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OpenAI Hits the Panic Button

This week, the world’s most important artificial intelligence company was closed. OpenAI gave its entire staff a week off to “recharge,” a seemingly generous perk for a workforce relentlessly pushing toward building a world-changing technology. But this was not a wellness initiative. It was a strategic retreat in the middle of a brutal, high-stakes war for talent that is now threatening to shatter the company’s carefully crafted identity. The enemy is Meta Platforms, the social media empire th

The 13 Best Fans for the Coolest Summer (2025)

Honorable Mentions Photograph: Kat Merck Shark FlexBreeze HydroGo for $120: I love the original Shark FlexBreeze (above), so I was very excited to see Shark had released a rechargeable portable fan in seven colors, including ones not normally seen in fans like Lilac and Honeydew. Shark says it can run 30 minutes with the mister consistently on or 60 minutes with it in (interval mode?), and after testing it at my son’s soccer practices, I was impressed that these estimates were more or less acc

Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, July 4

Gael Cooper CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.

OpenAI Warns You Not to Buy Its Fake Stock

OpenAI has a message for anyone who thinks they’re about to cash in on the AI boom by buying a new “OpenAI token” on Robinhood: Don’t. But in a chaotic turn, Elon Musk just suggested that even the company’s real equity might be an illusion. The maker of ChatGPT, in a rare public warning posted on X (formerly Twitter), disavowed any involvement with crypto-like financial products claiming to offer a piece of its business. “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” the company wrote. “We did

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

One UI 8 will let you add a Dynamic Effect to photos, but what’s the point?

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR One UI 8 will seemingly bring a new “Dynamic Effect” feature in the Samsung Gallery app. Similar to Live Effect, the feature transforms a still image into a short animated clip. However, you can also manually control the animated image. One UI 8 is inching closer to a stable release. A new, stable internal build has reportedly landed for the software, and tipster Ice Universe has discovered a new feature called Dynamic Effect in the Samsung Gallery app. Th

‘Stranger Things’ Hellfire Club Catch-Up: Season One

Welcome to io9’s summer cram session for Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix phenomenon, which will return this November to Netflix for its final season. To honor the Hawkins gang’s late, great, guitar-shredding Dungeon Master Eddie (Joseph Quinn), this rewatch shall be coined the Hellfire Club Catch-Up. With part one of season 5 a few months out, it seems fitting to get started now. Read on for io9’s guide to everything you need to remember from the show’s 2016 debut. Season one of S

Judge Rules That Newspaper Is Allowed to Search Through Users' ChatGPT Logs

Amid its long-running copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, the paper of record will soon have access to all of OpenAI's user archives — including the stuff that was deleted. As Ars Technica reports, the federal judge presiding over the lawsuit by the New York Times against OpenAI has granted the newspaper and its co-plaintiffs, the New York Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting, access to the AI company's logs to see exactly how much copyright was infringed. In its pr

Today's Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 4, #1476

Gael Cooper CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.

Owning a Piece of ChatGPT Was Already Messy. Then Elon Musk Made It Weirder

OpenAI has a message for anyone who thinks they’re about to cash in on the AI boom by buying a new “OpenAI token” on Robinhood: Don’t. But in a chaotic turn, Elon Musk just suggested that even the company’s real equity might be an illusion. The maker of ChatGPT, in a rare public warning posted on X (formerly Twitter), disavowed any involvement with crypto-like financial products claiming to offer a piece of its business. “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” the company wrote. “We did

A Leading Indicator Has Emerged Suggesting That the AI Industry Is Cooked

In the world of cultural commentary, there are plenty of benchmarks used to determine when a trend is on its deathbed. From the classic shark-jumping episode of "Happy Days" to the adoption of Facebook by grandparents the world around, those with their ears to the ground can spot when a craze is on its way out. In that vein, the news that Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build supercharged AI sure strikes us as bad news for that industry. Let'

Deal: Narwal Freo Pro robot cleaner plummets to $400, a new record-low price

Jonathan Feist / Android Authority Here at Android Authority, we are big fans of Narwal cleaning robots. In fact, our top pick in our list of the best robot vacuums is a Narwal high-end model. Not everyone wants to spend well over a grand on a cleaning robot, though. The Narwal Freo Pro is a fantastic option if you want something more affordable. It competes against much more expensive alternatives, and is currently at a record-low price of just $399.99. Buy the Narwal Freo Pro for just $399.99

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

Y Combinator alum launched a new $34M fund dedicated to YC startups, backed by Garry Tan

Investing in Y Combinator startups can lead to significant returns to investors. “If you look at the data: 6% of YC companies become unicorns, and of that 6% a quarter become decacorns,” Kulveer Taggar told TechCrunch. Taggar is a two-time YC alum best known for founding Zeus Living, a property management startup that raised over $150 million in funding. Taggar is so confident in the continuing return potential offered by the famed accelerator that he established Phosphor Capital, a venture fi

OpenAI Says It's Hired a Forensic Psychiatrist as Its Users Keep Sliding Into Mental Health Crises

Among the strangest twists in the rise of AI has been growing evidence that it's negatively impacting the mental health of users, with some even developing severe delusions after becoming obsessed with the chatbot. One intriguing detail from our most recent story about this disturbing trend is OpenAI's response: it says it's hired a full-time clinical psychiatrist with a background in forensic psychiatry to help research the effects of its AI products on users' mental health. It's also consulti

Grafana releases critical security update for Image Renderer plugin

Grafana Labs has addressed four Chromium vulnerabilities in critical security updates for the Grafana Image Renderer plugin and Synthetic Monitoring Agent. Although the issues impact Chromium and were fixed by the open-source project two weeks ago, Grafana received a bug bounty submission from security researcher Alex Chapman proving their exploitability in the Grafana components. Grafana describes the update as a "critical severity security release" and advises users to apply the fixes for th

NASA Reveals First-Ever Full Image of Peanut-Shaped Asteroid Donaldjohanson

Scientists with NASA’s Lucy mission are finally wrapping up the process of refining the data gathered by the spacecraft’s April 20 encounter with Donaldjohanson, an asteroid in our solar system’s main asteroid belt. And it’s, uh, as peanut-shaped as we first saw it. Earlier this year, Lucy’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager snapped an image of Donaldjohansson while quickly swooping past it, at a distance of about 600 miles (960 kilometers), with the smallest visible features measuring around 13

PlayStation needs Neil Druckmann more than HBO does

I really wanted to love season two of HBO’s The Last of Us. For the most part, I did — but it was also impossible to ignore the online masses saying that showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann had lost the thread in season two. Some of that comes from creative choices the pair made in adapting the first half of the PlayStation game The Last of Us Part II to TV; it’s a story with a sprawling plot that asks a lot of the player and, as it turns out, even more of a passive audience. The season t

Ransomware gang Hunters International says it’s shutting down

The ransomware gang known as Hunters International announced on its dark web page Thursday that it is shutting down. “After careful consideration and in light of recent developments, we have decided to close the Hunters International project,” the hackers wrote in a post, without clarifying what specific developments it was referring to. “This decision was not made lightly, and we recognize the impact it has on the organizations we have interacted with.” The hackers also said they are offering

Amazon Offers Fire TV Cube With Luna Controller for 40% Off as Cloud Gaming Bundle for Early Prime Day

You have a bunch of options when it comes to finding the right streaming device. Heck, there’s plenty of choices just within Amazon’s family of Fire TV products. However, the crown jewel of streaming is The Fire TV Cube. It’s Amazon’s fastest streaming media player with its app’s loading faster than any other Fire TV. The octa-core processor is to thanks, making it twice as powerful as the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Right now, you can score the Fire TV Cube with a bonus Luna gaming controller for the

Best Peloton Alternatives of 2025 as Tested by a Fitness Expert

Like so many other things at CNET, we test exercise bikes as thoroughly as possible through rigorous examination and comparison. Each exercise bike in our list has been through at least 100 miles of riding, using as many of the built-in features as possible. CNET staff -- not advertisers, partners or business interests -- determine how we review products and services. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. The Peloton bike is a sought-after exercise bike because of its advance

Apple's China iPhone sales grows for the first time in two years

Apple iPhone sales in China rose in the second quarter of the year for the first time in two years, Counterpoint Research said, as the tech giant looks to turnaround its business in one of its most critical markets. Sales of iPhones in China jumped 8% year-on-year in the three months to the end of June, according to Counterpoint Research. It's the first time Apple has recorded growth in China since the second quarter of 2023. Apple's performance was boosted by promotions in May as Chinese e-co

OpenAI disavows online broker Robinhood's sale of 'OpenAI tokens'

'We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this and do not endorse it.' OpenAI has condemned online brokerage firm Robinhood's sale of "OpenAI tokens," saying they will not give consumers stock in the company. "We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it," the company said in a post on X, adding that the tokens are not equity and that it did not give approval for any transfer. The statement addresses a recent move by Robinhood to provide Eu

Hunters International ransomware shuts down, releases free decryptors

​The Hunters International Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operation announced today that it has officially closed down its operations and will offer free decryptors to help victims recover their data without paying a ransom. "After careful consideration and in light of recent developments, we have decided to close the Hunters International project. This decision was not made lightly, and we recognize the impact it has on the organizations we have interacted with," the cybercrime gang says in a

Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, July 3

Gael Cooper CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.

U.S. lifts chip software curbs on China amid trade truce

The U.S. government has rescinded its export restrictions on chip-design software to China, semiconductor software companies Synopsys and Cadence announced Thursday. "Synopsys is working to restore access to the recently restricted products in China," the California-based software maker said in a statement. Its rival, Cadence, confirmed with CNBC that the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, which falls under the Department of Commerce, had reversed the export restrictions. "We are in the pr

Deal: Narwal Fro Pro robot cleaner plummets to $400, a new record-low price

Jonathan Feist / Android Authority Here at Android Authority, we are big fans of Narwal cleaning robots. In fact, our top pick in our list of the best robot vacuums is a Narwal high-end model. Not everyone wants to spend well over a grand on a cleaning robot, though. The Narwal Freo Pro is a fantastic option if you want something more affordable. It competes against much more expensive alternatives, and is currently at a record-low price of just $399.99. Buy the Narwal Freo Pro for just $399.99

American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history

Sign up for the Starts With a Bang newsletter Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all. Subscribe From World War II until 2024, the US stood unchallenged as the scientific leader of the free world. Across practically every discipline — physics, materials science, astronomy, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology, etc. — American scientific missions and initiatives, often in collaboration with European, Canadian, Asian, and many other global partners, b

OpenAI condemns Robinhood’s ‘OpenAI tokens’

OpenAI wants to make clear that Robinhood’s sale of “OpenAI tokens” will not give everyday consumers equity — or stock — in OpenAI, the company said in a post from its official newsroom account on X. OpenAI says it does not endorse Robinhood’s effort, nor was it involved in facilitating the token sale. “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” said OpenAI’s newsroom account. “We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity

Capital One builds agentic AI to supercharge auto sales

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Inspiration can come from different places, even for architecting and designing agentic systems. At VB Transform, Capital One explained how it built its agentic platform for its auto business. Milind Naphade, SVP of Technology and Head of AI Foundations at Capital One, said during VB Transform that the company wanted its agents to function