Like some (many? most? all?) authors I sometimes check how my book is doing on Amazon and other booksellers. Recently while doing that, I came across another listing on the online retailer: “SUMMARY OF JOSEPH COX’S DARK WIRE,” referring to the book I spent years researching, investigating, and writing. It cost $4.99. Curious whether this…

Welcome back to the Abstract!  It’s hard to keep up with all the news about all the giant gassy orbiters out there. I’m speaking, of course, about hot Jupiters, a class of planets that takes the concept of “inhospitable” to dazzling and creative new levels, and which had an epic news week. Then, what did…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is wasting workers’ time and taxpayer dollars on “a witch hunt to find any content deemed ‘bad,’” according to a source familiar with the work and internal communications viewed by 404 Media. Specifically, people who work on HHS websites are spending days scanning those sites and…

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 discuss the new Murderbot show, ChatGPT for journalism, and birdwatching from afar. EMANUEL: Yesterday Apple released the first two images from its upcoming sci-fi show, Murderbot, and announced…

Ziff Davis, the $2 billion media conglomerate that owns dozens of sites including PCMag, Lifehacker, IGN and CNET, is quietly taking diversity, equity, and inclusion information off of its website, 404 Media has learned.  In the past month, the company removed information about diversity-focused employee resource groups, inclusion-based hiring goals, and diversity training for its…

This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. To subscribe to Court Watch, click here. A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s patients filed a class action lawsuit against him earlier this month after they say he didn’t tell them that his patient information database had been hacked…

Hoopla, a service that provides public libraries around the country with ebooks, announced that it will do more to prevent the spread of low quality AI-generated books after a 404 Media investigation showed that they were common on its platform. “At hoopla, customer satisfaction is at the core of everything we do, and we deeply…

This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. To subscribe to Court Watch, click here. Meta is suing a scammer who allegedly and prolifically extorted people by banning and unbanning their Instagram accounts. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, is against Idriss Qibaa, who ran the “Unlocked…

Roughly 10 months after it was released, the Humane AI Pin, a terribly executed and terrible product is now officially a $700 brick of e-waste after the company sold its software to HP and told its dozens of customers that they are now out of luck.  Every Humane AI Pin ever created will stop functioning…