Aug 4, 2025

AI helps Italian rescue team find missing hiker after 11 months

Italy's National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps (CNSAS) used artificial intelligence to locate the body of a missing hiker after nearly 11 months, analyzing 2,600 drone images in just one afternoon to spot his helmet among the mountainous terrain. The breakthrough demonstrates how AI-powered search and rescue operations can dramatically reduce recovery times from weeks or months of manual analysis to hours, potentially saving lives in future mountain emergencies. How it worked: The rescue team deployed drones across a 183-hectare area on the north face of Monviso, Italy's highest peak in the Cottian Alps, capturing thousands of aerial images from...

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AI “vibe coding” helps non-technical founders build $80M exits

A new generation of entrepreneurs is using AI to build successful startups without traditional engineering teams, with companies like Giggles attracting over 120,000 users and Base44 selling to Wix for $80 million. This "vibe coding" approach—where founders use natural language to direct AI in creating applications—is democratizing entrepreneurship but raising questions about whether these ventures can scale without deeper technical expertise. What you should know: "Vibe coding," a term coined by former OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy, describes using AI to write code through natural language rather than traditional programming. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan reports that many startups now use...

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Former Google researcher predicts AI hallucinations fix within a year

Former Google AI researcher Raza Habib predicts that AI hallucinations—when chatbots generate false or fabricated information—will be solved within a year, though he questions whether complete elimination is desirable. Speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm AI conference in London, Habib argued that some degree of hallucination may be necessary for AI systems to generate truly novel ideas and creative solutions. The technical solution: Habib explains that AI models are naturally well-calibrated before human preference training disrupts their accuracy assessment. "If you look at the models before they are fine-tuned on human preferences, they're surprisingly well calibrated," Habib said, noting that a model's...

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No right to repair: China’s underground shops fix thousands of banned Nvidia AI chips monthly

A thriving underground repair industry has emerged in China focused on fixing Nvidia's banned AI chips, with around a dozen Shenzhen-based firms claiming to service thousands of H100 and A100 graphics processing units (GPUs) monthly despite strict US export controls. This shadow economy highlights the persistent demand for high-end AI hardware in China and raises questions about the long-term viability of aging smuggled chips operating without official support. What you should know: Small repair shops are processing massive volumes of restricted Nvidia chips that officially cannot be sold or serviced in China. One company repairs up to 500 Nvidia AI...

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AMD’s $1.2K R9700 GPU challenges Nvidia in professional AI computing market

AMD's latest professional graphics card has arrived with serious firepower for AI workloads, and major manufacturers are racing to deliver their own versions. The Radeon AI Pro R9700 represents the chip giant's most powerful GPU to date, designed specifically for artificial intelligence training, scientific computing, and high-end rendering tasks that demand sustained performance under intensive workloads. Unlike consumer graphics cards optimized for gaming, professional GPUs like the R9700 prioritize reliability, memory capacity, and multi-card scalability over peak gaming performance. This matters because AI training and scientific simulation often require cards to run at maximum capacity for days or weeks without...

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Cloudflare accuses Perplexity AI of shady North Korea-style scraping

Cloudflare has accused Perplexity AI of acting like "North Korean hackers" after discovering the AI search company's bots repeatedly circumventing anti-scraping measures to crawl websites without permission. This escalation in the ongoing battle over AI data collection could significantly undermine Perplexity's ability to index content, as Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure provider, has now delisted the company as a "verified bot" and implemented hard blocks against its web crawlers. What happened: Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince publicly called out Perplexity AI on Monday for invasive web crawling practices that violate website protection measures. An investigation revealed Perplexity was "repeatedly modifying" its web-crawling...

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Fancy AI models are getting stumped by Sudoku while hallucinating explanations

University of Colorado Boulder researchers tested five AI models on 2,300 simple Sudoku puzzles and found significant gaps in both problem-solving ability and trustworthiness. The study revealed that even advanced models like ChatGPT's o1 could only solve 65% of six-by-six puzzles correctly, while their explanations frequently contained fabricated facts or bizarre responses—including one AI that provided an unprompted weather forecast when asked about Sudoku. What you should know: The research focused less on puzzle-solving ability and more on understanding how AI systems think and explain their reasoning. ChatGPT's o1 model performed best at solving puzzles but was particularly poor at...

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Deluxe AI-partment in the sky: Apple boosts spending 61% as it builds private cloud empire

Apple is preparing to significantly increase its capital expenditures to build out AI infrastructure, with CFO Kevan Parekh confirming the company anticipates "substantial" growth in capex during its Q3 2025 earnings call. The tech giant is investing heavily in its own data centers powered by Apple Silicon chips as part of its Private Cloud Compute architecture, marking a strategic shift toward first-party AI infrastructure while maintaining some reliance on third-party platforms. What you should know: Apple's AI infrastructure spending surge reflects a major strategic pivot toward owning more of its compute stack. Capital expenditures jumped to $3.46 billion in Q3...

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Google and Goodwill launch free AI training for 200K workers

Artificial intelligence has rapidly evolved from a futuristic concept to an essential workplace skill, yet many professionals remain uncertain about how to develop AI literacy. A new partnership between Google and Goodwill Industries offers a compelling solution: a comprehensive, free AI training program designed to bridge this knowledge gap for working professionals. The Google AI Essentials course, delivered through Coursera, represents a strategic collaboration between Google.org (Google's philanthropic arm) and Goodwill Industries—better known for thrift stores but actually the largest nonprofit workforce development provider in the United States, helping over 350 people find jobs daily. This partnership aims to deliver...

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Tech giants plan $400B AI spending spree as infrastructure race heats up

Big tech companies have collectively spent $155 billion on artificial intelligence infrastructure in 2025 so far, exceeding the US government's spending on education, jobs, and social services combined. This massive capital expenditure race is set to accelerate dramatically, with the four largest tech giants planning to spend over $400 billion on AI-related infrastructure in the coming fiscal year alone. The big picture: Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are locked in an unprecedented spending competition to build the data centers, servers, and semiconductor infrastructure needed to power AI services. Meta's year-to-date capital expenditure reached $30.7 billion, doubling last year's $15.2 billion...

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Job seekers reject AI interviews as dehumanizing hiring practice

AI-powered job interviews are becoming increasingly common as companies deploy chatbots to conduct initial candidate screenings, but job seekers are pushing back against the technology. Many unemployed professionals are refusing to participate in AI interviews, viewing them as dehumanizing and a red flag about company culture, even at the risk of missing job opportunities. What you should know: HR teams are turning to AI interviewers out of necessity as they struggle to manage thousands of applications per role with reduced staff. Companies use AI to filter top applicants, schedule interviews, and automate hiring correspondence beyond just conducting interviews. Job seekers...

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AI virtuality boom drives San Francisco’s IRL party scene

San Francisco's party scene is experiencing a renaissance fueled by the AI boom, with tech professionals flocking back to the city for networking events, exclusive salons, and industry gatherings. The surge in social activity coincides with rent increases jumping to the highest in the nation, as people seek human connection amid rapid technological change and uncertainty about AI's impact on work and society. What you should know: Industry leaders are gathering at exclusive events to discuss AI's transformative effects and strategies for navigating uncertainty. AGI House, a Hillsborough mansion known for hosting tech celebrities like Google cofounder Sergey Brin, recently...

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Google mocks Apple’s year-long Siri AI delay in new Pixel 10 ad

Google has launched a new Pixel 10 advertisement that directly mocks Apple's delayed Siri AI upgrade, highlighting how Apple Intelligence features promised nearly a year ago still haven't been delivered. The 30-second spot capitalizes on Apple's ongoing struggles with its AI-powered Siri improvements, which were originally promised alongside the iPhone 16 launch but have faced significant technical delays. What you should know: Google's ad targets Apple's unfulfilled AI promises with pointed messaging about waiting for features that never arrive. The narrator suggests users could "just change your phone" if they bought "a new phone because of a feature that's coming...

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Summer of discontent: AI eliminated 10,000+ US jobs in July alone, says study

Artificial intelligence is already eliminating thousands of jobs monthly across the U.S., with over 10,000 positions lost to AI adoption in July alone, according to a new report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas. The findings underscore how AI has rapidly become one of the top five drivers of job losses this year, reshaping entire industries while the broader job market faces mounting pressures from trade uncertainty and economic headwinds. The big picture: AI-driven job displacement is accelerating across multiple sectors, with technology companies leading the cuts at over 89,000 announced job reductions—a 36% increase from last year. More...

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Psychiatry residency hits 14-year high as graduates embrace AI collaboration

Medical school graduates are increasingly choosing psychiatry as their specialty, with 1,975 students matching into psychiatry programs in 2025—marking the 14th consecutive year of growth in the field. This surge comes despite widespread predictions that AI mental health apps and chatbots will eventually replace human therapists, suggesting these graduates see opportunity rather than obsolescence in the AI revolution. What you should know: The latest matching data reveals a significant uptick in psychiatry interest among new medical graduates. A total of 1,975 graduating seniors matched into psychiatry training programs in 2025, up from 1,823 the previous year. This represents the 14th...

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Utilities partner with Google to reduce AI power during peak demand

Google has signed agreements with two U.S. electric utilities to reduce power consumption at its AI data centers during peak demand periods, marking the tech giant's first formal participation in demand-response programs for machine learning workloads. The move addresses growing concerns about AI's massive energy requirements straining the electrical grid and potentially driving up costs for consumers while risking blackouts. What you should know: Google's partnerships with Indiana Michigan Power and Tennessee Power Authority represent the first time the company has formally agreed to scale back its AI operations to help stabilize the electrical grid. The agreements allow utilities to...

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Gen-guesser: Google uses AI to estimate user ages from browsing data

Google is rolling out an AI-powered age-estimation system that will infer users' ages based on their search history and browsing data to apply content restrictions on Search and YouTube. The system, launching in the EU to comply with digital safety regulations, represents a significant shift from relying solely on user-provided age information to algorithmic inference, raising new questions about privacy, accuracy, and consent in content moderation. Why this matters: The move marks the first major deployment of AI age-estimation technology by a major platform, potentially setting a precedent for how tech companies balance regulatory compliance with user privacy across global...

read Aug 1, 2025

Tim Cook tells Apple staff AI is “as big as the internet”

Apple CEO Tim Cook held an urgent company-wide meeting at Apple Park's Steve Jobs Theater, telling employees that the AI revolution is "as big or bigger" than the internet and smartphones while promising significant investment to catch up in artificial intelligence. The rare all-hands gathering signals Apple's mounting pressure to address its AI lag amid high-profile employee defections to competitors and internal strategic confusion. What you should know: Cook used the hourlong meeting to rally Apple's workforce around AI development, drawing parallels to the company's history of being late to markets but ultimately defining them. "Apple must do this. Apple...

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Google adds 4 new AI search features including image analysis

Google is doubling down on its AI-powered search experience with four significant upgrades to AI Mode, the feature that replaces traditional link-heavy results with AI-generated summaries and overviews. These enhancements signal the company's commitment to making artificial intelligence a central part of how people find and interact with information online. AI Mode fundamentally changes the search experience by providing conversational, contextual responses instead of lists of website links. While this approach can streamline information gathering, it has also sparked debate about its impact on web publishers and concerns about AI accuracy. Google's latest updates appear designed to address skeptics while...

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Take that, Oppenheimer: Meta offers AI researcher $250M over 4 years in talent war

Meta recently offered AI researcher Matt Deitke $250 million over four years—an average of $62.5 million annually—shattering every historical precedent for scientific compensation. The 24-year-old's package is 327 times what Manhattan Project leader J. Robert Oppenheimer earned while developing the atomic bomb, reflecting Silicon Valley's belief that the race for artificial general intelligence could reshape civilization and create trillions in market value. The big picture: Tech companies are treating AI talent like irreplaceable assets rather than well-compensated professionals, driven by the conviction that whoever achieves artificial general intelligence first could dominate markets worth trillions. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly offered...

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Fal builds generative media cloud to solve AI’s speed problem

Fal has built a generative media cloud platform optimized for speed and performance in AI inference, particularly for image, video, and audio models. The company's approach emerged from necessity during the AI infrastructure crunch, when the founding team had to engineer creative solutions around limited GPU capacity to deliver fast, reliable AI model inference. What you should know: Fal positions itself as more than just an inference platform, branding their service as a "generative media cloud" that prioritizes user experience alongside technical performance. The platform specializes in image, video, and audio model inference, addressing the common frustration users face with...

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Deepfake scammers target Guernsey chief minister in fake investment scheme

Fraudsters are using AI-generated deepfake content featuring Guernsey's chief minister to trick islanders into fake investment schemes. The scam includes fabricated videos and images of Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez appearing to endorse fraudulent investments, along with fake local newspaper articles designed to lend credibility to the deception. What you should know: Guernsey Police have issued warnings after discovering the sophisticated deepfake scam targeting local residents. The fraudulent content shows fake video and images of Chief Minister Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez seemingly recommending investment opportunities. Scammers also created fake local newspaper articles to make their scheme appear more legitimate and trustworthy....

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Nearly half of AI-generated code contains security vulnerabilities, claims study

Nearly half of AI-generated code contains security vulnerabilities despite appearing production-ready, according to new research from Veracode, a cybersecurity company, that examined over 100 large language models across 80 coding tasks. The findings reveal that even advanced AI coding tools are creating significant security risks for companies increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to supplement or replace human developers, with no improvement in security performance across newer or larger models. What you should know: The security flaws affect all major programming languages, with Java experiencing the highest failure rate at over 70%. Python, C#, and JavaScript also showed concerning failure rates...

read Aug 1, 2025

Samsung unfolds free 6-month Google AI Pro subscriptions with purchase of foldable phones

Samsung's latest foldable phones are breaking preorder records, and the company is sweetening the deal with a valuable bonus that many buyers might overlook. Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and Z Flip 7 FE purchasers can claim six months of Google AI Pro absolutely free—a $120 value that unlocks advanced artificial intelligence tools, expanded cloud storage, and premium features designed to enhance productivity. This promotion arrives as Samsung celebrates record-breaking demand for its newest foldables. According to the company, preorders have surged nearly 60% compared to last year's models, with carrier partners reporting unprecedented interest in the lighter,...

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