How you succeed in business is shifting fast - and not because of AI

ZDNet

Have you ever wondered why some businesses thrive without spending a dime on ads? Meanwhile, when you try the good old fashioned "build it, and they will come," you're as busy as a Chick-fil-A on a Sunday? Some business owners have figured out something most refuse to see. But in an ever-evolving world of AI and tech, this "secret" isn't just essential to building a sustainable marketing campaign; it might be the only way to do business moving forward. I wish I had known this "secret" sooner. It would have saved me countless sleepless nights and millions in ad spend.


'I sent AI to art school!' The postmodern master who taught a machine to beef up his old work

The Guardian

By the time you read this article, there's a good chance it will have already been scanned by an artificially intelligent machine. If asked about the artist David Salle, large language models such as ChatGPT or Gemini may repurpose some of the words below to come up with their answer. The bigger the data set, the more convincing the response โ€“ and Salle has been written about exhaustively since he first rose to art world stardom in the 1980s. The question is whether AI can ever say anything new about the artist and his work, or if it's for ever condemned to generate more of the same. A similar question lingers beneath the surface of the paintings that Salle has been making since 2023, a new series of which he has just unveiled at Thaddaeus Ropac in London.


The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remake is real, according to developer screenshots

Engadget

It looks like that long-rumored remake of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is actually real, according to a report by Eurogamer. There are actual screenshots of the game in action that were published on developer Virtuos' website. Eurogamer suggests that the game will be shadow-dropped next week for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The same report also indicates it'll be available on Game Pass. Fans on Reddit and elsewhere began poking around on the developer's website and reportedly found a treasure trove of in-game images, which included comparison screenshots to the original game from 2006. Eurogamer has collected these images on imgur to preserve them for posterity.


Demis Hassabis Is Preparing for AI's Endgame

TIME - Tech

Hassabis received half of the award alongside a colleague, John Jumper, for the design of AlphaFold: an AI tool that can predict the 3D structure of proteins using only their amino acid sequences--something Hassabis describes as a "50-year grand challenge" in the field of biology. Released freely by Google DeepMind for the world to use five years ago, AlphaFold has revolutionized the work of scientists toiling on research as varied as malaria vaccines, human longevity, and cures for cancer, allowing them to model protein structures in hours rather than years. The Nobel Prizes in 2024 were the first in history to recognize the contributions of AI to the field of science. If Hassabis gets his way, they won't be the last. AlphaFold's impact may have been broad enough to win its creators a Nobel Prize, but in the world of AI, it is seen as almost hopelessly narrow.


I added these AI rope lights to my wall for 45, and my office looks like a streaming setup

Mashable

As of April 15, Lepro N1 AI Smart RGB Rope Lights are available for 44.99 at Amazon. I stuck a 10-foot strand of Lepro N1 AI Smart Rope Lights on my wall and now my room looks like I should be live streaming my thoughts on the rumored Oblivion Remake. The 9.84-foot version is down to 44.99 on Amazon right now, thanks to a 15 coupon off the usual 59.99 list price. That's a decent drop for lighting that manages to be both smart and slightly dramatic. What makes these different from the usual sticky RGB strips is the AI baked into them. Lepro's LightGPM setup uses some machine learning magic to generate lighting based on your mood or activity.


The Download: tracking the evolution of street drugs, and the next wave of military AI

MIT Technology Review

In 2021, the Maryland Department of Health and the state police were confronting a crisis: Fatal drug overdoses in the state were at an all-time high, and authorities didn't know why. Seeking answers, Maryland officials turned to scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the national metrology institute for the United States, which defines and maintains standards of measurement essential to a wide range of industrial sectors and health and security applications. There, a research chemist named Ed Sisco and his team had developed methods for detecting trace amounts of drugs, explosives, and other dangerous materials--techniques that could protect law enforcement officials and others who had to collect these samples. And a pilot uncovered new, critical information almost immediately. This story is from the next edition of our print magazine.


Do Inuit languages really have many words for snow?

Popular Science

This article was originally featured on The Conversation. Languages are windows into the worlds of the people who speak them โ€“ reflecting what they value and experience daily. So perhaps it's no surprise different languages highlight different areas of vocabulary. Scholars have noted that Mongolian has many horse-related words, that Maori has many words for ferns, and Japanese has many words related to taste. Some links are unsurprising, such as German having many words related to beer, or Fijian having many words for fish.


Early review: Samsung 2025 Neo QLED TVs, OLEDs, and soundbars

Popular Science

We got our first news about Samsung's 2025 TV and soundbar lineup back at CES 2025. Now, those new models are starting to roll out onto store shelves and into living rooms. Like last year, we got an early chance to see (and hear) Samsung's entire 2025 lineup, including the new glare-fighting QLEDs, the upgraded OLED, and the Quantum Dot-enhanced Frame. We got time with all of them. We spent several hours cycling through the various TVs with their companion soundbars. To test the TVs, we watched streaming content through both an Apple TV 4K and the TVs' native streaming apps.


The Morning After: Electronics got a temporary US tariff exemption

Engadget

Just before the weekend, the US Customs and Border Protection published a list of products excluded from Trump's tariffs, including smartphones, PCs, memory chips and let's say 80 percent of everything we write about at Engadget. However, that's more because they'll be siloed into a specific product category. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview on Sunday: "Those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs, which are coming." The new exclusions would exempt many devices and parts from both the 10 percent global tariff and the steeper tariff on China. Lutnick told ABC News' Jonathan Karl that, in doing this, the president was "just making sure everyone understood that all of these products are outside the reciprocal tariffs and they are going to have their own separate way of being considered."


ChatGPT, Gemini, and Midjourney are married in this lifetime AI tool

Popular Science

While everyone else keeps paying monthly just to use one AI model, you can get lifelong access to the entire AI dream team--ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, and the other top names--for a single, flat fee. And right now, this lifetime subscription is at an all-time low price of 79.97 for a very limited time (reg. Most AI tools lock you into a single model and a monthly subscription. That means you're either juggling multiple tabs and tools or picking just one and missing out on major capabilities altogether. You can generate AI text, images, code, video, and even audio with just a few clicks.