Apple provided governments around the world with data related to thousands of push notifications sent to its devices, which can identify a target’s specific device or in some cases include unencrypted content like the actual text displayed in the notification, according to data published by Apple. In one case, that Apple did not ultimately provide…
A crowd of people dressed in rags stare up at a tower so tall it reaches into the heavens. Fire rains down from the sky on to a burning city. A giant in armor looms over a young warrior. An ocean splits as throngs of people walk into it. Each shot only lasts a couple…
Subscribe Join the newsletter to get the latest updates. Success Great! Check your inbox and click the link. Error Please enter a valid email address. The IRS open sourced much of its incredibly popular Direct File software as the future of the free tax filing program is at risk of being killed by Intuit’s lobbyists…
We start this week with Sam’s dive into a looming piece of anti-porn legislation, prudish algorithms, and eggs. After the break, Matthew tells us about the open source software that powered Ukraine’s drone attack against Russia. In the subscribers-only section, Emanuel explains how even pro-AI subreddits are dealing with people having AI delusions. Listen to…
A metal fork drags its four prongs back and forth across the yolk of an over-easy egg. The lightly peppered fried whites that skin across the runny yolk give a little, straining under the weight of the prongs. The yolk bulges and puckers, and finally the fork flips to its sharp points, bears down on…
Open source software used by hobbyist drones powered an attack that wiped out a third of Russia’s strategic long range bombers on Sunday afternoon, in one of the most daring and technically coordinated attacks in the war. In broad daylight on Sunday, explosions rocked air bases in Belaya, Olenya, and Ivanovo in Russia, which are…
🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. For nine days in September 2023, the world was rocked by mysterious seismic waves that were detected globally every 90 seconds. Earth trembled again the following month with an identical global…
Last month, I wrote an article about how schools were not prepared for ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, based on thousands of pages of public records I obtained from when ChatGPT was first released. As part of that article, I asked teachers to tell me how AI has changed how they teach. The response…
The moderators of a pro-artificial intelligence Reddit community announced that they have been quietly banning “a bunch of schizoposters” who believe “they’ve made some sort of incredible discovery or created a god or become a god,” highlighting a new type of chatbot-fueled delusion that started getting attention in early May. “LLMs [Large language models] today…
Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, scientists accidentally discovered a weird thing in space that is like nothing we have ever seen before. This happens a lot, yet never seems to get old. Then, a shark banquet, the Ladies Anuran Choir, and yet another reason to side-eye shiftwork. Last, a story about the importance…
