A new War of the Worlds adaptation starring Ice Cube has achieved a 0% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes after arriving on Prime Video in late July. The science fiction film, produced by Universal Pictures during the 2020 pandemic using actors filming separately through video calls, features alien tripods emerging from meteors to attack Earth. The movie sat unreleased for approximately five years before streaming debut. Critics cite poor visual effects that "wouldn't pass muster on a whimsical Snickers ad" and performances where actors appear to be "performing in a Zoom-style vacuum." The film was shot using screenlife format with most action unfolding on computer screens.

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Google says total organic click volume from its search engine to websites has remained ""relatively stable year-over-year" despite the introduction of AI Overviews, contradicting third-party reports of dramatic traffic declines. The company reports average click quality has increased, with users less likely to immediately return to search results after clicking through to websites. Google attributes stable traffic patterns to users conducting more searches and asking longer, more complex questions since AI features launched, while AI Overviews display more links per page than traditional results.

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Activision will require PC players of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 to enable Trusted Platform Module 2.0 and Windows Secure Boot when the game launches later this year. The company begins testing these anti-cheat measures with Black Ops 6's Season 5 on Thursday without enforcement. TPM 2.0 verifies untampered boot processes while Secure Boot ensures Windows loads only trusted software at startup. Both features perform checks during system and game startup but remain inactive during gameplay. Activision has also pursued legal action against 22 individuals who developed and sold cheats.

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A Manhattan jury convicted Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on Wednesday of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transfer business, though jurors deadlocked on charges of money laundering conspiracy and sanctions violations after three days of deliberation. Federal prosecutors alleged Storm helped cybercriminals launder more than $1 billion through the cryptocurrency mixing platform, which launched in 2019 as a decentralized protocol designed to obscure transaction origins by pooling and redistributing funds through smart contracts.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple released a new developer beta build of macOS 26 Tahoe today, and it came with another big update for a familiar icon. The old Macintosh HD hard drive icon, for years represented by a facsimile of an old spinning hard drive, has been replaced with something clearly intended to resemble a solid-state drive (the SSD in your Mac actually looks like a handful of chips soldered to a circuit board, but we'll forgive the creative license). The Macintosh HD icon became less visible a few years back, when new macOS installs stopped showing your internal disk on the desktop by default. It has also been many years since Apple shifted to SSDs as the primary boot media for new Macs. It's not clear why the icon is being replaced now, instead of years ago -- maybe the icon had started clicking, and Apple just wanted to replace it before it suffered from catastrophic icon failure -- but regardless, the switch is logical (this is a computer storage pun). Apple's iconic Macintosh HD hard drive icon was first introduced in a 2000 Mac OS X beta and remained largely unchanged for over two decades, with only subtle updates in 2012 and 2014. The first SSD-equipped Mac was in 2008, "when the original MacBook Air came out," notes Ars. "By the time 'Retina' Macs began arriving in the early 2010s, SSDs had become the primary boot disk for most of them; laptops tended to be all-SSD, while desktops could be configured with an SSD or a hybrid Fusion Drive that used an SSD as boot media and an HDD for mass storage. Apple stopped shipping spinning hard drives entirely when the last of the Intel iMacs went away."

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Jim Acosta, the former CNN chief White House correspondent who now hosts an independent show on YouTube, has interviewed an AI-generated avatar of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin Oliver. The late teen's parents created the avatar to preserve his voice and advocate for gun reform. Oliver's parents "granted Acosta the first 'interview' with the recreated version of their son on what would have been his 25th birthday," notes Variety. "Oliver was one of 17 people killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School." From the report: Acosta asked AI Oliver about his solution for gun violence, to which the avatar responded: "I believe in a mix of stronger gun control laws, mental health support and community engagement. We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard. It's about building a culture of kindness and understanding." The avatar added, "Though my life was cut short, I want to keep inspiring others to connect and advocate for change." Acosta then asked AI Oliver about his personal life, such as his favorite sport and favorite basketball team. The two discussed the movie "Remember the Titans" and their favorite "Star Wars" moments. After a five-minute chat with the AI, Acosta then connected with Oliver's father, Manuel Oliver. "I'm kind of speechless as to the technology there," Acosta said. "It was so insightful. I really felt like I was speaking with Joaquin. It's just a beautiful thing." Manuel, who has been an outspoken voice in the push for gun control, said he believed bringing "AI Joaquin to life" would "create more impact." According to Manuel, the avatar is trained on information on the internet as well as things Oliver wrote, said and posted online. He said he wanted to make it clear to viewers that he is under no illusions about reviving his son. "I understand that this is AI. I don't want anyone to think that I am, in some way, trying to bring my son back," he said. "Sadly, I can't, right? I wish I could. However, the technology is out there." [...] Manuel said he is excited about the future of the project and what it means for his son's legacy. "What's amazing about this is that we've heard from the parents, we've heard from the politicians. Now we're hearing from one of the kids," Acosta said. "That's important. That hasn't happened." Manuel said he plans to have AI Oliver "on stage in the middle of a debate," and that "his knowledge is unlimited." You can watch the full interview on YouTube.

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In a report published Monday, Cloudflare accused Perplexity of deploying undeclared web crawlers that masquerade as regular Chrome browsers to access content from websites that have explicitly blocked its official bots. Since then, Perplexity has publicly and loudly announced that Cloudflare's claims are baseless and technically flawed. "This controversy reveals that Cloudflare's systems are fundamentally inadequate for distinguishing between legitimate AI assistants and actual threats," says Perplexity in a blog post. "If you can't tell a helpful digital assistant from a malicious scraper, then you probably shouldn't be making decisions about what constitutes legitimate web traffic." Perplexity continues: "Technical errors in Cloudflare's analysis aren't just embarrassing -- they're disqualifying. When you misattribute millions of requests, publish completely inaccurate technical diagrams, and demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern AI assistants work, you've forfeited any claim to expertise in this space."

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Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has come under fire after admitting that he frequently uses AI tools like ChatGPT for second opinions on political matters. The Guardian reports: ... Kristersson, whose Moderate party leads Sweden's center-right coalition government, said he used tools including ChatGPT and the French service LeChat. His colleagues also used AI in their daily work, he said. Kristersson told the Swedish business newspaper Dagens industri: "I use it myself quite often. If for nothing else than for a second opinion. What have others done? And should we think the complete opposite? Those types of questions." Tech experts, however, have raised concerns about politicians using AI tools in such a way, and the Aftonbladet newspaper accused Kristersson in a editorial of having "fallen for the oligarchs' AI psychosis." Kristersson's spokesperson, Tom Samuelsson, later said the prime minister did not take risks in his use of AI. "Naturally it is not security sensitive information that ends up there. It is used more as a ballpark," he said. But Virginia Dignum, a professor of responsible artificial intelligence at Umea University, said AI was not capable of giving a meaningful opinion on political ideas, and that it simply reflects the views of those who built it. "The more he relies on AI for simple things, the bigger the risk of an overconfidence in the system. It is a slippery slope," she told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. "We must demand that reliability can be guaranteed. We didn't vote for ChatGPT."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI is preparing to raise what could be its final defense to stop The New York Times from digging through a spectacularly broad range of ChatGPT logs to hunt for any copyright-infringing outputs that could become the most damning evidence in the hotly watched case. In a joint letter (PDF) Thursday, both sides requested to hold a confidential settlement conference on August 7. Ars confirmed with the NYT's legal team that the conference is not about settling the case but instead was scheduled to settle one of the most disputed aspects of the case: news plaintiffs searching through millions of ChatGPT logs. That means it's possible that this week, ChatGPT users will have a much clearer understanding of whether their private chats might be accessed in the lawsuit. In the meantime, OpenAI has broken down (PDF) the "highly complex" process required to make deleted chats searchable in order to block the NYT's request for broader access. Previously, OpenAI had vowed to stop what it deemed was the NYT's attempt to conduct "mass surveillance" of ChatGPT users. But ultimately, OpenAI lost its fight to keep news plaintiffs away from all ChatGPT logs. After that loss, OpenAI appears to have pivoted and is now doing everything in its power to limit the number of logs accessed in the case -- short of settling -- as its customers fretted over serious privacy concerns. For the most vulnerable users, the lawsuit threatened to expose ChatGPT outputs from sensitive chats that OpenAI had previously promised would be deleted. Most recently, OpenAI floated a compromise, asking the court to agree that news organizations didn't need to search all ChatGPT logs. The AI company cited the "only expert" who has so far weighed in on what could be a statistically relevant, appropriate sample size -- computer science researcher Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick. He suggested that a sample of 20 million logs would be sufficient to determine how frequently ChatGPT users may be using the chatbot to regurgitate articles and circumvent news sites' paywalls. But the NYT and other news organizations rejected the compromise, OpenAI said in a filing (PDF) yesterday. Instead, news plaintiffs have made what OpenAI said was an "extraordinary request that OpenAI produce the individual log files of 120 million ChatGPT consumer conversations." That's six times more data than Berg-Kirkpatrick recommended, OpenAI argued. Complying with the request threatens to "increase the scope of user privacy concerns" by delaying the outcome of the case "by months," OpenAI argued. If the request is granted, it would likely trouble many users by extending the amount of time that users' deleted chats will be stored and potentially making them vulnerable to a breach or leak. As negotiations potentially end this week, OpenAI's co-defendant, Microsoft, has picked its own fight with the NYT over its internal ChatGPT equivalent tool that could potentially push the NYT to settle the disputes over ChatGPT logs.

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Roku has launched Howdy, a new ad-free streaming service that costs $2.99 a month. The streaming platform says it offers 10,000 hours of content from Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery and FilmRise, as well as its own, exclusive programming known as Roku Originals. CNBC reports: The service is available across the U.S. beginning Tuesday. [...] The new service runs alongside the Roku Channel, which will remain free. Howdy will initially be available on the Roku platform, and will later be rolled out on mobile and other platforms, the company said. "Priced at less than a cup of coffee, Howdy is ad-free and designed to complement, not compete with, premium services," said Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood in the release.

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According to two sources Reuters spoke with, Intel is struggling with low yields in its next-gen 18A chip manufacturing process for its next PC chip, Panther Lake. Internal data suggests the company is far from reaching commercially viable production levels, leading some insiders to describe the effort as a "Hail Mary." Reuters reports: For months, Intel has promised investors it would increase manufacturing using a process it calls 18A. It spent billions of dollars developing 18A, including the construction or upgrades of several factories, with the goal of challenging Taiwan's chipmaking heavyweight, TSMC. Intel wants to round out its business designing chips that it largely makes in-house and TSMC helps it produce, with a contract manufacturing business that can compete with this key supplier. But whether Intel revives advanced chip production in the U.S. and gets its contract foundry on solid footing depends on closing the technology gap with TSMC. Early tests disappointed customers last year, but Intel has said its 18A is on track to make its "Panther Lake" laptop semiconductors at high volume starting in 2025, which include next-generation transistors and a more efficient way to deliver power to the chip. The chipmaker has hoped that producing such an advanced in-house chip would grow external interest in its foundry, at a time when new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has explored a major shift to course-correct that fledgling business, Reuters previously reported. Yet only a small percentage of the Panther Lake chips printed via 18A have been good enough to make available to customers, said the two people, who were briefed on the company's test data since late last year. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Intel did not authorize them to disclose such information. This percentage figure, known as yield, means Intel may struggle to make its high-end laptop chip profitably in the near future. [...] Intel in the past has aimed for a yield north of 50% before ramping production because starting any earlier risked damaging its profit margin, three of the sources said. Intel typically does not make the lion's share of its profit until yields reach roughly 70% to 80%, key for a chip as small as Panther Lake where many defects would make it a tough sell, the three people said. Profit also flows from market expansions and building up factory output, Intel said. An immense yield increase would be a tall task by Panther Lake's fourth-quarter launch, the two people with knowledge of Intel's manufacturing operation said. But without such a jump, Intel may have to sell some chips at a lower profit margin or at a loss, the two sources briefed on test data said. The company has warned it could exit leading-edge manufacturing entirely if it does not land external business for 14A, which is 18A's next-generation successor.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google DeepMind is releasing a new version of its AI "world" model, called Genie 3, capable of generating 3D environments that users and AI agents can interact with in real time. The company is also promising that users will be able to interact with the worlds for much longer than before and that the model will actually remember where things are when you look away from them. [...] Genie 3 seems like it could be a notable step forward. Users will be able to generate worlds with a prompt that supports a "few" minutes of continuous interaction, which is up from the 10-20 seconds of interaction possible with Genie 2, according to a blog post. Google says that Genie 3 can keep spaces in visual memory for about a minute, meaning that if you turn away from something in a world and then turn back to it, things like paint on a wall or writing on a chalkboard will be in the same place. The worlds will also have a 720p resolution and run at 24fps. DeepMind is adding what it calls "promptable world events" into Genie 3, too. Using a prompt, you'll be able to do things like change weather conditions in a world or add new characters. The model is launching as "a limited research preview" available to "a small cohort of academics and creators," according to Google. It's "exploring" how to bring Genie 3 to "additional testers."

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Standard DDR4 DRAM prices doubled between May and June 2025, with 8-gigabit units reaching $4.12 and 4-gigabit units hitting $3.14 -- the latter's highest level since July 2021, according to electronics trading companies cited by Nikkei Asia. The unprecedented single-month doubling follows speculation that Chinese manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies has halted DDR4 production to shift factories toward DDR5 memory for AI applications. DDR4 currently comprises 60% of desktop PC memory while DDR5 accounts for 40%, per Tokyo-based BCN research. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology controlled 90% of the global DRAM market in Q2 2025.

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The U.S. Transportation Department is proposing new rules to speed deployment of drones beyond the visual line of sight of operators, a key change needed to advance commercial uses like package deliveries. From a report: "We are going to unleash American drone dominance," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference on Tuesday. Under current rules, operators need to get individual waivers or exemptions to use drones without visual line of sight. The department said eliminating those requirements "will significantly expand the use-case for drone technologies in areas like: manufacturing, farming, energy production, filmmaking, and the movement of products including lifesaving medications." The proposal includes new requirements for manufacturers, operators, and drone traffic-management services to keep drones safely separated from other drones and airplanes. "It's going to change the way that people and products move throughout our airspace... so you may change the way you get your Amazon package, you may get a Starbucks cup of coffee from a drone," Duffy said.

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Nearly one-third of all retracted papers at PLoS ONE can be traced back to just 45 researchers who served as editors at the journal, an analysis of its publication records has found. Nature: The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that 45 editors handled only 1.3% of all articles published by PLoS ONE from 2006 to 2023, but that the papers they accepted accounted for more than 30% of the 702 retractions that the journal issued by early 2024. Twenty-five of these editors also authored papers in PLoS ONE that were later retracted. The PNAS authors did not disclose the names of any of the 45 editors. But, by independently analysing publicly available data from PLoS ONE and the Retraction Watch database, Nature's news team has identified five of the editors who handled the highest number of papers that were subsequently retracted by the journal. Together, those editors accepted about 15% of PLoS ONE's retracted papers up to 14 July.

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OpenAI has released two open-weight language models, marking the startup's first such release since GPT-2 in 2019. The models, gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, can run locally on consumer devices and be fine-tuned for specific purposes. Both models use chain-of-thought reasoning approaches first deployed in OpenAI's o1 model and can browse the web, execute code, and function as AI agents. The smaller 20-billion-parameter model runs on consumer devices with 16 GB of memory. Gpt-oss-120B model will require about 80 GB of memory. OpenAI said the 120-billion-parameter model performs similarly to the company's proprietary o3 and o4-mini models. The models are available free on Hugging Face under the Apache 2.0 license after safety testing that delayed their March announcement.

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The Government Accountability Office has issued reports criticizing the Department of Homeland Security, Environmental Protection Agency, and General Services Administration for failing to implement critical IT and cybersecurity recommendations. DHS leads with 43 unresolved recommendations dating to 2018, including seven priority matters. The EPA has 11 outstanding items, including failures to submit FedRAMP documentation and conduct organization-wide cybersecurity risk assessments. GSA has four pending recommendations. All three agencies failed to properly log cybersecurity events and conduct required annual IT portfolio reviews. The DHS' HART biometric program remains behind schedule without proper cost accounting or privacy controls, with all nine 2023 recommendations still open.

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Wikipedia editors have adopted a policy enabling administrators to delete AI-generated articles without the standard week-long discussion period. Articles containing telltale LLM responses like "Here is your Wikipedia article on" or "Up to my last training update" now qualify for immediate removal. Articles with fabricated citations -- nonexistent papers or unrelated sources such as beetle research cited in computer science articles -- also meet deletion criteria.

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Palantir chief executive Alex Karp has told analysts and investors that the company treats Harvard, Princeton and Yale graduates the same as those without college degrees, calling employment at the data analytics firm "a new credential independent of class and background." During the earnings call Monday where Palantir reported its first billion-dollar revenue quarter, Karp said university graduates come to the company after being "engaged in platitudes" and claimed workers without college degrees sometimes create more value than degree holders using Palantir products. The company launched its Meritocracy Fellowship this spring to recruit talent outside traditional university pathways.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will announce expedited plans this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, the first major action by the former Fox News host as the interim NASA administrator. NASA has discussed building a reactor on the lunar surface, but this would set a more definitive timeline -- according to documents obtained by POLITICO -- and come just as the agency faces a massive budget cut. [...] The reactor directive orders the agency to solicit industry proposals for a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor to launch by 2030, a key consideration for astronauts' return to the lunar surface. NASA previously funded research into a 40 kilowatt reactor for use on the moon, with plans to have a reactor ready for launch by the early 2030s. The first country to have a reactor could "declare a keep-out zone which would significantly inhibit the United States," the directive states, a sign of the agency's concern about a joint project China and Russia have launched. The directive also orders NASA to designate a leader for the effort and to get industry input within 60 days. The agency is seeking companies able to launch a reactor by 2030 since that's around the time China intends to land its first astronaut on the moon. The nuclear initiative means that NASA will continue to have a hand in nuclear development even after the Pentagon's recent cancellation of a joint program on nuclear-powered rocket engines. "While the budget did not prioritize nuclear propulsion, that wasn't because nuclear propulsion is seen as a non-worthy technology," the NASA official said.

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