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New California fee targets batteries in PlayStations, power tools and singing cards

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. An attendee plays the Monster Hunter Wilds video game on the Sony PlayStation 5 Pro console during the Tokyo Game Show 2024 at Makuhari Messe in 2024 in Chiba, Japan. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . With the start of the new year, Californians will pay a new fee every time they buy a product with a nonremovable battery -- whether it's a power tool, a PlayStation or even a singing greeting card.


OpenAI admits AI browsers face unsolvable prompt attacks

FOX News

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper .


Stop Using Your Keyboard and Start Using Handy, a Free Speech-to-Text App

WIRED

It's called Handy, and it uses AI models to accurately convert your speaking voice into text--all for free. If old sci-fi shows are anything to go by, we're all using our computers wrong. We're still typing with our fingers, like cave people, instead of talking out loud the way the future was supposed to be. Have you ever seen Picard touch a keyboard? And it's odd because our computers are all capable of turning speech into text by default.


Elon Musk's Pornography Machine

The Atlantic - Technology

On X, sexual harassment and perhaps even child abuse are the latest memes. Earlier this week, some people on X began replying to photos with a very specific kind of request. "Put her in a bikini," "take her dress off," "spread her legs," and so on, they commanded Grok, the platform's built-in chatbot. Again and again, the bot complied, using photos of real people--celebrities and noncelebrities, including some who appear to be young children--and putting them in bikinis, revealing underwear, or sexual poses. By one estimate, Grok generated one nonconsensual sexual image every minute in a roughly 24-hour stretch.



Elon Musk's 2025 recap: how the world's richest person became its most chaotic

The Guardian

Though the drama surrounding Elon Musk was frequently absurd and unpredictable, it was also consequential. Though the drama surrounding Elon Musk was frequently absurd and unpredictable, it was also consequential. Elon Musk's 2025 recap: how the world's richest person became its most chaotic How the tech CEO and'Dogefather' made a mess of the year - from an apparent Nazi salute during his White House tenure to Tesla sales slumps and Starship explosions T he year of 2025 was dizzying for Elon Musk . The tech titan began the year holding court with Donald Trump in Washington DC. As the months ticked by, one public appearance after another baffled the US and the world.


An A-Z list of 2025's biggest stories

Al Jazeera

Scroll back through the last year, and the same words come up again and again. The top-trending terms of 2025, from artificial intelligence to Zohran Mamdani, shaped headlines across politics, conflict, technology and climate. As the year comes to a close, AJ Labs has compiled an A to Z list of names, places and issues that generated sustained interest throughout 2025, according to a loose analysis of our own most-viewed story tags and those that appeared in Google's most searched. Taken together, these terms are a patchwork of issues that are also likely to spill into 2026, from ongoing conflicts to a changing technosocial landscape not seen since the dawn of the internet. This is 2025 from A to Z, by the words that made the year.


OpenAI tightens AI rules for teens but concerns remain

FOX News

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper . Concerns remain over AI's impact on young people amid boom Tech expert praises New York's school cellphone ban as social media concerns rise Trump advisor details administration's push to boost AI hiring Kash Patel to close FBI's Hoover building in DC permanently Santa is'PACKING HEAT' during a traffic stop Trump has made AI a'key part' of his agenda, expert says Youth conservative movement has'never been in better hands,' podcast host says Most-used passwords of 2025 include '123456' and'password' Megan Garcia, a mother who lost her son to suicide after he allegedly became emotionally attached to an AI chatbot, discusses the dangers of the technology on'Fox News Sunday.'


Deep classifier kriging for probabilistic spatial prediction of air quality index

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Accurate spatial interpolation of the air quality index (AQI), computed from concentrations of multiple air pollutants, is essential for regulatory decision-making, yet AQI fields are inherently non-Gaussian and often exhibit complex nonlinear spatial structure. Classical spatial prediction methods such as kriging are linear and rely on Gaussian assumptions, which limits their ability to capture these features and to provide reliable predictive distributions. In this study, we propose \textit{deep classifier kriging} (DCK), a flexible, distribution-free deep learning framework for estimating full predictive distribution functions for univariate and bivariate spatial processes, together with a \textit{data fusion} mechanism that enables modeling of non-collocated bivariate processes and integration of heterogeneous air pollution data sources. Through extensive simulation experiments, we show that DCK consistently outperforms conventional approaches in predictive accuracy and uncertainty quantification. We further apply DCK to probabilistic spatial prediction of AQI by fusing sparse but high-quality station observations with spatially continuous yet biased auxiliary model outputs, yielding spatially resolved predictive distributions that support downstream tasks such as exceedance and extreme-event probability estimation for regulatory risk assessment and policy formulation.


Baby spider monkeys rescued in Texas

Popular Science

Animal traffickers face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. It should go without saying, but please don't smuggle spider monkeys. While responding to a human trafficking case earlier this year, United States Border Patrol agents in Laredo, Texas, found two of these tiny primates . The driver failed to yield and fled the scene, leading officers to respond.