Author: AI News First

The term Operation Chokepoint was first used in reference to a program launched by the Barack Obama administration under which US officials were said to have pressured banks into severing ties with pornography, payday lending, and other disfavored industries. This time, the argument goes, crypto was in the crosshairs.Specifically, the theory is that the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the agencies responsible for the stability of the US banking system, strong-armed banks into refusing to serve the crypto industry. They did so by issuing informal guidance, skirting the public…

I remember my first mattress topper. It was bright blue, made entirely of thin foam, and was purchased some random night off of Amazon. I used it to try to relieve some of my back pain on the super-thin mattress I owned in my post-college days. It didn’t do much—it was just a thin sheet of foam on an equally thin mattress. I thought after that experience that mattress toppers were near pointless, but boy, was I wrong. While a mattress topper can’t save you from needing a more supportive mattress or a new one after a mattress gets too…

The Ratio Four coffeemaker does one of two things: It will make one delicious mug of coffee. Or it will make two delicious mugs of coffee.Technically, you could also make one and a half mugs of delicious coffee, or a half a mug. But this is where it stops. This is the end of what the device will accomplish.What a rare and wonderful achievement.Here’s the thing. Your classic drip coffeemaker is a wonderfully simple and useful device, but it shuns the singleton. It looks sideways, even, at a couple. A 12-cup coffeemaker makes large batches fit instead for offices, diners,…

Humane announced on Tuesday that most of its assets have been acquired by HP for $116 million. The hardware startup is immediately discontinuing sales of its $499 AI Pins. Humane alerted customers who have already purchased the Pin that their devices will stop functioning before the end of the month — at 12 PM PST on February 28, 2025, according to a blog post. After that date, the company says its AI Pins will no longer connect to Humane’s servers. The devices won’t be capable of calling, messaging, AI queries/responses, or cloud access. Humane is advising AI Pin owners to…

Humane announced on Tuesday that it has been acquired by HP for $116 million. The hardware startup is immediately discontinuing sales of its $499 AI Pins. Humane alerted customers who have already purchased the Pin that their devices will stop functioning before the end of the month — at 12 PM PST on February 28, 2025, according to a blog post. After that date, the company says its AI Pins will no longer connect to Humane’s servers. The devices won’t be capable of calling, messaging, AI queries/responses, or cloud access. Humane is advising AI Pin owners to transfer their important…

We check with everybody to see if we have their consent, from every part of their body, to receive medicine. Then our medical doctor and registered nurse distribute the medicine through a shot—it’s all intramuscular.If it’s your first time using ketamine and you’re nervous about it, thank God! That’s the way it should be. But there’s also the option to not do ketamine at all: You thought you wanted to do it, and then when push comes to shove, you’re on your journey mat and you’re just like, “I really don’t want to do it.”Ketamine and psychedelics are not a…

After months of congressional wrangling that saw the elimination of Ervin’s proposed independent privacy oversight board, President Gerald Ford signed the Privacy Act into law on December 31, 1974. Ford, who had chaired the Domestic Council Committee on the Right of Privacy that Nixon created during his final months in office, highlighted “the vital need to provide adequate and uniform privacy safeguards for the vast amounts of personal information collected, recorded, and used in our complex society.”How Is This Relevant Today?DOGE’s critics—including Democratic lawmakers, federal employee unions, and government watchdog groups—argue that giving the office’s young, controversial, and seemingly largely…

Years ago, on the Gulf of California, Palacios began implanting small acoustic devices in rays that transform them into data messengers. Fishermen, hired for the task, capture the animals and then return them to the water. This strategy is known as passive acoustic telemetry, and although seemingly invasive, is carried out with extreme care. Once released, the animals resume their swim.Each time a tagged animal passes near an underwater receiver, the date and duration of its visit is recorded. With this data, in 2021 Palacio was able to describe for the first time a breeding area of M. munkiana in…

While software makers and app developers continue to make their wares safer and less open to attack, you can never get complacent with digital security—and you need to be aware of all the different methods of attack that bad actors use to get at your accounts.Those methods include targeting Google Calendar: An app so basic and everyday, you might never think it could be used to channel malware in your direction. But with millions of users worldwide, and a reliable tech brand name behind it, Google Calendar is a platform hackers and scammers regularly take aim at.The ways in which…

A dead smartwatch is useless—a black screen, staring blankly back after you raise your wrist to check the time for the umpteenth time. Battery life remains the number one problem with these wearables. Apple has made the same 18-hour battery life claim on the Apple Watch since the original, and although it can extend past that these days, you’re still not going to get a two- or three-day battery life without limiting some functions severely.Lo and behold, OnePlus has delivered what the top dogs haven’t with its new OnePlus Watch 3: a thumping five-day battery life. While it’s slightly bigger…