Author: GT

Looks like Apple has its first bona fide box office hit. The company has already produced critically-acclaimed and award-winning films for Apple TV+. In fact, while Netflix has reportedly spent millions on its Oscar campaigns, Apple’s “Coda” remains the only movie produced by a streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It has, however, been a different story at the box office — at best, returns have fallen short of ambitious budgets, and with “Argylle,” the company had a spectacular flop. Last year, Apple reportedly decided to scale back on both budgets and theatrical releases, leading to…

Donald Trump, as both a citizen and president, has railed against modern dishwashers, washing machines, light bulbs, showerheads and toilets, claiming that onerous government regulations render them less effective and more expensive.Since returning to the White House in January, he’s turned his ire into an edict.On April 9, Trump issued an executive order directing certain federal agencies “to incorporate a sunset provision” into a laundry list of energy production regulations, including those covering appliances. A month later, he issued a memorandum, entitled “Rescission of Useless Water Pressure Standards.”Following that, on May 12, the Department of Energy announced that it was…

BEIJING (AP) — Humanoid robots have captivated fans in Beijing with a fully autonomous soccer match powered by artificial intelligence. This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors. Teams prepare to compete during the inaugural RoBoLeague robot soccer competition using autonomous T1 robots from Booster Robotics in Beijing, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Teams prepare to compete during the inaugural RoBoLeague robot soccer competition using autonomous T1 robots from Booster Robotics in Beijing, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)Read More Cheerleaders perform between matches near T1 robots from Booster Robotics at the inaugural…

The oil market is assuming a bearish tilt after the Iran-Israel conflict ended in a ceasefire this week, with President Donald Trump hinting he could loosen sanctions against the Islamic Republic’s crude exports. The 12-day conflict drove oil prices sharply higher and then lower as traders gauged the odds of a major supply disruption. U.S. crude oil prices surged more than 15% from the start of Israel’s air campaign against Iran on June 13, only to peak at a five-month high on the evening of Sunday June 22 after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic’s three key nuclear sites. Global…

France views Eutelsat as a strategic asset in the EU’s push for technological sovereignty.Benoit Tessier | AFP via Getty ImagesFor years, France’s Eutelsat has been trying to build a European alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service.The company merged with British satellite venture OneWeb in 2023, consolidating the region’s satellite communications industry in an effort to catch up to Starlink, which is owned by SpaceX.Last week, the French state led a 1.35-billion-euro ($1.58 billion) investment in Eutelsat, making it the company’s biggest shareholder with a roughly 30% stake.Europe largely lags behind the U.S. in the global space race. Starlink’s…

BEIJING (AP) — While China’s men’s soccer team hasn’t generated much excitement in recent years, humanoid robot teams have won over fans in Beijing based more on the AI technology involved than any athletic prowess shown. Four teams of humanoid robots faced off in fully autonomous 3-on-3 soccer matches powered entirely by artificial intelligence on Saturday night in China’s capital in what was touted as a first in China and a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, set to take place in Beijing.According to the organizers, a key aspect of the match was that all the participating robots…

The FBI and cybersecurity firms are warning that the prolific hacking group known as Scattered Spider is now targeting airlines and the transportation sector. In a brief statement on Friday shared with TechCrunch, the FBI said it had “recently observed” cyberattacks resembling Scattered Spider to include the airline sector. Executives from Google’s cybersecurity unit Mandiant and Palo Alto Networks’ security research division Unit 42 also said they have witnessed Scattered Spider cyberattacks targeting the aviation industry. Scattered Spider is a collective of mostly English-speaking hackers, typically teenagers and young adults, who are financially motivated to steal and extort sensitive data…

For those of you wondering if AI agents can truly replace human workers, do yourself a favor and read the blog post that documents Anthropic’s “Project Vend.” Researchers at Anthropic and AI safety company Andon Labs put an instance of Claude Sonnet 3.7 in charge of an office vending machine, with a mission to make a profit. And, like an episode of “The Office,” hilarity ensued. They named the AI agent Claudius, equipped it with a web browser capable of placing product orders and an email address (which was actually a Slack channel) where customers could request items. Claudius was also…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is arguing that the digital identification approach being promoted by Sam Altman’s World project has real privacy risks. Previously known as Worldcoin, World was created under Altman and Alex Blania’s Tools for Humanity. The organization says it can help distinguish between AI agents and human beings by scanning users’ eyeballs and creating a unique identity for them on the blockchain. In a lengthy post, Buterin noted that World’s approach of using zero-knowledge proofs to verify human identity while protecting anonymity is also being explored by various digital passport and digital ID projects. And he acknowledged that…

Welcome back to Week in Review! Lots of news for you this week — Travis Kalanick is possibly returning to the world of self-driving vehicles, CoreWeave’s CEO is now worth $10 billion, Apple users aren’t happy with how the company is promoting its new “F1” movie, and much more.  Quick note that we will be off next week for the July 4 holiday. Have a great weekend! And another one: Meta snagged a key OpenAI researcher, Trapit Bansal, to boost its new AI superintelligence team. He’s the same guy who helped kick off OpenAI’s reasoning model work alongside Ilya Sutskever.…