Amazon failed to adequately alert more than 300,000 customers to serious risks—including death and electrocution—that US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) testing found with more than 400,000 products that third parties sold on its platform. The CPSC unanimously voted to hold Amazon legally responsible for third-party sellers’ defective products. Now, Amazon must make a CPSC-approved… Continue reading Amazon Has to Recall More Than 400,000 Dangerous Products
Author: Wired Magazine
Election Deniers Are Ramping Up Efforts to Disenfranchise US Voters
EIN advises its network of state-level groups to conduct voter roll challenges using EagleAI, a tool designed to automatically create lists of ineligible voters. Activists in EIN’s network across the country take these lists and manually review them, and, at times, conduct door-to-door canvasses to back up their challenges—a practice that has been condemned for… Continue reading Election Deniers Are Ramping Up Efforts to Disenfranchise US Voters
Meet the Swifties Campaigning for Kamala Harris
In less than a week, Swifties have turned their community into an online election headquarters for US vice president Kamala Harris—and the campaign wants in on the effort. After President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek reelection last week, Emerald Medrano, 22, flipped on the news. As he watched pundits yap about the… Continue reading Meet the Swifties Campaigning for Kamala Harris
The Best Cat Furniture, Scratching Posts, and Litter Boxes (2024)
Catit assured me all the Vesper furniture is made with toxin-free materials, and it follows the formaldehyde emission standards (TSCA Title VI compliant) for composite wood products put forth by the EPA. Runner-Up The Mau Cento Tree got the most compliments of any furniture I’ve owned. Beyond being pretty, my cats loved it. I often… Continue reading The Best Cat Furniture, Scratching Posts, and Litter Boxes (2024)
The Affordable Connectivity Program Died—and Thousands of Households Have Already Lost Their Internet
The death of the US government’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is starting to result in disconnection of internet service for Americans with low incomes. On Friday, Charter Communications reported a net loss of 154,000 internet subscribers that it said was mostly driven by customers canceling after losing the federal discount. About 100,000 of those subscribers… Continue reading The Affordable Connectivity Program Died—and Thousands of Households Have Already Lost Their Internet
Wear This AI Friend Around Your Neck
The Friend gets around 15 hours of battery life and comes in an array of colors that look almost exactly like the color palette of the first Apple iMac computers. (Schiffmann says that wasn’t intentional.) The design comes from a partnership with Bould, the company that designed Nest thermostats. The Friend is available for preorder… Continue reading Wear This AI Friend Around Your Neck
Zombie Alt-Weeklies Are Stuffed With AI Slop About OnlyFans
Several of the most prominent alt-weekly newspapers in the United States are running search-engine-optimized listicles about porn performers, which appear to be AI-generated, alongside their editorial content. If you pull up the homepage for the Village Voice on your phone, for example, you’ll see reporting from freelancers—longtime columnist Michael Musto still files occasionally—as well as… Continue reading Zombie Alt-Weeklies Are Stuffed With AI Slop About OnlyFans
A Senate Bill Would Radically Improve Voting Machine Security
Congress is moving closer to putting US election technology under a stricter cybersecurity microscope. Embedded inside this year’s Intelligence Authorization Act, which funds intelligence agencies like the CIA, is the Strengthening Election Cybersecurity to Uphold Respect for Elections through Independent Testing (SECURE IT) Act, which would require penetration testing of federally certified voting machines and… Continue reading A Senate Bill Would Radically Improve Voting Machine Security
Instagram Will Let You Make Custom AI Chatbots—Even Ones Based on Yourself
Meta’a AI Studio handbook says that users can customize a chatbot by providing a detailed description, along with a name and image, and then specifying how it should respond to specific input. Llama will then draw on those instructions to improvise its responses. Meta says Instagram users can “customize their AI based on things like… Continue reading Instagram Will Let You Make Custom AI Chatbots—Even Ones Based on Yourself
The Bird Flu Threat Keeps Growing
Ongoing outbreaks of avian influenza have decimated poultry flocks and wild birds across the United States and worldwide. The virus, known as H5N1, is also increasingly adapting to mammals and has been found in cats, goats, and raccoons. In the US, it has spread to at least 170 dairy herds across 13 states. And in… Continue reading The Bird Flu Threat Keeps Growing