In the coming years, agents are widely expected to take over more and more chores on behalf of humans, including using computers and smartphones. For now, though, they’re too error prone to be much use. A new agent called S2, created by the startup Simular AI, combines frontier models with models specialized for using computers.… Continue reading Meet The AI Agent With Multiple Personalities
Author: Wired Magazine
Here’s What Happened to Those SignalGate Messages
Attorneys suing the United States government over its use of vanishing Signal messages to coordinate military strikes last month in Yemen allege that new court filings by the government reveal a “calculated strategy” by Trump administration officials to evade transparency laws through the illegal destruction of government records. US defense and intelligence agencies on Monday… Continue reading Here’s What Happened to Those SignalGate Messages
Suspected 4chan Hack Could Expose Longtime, Anonymous Admins
The anonymous image board 4chan has survived years of controversy. It weathered user and advertiser boycotts as well as damning accusations that it incubated hate speech that may have fueled mass shootings. Users have convened on 4chan to plan hacks like DDoS attacks, and conspiracy theories that festered on 4chan even reportedly inspired the January… Continue reading Suspected 4chan Hack Could Expose Longtime, Anonymous Admins
Trans Musicians Are Canceling US Tour Dates Due to Trump’s Gender ID Rules
T. Thomason’s US touring visa doesn’t expire until June—but the Canadian pop artist is pulling out of a festival appearance in Belfast, Maine, next month because he doesn’t want to be targeted at the border as a nonbinary trans man. Last week, Thomason, 30, who splits his time between Toronto and Wolfville, Nova Scotia, announced… Continue reading Trans Musicians Are Canceling US Tour Dates Due to Trump’s Gender ID Rules
A Cybersecurity Professor Disappeared Amid an FBI Search. His Family Is ‘Determined to Fight’
The wife of data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang, who was fired from his tenured job at Indiana University, Bloomington (IU) the same day the couple’s houses were searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, said on Monday that she believes her family has been unfairly targeted by the US government and is the… Continue reading A Cybersecurity Professor Disappeared Amid an FBI Search. His Family Is ‘Determined to Fight’
Microsoft’s Recall AI Tool Is Making an Unwelcome Return
Security and privacy advocates are girding themselves for another uphill battle against Recall, the AI tool rolling out in Windows 11 that will screenshot, index, and store everything a user does every three seconds. When Recall was introduced in May 2024, security practitioners roundly castigated it for creating a gold mine for malicious insiders, criminals,… Continue reading Microsoft’s Recall AI Tool Is Making an Unwelcome Return
OpenAI’s New GPT 4.1 Models Excel at Coding
OpenAI announced today that it is releasing a new family of artificial intelligence models optimized to excel at coding, as it ramps up efforts to fend off increasingly stiff competition from companies like Google and Anthropic. The models are available to developers through OpenAI’s application programming interface (API). OpenAI is releasing three sizes of models:… Continue reading OpenAI’s New GPT 4.1 Models Excel at Coding
The Subjective Charms of Objective-C
After inventing calculus, actuarial tables, and the mechanical calculator and coining the phrase “best of all possible worlds,” Gottfried Leibniz still felt his life’s work was incomplete. Since boyhood, the 17th-century polymath had dreamed of creating what he called a characteristica universalis—a language that perfectly represented all scientific truths and would render making new discoveries… Continue reading The Subjective Charms of Objective-C
Health and Human Services Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say
Much of the IT and cybersecurity infrastructure underpinning the US health system is in danger of a possible collapse following a purge of IT staff and leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), four current and former agency workers tell WIRED. This could put vast troves of public health data, including the… Continue reading Health and Human Services Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say
FTC v. Meta Trial: The Future of Instagram and WhatsApp Is at Stake
The US Federal Trade Commission’s trial against Meta begins in Washington, DC on Monday, as the tech giant fights to avoid the spinoff of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC alleges that Meta illegally acquired the two startups in an effort to suppress competition. Meta (then Facebook) bought the photo-sharing startup Instagram for $1 billion in… Continue reading FTC v. Meta Trial: The Future of Instagram and WhatsApp Is at Stake