All of the company’s Blu-ray player models have been discontinued according to FlatpanelsHD, following similar exits from the industry from Oppo in 2018 and Samsung in 2019.
LG hasn’t released a new Blu-ray player for six years, but it’s still another small blow for the dwindling physical media industry.
[FlatpanelsHD]
With funding from Microsoft and OpenAI, the university’s Institutional Data Initiative (IDI) is releasing a dataset for training AI that contains nearly one million public-domain books — around five times larger than the controversial Books3 dataset.
The aim is to “level the playing field” for smaller AI developers who don’t have access to the massive datasets used by tech giants, according to IDI executive director Greg Leppert.
The current bid is over $13,000 for the gold plated piece, which is roughly 31x market value. (Plated? Really, Zuck?)
The Meta CEO is donating the proceeds to a program called Inflection Grants, which are “are awarded to individuals whom $2,000 can meaningfully change their lives and allow them to pursue a magically weird project, idea or passion.”
The website appears to be functioning normally again. OpenAI says it’s now investigating what caused of the outage that occurred between 3:16PM PT and 7:38PM PT yesterday.
We began to see recovery for API traffic starting at approximately 5:40pm PST, and for ChatGPT and Sora around 6:50pm PST. We mitigated the issues at 7:38 pm PST, and all services are now fully operational.
We’ve seen a $99 external graphics dock for those who’ve got desktop GPUs and power supplies lying around, and a $159 one with built-in power if you’ve got a specific mini-PC — now, Aoostar is offering a sleek $219 model that can connect over both Oculink and USB 4, with up to 350W of power for your desktop GPU of choice and up to 100W for your laptop or handheld.
I was just asked to complete a survey at the top of my feed that asked if I thought the app is too aggressive about taking down stuff. This tracks with Meta’s policy chief recently saying that the company wants to roll back its aggressive content policing.
That’s how Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), who previously clashed with leaders on tech bills, describes the situation to The Verge. The outgoing lawmaker accuses House leaders of being swayed by “false concerns that have been raised by Big Tech” — and she says this is KOSA’s last chance to become law.
The $9.99 video-capturing app comes from Lux, the same developers behind the popular photo app Halide. Here are some of this year’s other winners:
• iPad app of the year: Moises
• Mac app of the year: Adobe Lightroom
• Vision Pro app of the year: What If...? An Immersive Story
• iPhone game of the year: AFK Journey
[Apple Newsroom]
In a regulatory filing, Microsoft said it would “record an impairment charge of approximately $800 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025” tied to GM’s decision to defund its robotaxi subsidiary Cruise. Microsoft has been a minority investor in Cruise and a strategic partner since 2021. For example, Cruise used Azure to manage its (now defunct) robotaxi fleet.
The arms dealer’s Game Boy is surprisingly durable — I dropped the ModRetro Chromatic twice on rough concrete with only dents and scratches!
But the company advertises “a handheld that’s indestructible” and literally shows a car wheel on top of it. Such a fun thing to test! Here’s how it worked out for me:
