Trump-Putin Summit Begins in Alaska
August 15th, 2025Update: No Ceasefire
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Via: Yahoo! News:
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, in a high-stakes summit to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Their sit-down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET, according to the White House.
It is the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin since 2019, and Putin’s first with a U.S. president since his forces invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Russian leader has spoken on the phone with Trump since his reelection, but they have not yet met in person during the president’s second term.
Oversight Chair: Bill Clinton Is “Prime Suspect” In Epstein Investigation
August 14th, 2025Here’s a prediction: Nothing is going to happen because of Clinton’s collusion with CIA narcotics trafficking through Arkansas in the 1980s. He’s a made man.
The End.
Via: Modernity News:
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has named Bill Clinton as the number one suspect in the committee’s ongoing investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein saga.
Appearing on Newsmax, Comer urged that he will seek explanations for why Clinton visited the infamous Little St James island and flew on Epstein’s jet so frequently.
AI-Powered Radar Can Spy on Phone Calls from 10 Feet
August 14th, 2025Add it to the list…
Via: Interesting Engineering:
Believe it or not, your phone’s tiniest vibrations can reveal your conversations — thanks to AI.
A team of computer science researchers at Penn State has developed a startling new way to eavesdrop on phone calls remotely by decoding subtle vibrations emitted by a cellphone’s earpiece.
Using millimeter-wave radar combined with an AI speech recognition system, their setup can capture and transcribe conversations from up to 10 feet away with about 60% accuracy.
This breakthrough raises significant privacy concerns about the potential misuse of such emerging technologies.
The research builds on a 2022 project where the team achieved up to 83% accuracy in recognizing 10 predefined words using a similar approach.
The new work extends this capability to continuous speech transcription, though the accuracy is lower due to the complexity of decoding noisy radar data.
Huntington Beach, California: First Responder Police Drones Launch from Rooftops Around City
August 13th, 2025Via: Los Angeles Times:
The Huntington Beach Police Department typically takes about five minutes to get to a crime scene or emergency situation.
Drones will soon cut that time to two minutes or less.
The department is expected to launch its Drone as First Responder program on Sept. 13, officials said during a news conference and demonstration Tuesday at the Lake Street Fire Station.
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Drone as First Responder programs have been launching statewide. Large cities such as New York, Chicago and Oklahoma City have started similar programs.
U.S. Deficit Grows to $291 Billion in July Despite Tariff Revenue Surge
August 13th, 2025Via: CNBC:
The U.S. government’s budget deficit grew nearly 20% in July to $291 billion despite a nearly $21 billion jump in customs duty collections from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with outlays growing faster than receipts, the Treasury Department said on Tuesday.
Related: Big Beautiful Bill, “Effectively Dooms the U.S. to Debt Collapse”
Inside MRNA Vaccines
August 13th, 2025Via: Inside MRNA Vaccines:
UK Expands Police Facial Recognition Rollout
August 13th, 2025Via: The Register:
A fresh expansion of UK crimefighters’ access to live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being described by officials as “an excellent opportunity for policing.” Privacy campaigners disagree.
The Home Office said today that more police forces across England will gain LFR capabilities thanks to ten new “cutting edge” vans being wheeled out, adding to those already in use by London’s Metropolitan Police and forces in South Wales.
Seven forces will gain access to LFR vans as part of the latest expansion. These are: Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey and Sussex (jointly), and Thames Valley and Hampshire (jointly).
The UK government insists LFR vans, which are strongly opposed by privacy campaigners, are effective policing tools and are used only in targeted cases informed by firm intelligence.
The Computer Science Dream Has Become a Nightmare
August 13th, 2025Via: TechCrunch:
The coding-equals-prosperity promise has officially collapsed.
Fresh computer science graduates are facing unemployment rates of 6.1% to 7.5% — more than double what biology and art history majors are experiencing, according to a recent Federal Reserve Bank of New York study. A crushing New York Times piece highlights what’s happening on the ground.
The individual stories are surreal. Manasi Mishra, 21, graduated from Purdue after being promised six-figure starting salaries, only to receive a single interview, at Chipotle (she didn’t get the job.) Zach Taylor has applied to nearly 6,000 tech jobs since graduating from Oregon State in 2023, landing just 13 interviews and zero offers. He was even rejected by McDonald’s for “lack of experience.”
Sam Altman Looking to Back Neuralink Rival
August 13th, 2025Via: TechCrunch:
Sam Altman is in the process of co-founding a new brain-to-computer interface startup called Merge Labs and raising funds for it with the capital possibly coming largely from OpenAI’s ventures team, unnamed sources told the Financial Times.
The startup is expected to be valued at $850 million. A source familiar with the deal tells TechCrunch that talks are still early and OpenAI has not yet committed to participation, so terms could change.
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Merge Labs will compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which is developing computer interface chips designed to be implanted in the brain. Musk founded Neuralink in 2016 (although its existence wasn’t known until 2017) and the company has made serious progress.
And Now… Bill Gates Butter
August 12th, 2025Via: CBS:
A company in Batavia, Illinois is making butter in a way you’ve never seen before. No animals, no plants, no oils; this butter is made from carbon.
The sustainability-focused approach has the blessing and backing of Bill Gates.
It looks, smells and tastes like the butter we all know, but it’s made without the farmland, fertilizers or emissions tied to the typical process.
