang, a notorious hacking group blamed for several major cyberattacks in recent years. In a new statement this week, officials in Germany said they had seized the gang’s servers and systems as part of an operation on July 24. The officials said the operation had secured “considerable amounts of data” that will be used to help identify the individuals responsible for the attacks

Best Fitness Trackers (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Other Fitness Trackers to Consider Photograph: Adrienne So Garmin Instinct 3 for $400: Garmin's Instinct line doesn't have as many high-end features as the Fenix 8, but it's popular because it's cheaper and it has a cool, chunky retro aesthetic that I love. This year's updates include the built-in flashlight and a new reinforced bezel, which is good considering that I still managed to bang up the Fenix and Epix watches quite a bit. For more information, check out our guide to the Best Garmin W

5 of the best new Android apps and games to try this August

Andy Walker / Android Authority Keeping up with the latest and greatest apps and games is a difficult task, but I’m here to help. Each month, I detail a list of the best new Android apps and games, and this edition is packed classic pixel art titles and fresh Android apps. Let’s jump right in. Here are the best new Android apps and games you should try in August 2025. Luck By Chance Decisions are hard. Get your phone to make them for you. Price: Free Free Developer: Nishan Devaiah Remember

Rocket Report: NASA finally working on depots, Air Force tests new ICBM

Welcome to Edition 8.05 of the Rocket Report! One of the most eye-raising things I saw this week was an online update from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center touting its work on cryogenic propellant management in orbit. Why? Because until recently, this was a forbidden research topic at the space agency, as propellant depots would obviate the need for a large rocket like the Space Launch System. But now that Richard Shelby is retired... As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don'

Telephone colophon: Or, how I overengineered my call audio (2020)

Toward the beginning of the pandemic, a friend asked me how she could use an external vocal mic and a guitar with a pickup on Zoom calls. Sounds easy, right? But to have the amount of control a musician really wants, it turned out to be a bit more involved. Plus, when working from home for a microphone company, it’s pretty common to use a decent mic in meetings. This post explains the setup I’ve been using for my calls. (Don’t let the speakers fool you. Use headphones or it’ll feed back when

Man had a cross tattooed on his neck—it vanished, then his flesh started dying

A 20-year-old man in China may be anxiously reassessing his chances of eternal damnation after the cross he had tattooed on his neck inexplicably vanished after five months and was replaced by an aggressive necrotic ulcer and grave inflammation. The case is so strange that doctors say it "expands the spectrum of tattoo-associated pathology." In an uncanny case report published Thursday in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, the man's doctors noted the multiple ways in which his lesion was

Figma's top VCs are sitting on $24 billion worth of stock after massive IPO pop

Figma Inc. signage during the company's initial public offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Thursday, July 31, 2025. You can almost smell the bubbly wafting across Silicon Valley. Following Figma's blockbuster market debut on Thursday, four of the most iconic names in venture capital — Index Ventures, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia — are collectively sitting on roughly $24 billion worth of the design software vendor's stock. Until recently, there's b

I'll Never Go Camping Without This Backpack That Can Charge My Phone 18 Times

CNET’s key takeaways This solar-rechargeable power station is also a backpack that can carry my camping essentials. I was able to charge my laptop six to nine times, my phone 18 times and my drone five times in one charge cycle. The Bluetti Handfree 2 backpack costs $599 at full price, but it is often on sale for $450. It's heavy. It weighs 16.5 pounds by itself before adding other gear. The Bluetti Handsfree 2 backpack, which is also a solar-rechargeable power station, is my new outdoor ess

Google’s Pixel Tablet is $190 off for a limited time

During the most recent Prime Day, the Google Pixel Tablet with Wi-Fi and 256GB of storage briefly dropped to just $309 ($190 off) — but the deal disappeared in a matter of hours. Fast forward to today, and the deal is back, but this time it’s available at Best Buy. Unfortunately, the discount is for today only (or until supplies last) and doesn’t include the speaker dock. The Pixel Tablet hit the scene back in 2023, so by tech standards, it’s relatively old. That being said, the discount certai

There's a Very Basic Flaw in Mark Zuckerberg's Plan for Superintelligent AI

This week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his vision for the future of AI, a "personal intelligence" that can help you "achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, experience any adventure, be a better friend to those you care about, and grow to become the person you aspire to be." The hazy announcement — which lacked virtually any degree of detail and smacked of the uninspired output of an AI chatbot — painted a rosy picture of a future where everybody uses our "newfound pro

Someone Gave ChatGPT $100 and Let It Trade Stocks for a Month

With $100 and a dream, one enterprising Redditor turned ChatGPT into a day trader, and the results so far have been pretty remarkable. In a post on r/Dataisbeautiful, the Redditor in question — real name Nathan Smith — described his project as a "6-month experiment to see how a language model performs in picking small, [under-covered] stocks with only a $100 budget." According to a chart shared on Reddit, this literal gamble is already paying off. Using GPT-4o, one of OpenAI's most advanced mo

Death Row Inmate’s Attorneys Say Heart Implant Will Repeatedly Shock Him as He’s Executed

Attorneys for a death row inmate in Tennessee who’s scheduled to be executed Aug. 5 warn that his implanted heart device will repeatedly shock him during his execution, torturing him by trying to keep him alive as he’s killed by lethal injection. A judge ordered the device deactivated, but a local hospital in Nashville now says it won’t participate, according to a report from the Associated Press. Byron Black, 69, received an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in May 2024, which works

Microsoft to disable Excel workbook links to blocked file types

Microsoft has announced that it will start disabling external workbook links to blocked file types by default between October 2025 and July 2026. After the rollout, Excel workbooks referencing blocked file types will display a #BLOCKED error or fail to refresh, eliminating security risks associated with accessing unsupported or high-risk file types, including, but not limited to, phishing attacks that utilize workbooks to redirect targets to malicious payloads. This change is being introduced

This Week’s ‘Strange New Worlds’ Is a Little Too Cute for Its Own Good

Strange New Worlds loves being Star Trek. That’s different from, say, Lower Decks, a series that loved being about Star Trek and the metatextual acknowledgement of that to the nerdiest of degrees. Strange New Worlds knows that it is Star Trek and enjoys that: its connection to the original, the warts-and-all embrace of episodic storytelling, its desire to poke and prod at itself endlessly, and its willingness to vacillate its tone from high drama to high camp on a dime. Sometimes, that can make

AI Researcher Declines $1 Billion Offer From Mark Zuckerberg

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely tripping over himself to attract top AI talent to fill the ranks of his recently announced Superintelligence Labs — and he's willing to go to obscene lengths to make it happen. As Wired reports, more than a dozen people at Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, were approached by Meta with ludicrous job offers. One individual was even offered more than $1 billion, paid out over several years, a source told Wir

What Zuckerberg's 'personal superintelligence' sales pitch leaves out

Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Zuckerberg unveils his vision for personal superintelligence. But his unclear definition leaves product and impact ambiguous. Superintelligence may disrupt jobs despite efficiency promises. Another day, another vague reference to the promise of superintelligence. On Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a video address and accompanying letter on X stating his company's "vision for the future of personal superintelligence for