Low-end option, available Oct. 15, is also missing Quest 3's improved pancake lenses.

OpenAI stokes China fears to woo US approvals for huge data centers, report says.

Alphabet unit Google filed a complaint to the European Commission on Wednesday against what it said were Microsoft's anti-competitive practices to lock customers into Microsoft's cloud platform Azure. From a report: Google, whose biggest cloud computing rivals are Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, said Microsoft was exploiting its dominant Windows Server ...

At a time when tech companies are paying eye-popping sums to hire the best minds in artificial intelligence, Google's deal to rehire Noam Shazeer has left others in the dust. From a report: A co-author of a seminal research paper that kicked off the AI boom, Shazeer quit Google in 2021 to start his own company after the search giant refused to release a ...

Hackers linked to the Chinese government have broken into a handful of U.S. internet-service providers in recent months in pursuit of sensitive information, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The hacking campaign, called Salt Typhoon by investigators, hasn't previously been publicly disclosed and is the latest ...

It gave pedestrians room but ran red lights and crossed into oncoming traffic.

Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away, as administrators using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will soon find out. From a report: Windows Server 2025 remains in preview, but Microsoft has been busy letting users know what is set for removal and what will be deprecated in the release. WSUS fits into the latter category -- still there for now, but ...

Complaint cites "steep penalties" for Microsoft customers using other providers.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow, Nintendo's NES Classic Edition console is already almost eight years old, while the Super Nintendo Classic Edition is about to turn seven. That's apparently old enough for Nintendo to announce that the Japanese versions of the consoles -- the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer and the Nintendo Classic Mini ...

A new law in California will make it easier for consumers to cancel their streaming subscriptions and similar products when they enroll in automatic renewal of those services. From a report: The law, passed through Assembly Bill (AB) 2863, will require companies that offer automatic subscription renewals through one-click purchases to also offer customers a ...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Microsoft today revealed Correction, a service that attempts to automatically revise AI-generated text that's factually wrong. Correction first flags text that may be erroneous -- say, a summary of a company's quarterly earnings call that possibly has misattributed quotes -- then fact-checks it by ...

Tony Isaac shares a report from WOSU Public Media: Silicon Valley has the reputation of being the birthplace of our hyper-connected Internet age, the hub of companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook. However, a pioneering company here in central Ohio is responsible for developing and popularizing many of the technologies we take for granted today. A ...

Scientists have proposed a method to deflect dangerous asteroids using nuclear explosions, not by directly blowing them up, but by detonating a bomb above the surface to create an X-ray burst that vaporizes part of the asteroid and changes its course. Experiments using the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories simulated this process, showing that it ...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Software fixes are now responsible for more than 1 in 5 automotive recalls. That's the key finding from a decade's worth of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall data, according to an analysis from the law firm DeMayo Law. While that's a sign of growing inconvenience for drivers, the ...

In November, ByteDance's TikTok Music will be shut down in all the countries it currently operates in, including Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico. A notice on the service's website reads: "We are sorry to inform you that TikTok Music will be closing on 28 November 2024." TechCrunch reports: Subscribers can continue to use the service ...

The FAA's air traffic control systems are significantly out of date and won't be updated until the 2030s, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Register reports: In a report released Monday, the GAO said that 51 of the FAA's 138 ATC systems -- more than a third -- were unsustainable due to a lack of parts, ...

The follow-up to one of our favorite open-world games is coming soon, Sony says.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: In a major coup for the artificial intelligence company, Stability AI says that Avatar, Terminator and Titanic director James Cameron will join its board of directors. Stability AI is the firm that developed the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI model, an image- and video-focused ...

A small city in Kansas switched was forced to switch its water treatment facility to manual operations after a suspected cyberattack was discovered on September 22. The precautionary measure was taken "to ensure plant operations remained secure," the city said. It reassured residents that the drinking water is safe and the water supply remains unaffected. ...

Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: After a decade of explosive growth, body cameras are now standard-issue for most American police as they interact with the public. The vast majority of those millions of hours of video are never watched -- it's just not humanly possible. For academics who study the everyday actions of police, the videos are an ocean of ...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required makers of web browsers and mobile operating systems to let consumers send opt-out preference signals that could limit businesses' use of personal information. The bill approved by the State Legislature last month would have required an ...

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, must serve 24 months in prison and forfeit $11 billion. "I've seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years. I've never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison," said Judge Lewis Kaplan during the sentencing hearing today. The Verge reports: Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and five conspiracy counts ...

Emails, documents, and other untrusted content can plant malicious memories.

OpenAI is rolling out its advanced voice interface for ChatGPT to all Plus and Team subscribers in the U.S., the company said Tuesday. The feature, unveiled four months ago, lets users speak to the AI chatbot instead of typing. Five new voices join the lineup, expanding user options. OpenAI claims improved accent recognition and smoother conversations since ...

Famed sci-fi director joins board of embattled Stability AI, creator of Stable Diffusion.