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Unsettling dance piece explores how AI is warping human relationships

New Scientist

Inspired by Shannon Vallor's book The AI Mirror, this compelling piece looks at how we are being affected by our deepening interactions with tech Traditional ballet with tutus and pointe shoes is my preferred night at the theatre, but I enjoyed a contemporary piece recently at London's Sadler's Wells East. The piece, Mirror, by the Alexander Whitley Dance Company, will also be at the city's Royal Opera House on 4 June. It is inspired by the book by Shannon Vallor, a professor in the ethics of data and artificial intelligence, in which she argues for and against the use of AI. Vallor wants us to find a middle ground between passively resigning ourselves to AI as a replacement for our agency, and seeing it as an existential threat that must be defeated. As a science journalist, I like the balance of Vallor's book, but, for me, this didn't translate to the dance piece.


Hands on: Windows' DLSS rival isn't ready to save handheld gaming

PCWorld

PCWorld tested Microsoft's Auto SR, a DLSS rival exclusive to the Asus ROG Ally X, finding it delivers only marginal 10% performance gains in games like Borderlands 3. The technology currently works only in docked mode at 720p resolution and produces notably degraded visuals described as'muddy' and'swimmy' compared to native resolution. Auto SR remains in Preview status with significant usability issues including incorrect scaling and required game restarts, making it inadequate for handheld gaming improvement. Last week Microsoft announced the arrival of Auto SR, its Windows-branded alternative to upscaling tech like DLSS, with great fanfare. After being semi-exclusive to Snapdragon laptops, it came to the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X and nothing else. Not even the non-X variant, since it needs an NPU to run. And also it only works in docked mode, not handheld mode.


Why are respected film-makers suddenly embracing AI?

The Guardian

Steven Soderbergh, who has voiced interest in using AI in his films. Steven Soderbergh, who has voiced interest in using AI in his films. Why are respected film-makers suddenly embracing AI? I n Steven Soderbergh's beguiling new movie The Christophers, a reclusive artist (Ian McKellen) tangles with the quiet art forger (Michaela Coel) who his greedy children have hired to secretly finish further entries in a well-known painting series. The movie is smart and provocative about the nature of artistry and authorship, exploring what it means to create - and to stop creating.


They Were the Most Sought-After Workers in America. Now They're Unemployable. What Happened?

Slate

The golden era of the tech industry is dead--leaving 1.2 million laid-off workers like me scrambling in a job market that no longer wants us. On Feb. 10, 2025, at 7:32 a.m., the dreaded email hit my inbox. After nearly six years at Meta as a content strategist, one total company rebrand, and three previous mass layoffs, I got the axe. My time was bound to come. I often joked darkly that I was a cat with only so many lives left.


John Wick game starring Keanu Reeves unveiled at PlayStation showcase

BBC News

The billion-dollar action film series John Wick is being turned into a video game, featuring the likeness and voice of star Keanu Reeves. Untitled John Wick Game, as it is currently known, will be made by Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive and include input from film franchise director Chad Stahelsk. A trailer for the game, which is expected to be a prequel to the series, was unveiled at PlayStation's State of Play showcase on Thursday. The Sony event also revealed several remakes of major game franchises, including the God of War trilogy, as well as a 30th anniversary edition of platformer Rayman. The John Wick film franchise, which has earned more than $1bn (£735m) worldwide, follows the story of the retired assassin played by Keanu Reeves on a path of bloody vengeance.


Waymo Asks the DC Public to Pressure Their City Officials

WIRED

Stuck in regulatory limbo, the self-driving-vehicle developer is encouraging residents of Washington, DC, to message public officials to help get its robotaxis onto roads. Waymo needs some help, according to an email message the self-driving developer sent to residents of Washington, DC, on Thursday. For more than a year, Waymo has been pushing city officials to pass new regulations allowing its robotaxis to operate in the district. So far, self-driving cars can test in the city with humans behind the wheel, but cannot operate in driver-free mode. The Alphabet subsidiary--and its lobbyists--have asked local lawmakers, including Mayor Muriel Bower and members of the city council, to create new rules allowing the tech to go truly driverless on its public roads.


The tech behind the Olympics: High-speed cameras, sensors, and annoying drones

Popular Science

Sports pushes the science of keeping time forward. A broadcast drone hovers as Britain's Makayla Gerken Schofield competes in the freestyle skiing women's moguls. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Athletes competing in this year's Winter Olympic Games in Milan will do so surrounded by a complex web of AI-enabled cameras, stopwatches, sensors, and fast-flying drones capable of tracking performance down to fractions of a second. The high-tech timekeeping system, the culmination of nearly a century of constant iteration, is fundamentally reshaping how viewers at home experience the Games.


GlobalLinearandLocalSuperlinearConvergenceof IRLSforNon-SmoothRobustRegression

Neural Information Processing Systems

Theresults showthat(1)IRLS canhandle alargernumber ofoutliers thanother methods, (2) it is faster than competing methods at the same level of accuracy, (3) it restores a sparsely corrupted face image with satisfactory visual quality.



Waymo Hits a Rough Patch In Washington, DC

WIRED

The company's robotaxi service is supposed to launch in the US capital this year. But while service rollouts have been relatively smooth in other cities, DC's rules have made things tricky. Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary that develops self-driving vehicle tech, has picked up speed. The company now operates robotaxis in six cities and has announced plans to launch in a dozen others this year. It j ust raised $16 billion in a new round of funding and says it has served over 20 million rides since the company launched its service in 2020, 14 million of them in 2025 alone.