OpenAI-powered assistant will help to ‘understand overall service patterns’, company says, as move sparks backlash From hospitality workers to retail employees, the exaggerated “customer service voice”, often mocked in internet memes as wildly different from… Read more: Burger King cooks up AI chatbot to spot if employees say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’

Perplexity has introduced “Computer,” a new tool that allows users to assign tasks and see them carried out by a system that coordinates multiple agents running various models. The company claims that Computer, currently available… Read more: Perplexity announces “Computer,” an AI agent that assigns work to other AI agents

By now, it’s firmly established that modern humans and their Neanderthal relatives met and mated as our ancestors expanded out of Africa, resulting in a substantial amount of Neanderthal DNA scattered throughout our genome. Less… Read more: Neanderthals seemed to have a thing for modern human women

Our hosts unpack the news of the week, starting with the ongoing feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon. Plus: All you need to know about TAT-8 and undersea cables.

Pete Hegseth has threatened to cancel $200m contract unless it is given unfettered access to Claude model Anthropic said Thursday it “cannot in good conscience” comply with a demand from the Pentagon to remove safety… Read more: Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks

Google’s latest image model, Nano Banana 2, is a powerful AI photo editor that punctures reality. Well, sometimes.

We’re all familiar with the high-pitched squeak of basketball shoes on the court during games, or tires squealing on pavement. Scientists conducted several experiments and discovered that the geometry of the sneakers’ tread patterns determines… Read more: The physics of squeaking sneakers

For miles around xAI’s makeshift power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, neighbors have endured months of constant roaring, erupting pops, and bursts of high-pitched whining from 27 temporary gas turbines installed without consulting the community. In… Read more: xAI spent $7M building wall that barely muffles annoying power plant noise

Getty Images The steady embrace of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public and private sectors in Australia and New Zealand has come with broad guidance about using the new technology safely and transparently, with good… Read more: AI can slowly shift an organisation’s core principles. How to spot ‘value drift’ early

The new open source project IronCurtain uses a unique method to secure and constrain AI assistant agents before they flip your digital life upside down.

Researchers from Stanford and Princeton found that Chinese AI models are more likely than their Western counterparts to dodge political questions or deliver inaccurate answers.

Virgin Media O2 launches O2 Satellite, using Starlink to reach UK “not-spots” and boost landmass coverage to 95%. The post O2 Launches Starlink Satellite Service for UK ‘Not-Spots’ appeared first on TechRepublic.

It it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally “unfair”… Read more: Should unis ditch group assignments?

VGC / Getty Images Artificial intelligence (AI) is at a very Chinese time in its life. Recent moves from Chinese AI labs are throwing the dominance of American “frontier labs” such as Google and OpenAI… Read more: How China is betting cheap AI will get the world hooked on its tech

Nvidia posted record $68.1 billion Q4 revenue and $43B net income, driven by data center AI demand, and guided $78B revenue for the current quarter. The post The $120 Billion AI Machine: Nvidia’s Blockbuster Year… Read more: The $120 Billion AI Machine: Nvidia’s Blockbuster Year by the Numbers

Few actors are imitated as often as Michael Caine. Even Michael Caine has imitated Michael Caine. His voice has been used in birthday card greetings and been the source of jokes in various comedy sketches.… Read more: Michael Caine’s voice is iconic. Why would he sell that to AI?

Player is captain of NHL’s Ottawa Senators Tkachuk expresses regret over Trump joke US ice hockey star Brady Tkachuk has said he does not appreciate an AI video released by the White House that shows… Read more: Brady Tkachuk decries White House’s AI video of him insulting Canadians after US gold

Fast food franchises have struggled to reliably replace drive-thru employees with AI chatbots, resulting in abundant corporate frustration. Not only are customers being driven mad by the bots getting orders completely wrong, but even some… Read more: Burger King Adding AI to Employees’ Headsets to Constantly Monitor Whether They’re Being Friendly Enough

Nvidia unveils Vera Rubin, a next-gen AI system promising 10x performance per watt, modular design, and liquid cooling to power future data centers. The post Nvidia’s Vera Rubin Promises 10x Efficiency as AI Power Demands… Read more: Nvidia’s Vera Rubin Promises 10x Efficiency as AI Power Demands Surge

President Donald Trump will meet Big Tech leaders on March 4 to sign a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” aimed at keeping AI data center power costs off households. The post Big Tech to Sign AI Power… Read more: Big Tech to Sign AI Power Cost Pledge at White House Meeting With Trump

The last year has been big for Google’s AI efforts. Its rapid-fire model releases have brought it to parity with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic and, in some cases, pushed it into the lead.… Read more: Google reveals Nano Banana 2 AI image model, coming to Gemini today

OpenAI says scammers are using ChatGPT to commit romance scams and impersonate law firms. Learn the fastest verification steps to avoid AI-assisted fraud. The post ChatGPT Criminals: AI Scams Target Dating and Legal Impersonators appeared… Read more: ChatGPT Criminals: AI Scams Target Dating and Legal Impersonators

Silicon Valley built AI coding agents that can handle most of the grunt work. Now, the most valuable skill in tech is deciding what they should do.

Researchers have discovered new ways to shape quantum light, creating high-dimensional states that can carry much more information per photon. Using advanced tools like on-chip photonics and ultrafast light structuring, they’re pushing quantum communication and… Read more: Researchers unlock hidden dimensions inside a single photon

Sadiq Khan reveals 100 officers will use roaming technology for six months but opponents call its use ‘alarming’ Metropolitan police officers are to start scanning citizens’ faces using automated facial recognition technology to check their… Read more: Met police to pilot facial recognition identity checks, mayor confirms

Last year, Ford set a new industry record: It issued 152 safety recalls, almost twice the previous high set by General Motors back in 2014. More than 24 million vehicles were recalled in the US… Read more: Ford is recalling 4.3 million trucks and SUVs to fix a towing software bug

Tea App Green Flags, a service that claims it can “protect your digital reputation,” will remove negative posts about men from private online groups where women share “red flags” about men they’ve dated in order… Read more: Company Helps Men Scrub Negative Posts About Them from Tea App

The Old Irish Goat isn’t just part of folklore — it’s genetically linked to goats that lived in Ireland 3,000 years ago. Scientists analyzed ancient remains and discovered that today’s rare breed shares its strongest… Read more: Ireland’s Old Irish Goat has survived 3,000 years

Biomolecular condensates were long believed to be simple liquid blobs inside cells. Researchers have now uncovered that some are actually supported by fine protein filaments forming an internal scaffold. When this structure is disrupted, cells… Read more: Hidden architecture inside cellular droplets opens new targets for cancer and ALS

Claude cheat sheet with Claude’s core capabilities, how it works, model lineup, availability, pricing, setup steps, and the main alternatives to watch. The post Claude Cheat Sheet: Features, Access, Pricing, Models appeared first on TechRepublic.

Scientists at the University of Oxford have finally settled a decades-long mystery about the Moon’s magnetic field — and it turns out both sides were right. By reanalyzing Apollo mission rocks, they discovered that the… Read more: Apollo rocks reveal the Moon had brief bursts of super-strong magnetism

The US space agency has released a “pre-solicitation” for what is expected to be a hotly contested contract to develop a spacecraft to orbit Mars and relay communications from the red planet back to Earth.… Read more: A non-public document reveals that science may not be prioritized on next Mars mission

New York state has filed a lawsuit against Valve alleging that randomized loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 amount to a form of unregulated gambling, letting users “pay… Read more: New York sues Valve for enabling “illegal gambling” with loot boxes

It’s hard to overstate the role that Wi-Fi plays in virtually every facet of life. The organization that shepherds the wireless protocol says that more than 48 billion Wi-Fi-enabled devices have shipped since it debuted… Read more: New AirSnitch attack breaks Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises

The Islamic State’s online warriors are still posting. It’s been almost a decade since the group lost the Battle of Raqqa and saw its IRL territorial ambitions thwarted. Unable to hold territory in the real… Read more: The Islamic State Is Using AI to Resurrect Dead Leaders and Platforms Are Failing to Moderate It

It might look like something from the early days of the internet, with its aggressively grey color scheme and rectangles nested inside rectangles, but FPDS.gov is one of the most important resources for keeping tabs… Read more: The Government Just Made it Harder to See What Spy Tech it Buys

The San Francisco-based AI lab is growing its research team in London. The move puts it in direct competition with Google DeepMind for top research talent in the UK.

DENVER—The Global Positioning System is one of the few space programs that touches nearly every human life, and the stewards of the satellite navigation network are eager to populate the fleet with the latest and… Read more: ULA isn’t making the Space Force’s GPS interference problem any easier

The combination of rare earth materials and cryogenic temperatures could be the key to transforming power infrastructures in preparing for AI applications. The post High-Temperature Superconductors Could Redefine Data Center Power Density appeared first on… Read more: High-Temperature Superconductors Could Redefine Data Center Power Density

Much of the Subaru Uncharted makes very little sense. The “new” EV clearly resembles the Solterra, upon which Toyota and Subaru jointly developed the Uncharted and the bZ Woodland as a continuation of a partnership… Read more: Badge engineering could be worse than this: The 2026 Subaru Uncharted

Scientists have long warned that a warming world is likely to hasten the spread of infectious diseases, making vaccination even more critical to safeguard public health. And though most scientists hail vaccines as one of… Read more: 15 state attorneys general sue RFK Jr. over “anti-science” vaccine policy

Technological innovation has always relied on experts collaborating across time and geography. EtiAmmos/iStock via Getty Images In graduate school, my experimental archaeology professor told a student to create a door socket – the hole in… Read more: Will AI accelerate or undermine the way humans have always innovated?

Empowering TD SYNNEX partners to operationalize AI at scale with GPU-native data infrastructure SCAILIUM, creator of the world’s first AI Production Layer, GPU-native software engine purpose-built for AI production at scale, today announced a strategic… Read more: SCAILIUM Partners with TD SYNNEX to Solve Global GPU Starvation

Industry’s first global control plane purpose-built for AI data infrastructure spanning hyperscale cloud and datacenter deployments Today at VAST Forward 2026, VAST Data, the AI Operating System company, announced Polaris, a global control plane designed to provision, operate… Read more: VAST Data Unveils Polaris for Global AI Data Control

In 2024, Stanford researchers let loose five AI models — including an unmodified version of OpenAI’s GPT-4, its most advanced at the time — allowing them to make high-stakes, society-level decisions in a series of… Read more: Something Very Alarming Happens When You Give AI the Nuclear Codes

Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app… Read more: ‘Unbelievably dangerous’: experts sound alarm after ChatGPT Health fails to recognise medical emergencies

SAN FRANCISCO – CesiumAstro announced the acquisition Feb. 26 of Vidrovr, a startup that specializes in artificial intelligence for multimodal signals analysis. Terms of the transaction, which closed in late […] The post CesiumAstro acquires… Read more: CesiumAstro acquires Vidrovr to embed AI in communications systems

More people are turning to AI to explore their BDSM fantasies, but some in the community feel it’s a cop-out.

BBC and Financial Times among those calling for frameworks to help publishers gain control over their content being ‘scraped and copied’ A coalition of UK media companies including the Guardian has urged industry peers to… Read more: Guardian joins media coalition to protect original journalism from unpaid use by AI

Some say the technology is devaluing their work, while others reckon it is not yet – and might never be – good enough to replace them entirely Workers grappling with the rapid growth of artificial… Read more: Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobs

A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternatives There’s not much to love about big tech these… Read more: Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more

New partnership brings AI-powered intelligence into risk consulting, helping organizations uncover deeper insights, strengthen assurance, and deliver continuous integrity in their financials  MindBridge, a leader in AI-powered financial intelligence, today announced the company’s global partnership… Read more: MindBridge, Genpact Partner on Audit Analytics and Risk Consulting

GITEX AFRICA Morocco: Catalysing Africa’s digital economy in the age of artificial intelligence Held under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God assist Him, the fourth edition of GITEX AFRICA Morocco… Read more: GITEX AFRICA Morocco: Catalysing Africa’s digital economy in the age of AI

New data shows AI-first tools are accelerating employee-led software adoption and governance risk. Torii, the leading SaaS management and governance platform, today released its annual SaaS Benchmark Report, revealing that AI is accelerating SaaS sprawl and… Read more: Torii 2026: AI Expands Shadow IT, Not SaaS Cuts

Engine maker promises to give up to £9bn to shareholders over next three years as turnaround gathers pace Rolls-Royce’s profits soared by 40% last year as the engineering company’s turnaround gathered pace, helped by booming… Read more: Rolls-Royce profits soar 40% amid booming demand for AI datacentre power

AI-powered agents automate complex data workflows to deliver trusted, context-rich data ready for AI, analytics, and automation at scale Precisely, the global leader in data integrity, today announced new Data Quality, Data Enrichment, and Location… Read more: Precisely Expands Data Integrity Suite with New AI Agents

Group aims to be ‘simpler, lower-cost, AI-enabled business’ and achieve £500m of annual savings by 2028 The beleaguered advertising group WPP has announced a radical restructure to counter the threat posed by the AI revolution,… Read more: WPP to merge ad agencies and cut jobs in radical shake-up to counter AI threat

Study shows the use of persona prompting can cause shifts in LLMs’ moral judgements,leading to unexpected and inconsistent responses For enterprises, this means careful model selection, rigorous testing and ongoing evaluation are essential to ensure consistent,reliable… Read more: TELUS Digital Research Reveals a Hidden Risk in AI Model Behavior

New AI-driven summaries speed delivery of actionable insights at the point of care Azara Healthcare, the four-time Best in KLAS provider of population health and value-based care solutions, today announced the launch of patient Smart Summaries, new AI-driven… Read more: Azara Healthcare Launches Smart Summary AI

Reasoning large language models (LLMs) are designed to solve complex problems by breaking them down into a series of smaller steps. These powerful models are particularly good at challenging tasks like advanced programming and multistep… Read more: New method could increase LLM training efficiency

A federal court will conduct a search of devices seized from a Washington Post reporter after a magistrate judge decided yesterday that the Department of Justice cannot be trusted to perform the search on its… Read more: Judge doesn’t trust DOJ with search of devices seized from Wash. Post reporter

There used to be countless companies making flagship Android phones, but a combination of factors has narrowed the field over time. Today, Samsung is the undisputed king of the Android device ecosystem with its Galaxy… Read more: The Galaxy S26 is faster, more expensive, and even more chock-full of AI

Elon Musk appears to be grasping at straws in a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of poaching eight xAI employees in an allegedly unlawful bid to access xAI trade secrets connected to its data centers and chatbot,… Read more: Judge: xAI can’t claim OpenAI stole trade secrets just by hiring ex-staffers

Chipmaker’s quarterly earnings surpassed Wall Street’s expectations every quarter for multiple years now Nvidia released its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with the chipmaker revealing higher than expected revenues that buoyed its stock in after-hours trading,… Read more: Nvidia quarterly earnings show immunity to AI bubble fears as it cashes in on data center boom

Samsung unveils the Galaxy S26 series and Buds4 at Unpacked 2026, spotlighting built-in privacy display tech, agentic AI features, pricing, and preorder deals. The post Samsung Unveils Galaxy S26 Lineup with Privacy-First Display, Smarter AI… Read more: Samsung Unveils Galaxy S26 Lineup with Privacy-First Display, Smarter AI

While lifesaving vaccines face a relentless onslaught from the Trump administration—with fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leading the charge—scientific literature is building a wondrous story: A vaccine appears to prevent dementia, including Alzheimer’s,… Read more: Could a vaccine prevent dementia? Shingles shot data only getting stronger.

The software engineer is famous for his online stunts. Now he’s joining the company behind ChatGPT to work on new ways for humans to use AI systems.

Amazon is telling people who use its wishlists feature to switch to post office boxes or non-residential delivery addresses if they want to ensure their home addresses remain private, as part of a change in… Read more: Amazon Change Means Wishlists Might Expose Your Address

Have you ever had an idea for something that looked cool, but wouldn’t work well in practice? When it comes to designing things like decor and personal accessories, generative artificial intelligence (genAI) models can relate.… Read more: Mixing generative AI with physics to create personal items that work in the real world

In an illustration of the severity of the current memory shortage, HP Inc. CFO Karen Parkhill said that RAM has gone from accounting for “roughly 15 percent to 18 percent” of HP PCs’ bill of… Read more: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

Sometimes you drive a car you just don’t gel with. The original Lexus RZ was such a case. It was Lexus’ first battery EV, and I was less than impressed when I drove it in… Read more: 2026 Lexus RZ 550e review: Likable, but it needs improvement

An open source project called Scrapling is gaining traction with AI agent users who want their bots to scrape sites without permission.

Starting with the Samsung Galaxy S26, Google’s Gemini can automate tasks in popular mobile apps. We got a live demo of the new feature in action.

Blue collar workers may be enjoying a certain degree of schadenfreude at seeing the panic over tech, finance, and other white collar workers potentially losing their jobs to AI. But mass job destruction would end up… Read more: If AI Causes an Office Job Wipeout, It’ll Cause Huge Problems for Blue Collar Work Too

Windows 11 26H2 is shaping up as a quick enablement update, adding new Copilot experiences, File Explorer cleanups, and optional Sysmon security tools. The post Microsoft to Showcase AI in Windows 11 26H2 Taskbar, File… Read more: Microsoft to Showcase AI in Windows 11 26H2 Taskbar, File Explorer

Advertising in New York for Maven AGI, an artificial intelligence company providing customer support services. rblfmr/Shutterstock Artificial intelligence is accelerating a global economic revolution that began back in the 1970s. Researching the impacts of AI… Read more: How the AI boom was enabled by a 1970s economic revolution

Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, will appear before the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday and is likely to face scrutiny over her qualifications for becoming the country’s top doctor. Though Means holds… Read more: Trump’s MAHA influencer pick for surgeon general goes before Senate

Tech equity campaigners compare move to ‘inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse’ Ministers have called in Tony Blair’s thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across… Read more: Treasury calls in Blair thinktank to advise on using AI across public services

Eating nothing but oatmeal for just two days might sound extreme, but it delivered a striking payoff in a new clinical trial. People with metabolic syndrome who followed a short, calorie-reduced oat-based plan saw their… Read more: Just two days of oatmeal cut bad cholesterol by 10%

A lost cache of 250-million-year-old fossils from Australia has rewritten part of the story of life after Earth’s worst mass extinction. Instead of a single marine amphibian species, researchers uncovered evidence of a surprisingly diverse… Read more: Lost fossils reveal sea monsters that took over after Earth’s greatest extinction

Quantum computers need special materials called topological superconductors—but they’ve been notoriously difficult to create. Researchers have now shown they can trigger this exotic state by subtly adjusting the mix of tellurium and selenium in ultra-thin… Read more: A simple chemical tweak could supercharge quantum computers

Mars’ frozen ice caps may be time capsules for ancient life. Lab experiments show that key building blocks of proteins can survive tens of millions of years in pure ice, even under relentless cosmic radiation.… Read more: NASA study finds ancient life could survive 50 million years in Martian ice

This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here. The FBI subpoenaed X to get details on the Grok prompts a man allegedly used to… Read more: FBI Subpoenaed X to Get Grok Prompts Used to Create Nonconsensual Porn

This week we start with Jason’s follow up to Ring launching its ‘Search Party’ feature. It turns out, according to a leaked email he got, the feature is only starting with finding lost dogs. After… Read more: Podcast: Ring Is Just Getting Started

Earth’s magnetic shield is shifting in dramatic ways. New data from ESA’s Swarm satellites show that the South Atlantic Anomaly — a vast weak spot in Earth’s magnetic field — has grown by nearly half… Read more: A giant weak spot in Earth’s magnetic field is now half the size of Europe

OpenClaw, an open source AI agent that supposedly “actually does things,” has driven everyone in the industry completely mad — something that seems to happen with every subsequent release of the trendy AI thing of… Read more: Meta’s Head of AI Safety Just Made a Mistake That May Cause You a Certain Amount of Alarm

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to cut Anthropic from his department’s supply chain unless it agrees to sign off on its technology being used in all lawful military applications by Friday. The threat… Read more: Pete Hegseth tells Anthropic to fall in line with DoD desires, or else

Disaster tends to strike when you let automated systems distribute news, especially on sensitive topics. The latest case in point: how Google’s automated news alerts accidentally ended up throwing more fuel onto an already hurtful… Read more: Google Apologizes for Sending the Worst Push Notification You Can Possibly Imagine

There’s a new agentic AI called Einstein that will, according to its developers, live the life of a student for them. Einstein’s website claims that the AI will attend lectures for you, write your papers,… Read more: What’s the Point of School When AI Can Do Your Homework?

Exclusive: Alvi Choudhury claiming damages against Thames Valley police after biased technology confused him with man looking ‘10 years younger’ Police arrested a man for a burglary in a city he had never visited after… Read more: Facial recognition error prompts police to arrest Asian man for burglary 100 miles away

These days, it’s not enough to sit and watch as AI destroys a generation of students, makes it impossible to find a new job, and generates military targets by the thousands — you gotta be… Read more: Tech CEOs Confused by Why Everybody Hates AI So Much

Have you ever stopped to wonder how forecasters can predict the weather days in advance, or how scientists figure out how the climate might evolve under different policies? The Earth system is a vast web… Read more: Making sense of a chaotic planet: How understanding weather and climate risks depends on supercomputers like NCAR’s

If you have struggled a bit to keep up with open-weight model releases this month, this article should catch you up on the main themes. In this article, I will walk you through the ten… Read more: A Dream of Spring for Open-Weight LLMs: 10 Architectures from Jan-Feb 2026

With ​i​ts longtime figureheads stepping aside, Microsoft’s gaming division faces a pivotal moment​, raising questions about whether ​i​t can still balance creative ambition with corporate strategy​ in the age of AI • Don’t get Pushing… Read more: Why Xbox’s corporate shake-up matters for everyone who plays games

If you’ve ever wanted to bounce ideas off your favorite historical figure, Ailias gives you the chance.

Officers say flood of low-quality reports is draining resources and slowing cases amid New Mexico lawsuit Meta’s use of artificial intelligence software to moderate its social media platforms is generating large volumes of useless reports… Read more: Meta’s AI sending ‘junk’ tips to DoJ, US child abuse investigators say

European AI semiconductor leader earns backing from funds managed by Innovation Industries and SiteGround Capital along with EU institutions; edge-first architecture addresses AI’s critical energy and cooling constraints Axelera AI, the European leader in AI… Read more: Axelera AI Secures More Than $250 Mn Funding on Global Commercial Growth

New Certification Reflects Company’s Commitment to Responsible AI Development Obsidian Security, leader in SaaS security, today announced that the company has achieved ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification, the world’s first international standard for an Artificial Intelligence Management… Read more: Obsidian Security Certified ISO/IEC 42001:2023 for AI Governance

Telecom networks may soon begin adjusting themselves in real time, as operators test systems that allow AI agents to manage traffic and service quality. AI may soon be making operational decisions. This week, Nokia and… Read more: Nokia and AWS pilot AI automation for real-time 5G network slicing

New real-time AI solution for in-store teams makes rapid recommendations for deals, add-ons, and savings for a more efficient customer experience  SoundHound processed nearly 30 million AI customer interactions telecom and retail businesses globally in… Read more: SoundHound AI Launches Sales Assist Agent at MWC 2026