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China flashes new tech swagger to world markets convulsed by war

The Japan Times

Attendees at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, China, take pictures of various service robots on display. At the world's largest trade show, it's not just the clientele that had a different look this year. Despite the near absence of buyers wearing a traditional Arab headdress and robe at the Canton Fair, a vast showcase that started last week in China's southern metropolis of Guangzhou, a brash new generation of tech companies stood out just as much. Few wanted to dwell on the war. Even as the conflict in the Middle East once more fractures global commerce, interviews with more than a dozen exporters at the fair found many were already eager to look beyond the hostilities blamed for the worst energy disruption in generations.


Amazon to invest an additional 5 billion in Anthropic

The Japan Times

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by several former employees of OpenAI. Amazon is investing an additional $5 billion in Anthropic, and may inject $20 billion more over time, a deal that deepens the companies' ties in an increasingly competitive artificial intelligence industry. Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot and coding tool, plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next 10 years on Amazon's cloud technologies and chips, the companies said in a statement on Monday. Amazon shares gained about 3% on the news in extended trading. Amazon was already one of Anthropic's biggest backers, with prior investments totaling $8 billion.


Outrage in China after streaming site debuts AI actor 'database'

The Japan Times

A TV screen shows the artist database on Nadou Pro, iQIYI's artificial intelligence product for professional film and television production, during the iQIYI World Conference in Beijing on Monday. Beijing - China's equivalent of Netflix, iQIYI, faced backlash on Monday over a new initiative that facilitates the use of actors' likenesses in artificially generated dramas and films. More than 100 celebrities have joined a platform to connect with makers of AI-generated content interested in using their image, a senior executive told a conference in Beijing. China's entertainment industry has rapidly embraced the use of artificial intelligence, with AI-generated films and shows a common feature on video platforms. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.


Can you best a math Olympiad? Test your skills with the world's largest database of problems.

Popular Science

MathNet contains 30,000 free math problems collected over half a century. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. The International Mathematical Olympiad was first held in Romania in 1959. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. In 1959, countries around the world sent their most talented students to Romania to compete in the first-ever International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO).


War Memes Are Turning Conflict Into Content

WIRED

The systems behind them--and the reasons we keep passing around war memes as entertainment--are more serious. As ceasefire announcements between the US and Iran --and separately between Israel and Lebanon --dominated headlines over the past two weeks, they also prompted a look back at how war spread online: through memes. There were jokes about conscription. Captions about getting drafted, but at least with a Bluetooth device. The song "Bazooka" went viral, with users lip-syncing to "Rest in peace my granny, she got hit by a bazooka."


Bruce is missing his upper beak, but it has not stopped him from dominance

Popular Science

Inside the bird eat bird world of'beak jousting.' More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Even without an upper beak, one bird in New Zealand is defying odds at the top of the pecking order. Bruce is a rescued kea () parrot that is the alpha male among his species living at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch, New Zealand.


Two mountain lion cubs rescued from certain death

Popular Science

Crimson and Clover are now on the road to recovery at Oakland Zoo in California. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Crimson (left) was rescued shortly after Clover(right). Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Mountain lions (, cougars, pumas, among its many other names) are carnivorous, sharp-toothed and clawed big cats.


8 cool images from the Mangrove Photography Awards

Popular Science

The 12th annual competition is now open for submissions. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Mangroves play a crucial role in coastal ecosystems, buffering hurricane damage, storing carbon, and providing a safe haven for diverse wildlife . The Mangrove Photography Awards celebrate the ecological superhero by raising awareness around conservation efforts through stunning imagery.


How the Creator of "Beef" Got from Petty Feuds to Class Warfare

The New Yorker

When the Netflix anthology series "Beef" premièred, in 2023, it was a revelation in more ways than one. The show, which traced the depths into which two Angelenos descend after a road-rage incident, reintroduced Ali Wong as a dramatic lead, gave Steven Yeun a chance to go darkly comic, and shined a rare light on the issue of Asian American mental health. It also remade the career of its creator, Lee Sung Jin, a seeming overnight success who actually had nearly two decades of TV-comedy writing under his belt. Lee first pitched the show after he stalked another driver for a half hour following a parking-lot dispute; he similarly drew from life for Season 2, which stars Oscar Isaac as Josh, a country-club manager, and Carey Mulligan as his interior-designer wife, Lindsay. The couple are caught on video having a nasty fight by two members of his staff, Austin (Charles Melton) and Ashley (Cailee Spaeny). The Gen Z employees, about to embark on their own marriage, see the footage as blackmail material--and thus an opportunity to start their next chapter on secure financial footing. As in the first season, the story quickly broadens beyond the central conflict, roping in the club's new billionaire owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), her unreliable plastic-surgeon husband, and the seething resentments of both the haves and the have-nots. I met Lee earlier this month, at his new office in Hollywood. The space was sparsely decorated, but he'd already mounted posters for "Beef"; "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," the show that gave him his start in the industry; and "Thunderbolts," a 2025 Marvel movie directed by his creative partner, Jake Schreier. Lee, who has gone by Sonny since childhood and was credited as Sonny Lee for the first half of his career, opened up about the long road to "Beef"--a journey toward more intentional storytelling, as well as feeling "O.K. in my own skin." Perhaps surprisingly, the "Beef" character he seemed to relate to most was Josh, a congenial go-getter who mires himself in workaholism to avoid addressing his grief, as Lee did when one of his dogs died suddenly during production. We talked about his method of tailoring dialogue to his actors, the differences between Korean and American billionaires, and why class and capitalism are such inescapable themes on TV today.


Exit 8 is cinema for the livestreaming era

Engadget

When watching a video game is entertainment, what is watching a movie of a video game? The rules of, both the cult indie game and the recent film adaptation, are simple: You're stuck in a subway station that loops around endlessly. If you notice any anomalies on your current loop, you turn around. If everything is the same, you keep going forward. Each successful guess takes you to a new entrance where the loop recurs, until you reach the end of the labyrinth, Exit 8 itself.