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OpenAI presents its preferred version of AI regulation in a new ‘blueprint’ Jan 15, 2025

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OpenAI on Monday published what it’s calling an “economic blueprint” for AI: a living document that lays out policies the company thinks it can build on with the U.S. government and its allies.

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UK throws its hat into the AI fire Jan 14, 2025

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In 2023, the U.K. made a big song and dance about the need to consider the harms of AI, giving itself a leading role in the wider conversation around AI safety.

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Automattic says it will reduce its contribution to WordPress core project to match WP Engine Jan 14, 2025

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It’s a new year, but drama in the WordPress community keeps going. Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com, said that it would reduce its contribution to WordPress core, the open-source project that acts as the backbone of most of Automattic’s products and ensures the longevity of WordPress as a technology and community.

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Comcast and other TV streamers are now chasing YouTube’s ad dollars instead of the other way around Jan 13, 2025

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TV providers and streamers’ real competition isn’t each other, it’s social video. Or at least that’s what the president of Comcast Advertising, James Rooke, said during an interview on Wednesday at CES 2025 in Las Vegas.

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Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress accounts of contributors planning a fork Jan 13, 2025

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Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg has deactivated the accounts of several WordPress.org community members, some of whom have been spearheading a push to create a new fork of the open source WordPress project.

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CES 2025: Nvidia’s AI avatar sat on my computer screen and weirded me out Jan 10, 2025

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Nvidia unveiled a prototype AI avatar at CES 2025 that lives on your PC’s desktop. The AI assistant, R2X, looks like a video game character, and it can help you navigate apps on your computer.

The R2X avatar is rendered and animated using Nvidia’s AI models, and users can run the avatar on popular LLMs of their choice, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o or xAI’s Grok. Users can talk with R2X through text and voice, upload files to it for processing, or even enable the AI assistant to view what’s happening live on your screen or camera.

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CES 2025: Where have all the US automakers gone? Jan 09, 2025

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The old chestnut passed around by industry watchers for the past decade was that CES — one of the world’s largest consumer tech trade events — had turned into an auto show. Maybe even the most important auto show of the year. And there was ample evidence of that.

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CES 2025: Halliday's Smart Glasses Jan 09, 2025

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Walk up to someone wearing a pair of Halliday’s smart glasses, and you might not notice they’re looking at smartphone notifications, live language translations, or advice from an AI assistant.

The only giveaway is the tiny green dot of light on their eyeball.

Wearables startup Halliday launched a pair of smart glasses at CES 2025 that projects a 3.5-inch round display into your line of sight. The device creating the display is called the DigiWindow, and it’s a tiny round module — smaller than your pinky nail — that sits on the inside of the Halliday’s frames just above your right eye.

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CES 2025: Zugu's Case of Death', Basketball rebounding robot, and Omi's Brain Interface Jan 08, 2025

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If a user’s heart rate stops suddenly, and their body temperature and blood oxygen level also drop dramatically, the smart ring knows that its user has died and sends a signal to the In Case of Death app to trigger the ‘Death Protections’ chosen by the user when they first enrolled in the app and set it up. Davy Robot’s Datic 1 nabbed a good bit of attention this week at CES 2025, as attendees lined up to shoot some hoops on the busy show floor. The bot sits under a hoop, rebounding the ball after you take a shot. And San Francisco startup Based Hardware announced the launch of a new AI wearable, Omi, to boost productivity during the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas this week.

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CES 2025: Honda's futuristic ‘0 SUV’ prototype, German Bionic’s new exoskeleton, and Beatbot's robot turtle Jan 08, 2025

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Honda unveiled Tuesday at CES 2025 the latest EV in its so-called 0 Series — a mid-sized SUV prototype dubbed, surely enough, the 0 SUV. Honda’s take on the SUV will join the 0 Saloon that the automaker showed off at last year’s show; At CES 2025, German Bionic announced the Apogee Ultra, a new robotic exoskeleton it claims is the “world’s most powerful.” What did the system do to earn such a lofty title? It offers up to 80 pounds of dynamic lift assistance. That means a payload of 70 pounds feels more like nine to 11 pounds to the lifter’s lower back; and Beatbot makes robotic pool cleaners. In fact, the company is showing off a new one with a docking station this week at CES 2025. What really caught our eye on the show floor, however, is RoboTurtle, because, well, it’s a robot that looks like a turtle. The turtle, sadly, seems to very much be in the concept stages, as the firm focuses on more commercial endeavors.

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