Up close and personal with LiveSplats, a new 3D virtual tech tool developed by CMU teamVideo
Fernando De la Torre’s 10-year-old son, Nico, wants to attend a FIFA World Cup match this summer in Atlanta, to cheer on Spain. The problem: not only are the tickets themselves costly, they’re difficult to obtain through a high-demand lottery process. “The question is, how can we offer a similar,...
OpenAI chief Sam Altman makes a high-stakes appearance in his court bout with Elon Musk
OAKLAND, Calif. — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand Tuesday to defend his business record in a trial pitting him against Elon Musk, rebutting testimony that disparaged his leadership at a pivotal time for the ChatGPT maker. Musk, the world’s richest man, is seeking Altman’s ouster from the...
Japanese video-game maker Nintendo raises Switch price, forecasts lower profits
TOKYO — Nintendo’s annual profit surged 52% in the last fiscal year, lifted by solid sales of its Switch 2 machines and software, the company announced Friday. The Japanese video-game company behind the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises also announced it was raising prices, citing challenging business conditions. It recorded...
Fiber cuts leave Verizon customers in SOS mode
Verizon customers across Western Pennsylvania were left without cell service Tuesday, sparking hours of frustration and a flood of complaints online. Verizon Communications Inc. confirmed the outage was caused by fiber cuts that disrupted wireless service across the region, according to a statement sent to TribLive. As the outage stretched...
Roomba pioneer aims to crack the household market again with an AI-powered pet robotVideo
The robotics pioneer who helped unleash the Roomba vacuum is now betting that you might one day replace your beloved dog or cat with a plush robot that follows you around your home and adapts to your daily habits. Colin Angle unveiled a four-legged prototype of that artificial pet, called...
What3words app gains local popularity as large events come through PittsburghVideo
Just three words can be the difference between someone being completely lost — or knowing exactly where they are, at any point in the world. What3words is an app that uses a geocoding system to divide the world into 3-meter (10-foot) squares and assigns each a unique, three-word address. It’s...
Nuclear energy is having a global revival 40 years after Chernobyl
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster fueled global fears about nuclear power and slowed its development in Europe and elsewhere. Four decades later, however, there’s a revival around the world, a trend that has been given a big boost by war in the Middle East. Over 400 nuclear reactors are operational in...
Trump media company replaces CEO, ex-congressman Devin Nunes after stock plunge that wiped out billions
NEW YORK — The Trump business behind Truth Social is replacing a former congressman and big supporter of the U.S. president as leader of the social media platform after a stock collapse that wiped out billions in investor wealth. Devin Nunes, a former California congressmen in Donald Trump’s first term,...
Apple’s new CEO John Ternus steps into the spotlight after flying under the radar for years
LONDON — Apple’s next CEO John Ternus is a company veteran who rose through the iPhone maker’s hardware engineering ranks but until now has maintained a low profile. Ternus will take over as chief executive in September for Tim Cook, who turned Apple into a $4 trillion tech colossus during...
Trump wants to stop states from regulating AI. This Utah Republican isn’t listening
RIVERTON, Utah — When a dozen Republican activists gathered on a back deck in the Salt Lake City suburbs to talk about this year’s elections, the conversation cycled through all the staples of conservative chatter in Utah such as dwindling water supplies, illegal immigrant fraud and chemtrail conspiracy theories. But...
AI chatbots give misleading medical advice 50% of the time, study finds
Artificial intelligence-driven chatbots are giving users problematic medical advice about half the time, according to a new study, highlighting the health risks of the technology that’s becoming increasingly integral in day-to-day life. Researchers from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom evaluated five popular platforms — ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta...
Man accused in Molotov cocktail attack of OpenAI CEO’s home charged with attempted murder
SPRING, Texas — San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Monday that 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama has been charged with attempting to kill the OpenAI CEO as well as a security guard at the residence when he threw the incendiary device at the gate of Sam Altman’s home on April 10....
RFK Jr is launching a podcast to expose ‘lies’ that have made Americans sick
NEW YORK — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is launching a new podcast that he says will begin “a new era of radical transparency in government,” according to a teaser video first obtained by The Associated Press. The show, titled “The Secretary Kennedy Podcast,” will launch next week and...
One Tech Tip: Got an awkward or embarrassing Gmail address? Google is now letting users change it
Good news for people who regret the Gmail address they came up with when they registered for an account: Google is now letting users change it. Google started quietly rolling out the change late last year in India and said this week in a blog post that it’s now available...
How Instagram’s ‘PG-13’ branding for teens unraveled
Last fall, as Instagram faced scrutiny over child safety, the social media company introduced a new approach that it hoped would ease parents’ minds. New content restrictions for teenage users would be guided by the PG-13 rating long used by the film industry. In other words, teenagers should only be...
Hacked hospitals, hidden spyware: Iran conflict shows how digital fight is ingrained in warfare
WASHINGTON — As they fled an Iranian missile strike, some Israelis with Android phones received a text offering a link to real-time information about bomb shelters. But instead of a helpful app, the link downloaded spyware giving hackers access to the device’s camera, location and all its data. The operation,...
Another PlayStation price hike means the gaming console will cost 30% more than it did last year
The price of a PlayStation is going up by another $100, the second time in less than a year that Sony has upped the price tag on its popular gaming console. Citing “continued pressures in the global economic landscape,” the Japanese company said that as of next Thursday, the PS5...
Austria plans to ban social media use for under-14s, joining a string of other countries
VIENNA — Austria’s governing coalition on Friday announced plans to ban social media use for children under 14, joining a string of other countries in drawing up restrictions for young people. Alexander Pröll, the official in Chancellor Christian Stocker’s office responsible for digitization, said that draft legislation will be drawn...
Jury finds Instagram and YouTube liable in a landmark social media addiction trialVideo
LOS ANGELES — Meta and YouTube must pay millions in damages to a 20-year-old woman after a jury decided the social media giant and video streamer designed their platforms to hook young users without concern for their well being. The California jury’s decision Wednesday in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit could influence...
New Mexico jury says Meta harms children’s mental health and safety, violating state law
SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico jury determined Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government’s willingness to crack down. The landmark...
Teenagers sue Musk’s xAI claiming image-generator made sexually explicit images of them as minors
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Three teenagers in Tennessee sued Elon Musk’s xAI this week, claiming the company’s image-generation tools were used to morph real photos of them into explicitly sexual images. The high school students, who are seeking to proceed under pseudonyms, filed the lawsuit in California, where xAI — Musk’s...
Amazon launches 1-hour, 3-hour delivery options
If there’s something on Amazon you need today, you might be in luck. The company announced new one-hour and three-hour delivery options across the United States for over 90,000 products — including everyday household essentials. In a release Tuesday, Amazon said the new delivery options build on the same-day delivery...
When DOGE unleashed ChatGPT on the humanities
When the Trump administration went looking last spring for National Endowment for the Humanities grants to cut, it turned to a familiar scourge of professors: ChatGPT. Last March, two employees from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency arrived at the agency with the mandate of canceling previously approved grants that...
AI chatbots want your health records. Tread carefully.
SAN FRANCISCO — For the last few years, the tech industry has convinced people that their artificially intelligent chatbots get better the more data you feed them. The next step is to get users to share their most sensitive information: their health records. What could go wrong? Microsoft this week...
AI writes buggy code. A Silicon Valley startup wants to fix it
PALO ALTO, Calif. — In January, a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published a study analyzing the use of artificial intelligence technologies that can generate their own computer code. The study found that while these increasingly popular AI systems could speed up software development, they could also degrade...
