Making optimal decisions without having all the cards in hand
The article "Revelations: A Decidable Class of POMDP with Omega-Regular Objectives" won an Outstanding Paper Award at the AAAI 2025 conference, a prestigious international conference about artificial intelligence. This year, only three papers received such an award out of 3,000 accepted and 12,000 submitted! This recognition crowns the results of research initiated in Bordeaux (France) within the Synthรจse team at the Bordeaux Computer Science Research Laboratory (LaBRI), where four of the authors work: Marius Belly, Nathanaรซl Fijalkow, Hugo Gimbert, and Pierre Vandenhove. The work also involved researchers from Paris (Florian Horn) and Antwerp (Guillermo A. Pรฉrez). The article is freely available on arXiv, and this post outlines its main ideas.
Why you should always put your phone face down on a table (hint: it's not just about being polite)
A friend of mine recently told me, "I always keep my phone on silent modeโฆ which doesn't matter because I compulsively look at it every three minutes anyway." From becoming a text addict to having full-blown smartphone dependency, the urge to look at and interact with our "flat things" has been deeply ingrained into our collective behavior for some time now. Monitoring your phone to check whenever it lights up seems innocent enough -- a minor habit, utterly devoid of consequence. But is this seemingly harmless gesture actually working against you, subtly undermining your privacy, focus, and even your phone's longevity? Placing your phone face down is a small change that can have surprising ripple effects on your digital well-being and device health.
'I applied for 646 jobs after uni until I got one'
Caitlin thinks the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by companies as part of their filtering process could be a reason why she did not get very far in some applications. She said initially her CV was not written in a way that could be read by a resume screening programme called ATS (applicant tracking system), where AI reads CVs. "I was just getting straight rejections whereas after adjusting it, sometimes you'd be invited to an assessment after you've applied," said Caitlin. "Had I have known that from the get go, that would've helped me with my other applications." She reached the assessment stages for 221 of the roles she applied for and had five final interviews before getting a job.
Users' intimate chats posted to app's PUBLIC feed in latest nightmare for Instagram owner
Mark Zuckerberg's foray into AI chatbots has sparked a'privacy nightmare' with some users' intimate chats and questions shared on to a public newsfeed. Some users unwittingly activated a sharing function, resulting in their conversations with the AI bot to be shared to a'discover' page available to strangers. This feature sets it apart from more established and well known AI servers, like ChatGPT or Elon Musk's Grok, in that users who opt in are sharing deeply personal information about their sex lives, finances or health status without realizing that their conversations are being made public. The feed shows off prompts, conversations, and image outputs from other users, similar to the way a Facebook feed works, which is also part of the Meta umbrella. Users have shared their startup businesses, seeking advice or business proposals, while others have plugged deeply personal custody details into the server seeking advice ahead of an upcoming court appearance.
A Reddit cofounder posted an AI video of his late mom, and its dividing the internet
On Sunday, Alexis Ohanian posted a picture and short video on X, and less than 36 hours later, the post amassed 20.4 million views. The picture was wholesome -- one of Ohanian's favorite pictures of his late mother. In the photo, his mom embraces a young Ohanian in a warm hug as they sit in a sunny mountain meadow. That smiling boy would grow up to be one of the co-founders of Reddit, the husband to Serena Williams, and a parent himself. The picture is innocent enough on its own.
Japan aims to regulate social media monetization in disasters
An internal affairs ministry working group Monday unveiled a draft interim report underlining the need for the government to consider a legal system aimed at regulating social media monetization during natural disasters. The report calls on social medial service providers to introduce voluntary regulations designed to suspend monetization in the event of a disaster, to curb the spread of disinformation. The working group plans to ask industry groups to draw up a code of conduct by the end of the year to prevent the spread of disinformation in such situations. It also urged businesses to take measures such as attaching labels to images created by generative artificial intelligence. Social media posts are rewarded based on the number of viewers.
A Microcar Made for Lane Splitting Like a Motorcycle
A Microcar Made for Lane Splitting Like a Motorcycle Meet France's Mini Motorcycle-Car Hybrid By Mashable Video on June 23, 2025 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Flipboard Watch Next'Superman' trailer: Watch Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Krypto come to life Seth Meyers interviewing Conan O'Brien is a chaotic trip down'Late Night' memory lane Shaq and Jimmy Fallon play a very silly game with tiny desks and made up words Volonaut's Airbike is like a Star Wars speeder bike IRL 3:22 French company Aemotion has announced its new microcar, which combines the riding experience of a motorcycle and a car into one tiny four-wheeled vehicle. Topics Cars Latest Videos John Oliver finds a creative way to get revenge on AI spam This has a surprisingly wholesome ending. Mashable chats to director Danny Boyle and stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, and Alfie Williams. Guys, I can't hear any more! God, help me!" 06/20/2025 By Amanda Yeo Man with human partner and child asks AI to marry him Two people who have relationships with AIs discussed them on'CBS Mornings.'
7 security risks you need to know when using AI for work
Are you using artificial intelligence at work yet? If you're not, you're at serious risk of falling behind your colleagues, as AI chatbots, AI image generators, and machine learning tools are powerful productivity boosters. But with great power comes great responsibility, and it's up to you to understand the security risks of using AI at work. As Mashable's Tech Editor, I've found some great ways to use AI tools in my role. My favorite AI tools for professionals (Otter.ai,
DeepSeek aids China's military and evaded export controls, U.S. official says
AI firm DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations, a senior U.S. official said, adding that the Chinese tech startup sought to use Southeast Asian shell companies to access high-end semiconductors that cannot be shipped to China under U.S. rules. The U.S. conclusions reflect a growing conviction in Washington that the capabilities behind the rapid rise of one of China's flagship AI enterprises may have been exaggerated and relied heavily on U.S. technology. Hangzhou-based DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the technology world in January, saying its artificial intelligence reasoning models were on par with or better than U.S. industry-leading models at a fraction of the cost.
Top 5 scams spreading right now
NetChoice Policy Director Patrick Hedger joins'Fox News Live' to explain why the United States must embrace artificial intelligence to stay ahead in national security. Lately, I've had way too many calls on my shows from people who have lost thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) to scams. These are so cleverly evil, it's like Ocean's Eleven but starring a dude with three Instagram followers and a ChatGPT subscription. Last chance to enter to win 500 in giveaway. You see, we're way past scam emails from sketchy Nigerian princes.