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Leaked Documents Show xAI Employees Were Alarmed by Something They Were Asked to Do at Elon Musk's AI Startup

Earlier this year, more than 200 staffers at Elon Musk's AI startup xAI were asked to have their faces recorded while speaking to their coworkers. According to internal documents and Slack messages obtained by Business Insider, some employees were taken aback after being asked to take part in a project called "Skippy," the goal of which was to train the company's Hitler-loving AI chatbot, Grok, on their facial expressions. It remains unclear whether project Skippy was in any way related to xAI

Neptune Dances in Sync With a Rare Distant Object, Astronomers Find

For lovers of newly identified space objects, July has indeed been an exciting month. Last week, astronomers described Ammonite, a potential dwarf planet beyond Pluto. Yesterday, astronomers announced the existence of BetelBuddy, a small companion star orbiting Betelgeuse. And now we have another exciting discovery to share. In a Planetary Science Journal paper published earlier this month, astronomers with the Large inclination Distant Objects (LiDO) survey reported the discovery of 2020 VN40,

Elon Now Facing the Possibility That SpaceX Will Never Get Starship Working

SpaceX is nine full-scale test launches into developing its enormous, nearly 400-feet-tall Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built. Over the last two and a half years, we've seen over half a dozen spectacular explosions. Two launches earlier this year sent massive streaks of debris hurtling over the Turks and Caicos Islands, prompting airspace closures. Its most recent test in May ended in an uncontrolled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico after helplessly spinning on its axis and suffering

Lucid owners will get full access to Tesla’s Supercharger network on July 31

Lucid EV owners will soon have full access to Tesla’s Supercharger network, which is something that's been in the works since 2023. This goes live on July 31, allowing folks to juice up at more than 12,000 Supercharger stations throughout North America. Some of the company's vehicles can already use these charging stations, with the Gravity SUV gaining access earlier this year. That leaves the Air line of luxury EV sedans. These vehicles will be able to roll up to a Tesla Supercharger for a top

OpenAI and Softbank’s $500 Billion Data Center Project Is Already Stumbling

Stargate, the ambitious joint venture announced at the White House back in January between OpenAI, Oracle, the Japanese holding company Softbank, and others, appears to be struggling to deliver on its bold promises just six months later. The Wall Street Journal reported today, citing unnamed sources, that the Stargate Project has yet to finalize any deals for new data centers. The report also says the group is scaling back its near-term goals. When it was announced on Jan. 21, Stargate was pit

The .a file is a relic: Why static archives were a bad idea all along

From the perspective of an SDK provider, we must not limit our customers. As such, we are expected to provide both the dynamic linking option, as well as the static linking one. And what will this mean? Dynamic linking — Provide Shared Object ( .so ) libraries, as well as matching compilation ( .pc ) definitions. ) libraries, as well as matching compilation ( ) definitions. Static linking — Provide Static Archive ( .a ) files, as well as matching compilation ( .pc ) definitions. When we bundl

Eat Here and Get Recharged: Tesla Opens a Drive-In Diner

Table of Contents Eat Here and Get Recharged: Tesla Opens a Drive-in Diner Tesla has launched a retro-inspired drive-in diner that doubles as an electric vehicle charging station. The electric-vehicle company, known more for self-driving cars and its headline-making CEO Elon Musk, announced its drive-in diner at located at 7001 West Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood, California, is open for business. The place also serves as an electric vehicle charging station with 80 V4 Supercharger stalls, "ma

The Great Unracking: Saying goodbye to the servers at our physical datacenter

Since October 2010, all Stack Exchange sites have run on physical hardware in a datacenter in New York City (well, New Jersey). These have had a warm spot in our history and our hearts. When I first joined the company and worked out of the NYC office, I saw the original server mounted on a wall with a laudatory plaque like a beloved pet. Over the years, we’ve shared glamor shots of our server racks and info about updating them. For almost our entire 16-year existence, the SRE team has managed a

Amazon backs programmable optics startup Lumotive

Programmable optics startup Lumotive has added a few more strategic backers to its recent Series B round. Redmond, Washington-based Lumotive reopened its recent Series B funding round to bring in Amazon, through its Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, and ITHCA Group, the technology investment arm of Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, as investors. These fresh funds bring the company’s Series B round to $59 million, up from the $45 million Lumotive initially closed in February. The startup has raise

How to Migrate from OpenAI to Cerebrium for Cost-Predictable AI Inference

How To Migrate From OpenAI to Cerebrium for Cost-Predictable AI Inference If you're building an AI application, you probably started with OpenAI's convenient APIs. However, as your application scales, you'll need more control over costs, models, and infrastructure. Cerebrium is a serverless AI infrastructure platform that lets you run open-source models on dedicated hardware with predictable, time-based pricing instead of token-based billing. This guide will show you how to build a complete c

The .a File Is a Relic: Why Static Archives Were a Bad Idea All Along

From the perspective of an SDK provider, we must not limit our customers. As such, we are expected to provide both the dynamic linking option, as well as the static linking one. And what will this mean? Dynamic linking — Provide Shared Object ( .so ) libraries, as well as matching compilation ( .pc ) definitions. ) libraries, as well as matching compilation ( ) definitions. Static linking — Provide Static Archive ( .a ) files, as well as matching compilation ( .pc ) definitions. When we bundl

AI comes up with bizarre physics experiments, but they work

If the AI’s insights had been available when LIGO was being built, “we would have had something like 10 or 15% better LIGO sensitivity all along,” he said. In a world of sub-proton precision, 10 to 15% is enormous. “LIGO is this huge thing that thousands of people have been thinking about deeply for 40 years,” said Aephraim Steinberg, an expert on quantum optics at the University of Toronto. “They’ve thought of everything they could have, and anything new [the AI] comes up with is a demonstrati

Morgan Stanley warns against ‘misguided’ idea of Apple acquiring an AI search engine

There’s been no shortage of rumors about Apple’s supposed intentions of acquiring an AI search company, such as Perplexity, to help it catch up in the AI race. And while many seem to agree that this would be at least a partial solution to Apple’s problems, Morgan Stanley isn’t that convinced. In an investor note published today (via AppleInsider), Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring states that it is “misguided” to think that Apple should acquire an AI search engine, as it is not the company’s

Show HN: Intercepting proxy for semantic search over visited pages

A proxy that embeds every web page you visit and lets you run similarity searches. Each successful HTTP GET 200 response (except for localhost) is re-fetched from pure.md to obtain clean Markdown. The cleaned text is embedded through llm. A minimal Flask UI provides search and cached-page views. Installation This is not a stand-alone program. It is a plugin for llm. If you are not using llm yet, install it with pipx first. pipx install llm Now you can install this plugin: llm install git+h

Astronomers Spot Companion Star in Orbit Around Iconic Star Betelgeuse, Confirming Suspicions

In 2024, astronomers surmised that Betelgeuse might have a stellar “buddy.” If this hypothetical companion existed, it would help answer some questions about the red supergiant’s strange glowing patterns. As it turns out, these suspicions were correct. After numerous false signals and empty search results, astronomers with NASA’s Ames Research Center have confirmed that Betelgeuse does, in fact, have a tiny buddy star. The young star, with a mass about 1.5 times that of the Sun, likely exerts s

FAA Allows SpaceX to Drop Starship Rocket Bits on Sacred Hawaiian Island

Elon Musk’s obsession with colonizing Mars is polluting Earth. As SpaceX seeks to ramp up its launches of Starship, it’s also expanding its splashdown area where pieces of the rocket are allowed to litter the Pacific Ocean. A recent expansion threatens marine wildlife surrounding a sacred island in native Hawaiian tradition. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved SpaceX’s request to rain down debris in the waters surrounding Mokumanamana, an uninhabited island in Northwestern Hawaii

Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

Intuitive Surgical, an American biotechnology company, introduced DaVinci surgical robots in the late 1990s, and they became groundbreaking teleoperation equipment. Expert surgeons could operate on patients remotely, manipulating the robotic arms and their surgical tools based on a video feed from DaVinci’s built-in cameras and endoscopes. Now, John Hopkins University researchers put a ChatGPT-like AI in charge of a DaVinci robot and taught it to perform a gallbladder-removal surgery. Kuka sur

TechCrunch Mobility: Uber makes a bet on premium robotaxis

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now. Uber wants a big piece of the autonomous vehicle technology pie. The ride-hailing company has spent the past two years locking in partnerships with just about every AV company you can think of, and across every sector, including delivery, robotaxis,

Starlink Got Faster In the Past Two Years. It's Still Not Regularly Meeting Broadband Speeds

Starlink is nearly twice as fast as it was two years ago, according to a new report from the speed test site Ookla. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Median download speeds from the satellite internet provider have steadily ticked up over the past few years, going from 53.95 megabits per second in 2022 to 104.71Mbps today. That’s an impressive feat considering Starlink added about 5 million customers over the same period and recently passed the 6 milli

Ditch your Dyson: This cordless stick vacuum cleans my home more effectively (and it's 26% off)

ZDNET's key takeaways The Tineco Pure One Station 5 vacuum cleaner normally retails for $459; now it's on sale for $339. It's a powerful cordless vacuum with a self-emptying base station, perfect for pet owners and parents. Some parts can be finicky, like lining up the floor brush on the base station, or its accessories getting stuck and not easily detaching. $339 at Amazon The Tineco Pure One Station 5 is on sale for $339 (save $120) at Amazon. Since I began testing the Tineco Pure One Stat

Don’t miss your chance to exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is just around the corner, and with more than 10,000 startup and VC leaders heading to Moscone West in San Francisco this October 27 to 29, the Expo Hall is where connections get made and business gets done. If you’ve been thinking about showcasing your company, consider this your nudge — exhibitor spots are filling fast, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. Exhibiting at Disrupt isn’t just about having a table, it’s about putting your startup in front of the people who

From idea to first check: Raising pre-seed and seed capital with Charles Hudson and Navin Chaddha at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

More than 10,000 founders, investors, and tech insiders will convene at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 27-29 for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — one of the year’s most anticipated tech conferences. Of the 250+ tech leaders taking the stage, don’t miss this standout panel on the Builders Stage featuring two of the most respected early-stage investors in venture: Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures and Navin Chaddha of Mayfield. Their session dives into one of the toughest moments in any s

This crypto treasury firm is vying to be the MicroStrategy of ether–but with a focus on generating yield

The latest crypto treasury company is set to hit the public market with an ambitious plan to build the largest public vehicle for institutional exposure to ether . The Ether Machine will begin trading on the Nasdaq Monday through a merger with blank check company Dynamix Corporation. Andrew Keys, the co-founder and chairman of the new company, has committed about $645 million in an anchor investment. The entity is backed by crypto investors 10T Holdings, Electric Capital, Pantera Capital and mo

Installing apps on Linux? 4 ways it's different than any other OS - and mistakes to avoid

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET When I first started using Linux in the late 90s, there was really only one way to install an application. You would download the app, unpack the archive, run the ./configure command, build the app with make, and then install it with make install. Inevitably, when you ran through that course, you would stumble because of dependencies and have to locate the dependency, run through the same process as you just did (only with the new software), and then find out the ne

Windsurf CEO opens up about ‘very bleak’ mood before Cognition deal

Days after AI coding startup Windsurf announced that it’s being acquired by Cognition, Windsurf exec Jeff Wang took to X to offer more details about the drama and uncertainty around the deal. Windsurf was previously reported to be in acquisition talks with OpenAI, but that deal fell apart, with Google DeepMind instead hiring the startup’s CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some of its top researchers. Google would reportedly license Windsurf’s technology as part of the $2.4 billion d

Sony’s 30th Anniversary DualSense Controller is back in stock online at 10AM ET

Sony will have a “limited restock” of its 30th Anniversary DualSense Wireless Controller on the PlayStation Direct storefront . The $79.99 gamepad is available for preorder starting July 21st at 10AM ET for PlayStation Plus subscribers and on July 23rd at 10AM ET for everyone else. It will begin shipping on September 9th. If you want to order today, a PlayStation Plus Essential subscription costs $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year. The limited-edition PlayStation 5 controller was released last

This simple Android Auto change would set my voice command frustrations to rest

Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority When I hop into my car, there is a list of checklist items I absentmindedly tick off. One is reaching for my cheap Android Auto dongle in my glovebox and plugging it in. Google’s in-car phone mirroring service has become essential to my car trips, as much as fuel, a seat belt, and a steering wheel. However, unlike driving, operating Android Auto is often challenging, especially when using voice commands. I’ve had so many issues with Android Auto’s voice assi

Learn 14 Languages from Babbel with this exclusive StackSocial deal

Learning a new language doesn’t have to mean night classes, bulky textbooks, or boring apps. With Babbel, you can pick up real-world conversation skills through short, fun, and practical lessons. And right now, you can get a lifetime subscription for only $159 (regularly $599). Why Babbel? Babbel gives you lifetime access to lessons in 14 languages, including French Spanish German Italian Portuguese Swedish Turkish And that’s just a small sample. You’re not limited to just one either,

JOVE – Jonathan’s Own Version of Emacs

########################################################################## # This program is Copyright (C) 1986-2002 by Jonathan Payne. JOVE is # # provided by Jonathan and Jovehacks without charge and without # # warranty. You may copy, modify, and/or distribute JOVE, provided that # # this notice is included in all the source files and documentation. # ########################################################################## [Updated in 2023 Nov] JOVE on UNIX/Linux/MacOS X/*BSD/CygWin Systems

Show HN: X11 desktop widget that shows location of your network peers on a map

connmap connmap is an X11 desktop widget that shows location of your current network peers on a world map. (Works on Wayland as well!) Installation Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/h2337/connmap --depth 1 , install the dependencies (see below), run make install , then run the resulting executable ./connmap.elf . If you want to run it without attaching it to the terminal then add ampersand at the end of the command: ./connmal.elf & . You can also add it to your i3wm config t