Author: GT

Tech and consulting giant IBM was not immune to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts. IBM had 15 of its federal contracts canceled due to DOGE-related cuts during the first quarter of 2025, according to reporting from Reuters and Bloomberg. These cuts amount to $100 million in future payments, per Bloomberg. Federal contracts represent between 5% and just under 10% of IBM’s consulting practice. After being peppered with questions during IBM’s earnings call Wednesday, Arvind Krishna, IBM’s CEO, clarified that the cancellations were related to cutbacks at USAID. Both Krishna and James Kavanaugh, IBM’s CFO, then proceeded to downplay…

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and alt coins like Ethereum, are powered by the blockchain technology, which comprises complex cryptography and software that creates an immutable and decentralized database. The system offers enhanced security for users, as it maintains a tamper-resistant record of transactions and keeps track of the owner. Blockchain’s safety and decentralization features have been among the major drivers behind the proliferation of cryptocurrencies. Positive industry developments like the repeal of an accounting rule by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), and the agency’s decision to drop lawsuits against Coinbase COIN and Robinhood bode well for investors.Cryptocurrencies have been benefiting…

Researchers have introduced RAGEN, an AI framework designed to counter LLM agent instability when handling complex situations. Training these AI agents presents significant hurdles, particularly when decisions span multiple steps and involve unpredictable feedback from the environment. While reinforcement learning (RL) has shown promise in static tasks like solving maths problems or generating code, its application to dynamic, multi-turn agent training has been less explored.    Addressing this gap, a collaborative team from institutions including Northwestern University, Stanford University, Microsoft, and New York University has proposed StarPO (State-Thinking-Actions-Reward Policy Optimisation). StarPO offers a generalised approach for training agents at the trajectory…

According to the WSJ, a recently discovered will suggests late Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh had concrete plans for his fortune despite previous beliefs that he died without leaving instructions for an estate that’s estimated to be worth $1.2 billion. Among other things, the document, signed in 2015 and included in a recent court filing, contains a striking no-contest clause directed at Hsieh’s family: If any of his four family members challenge his wishes, all will receive nothing. The will also allocates over $50 million and several Las Vegas properties to undisclosed trusts tied to recipients he aimed to surprise. Notably,…

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. preorders for the Nintendo Switch 2 kicked off shortly after the clock struck midnight Thursday. But chaos soon ensued amid high demand.Scores of consumers hoping to be among the first to own Nintendo’s latest gaming console — which is set to officially launch June 5 — jumped online to try and snag a preorder. And while some lucky buyers found success, many others ran into frustrating delays or saw listings appear to quickly sell out at participating retailers like Target, Walmart and Best Buy in the wee hours of the night.Among the headaches, social media…

Adobe on Thursday launched the latest iteration of its Firefly family of image generation AI models, a model for generating vectors, and a redesigned web app that houses all its AI models, plus some from its competitors. There’s also a mobile app for Firefly in the works. The new Firefly Image Model 4, Adobe says, improves on its predecessors in terms of quality, speed, and the amount of control over the structure and style of outputs, camera angles, and zoom. It can generate images in resolutions up to 2K. There’s also a tweaked, more capable version of this model called…

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Bitcoin’s (BTC) status as a haven in the context of broader financial markets may be up for debate, but within crypto it’s hardly questionable. Cryptocurrency prices have fallen across the board over the last 24 hours, yet bets on BTC’s dominance keep growing. The market’s sell-off comes amid profit-taking and conflicting messages from the Trump administration over its trade war with China. Those comments cooled a rally that started after President Donald Trump signaled he would not remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and suggested a softer stance on trade with…

A coalition of experts, including former OpenAI employees, has voiced strong opposition to the company’s shift away from its nonprofit roots. In an open letter addressed to the Attorneys General of California and Delaware, the group – which also includes legal experts, corporate governance specialists, AI researchers, and nonprofit representatives – argues that the proposed changes fundamentally threaten OpenAI’s original charitable mission.    OpenAI was founded with a unique structure. Its core purpose, enshrined in its Articles of Incorporation, is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity” rather than serving “the private gain of any person.” The letter’s…

For years, websites included information about what kind of crawlers were not allowed on their site with a robots.txt file. Adobe, which wants to create a similar standard for images, has added a tool to content credentials with an intention to give them a bit more control over what is used to train AI models. Convincing AI companies to actually adhere to Adobe’s standard may be the primary challenge, especially considering AI crawlers are already known to ignore requests in the robots.txt file. Content credentials are information in a media file’s metadata used to identify authenticity and ownership. It’s a…

LONDON (AP) — New smartphones aren’t cheap and prices could reach even higher as globe trade tensions fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats throw Asian exports into turmoil. To save money, consider buying a secondhand device. The market for used cell phones is booming. It’s now growing faster than the market for new devices, according to CCS Insight, a U.K.-based tech research firm. As each new model release sends consumers rushing to upgrade, they’ll also be selling or trading in their existing devices, which usually have lots of life left. If you’re on a budget, a refurbished secondhand…