This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we have a slightly shorter than usual entry from the gang, with some party pics and musical selections from the night. SAM: We’re all still recovering, processing, and floating…
Scientists have discovered possible hints of an undiscovered world in the solar system—nicknamed “Planet Y”—orbiting about 100 to 200 times farther from the Sun than Earth, according to a new study. The newly proposed planet, assuming it exists, is predicted to be somewhere between Mercury and Earth in scale, which would likely make it detectable…
TikTok is full of AI slop videos about the National Guard’s deployment in Washington, D.C., some of which use Google’s new VEO AI video generator. Unlike previous efforts to flood the zone with AI slop in the aftermath of a disaster or major news event, some of the videos blend real footage with AI footage,…
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, thinks the internet’s default encyclopedia and one of the world’s biggest repositories of information could benefit from some applications of AI. The volunteer editors who keep Wikipedia functioning strongly disagree with him. The ongoing debate about incorporating AI into Wikipedia in various forms bubbled up again in July, when…
A man holds an orange and white device in his hand, about the size of his palm, with an antenna sticking out. He enters some commands with the built-in buttons, then walks over to a nearby car. At first, its doors are locked, and the man tugs on one of them unsuccessfully. He then pushes…
The Department of Defense sent an email to civilian employees Wednesday asking them to sign up for a “volunteer force” that will help both Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection with Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. A job application page says the Department of Defense’s civilian employees would be deployed to ICE…
A Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) All Terrain Vehicle T-boned a civilian SUV in Washington D.C. this morning and the driver of the SUV was taken to the hospital. The aftermath of the accident was captured in photos shared with 404 Media provided by Operand Online and in a video on the /r/washingtondc subreddit. The…
The DC National Guard may soon be patrolling the streets of our nation’s capital with a handgun famous for firing on its own. Following news that National Guard troops in DC would soon carry weapons, journalist Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket reported that members of the Guard on duty in DC were being sent to…
Gamescom, one of the biggest video game industry trade shows in the world, used AI to book meetings for attending publishers, developers, and media even if they didn’t want them. Attendees complained about random meetings showing up on their calendars, prompting Gamescom to turn off the feature and apologize. Gamescom is a video game trade…
We start this week with Emanuel’s big investigation into the Tea app, and especially how it aggressively grew by raiding women safety groups. After the break, we talk about TikTok Shop selling GPS trackers. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph explains how Grok was exposing some of its AI persona prompts, and the sometimes NSFW nature…
