Google’s Debug program just filed a request with the EPA to release up to 64 million mosquitoes across California and Florida over two years. Not a typo. Not a leak from a dystopian screenplay. An actual permit application to flood two of the nation’s most populated states with tens of…
Category: Technology
Culture
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Boys Are Building AI Girlfriends – The Quiet Epidemic of Digital Girlfriends
Nineteen-year-old “Olivia” has blonde beachy waves, a short nightdress, and a biography promising she’s “deeply caring, supportive and attentive” — also that she “sleeps on the floor… until you call her. Then silence. Obedience.” Olivia isn’t real. She’s a chatbot. One of millions. According to new research from Male Allies…
Climate
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San Francisco Bay’s New Whale Problem: They’re Not Leaving Anymore
San Francisco Bay just installed a network of thermal cameras to track gray whales in real time — not because anyone wanted to build a marine surveillance grid, but because whale ship collisions have become routine enough to warrant one. Last year alone, 21 dead gray whales washed up in…
Economy
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Power Prices Is Higher Because ChatGPT Needs to Think Really Hard
Turns out training large language models to write mediocre marketing copy costs more than anyone expected — specifically, it costs 67 million Americans a 76% jump in wholesale electricity prices in three months. PJM Interconnection, which operates the largest power grid in the U.S., just released a report that reads…
Environment
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A Data Center Drained 30 Million Gallons Before Anyone Thought to Check the Meter
Residents of Annelise Park, an affluent subdivision in Fayetteville, Georgia, started noticing something off last year. Water pressure was unusually low. The showers ran weakly. Sprinklers sputtered. When the county utility investigated, officials discovered two industrial-scale water hookups feeding a data center campus located 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta….
Culture
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A Dancing Robot Bought Its Own Plane Ticket — Then Got Its Batteries Confiscated
A Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to San Diego was delayed Thursday — not because of weather, not because of a mechanical issue, but because a child-sized humanoid robot named Bebop showed up with batteries that were too big for federal regulations and a dance routine nobody asked for. The…
Culture
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Call 947-SAW A UFO: The Hotline for People Who Actually Saw Something
There’s a new addition to the network, and it does something most UFO sites can’t manage — it takes witness reports seriously without turning the whole thing into a carnival act. Saw A UFO (sawaufo.org) launched with a simple premise: give people a straightforward place for UFO sighting reporting, daily…
Technology
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Self-Driving Car Takes Luggage Hostage, Waymo Offers Two “Complimentary Rides” as Compensation
Di Jin had never ridden in a driverless taxi before Monday. The South Bay businessman booked a Waymo to San Jose International Airport — a routine trip, uneventful right up until the moment he stepped out of the car and the trunk refused to open. Then the robotaxi drove away….
Archaeology
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New Pompeii Discovery: The Man Who Died Clutching Ten Coins and a Broken Shield
The Pompeii Archaeological Park just rolled out its first Pompeii AI reconstruction — a digital rendering of a man who died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, clutching a terracotta mortar over his head like a makeshift helmet. The project, developed with the University of Padua’s Digital Cultural…
Media
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How a Flashy PR Agency Turned Plagiarism Into a Business Model
The theft is industrial-scale and shameless. A site called National Today — run by TOP Agency, a PR firm that claims Microsoft and Intel as clients — is churning out roughly 300 AI-generated articles per day by stealing reporting from local newsrooms, national outlets, and independent journalists. The site lifts…