OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s Design Firm for Upcoming AI Devices
May 21st, 2025Let me guess, more always on AI glasses performing mass surveillance, like Facebook and Google are already doing.
Via: Ars Technica:
On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his design firm LoveFrom will take over creative and design control at OpenAI. The deal makes Ive responsible for shaping the future look and feel of AI products at the chatbot creator, extending across all of the company’s ventures, including ChatGPT.
Ive was Apple’s chief design officer for nearly three decades, where he led the design of iconic products including the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch, earning numerous industry awards and helping transform Apple into the world’s most valuable company through his minimalist design philosophy.
“CERN Gears Up To Ship Antimatter Across Europe”
May 21st, 2025Via: Ars Technica:
There’s a lot of matter around, which ensures that any antimatter produced experiences a very short lifespan. Studying antimatter, therefore, has been extremely difficult. But that’s changed a bit in recent years, as CERN has set up a facility that produces and traps antimatter, allowing for extensive studies of its properties, including entire anti-atoms.
Unfortunately, the hardware used to capture antiprotons also produces interference that limits the precision with which measurements can be made. So CERN decided that it might be good to determine how to move the antimatter away from where it’s produced. Since it was tackling that problem anyway, CERN decided to make a shipping container for antimatter, allowing it to be put on a truck and potentially taken to labs throughout Europe.
China’s Drone Mothership
May 21st, 2025Via: Telegraph:
China is preparing to launch a new drone-carrying mothership capable of releasing 100 kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at the same time.
The Jiu Tan, which means “high sky”, is a high-altitude long-range UAV that can transport weapons and equipment.
Over the weekend, state media reported that the fourth prototype had completed its structural assembly and was undergoing installation and testing. It will set off on its maiden flight next month as China looks to boost its air force capabilities.
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The vehicle has a 25-metre wingspan and can fly for 12 hours, with a maximum range of 7,000 kilometres (4,350 miles). It has a take-off weight of 16 tons and a transporting capacity of six tons, which could be used to carry anything from surveillance technology to ammunition.
Two Israeli Embassy Staffers Killed in Washington Shooting
May 21st, 2025In other Israel news…
Netanyahu Says Israel to ‘Control All of Gaza’
Netanyahu Says Trump’s Forced Displacement Plan Is Condition for Ending War on Gaza
IDF Fired Near Canadian Diplomatic Delegation
And now, roll the one about antisemitism on loop for the next several days.
Via: New York Post:
Two Israeli embassy staffers who were about to be engaged were gunned down outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, Wednesday night — by a suspect who shouted, “Free free Palestine” as he was taken into custody, officials said.
The deadly gunfire erupted outside the museum as the couple was leaving the event shortly after 9 p.m., authorities said during a press conference.
After the suspect, identified as 30-year-old Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, squeezed the trigger, he entered the museum where he was apprehended, police said.
Tesla Optimus Robot AI Training Tasks from Video
May 21st, 2025I’m not just dancing all day, ok pic.twitter.com/rKs5WwKjvf
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) May 21, 2025
Trump Announces Golden Dome Missile Shield
May 21st, 2025[???]
Via: The War Zone:
The Golden Dome missile defense system will cost about $175 billion and be operational “in less than three years” with “a success rate close to 100%,” President Donald Trump declared Tuesday afternoon as he shared new details about his ambitious, very expensive, and controversial missile defense shield for the U.S. homeland. It follows one of the president’s first official acts of his second term, ordering the U.S. military to move forward with plans for a massively enlarged architecture for defeating high-end missile threats.
“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space, and we will have the best system ever built,” Trump stated. His price tag stands in stark contrast to projections of more than half a trillion dollars and raises concerns about the weaponization of space and nuclear proliferation, which you can read more about later in this piece.
The system will be designed to “protect the homeland” from “cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained during the White House briefing.
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There were scant details during the briefing about how Golden Dome will actually work.
Freeze Drying Food at Home
May 21st, 2025Via: Gridlessness:
Vitamin D Could Cut Dementia Risk By 40%
May 20th, 2025Via: Rhonda Patrick PhD:
Australia’s Unrealized Gains Tax Will Be A Lesson In Economic Suicide
May 20th, 2025Via: QTR Fringe Finance:
Australia’s new move to tax unrealized capital gains is one of the most reckless policy decisions I’ve ever seen — and keep in mind, I had front row seats to an “Inflation Reduction Act” that added more than $1 trillion in spending.
Taxing unrealized gains is equal parts outright fucking mathematically insane and cut-and-dry authoritarian. And while I’m appalled by the policy itself, there’s a perverse part of me that’s almost glad it’s happening in Australia first—because the disastrous results will be on full display for the world to see.
Starting in July 2025, the Albanese government is set to debut its latest economic masterstroke: taxing imaginary money. That’s right—if you’ve got more than $3 million sitting in your superannuation, not only will you get slapped with a 30% tax, but it doesn’t even matter if you actually made any money.
Didn’t sell anything? Didn’t cash out? Never saw a cent? Tough luck—Big Brother took a peek at your account, saw some numbers went up, and decided you owe them a slice of your hypothetical success.
European Commission Close to a ‘Solution’ That Could Force People to Use Their Government-Issued ID to Get Online
May 20th, 2025Via: EDRi:
Coming to a website near you this summer: the European Commission is close to a ‘solution’ that could force people to use their government-issued ID to get online. EDRi and EFF’s concerns about threats to everyone’s privacy and data protection, a chilling effect on access to information, and digital exclusion – harming the already most marginalised in society – remain unsolved.
