Author: GT

Meta has fixed a security bug that allowed Meta AI chatbot users to access and view the private prompts and AI-generated responses of other users. Sandeep Hodkasia, the founder of security testing firm AppSecure, exclusively told TechCrunch that Meta paid him $10,000 in a bug bounty reward for privately disclosing the bug he filed on December 26, 2024.  Meta deployed a fix on January 24, 2025, said Hodkasia, and found no evidence that the bug was maliciously exploited. Hodkasia told TechCrunch that he identified the bug after examining how Meta AI allows its logged-in users to edit their AI prompts…

The logo for the Food and Drug Administration is seen ahead of a news conference on removing synthetic dyes from America’s food supply, at the Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025. Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty ImagesThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday published a warning letter addressed to the wrist wearable company Whoop, alleging it is marketing a new blood pressure feature without proper approvals.The letter centers around Whoop’s Blood Pressure Insights (BPI) feature, which the company introduced alongside its latest hardware launch in May.Whoop said its BPI feature uses blood…

Three weeks ago, an engineer named Calvin French-Owen, who worked on one of OpenAI’s most promising new products, resigned from the company.  He just published a fascinating blog post on what it was like to work there for a year, including the sleepless sprint to build Codex. That’s OpenAI’s new coding agent that competes with tools like Cursor and Anthropic’s Claude Code. French-Owen said he didn’t leave because of any “drama,” but because he wants to get back to being a startup founder. He was a co-founder of customer data startup Segment, which was bought by Twilio in 2020 for…

RESTON, Va. (AP) — Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Tuesday that Google will partner with his administration to provide free and low-cost artificial intelligence certification courses to Virginians as part of his office’s ongoing effort to connect citizens to new jobs amid changes to the state’s economy. The partnership, which he has described as an AI career launchpad, will provide Google-sponsored AI training courses for up to 10,000 Virginians at any given time, officials said at Google’s office in the northern part of the state. The training opportunities will be listed on a job website that Youngkin launched earlier…

Cooling towers at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania, Oct. 30, 2024.Danielle DeVries | CNBCIf there is one thing the U.S. needs to lead the artificial intelligence revolution, it’s electricity. Insane amounts of it.A 2024 report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy found that data centers — the backbone of artificial intelligence — already accounted for more than 4% of U.S. electricity use, and the report said that could grow to 12% by 2028. That would be 580 billion kilowatt hours, or nearly 20 times the annual power consumption of the city of Chicago.”Data centers…

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesFairshake, the cryptocurrency industry’s most powerful political action committee, announced Tuesday that it now holds more than $141 million in cash on hand, underscoring the sector’s growing influence as Congress takes up landmark legislation this week.The total, which includes liquid assets like crypto, stock, and cash, reflects a surge of donations from digital asset executives and firms, including a fresh $25 million from Coinbase.Fairshake and its two affiliated PACs — Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress — have raised $109 million since Election Day in 2024 and $52 million during just the first half…

Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live Conference in Laguna Beach, California on October 17, 2023. Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty ImagesMira Murati, the former chief technology officer of OpenAI, said Tuesday that her artificial intelligence startup Thinking Machines Lab has raised $2 billion in fresh capital and will announce its first product “in the next couple months.”Murati rocketed into the spotlight in 2023 when she was named interim CEO of OpenAI after Sam Altman was briefly ousted by the company’s board. She left OpenAI in September and launched Thinking…

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has pivoted from antisemitism to anime girl waifus. Musk wrote in an X post on Monday that AI companions are now available in the Grok app for “Super Grok” subscribers who pay $30 per month. According to posts that Musk has shared, it seems that there are at least two available AI companions: Ani, an anime girl in a tight corset and short black dress with thigh-high fishnets, and Bad Rudy, a 3D fox creature. “This is pretty cool,” Musk wrote, then shared a photo of the blonde-pigtailed goth anime girl. Given that this paywalled…

The Pentagon is taking immediate action to boost critical mineral production in the U.S. and counter China’s dominance of the supply chain for rare earth magnets, a defense official told CNBC on Tuesday.The Defense Department last week agreed to buy a direct equity stake in MP Materials, which will make the U.S. government the miner’s largest shareholder. MP operates the only rare earth mine in the U.S. located at Mountain Pass, California, and a magnet plant in Forth Worth, Texas.When asked whether the Pentagon is considering similar investments in other U.S. mining companies, the defense official said it is looking…

Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari currently dominate the web browser market, with Chrome holding a significant share due to the tech giant’s ongoing innovations, particularly in integrating generative AI into its search functionalities.  However, users seeking alternatives will find a variety of browsers aiming to challenge these industry giants. To help navigate the competitive landscape of the browser wars, we’ve compiled an overview of some of the top alternative browsers available today. This includes browsers leveraging AI, open source browsers that promote customization and privacy, and “mindful browsers” — a new term that refers to browsers designed to enhance user…