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xAI starts offering Grok to US government agencies

Just days after apologizing for Grok's recent hard turn toward antisemitism, xAI has announced a suite of AI products for government use. Grok for Government brings together the company's latest commercial products, including Grok 4 and Deep Search, with special considerations given to the needs of federal, state and local agencies. To that end, xAI says it will design custom models for specific national security and research customers. It will also develop specialized AI applications for use i

Rainmaker partners with Atmo to squeeze more rain from clouds

Cloud seeding startup Rainmaker is partnering with Atmo, an AI-powered meteorology startup, the companies exclusively told TechCrunch. The two operate on complementary ends of the weather system: Atmo studies atmospheric patterns to forecast weather events, while Rainmaker digests such data in an attempt to squeeze more precipitation out of weather systems. Under the partnership, Atmo will use its deep learning models to help Rainmaker identify clouds that have potential for seeding. The forec

More Than 2,100 NASA Staff Are Getting Gutted

Elon Musk might have been deposed from DOGE, but the government cuts are still coming. As reported by Politico, some 2,145 high-level NASA employees are about to be launched out of the agency as efforts to cut US government spending continues. The employees represent those with G-13, G-14, and G-15 status — typically specialized or managerial roles which start around the six-figure salary range. The workers are part of a group of nearly 2,700 civilian employees who've agreed to leave NASA volu

This Is DOGE 2.0

On Monday, June 23, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, one of the first young, inexperienced technologists to join Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), disappeared from the internal directory of the General Services Administration (GSA). Less than a month before, centibillionaire Elon Musk and other DOGE leaders had announced their departure from government. After months of slashing through the federal government, it seemed like the end for DOGE was in sight. But later t

A Virginia public library is fighting off a takeover by private equity

Photo from The Samuels Public Library After being targeted by anti-LGBTQ book banners and having their funding pulled, a local library in Virginia successfully stopped a threatened takeover by a private equity group. The local community rallied around The Samuels Public Library in Front Royal, Virginia, to push back against attacks and the private equity owned Library Systems & Services withdrew their bid to run operations. But with their funding cut for the fiscal year that began this July, th

Elon Musk's X says Indian government ordered more than 2,000 accounts blocked, including Reuters

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the White House to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. Elon Musk's X said Tuesday that the Indian government ordered the company to block 2,355 accounts, including Reuters, in the country. "The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action- within one hour- without providing justification, and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice," X's global government af

Elon Musk's X says Indian government ordered over 2,000 accounts blocked, including Reuters

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the White House to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. Elon Musk's X said Tuesday that the Indian government ordered the company to block 2,355 accounts, including Reuters, in the country. "The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action- within one hour- without providing justification, and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice," X's global government af

X blocked Reuters accounts in India

The main Reuters news account, as well as the Reuters World account, became inaccessible to X users in India on Saturday evening. Access was subsequently restored on Sunday. Reuters reports that Indian users attempting to view the @Reuters account — which has 25 million followers — instead saw a message stating that the account “has been withheld in IN (India) in response to a legal demand.” However, an Indian government spokesperson told TechCrunch, “There is no requirement from the Governmen

The American system of democracy has crashed

Once upon a time in America, there was a tyrant. And Congress rejected him totally. The tyrant, of course, was King George III, the target of the Declaration of Independence. We take it for granted now, but the Declaration was an enormous political innovation — in it, the country that became the United States of America laid claim to certain “unalienable” rights, rights that took precedence over any king or crown. To protect those rights, our Founders declared that the People were allowed to “

Apple reverts China slump, sees first iPhone quarterly growth in two years [report]

For the past two years, Apple has been having a tough time in China. Just recently, the U.S. trade war and local incentives from the Chinese government really got in the way of iPhone sales. However, Apple seems to be regaining control of the situation. A two-year long downturn in China As we covered recently, Apple’s extended rough patch in China may finally be easing. Since Q3 2022, the company has posted year-over-year revenue growth in just one quarter, with declines of up to 13% in the ot

Judge: You can’t ban DEI grants without bothering to define DEI

In mid-June, a federal judge issued a stinging rebuke to the Trump administration, declaring that its decision to cancel the funding for many grants issued by the National Institutes of Health was illegal, and suggesting that the policy was likely animated by racism. But the detailed reasoning behind his decision wasn't released at the time. The written portion of the decision was finally issued on Wednesday, and it has a number of notable features. For starters, it's more limited in scope due

Tesla deliveries drop 14 percent amid Musk backlash

Tesla says it delivered 384,122 electric vehicles in the April-June timeframe, which is a 14 percent drop compared with the same period in 2024. It's also the second quarter in a row that sales have fallen year-over-year (YoY). The company produced 410,244 vehicles in Q2, which is very close to the 410,831 it made during the equivalent period last year. However, the company delivered more vehicles (443,956) than it produced in Q2 2024. That's not the case this time. The number of vehicle delive

AeroVironment stock drops 11% on offering plan to pay off debt

An image of a Quantix drone made by AeroVironment. AeroVironment shares fell 11% Tuesday after the defense contractor said it plans to offer $750 million in common stock and $600 million in convertible senior notes due in 2030 to repay debt. The drone maker said it would use leftover funding for general purposes such as boosting manufacturing capacity. AeroVironment shares have soared 85% this year, ballooning its market value to about $13 billion. Last week, shares of the Arlington, Virgini

Exploring Trichromacy through Maxwell's Color Experiment (2023)

Exploring Trichromacy through Maxwell's Color Experiment by Koh Terai with the guidance of Professor Brian Wandell for Psych 221: Image Systems Engineering at Stanford University Last Updated: 19:30 Saturday, December 30, 2023 (PST) We can create most of the colors we see daily using just three colors. For example, you may have heard of R, G, B — Red, Green, Blue — to express many colors. This understanding is fundamental to how we display color on monitors and how we print color. But why three

Topics: 30 color light maxwell nm

AeroVironment stock drops 8% on offering plan to pay off debt

An image of a Quantix drone made by AeroVironment. AeroVironment shares fell 8% Tuesday after the defense contractor said it plans to offer $750 million in common stock and $600 million in convertible senior notes due in 2030 to repay debt. The drone maker said it would use leftover funding for general purposes such as boosting manufacturing capacity. AeroVironment shares have soared 85% this year, ballooning its market value to about $13 billion. Last week, shares of the Arlington, Virginia

AeroVironment stock drops 7% on offering plan to pay off debt

An image of a Quantix drone made by AeroVironment. AeroVironment shares fell 7% Tuesday after the defense contractor said it plans to offer $750 million in common stock and $600 million in convertible senior notes due in 2030 to repay debt. The drone maker said it would use leftover funding for general purposes such as boosting manufacturing capacity. AeroVironment shares have soared 85% this year, ballooning its market value to about $13 billion. Last week, shares of the Arlington, Virginia

Switzerland says government data stolen in ransomware attack

The government in Switzerland is informing that sensitive information from various federal offices has been impacted by a ransomware attack at the third-party organization Radix. The hackers have stolen data from Radix systems and later leaked it on the dark web, the Swiss government says. The exposed data is being analyzed with the help of the country’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to determine which government agencies are impacted and to what effect. “The foundation Radix has been

Hikvision Canada ordered to cease operations over security risks

The Canadian government has ordered Hikvision’s subsidiary in the country to cease all operations following a review that determined them to pose a national security risk. The order was forwarded to Hikvision last Friday, and the matter was made public over the weekend by Mélanie Joly, Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “Following a National Security Review under the Investment Canada Act, the Government of Canada has ordered Hikvision Canada Inc. to cease all operations in

Chinese Police Cracking Down on Naughty Fiction

Imagine you pen an erotic short story that involves two handsome men falling in love and into bed — some of your best work yet — and you publish it on a website that caters to that type of subgenre. But instead of getting kudos and gushing comments from readers, the cops haul you up to the police station for some dramatic questioning in a barren room, a process that may eventually land you in prison. That's exactly what's been happening to erotica writers in China who have run afoul of law enf

Uv and Ray: Pain-Free Python Dependencies in Clusters

When we discovered the uv package manager , we realized that a new era of Python package management had arrived. It tackles the Python developers’ dependency headaches with consistency and speed, which also enables quick development cycles. Here is a (non-exhaustive) collection of things the folks from astral.sh are getting right that we really like: They package the whole environment : You don’t need to worry about setting up your own Python distribution which in itself can be quite cumbersom

‘Big Balls’ Is Now at the Social Security Administration

Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, one of the first young technologists brought on to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has returned to government shortly after resigning. “Edward Coristine joined the Social Security Administration this week as a special government employee,” Stephen McGraw, an SSA spokesperson, tells WIRED. “His work will be focused on improving the functionality of the Social Security website and advancing our mission of delivering more efficient se

Homeland Security warns of Iran-backed cyberattacks targeting US networks

In Brief A bulletin issued Sunday by U.S. Homeland Security said it expects to see Iranian government-backed hackers conduct attacks against U.S. networks, amid the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Israel, and Iran. The National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin said low-level cyberattacks by hacktivists are “likely,” adding that hacktivists and government-linked hackers “routinely target” poorly secured U.S. networks and internet-connected devices to cause disruption. The bulletin was

What Problems to Solve (1966)

What Problems to Solve - By Richard Feynman A former student, who was also once a student of Tomonaga’s, wrote to extend his congratulations. Feynman responded, asking Mr. Mano what he was now doing. The response: “studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere… a humble and down-to-earth type of problem.”

Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it.

Critics are increasingly branding Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a failure, including lawmakers fiercely debating how much funding to allot next year to the controversial agency. On Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats sparred over DOGE's future at a DOGE subcommittee hearing, according to NextGov, a news site for federal IT workers. On one side, Republicans sought to "lock in" and codify the "DOGE process" for supposedly reducing waste and fraud in government, and on t

Samsung may build Qualcomm’s most advanced chip ever for the Galaxy S26 series

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority TL;DR Samsung could reportedly fabricate one variant of the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for Qualcomm. While the normal chip would be made with a 3nm TSMC process, Samsung’s could be a 2nm chip. This 2nm Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 may debut with the Galaxy S26. There’s arguably no single component that more influences how a smartphone comes together than the choice of its system-on-a-chip (SoC). And while a phone is a whole lot more than just how fast it can crunch numbe

What 'OpenAI for Government' means for US AI policy

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET OpenAI maintains several government-facing initiatives, including testing partnerships with the National Labs and ChatGPT Gov. Last week, the company announced it is rolling them all under a single umbrella initiative: OpenAI for Government. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Pilot program with the DOD The initiative's f

What Problems to Solve – By Richard Feynman

What Problems to Solve - By Richard Feynman A former student, who was also once a student of Tomonaga’s, wrote to extend his congratulations. Feynman responded, asking Mr. Mano what he was now doing. The response: “studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere… a humble and down-to-earth type of problem.”

Drone maker AeroVironment shares pop 24% on earnings beat

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the AeroVironment Inc. booth during the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) in Tampa, Florida, US, on Tuesday, May 17, 2022. AeroVironment stock rocketed more than 24% higher Wednesday as the drone maker beat fourth quarter expectations on the top and bottom lines. Here's how the company did compared to analyst expectations: Earnings : $1.61 per share adjusted vs $1.39 per share expected : $1.61 per share adjusted vs $1.39 per share expec

Brit politicians question Fujitsu's continued role in public sector contracts

British MPs and peers are questioning the government's decision to continue accepting bids for large-scale IT contracts from Fujitsu, despite the Japanese supplier's previous pledge to stop bidding. Following the widespread publicity around the Post Office Horizon scandal in January 2024, Fujitsu, which supplied the faulty computer system, volunteered to stop bidding for UK public sector contracts until the public inquiry had completed. At the time, the Japanese computer giant was in the proce

Did this Google Pixel 11 leak just kill the Pixel 10?

Ryan Haines / Android Authority If the rumors are true, the Google Pixel 10 is just a few short months away. And between new camera features, a 3nm Tensor G5 chipset, and a host of new AI capabilities, there’s a lot to look forward to. But does any of that matter anymore? Yesterday, a new report shed light on fresh details for 2026’s Pixel 11 series — specifically that Google’s Pixel 11 handsets will feature a TSMC-made Tensor G6 chip with a 2nm fabrication design. Not only would that be a jum