Are portable AC units viable at home? My verdict after testing one during a heat wave

Are portable AC units viable at home? My verdict after testing one during a heat wave

ZDNET’s key takeaways The EcoFlow Wave 3 is a portable air conditioner and heater that costs $1,299 on its own and $1,399 with a battery, a limited-time discount This is a portable air conditioner and heater that is more powerful than its predecessor It is also off-grid ready for camping, RVing, and even helping in … Read more

Facebook is asking users to use Meta AI on the photos in their private camera roll

Facebook is asking users to use Meta AI on the photos in their private camera roll

Facebook is pretty sure you want AI-edited versions of every photo in your phone’s camera roll, whether or not they’re uploaded to Facebook. That’s what you want, right? The Verge reported that when users open the Facebook app on their phones and navigate to adding a photo or video from their camera roll to their … Read more

OpenAI Loses 4 Key Researchers to Meta

OpenAI Loses 4 Key Researchers to Meta

Four OpenAI researchers are leaving the company to go to Meta, two sources confirm to WIRED. Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bi, Jiahui Yu, and Hongyu Ren have joined Meta’s superintelligence team. Their OpenAI Slack profiles have been deactivated. The Information first reported on the departures. It’s the latest in a series of aggressive moves by Mark … Read more

Tesla says it delivered its first car autonomously from factory to customer. It was a significant milestone, but still highlights shortcomings in the company’s tech.

Tesla says it delivered its first car autonomously from factory to customer. It was a significant milestone, but still highlights shortcomings in the company’s tech.

Tesla said it completed its first fully autonomous vehicle delivery from factory to customer. A video posted on X shows the vehicle — a Tesla Model Y — leaving the company’s Austin Gigafactory, driving on the highway, passing through suburban sprawl and residential neighborhoods, before arriving at a customer’s apartment building. Tesla CEO Elon Musk … Read more

Authors call on publishers to limit their use of AI

Authors call on publishers to limit their use of AI

An open letter from authors including Lauren Groff, Lev Grossman, R.F. Kuang, Dennis Lehane, and Geoffrey Maguire calls on book publishers to pledge to limit their use of AI tools, for example by committing to only hire human audiobook narrators. The letter argues that authors’ work has been “stolen” by AI companies: “Rather than paying … Read more

The Velvet Sundown: A ghost band with no proof of life

The Velvet Sundown: A ghost band with no proof of life

Have you heard of The Velvet Sundown? It’s kind of like The Velvet Underground, except The Velvet Underground is definitely real, and the jury is still out for The Velvet Sundown. The band’s photos look remarkably AI-generated — too clean, not quite textured enough, oddly inhuman, yet it has racked up more than 372,000 monthly … Read more