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Pokémon Go data trained AI that could assist military drones in war zones
Pokemon Go became a worldwide hit after its launch - but players may not know that their game data trained AI that will potentially help military drones during war. Pokemon Go became a worldwide hit after its launch - but players may not know that their game data trained AI that will potentially help military drones during war. Fri 12 Jun 2026 03.06 EDTLast modified on Fri 12 Jun 2026 03.38 EDT An AI model trained on data collected from users of Pokémon Go will potentially help military drones find their location in war zones. Pokémon Go, a 2016 augmented reality mobile game, allowed players to find and catch Pokémon in the real world using the cameras on their mobile phones, and exploded in popularity. In 2018, the company reported having more than 800m downloads worldwide.
Neuro-Spectral Architectures for Causal Physics-Informed Networks
Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) have emerged as a powerful framework for solving partial differential equations (PDEs). However, standard MLP-based PINNs often fail to converge when dealing with complex initial value problems, leading to solutions that violate causality and suffer from a spectral bias towards low-frequency components. To address these issues, we introduce NeuSA (Neuro-Spectral Architectures), a novel class of PINNs inspired by classical spectral methods, designed to solve linear and nonlinear PDEs with variable coefficients. NeuSA learns a projection of the underlying PDE onto a spectral basis, leading to a finite-dimensional representation of the dynamics which is then integrated with an adapted Neural ODE (NODE). This allows us to overcome spectral bias, by leveraging the high-frequency components enabled by the spectral representation; to enforce causality, by inheriting the causal structure of NODEs, and to start training near the target solution, by means of an initialization scheme based on classical methods. We validate NeuSA on canonical benchmarks for linear and nonlinear wave equations, demonstrating strong performance as compared to other architectures, with faster convergence, improved temporal consistency and superior predictive accuracy.
Bosnia's Esmir Bajraktarevic: Child of Srebrenica
Game Theory: How does Esmir Bajraktarevic's penalty become a story about survival? How does a football penalty become a story about survival? As Bosnia and Herzegovina prepare to face Canada in their 2026 World Cup opener, many eyes will be on Esmir Bajraktarevic. Born in the US, to a family affected by the Srebrenica genocide, his journey is about far more than just football. Why are World Cup tickets so expensive?
The challenge of being neurodivergent in Japan's culture of conformity
As awareness grows, more Japanese adults are receiving answers to struggles that went unrecognized for years. Social camouflaging can help neurodivergent people navigate social situations, but researchers say the effort often comes with significant emotional and mental strain. The first major crisis in Yosuke's life came when he stood in front of his students. Until then, the 24-year-old had navigated his life with few obstacles. He had done well in school, scored highly on IQ tests and graduated from university without any major issues. But after securing his dream job as a geography and history teacher at a girls' high school two years ago, cracks began to show. "I couldn't read the room," says Yosuke, who recalls struggling to organize course materials and wrap up classes on time.
Apple's Camera Chief Thinks AI Can Give You Superpowers
Apple's Camera Chief Thinks AI Can Give You Superpowers The generative features in iOS 27's new Photos app will add fake pixels to some of your shots, but Apple's Jon McCormack says the company isn't using AI "for the sake of AI." What even is a photograph these days? As tech giants pack generative AI capabilities into our phones and their camera software, the line between what is a real image and what isn't continues to blur. Phones from Google and Samsung, for example, now come with features that let you drastically alter a photo by erasing people, moving people around in the shot, and even adding new objects to the scene. Apple is getting in on the action by adding new generative features to its Photos app, though the company's iPhone camera chief, Jon McCormack, stresses that Apple is taking a more measured approach than its competitors and isn't "doing AI for the sake of AI."
Why You Might Already Own SpaceX Shares, Siri's AI Makeover, and Knicks Owner's Surveillance Machine
Today on, we take an early look at the SpaceX IPO and why you might find yourself among the investors without even realizing it. This week on, our hosts discuss SpaceX officially going public and who will benefit the most from it, as well as Apple's WWDC and the brand-new release of Siri AI. They also get into how Meta removed a face-recognition feature after a WIRED report exposed it--and later in the show: an investigation into how New York Knicks' owner James Dolan created an extensive surveillance system inside all of his Madison Square Garden properties. Write to us at [email protected] . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Before we start, two quick things. If you've been enjoying listening to the show, would appreciate it if you took a second to rate it in your app of choice. It really helps us reach more people. Second, if you have any questions related to tech, privacy, or politics that you would like me, Zoë, and Leah to take on, now is the time to submit them to [email protected] . It doesn't matter how big or how small, we want to hear from you and get you answers. I'm a little tired, but it's because I got to see Lionel Messi play soccer last night and score a goal on a penalty kick. It was a friendly of Argentina versus Iceland. You'll never guess who won. Is that an obvious thing? It's far from their first attempt, but it's going to stick this time. We're also taking an early look at the SpaceX IPO this week, which is slated to become the world's largest IPO of all time. We'll get into who is slated to benefit the most. Elon Musk, who is already the world's richest man, but on track to become even richer and why you might find yourself among the investors without even realizing it. And in case you missed it, WIRED reporters recently uncovered that Meta had silently embedded code that would power a face-recognition system for its smart classes in the Meta AI app on millions of people's phones.
Musk's 1.8 trillion SpaceX IPO could be 'highly undesirable' for some
Musk's $1.8 trillion SpaceX IPO could be'highly undesirable' for some SpaceX is expected to debut on the United States' public markets on Friday in what will be the largest initial public offering (IPOs). Artificial intelligence (AI) giants OpenAI and Anthropic are also widely expected to go public soon, and thanks to a new rule change by tech stock exchange Nasdaq, individual investors could own stock of these companies when they go public in as soon as 15 business days following its first trading day. SpaceX's IPO is generating buzz among retail investors. The Elon Musk-led company is expected to allocate 20 percent of shares to retail investors and has drawn roughly $70bn in orders, according to the Reuters news agency. Historically, there is a waiting period between when a company goes public and when it is listed on the Nasdaq-100 index and/or S&P 500.
'Hands Off Our NHS': Anti-Palantir Protests Break Out in UK Over Deal With National Health Service
Crowding the gates of a major health care conference, protesters called for Palantir to be booted out of the UK's National Health Service over privacy concerns and political grievances. Protesters wearing hospital gowns and wielding signs gathered outside a UK health care conference on Thursday to object to a deal between the country's National Health Service and American software company Palantir . At 8 am local time, the group, around 80 people in total, crowded the entryway to the NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester. They wanted to appeal to NHS leadership to terminate a contract worth up to $440 million over concerns around national security, data privacy, and the company's political affiliations . The contract, which includes access to Palantir's data analytics and artificial intelligence services, is intended to run until 2031 but includes a break clause that permits the government to withdraw the agreement next February.
There's a new skydiving Rubik's Cube-solving champ in town, but there's one big problem with this feat
Jemele Hill says she feels'terribly sad' for Karmelo Anthony because his lawyer was white Five of the most unhinged fan theories that make'The Sopranos' a re-watchable masterpiece'Whalefall' trailer is here to add getting swallowed by a sperm whale while SCUBA diving to your list of fears Christopher Nolan's'The Odyssey' uncorks a Trojan Horse popcorn bucket that stores the goods in its crotch New trailer released for upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller'The Dog Stars' with Jacob Elordi'House of the Dragon' Season 3 premiere runtime and details revealed for hit HBO series You're not getting away with watering your grass with your'crank' out on Sheriff Grady Judd's watch Taylor Sheridan's hit CIA/military series'Lioness' gets official season release date on Paramount+ It wasn't on his shopping list, but a man managed to accidentally shoot himself in the groin at Walmart anyway Trump's Iran deal announcement sends markets skyrocketing, oil prices tumble Trump's Iran deal will not change regime's terror behavior, expert warns Paul Mauro: Crockett's weapon argument lacks'basic algebraic logic' Trump says Iran agreement documents are in'final shape,' signing soon Former Navy lieutenant commander says Iran doesn't'have a whole lot to work with' Massive national sporting events fuel market of'illicit trafficking,' says ex-DOJ prosector Doug Burgum praises Trump's leadership on rolling back regulations Iranian oil operations face'nuclear option' as US blockade traps ships Mike Pompeo: A piece of paper is'largely worthless' to the Iranian regime Trump says Iran will sign a deal'by this weekend' A solid WEEK after election night, progressive Nithya Raman has suddenly surged into the lead in LA--leaving voters completely flabbergasted. Few things amaze me like people who can solve a Rubik's Cube. Sure, lots of things amaze me more -- mountains, elaborate water features, how my dog sits on the couch and watches like he's super into it -- but it's a very specific kind of amazement that's like, Man, that's wild; I could never do that... nor do I really care to. But I like that other people are super into it to the point that there's now a Guinness World Record cottage industry of people solving them under different circumstances, and we've got a new top dog when it comes to solving a bunch of them while skydiving. A Rubik's Cube, the ultimate test of dexterity and spinning colored blocks.
Differential Privacy for Euclidean Jordan Algebra with Applications to Private Symmetric Cone Programming
In this paper, we study differentially private mechanisms for functions whose outputs lie in a Euclidean Jordan algebra. Euclidean Jordan algebras capture many important mathematical structures and form the foundation of linear programming, second-order cone programming, and semidefinite programming. Our main contribution is a generic Gaussian mechanism for such functions, with sensitivity measured in $\ell_2$, $\ell_1$, and $\ell_\infty$ norms. Notably, this framework includes the important case where the function outputs are symmetric matrices, and sensitivity is measured in the Frobenius, nuclear, or spectral norm. We further derive private algorithms for solving symmetric cone programs under various settings, using a combination of the multiplicative weights update method and our generic Gaussian mechanism. As an application, we present differentially private algorithms for semidefinite programming, resolving a major open question posed by [Hsu, Roth, Roughgarden, and Ullman, ICALP 2014].