The proposed class action alleges Meta illegally harvested people's Facebook and Instagram photos to train its AI image-generation models and to build its unreleased "NameTag" face recognition feature. A set of parents and their children in Illinois and California filed a lawsuit last week in federal court in Chicago alleging that Meta illegally used their Facebook and Instagram photos to build NameTag, an unreleased face-recognition system for its smart glasses, and to train generative AI models including Emu and Muse Image . The proposed class action alleges that Meta violated Illinois and California privacy laws by extracting biometric information from people's photos without notice or consent. WIRED reported in June that code for NameTag had been secretly embedded in the Meta glasses AI companion app, which had been downloaded more than 50 million times. While the feature had not been enabled for users of the app, the analysis found that the system was designed to turn faces captured by the glasses into biometric signatures and compare them with so-called faceprints stored in a database on the user's phone.

Universal Music Group and ElevenLabs have announced a new multi-year licensing agreement and "wider strategic collaboration" that will see them launch a new AI-powered licensed music platform. The deal with UMG is the first that ElevenLabs has cut with a major label, and the new platform will be distinct from its ElevenMusic AI music generation software. The two companies also intend to collaborate on new AI audio products that can be used by artists, UMG wrote in a press release. The AI creation software, which seemingly doesn't yet have a name, is still in development, and no release date is mentioned. It will primarily be aimed at music fans who want to make remixes and mashups of music from participating and "fairly compensated" artists that are signed to the label. ElevenLabs' tools will also be able to create "new track interpretations and personalized vocal experiences."

A Teen Girl's Death Is Prompting Calls to Ban Choking in Porn Despite the many health risks, sexual strangulation has become popular among young people--with some experts blaming adult content for normalizing it. An Australian teenage girl's death, suspected to be preceded by consensual "choking" during sex, has renewed calls to ban showing the act in porn . This latest tragedy, reportedly believed to involve sexual strangulation, comes just months after the UK banned porn showing the practice. But despite all the noise, most people still aren't aware of just how dangerous the trend is. Sexual strangulation or "choking" during sex, as it's referred to colloquially, has become wildly popular--especially among adults aged 18 to 35, despite the risk of severe injury, brain damage, and even death.

God told them to sell crypto. A pastor and his wife created a cryptocurrency and hawked it in Christian communities. When it came crashing down, investors lost millions and they were accused of fraud. When Eli Regalado first heard God speak to him, he wondered whether he was hallucinating. Now he likens the experience to having "a thought that is not my thought." Divine words echo in his mind like a line from a movie or the memory of a loved one's voice. "It's not'You better do this,'" he says. Holy messages arrive daily while Eli is praying, reading, or watching television. Sometimes they surface in prophetic dreams or missives from strangers. Occasionally, they appear midsentence, when he pauses to ask, "Lord, what do you want to say here?" Eli's wife, Kaitlyn, tends to get heavenly dispatches in the shower, when she finally has a moment to herself. Other times, she seeks counsel from above. "I'll be writing in my journal and praying and asking questions and just believing what I'm hearing is Him," she says. God's directives have been manifold. According to the Regalados, He told them to get married, buy a house, and start having kids. When Eli owned a marketing firm in Colorado, He told him what to name it, whom to hire, and which clients to take on. Then God told him to start preaching in his living room and online. In 2021, when Eli was 41 and Kaitlyn was 28, divine guidance steered them in an unexpected new direction: crypto.

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Images of real children--including a member of a European royal family--were used to create some of the 350 ads containing child sexual abuse. Lawmakers say they plan to investigate. Early last month, Meta deleted around 50 ads posted on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads that directly included child sexual abuse material (CSAM), following reporting by WIRED. At the time, the company said that most of the abusive ads had been published prior to it rolling out new AI tools designed to "better detect and block" harmful ads being uploaded. That AI system, however, doesn't appear to have been entirely effective.

Gen AI Tools Are Now Being Used to Push'Slop Jihad' A new generation of Islamic terror supporters are using AI to spread'Slop Jihad' to new audiences on TikTok. Over a decade ago, the Islamic State released a disturbing video that depicted its members lowering men locked in a cage into a swimming pool and drowning them. Today, that video has been reproduced as a SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon depicting fish in orange jumpsuits inside the cage, as SpongeBob lowers the cage into the water while Squidward films the scene. The video, shared on TikTok, is part of what a new report from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) calls "Slop Jihad," a trend where young supporters of Islamic terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaida appear to use generative AI tools to create fan edits, cartoons, and memes designed radicalize a new generation of online backing. This shift "signals a fundamental transformation in the aesthetics of jihadist propaganda online," concludes the report, which was shared exclusively with WIRED. "The principal concern is the growing volume and diversity of material," says Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, a UN-backed counter terrorism organization that has also written a report about the Slop Jihad trend.

Look Up Back to School Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Creator Playbook Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Polymarket and Kalshi face possible regulation as Supreme Court'monitors the situation' Prediction markets regulated as gambling platforms by individual states? Shannon Connellan is Mashable's Senior Editor, General Assignments, based in London. She has been Mashable's UK Editor (and still manages the illustrious UK team) and Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives searching for . A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror, and loves to nerd out with movie stars, filmmakers, and TV creators . SCOTUS is the focus for state regulators aimed at Kalshi.

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The research could do more than help unlock the mystery of caterpillar hearing. It could also help make microphones better. A moment later it freezes. Tobacco hornworm caterpillars don't look like they have ears, and yet they're able to sense predators such as wasps. How does the caterpillar know a wasp is approaching?