Tech
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American Express releases tools to build AI payments—and pledges to pay the price if agents go awry
Agentic commerce, where AI agents undertake purchases or other economic activity on a user’s behalf, has so far seen relatively limited adoption despite a gush of interest from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. But the possibility of disrupting the online payments space is nevertheless proving too lucrative for many major institutions to pass up. That…
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Anthropic is facing a wave of user backlash over reports of performance issues with its Claude AI chatbot
Anthropic, the high-flying AI company, is facing a backlash from some of its most prolific users over a perceived decline in the performance of its Claude AI models. The issues have left the company—recently valued at $380 billion and reportedly en route to an IPO—scrambling to respond to user revolt and online speculation about its motives…
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New drones are giving Ukraine a battlefield advantage and ravaging Russia’s oil industry
Ukraine’s constant innovation in drone technology is giving its military an edge on the battlefield, dealing major blows to Russia’s army and economy. While Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago with superior numbers, that advantage has since been neutralized by Western aid and the emergence of new drones, which now account for the vast majority…
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Anthropic caused panic that Mythos will expose cybersecurity weak spots, but one industry veteran says the real problem is fixing, not finding, them
Anthropic caused an industrywide panic last week when it announced Claude Mythos Preview, an AI model with a knack for uncovering high-level cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Among its achievements, the model found a now-patched weak spot in OpenBSD, an operating system known for its security, that Anthropic claimed went undiscovered for 27 years. It has also found…
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After growing up on a dairy farm, this Peter Thiel-backed founder is using AI to save cattle ranching
Growing up on a dairy farm in the rolling green hills of New Zealand’s Waikato region in the upper northwest of the country, Craig Piggott’s days began before dawn. But even as daybreak crept across the fields, he was never alone in those early hours. Running a dairy farm was a full family effort: shifting…
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Artemis III will practice docking Orion with lunar landers in Earth orbit next year while Musk’s Starship and Bezos’ Blue Moon compete for Artemis IV
Never-before-glimpsed views of the moon’s far side. Check. Total solar eclipse gracing the lunar scene. Check. New distance record for humanity. Check. With NASA’s lunar comeback a galactic-sized smash thanks to Artemis II, the world is wondering: What’s next? And how do you top that? “To people all around the world who look up and…
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These startups are racing to make AI safe for the Pentagon’s most closely guarded secrets
The relationship between AI companies and the American defense establishment burst into the open earlier this year when Anthropic found itself in a nasty public fight with the Pentagon. After Anthropic demanded assurances its AI products wouldn’t power domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons, the Pentagon barred all federal agencies and contractors from doing business with…
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Man’s best friend may soon live a little longer thanks to a new pill promising to extend your pup’s lifespan
For most dog owners, the hardest part of loving a pet is knowing from the start how it ends. A San Francisco startup called Loyal wants to give you a few more precious moments with your loyal companion, and their results are promising. Loyal is developing a daily prescription pill for senior dogs that the…
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AI promises to free workers from grunt work, but psychologists say those mindless tasks are exactly what our brains need to recover
As the debate over AI’s role in the workplace rages on, some experts warn that eliminating menial tasks with AI could come with a hidden cost to productivity. In a Financial Times op-ed last year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said AI agents were helping customer service workers resolve more queries and helping programmers write more…
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‘It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right’: Artemis II splashes down despite faulty heat shield
After nearly 10 days in space, complete with a historic loop around the moon, the four astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II mission faced their most dangerous moment yet: not in deep space, but in the final 13 minutes of their journey home. “It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right,” said NASA’s Artemis…