Why you can’t label your way into consensus reality amid the AI deepfake apocalypse.
Even after his 2008 conviction as a sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein still had friends in Silicon Valley. The New York Times details the companies that took his money — including Coinbase, wearable manufacturer Jawbone, and Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures — along with more he considered investing in, including Palantir, SpaceX, and Spotify.
[The New York Times]
The fine, a measly £247,590 (about $335,000), is because Imgur owner MediaLab wasn’t checking users ages, and so handled young kids’ data without proper consent measures. After the ICO warned a fine was coming last September, Imgur started blocking UK users entirely — a ban which is still in effect.
As expensive bundled packages, premium live sports pricing, and restrictive walled gardens proliferate, customers have turned to TV piracy instead. Now why do I feel like I’ve seen this one before?
NotSoSavvy:
Hey, the exact same problem that drove people to Torrenting comes up again! It’s weird that as soon as watching things legally becomes more of a hassle than watching them illegally, people start watching illegally again. It’s almost like people hate walled gardens and it’s generally in a company’s best interests to have wider, easier distribution they get a smaller cut from than try and make their own Netflix or something.
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While Top Gear has spent years trying to replace Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond with mainstream celebrities, Amazon is instead appeasing British broadcasting execs’ obsession with online content creators. The Grand Tour season 7 presenters are viral trainspotter Francis Bourgeois, alongside James Engelsman and Thomas Holland, who run the Throttle House YouTube channel.
Sony shipped 8 million PS5 consoles over the recent holiday quarter. While that’s down 16 percent year-over-year, it’s still nearly the same amount of PS4 shipments Sony managed during the same period of its lifecycle. In fact, VGC points out that the PS5 has been pretty much aligned with Sony’s PS4 shipments in the months since its launch.
It’s been 30 years since the first PowerShot camera debuted. To celebrate, Canon is releasing a limited edition version of the PowerShot G7 X Mark III with a graphite-colored top cover and a 30th anniversary logo. But don’t expect the $1,299 camera to be any easier to find than the original when it launches in April 2026.
Maybe combining Musk’s companies is really about space AI data centers. But reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal indicate that SpaceX’s IPO pursuit includes a push to have major index providers find a way around the usual waiting periods before they’ll add newly listed companies.
At NiemenLab, Laura Hazard Owen shows how Jeff Bezos’ statements have changed since purchasing it in 2013. From curiosity at the start and “genuine” but corny bits like #democracydiesindarkness, to the abandoned endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024 and last year’s cancellation-driving changes.
Today, sweeping layoffs of 300-plus sliced its sports desk, international reporters, tech reporters (including its Amazon reporter), and others. Former EIC Marty Baron called it one of “the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
