News Archive
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Days with a blue dot have stories.
- 01 of 10Scams
A fake video of Canada's PM cost an 86-year-old widow nearly $1M
An Ontario widow drained her retirement savings, remortgaged her house and maxed her credit lines after seeing a slick AI-generated video of Prime Minister Mark Carney pushing a crypto scheme. It started with a $350 Facebook ad and ended in almost a million dollars gone. Police say she is one of many older Canadians the same scam ring has hit.
OUR TAKEIf a national leader is personally offering you a crypto tip on your phone, assume it is a fake until proven otherwise.
Read more → - 02 of 10Scams
Two brothers built a scam-blocking app after their own mum was targeted
Patrick and Ryan Coughlin launched Savi Security for iPhone and Android this week with $7m in funding, after a scammer used an AI clone of their sister's voice to stage a fake kidnapping call to their mother. The app watches for cloned voices and known scam patterns before the call gets to you.
OUR TAKEThe people building the shields now are the ones who almost lost family to the same trick you might get tomorrow.
Read more → - 03 of 10Workplace
Google staff rallied at HQ with a 4,500-name petition over job security
Around 100 Google workers gathered at the Mountain View campus on Thursday holding signs reading "Googlers for Job Security", handing bosses a petition signed by more than 4,500 employees. They want written promises that AI-driven restructuring will not become quiet mass layoffs. Google has cut thousands of roles in the past year while pouring money into AI.
OUR TAKEWhen even Google engineers are worried about being automated out, the rest of us are allowed to ask the same question.
Read more → - 04 of 10Workplace
Hyundai workers walked off the line over a 6ft factory robot
Hyundai's union has staged the car industry's first strike against humanoid robots after the company began trialling a 190cm two-legged worker on the production line. Staff say the robot was rolled in with no notice and no agreement on which jobs it would take. Production at one plant stopped for the day.
OUR TAKERobots on the factory floor were coming eventually. The row is whether the people already there get told first.
Read more → - 05 of 10Regulation
Hawaii became one of the first US states to put legal limits on AI chatbots
Governor Josh Green signed two bills this week creating child-safety rules for AI chatbots and giving victims of harmful AI-generated deepfakes the right to sue. Companies now have to build in protections for under-18 users, and courts can order fake sexual or defamatory content taken down.
OUR TAKEA small state, but a template. Expect your own government to copy the bits it likes within a year.
Read more → - 06 of 10Safety
Meta will now tell parents if a teen talks to its chatbot about suicide
Meta announced on Thursday that parents who use Instagram supervision tools will be alerted when their teenager discusses suicide or self-harm with Meta AI, and will be sent expert guidance on how to raise it. The company is also building a system to warn emergency services if a user looks to be in immediate danger. It follows months of pressure over teens using chatbots as therapists.
OUR TAKEA useful nudge for parents, and a reminder that these chatbots are watching the conversation too.
Read more → - 07 of 10Startups
A former OpenAI boss released a free heavyweight AI that anyone can download
Mira Murati's new outfit Thinking Machines put out its first big model, codenamed Inkling, on Wednesday. Unlike ChatGPT or Gemini, the weights are free to download and run yourself, giving smaller companies and researchers a Western option that is not locked behind a subscription.
OUR TAKEFree and open cuts the price of AI for small businesses. It also cuts the leash on what people can build with it.
Read more → - 08 of 10Home robotics
A home robot claims it can fold laundry in a house it has never been in
Bay Area startup Sunday Robotics unveiled Memo, a wheeled home robot running a new AI model called ACT-2, that the company says folded clothes correctly more than 99% of the time in strangers' houses and on garments it had never seen. A home beta is planned for the autumn.
OUR TAKEBelieve the demo when it lands in a real living room with kids, a cat and a pile of odd socks.
Read more → - 09 of 10Robotics
A Swiss firm launched a robot hand that moves like yours
Mimic Robotics in Zurich unveiled a five-fingered robotic hand on Thursday that mimics the tendons and joints of a real human hand, letting it grip a wine glass or thread a cable without crushing either. The company is selling it to factories, care-home researchers and prosthetics groups.
OUR TAKEThe day a machine can pick up your grandmother's teacup without smashing it is the day the job market shifts again.
Read more → - 10 of 10Consumer
Roblox will let kids build a playable game by typing a sentence
Roblox announced Build on Wednesday, a new tab in its mobile app that turns a written prompt like "a cosy fishing village at sunset" into a working game. The alpha starts in New Zealand on 28 July before rolling out worldwide. Roblox has 380 million monthly users, most of them under 16.
OUR TAKEEvery kid on the bus can now be a game studio. Whether the games are any good is another matter.
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