Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, visited the White House this week to announce with an initiative with Donald Trump that would give priority to World Cup ticket holders next year to process a US visa. This initiative is called “FIFA Pass.”“FIFA Pass is a prioritized appointment scheduling system,” Infantino said from the Oval Office. “So if you have a ticket for the World Cup, you can have a prioritized appointment to get your visa. Because, you said it the first time we met, Mr. President, America welcomes the world.”Despite the heavy travel restrictions that the US government has imposed…
We’re back to numbers again in today’s NYT Pips Hard tier puzzle. Numbers, numbers, numbers and the occasional letter for good measure. They skipped quite a few numbers to get to today’s, however. That number is 100 and I thought maybe it was a celebration of the 100th Pips puzzle,…
It turns out that when an AI-friendly super PAC with $100 million in backing from Silicon Valley bigwigs identifies you as its first target, it ends up generating a lot of attention.“I want to thank [the PAC] for their partnership in raising up the issue of how we regulate an…
Update, Sunday Nov. 23: This article has been updated with details on the Pixel 9a Black Friday deals in the UK:In the run-up to Black Friday, companies are launching offers, previewing deals, and preparing bonuses to bring in consumers over the US holiday weekend, and the rest of the world…
A glorious, wintry Sunday is upon us. Snow, rain, snow again. Ice, ice baby. It’s a perfect day for solving a Wordle, or perhaps a Pips or even a Strands! I have guides for all three of this Sunday’s here on my blog. Today’s Wordle gave me a really hard…
As Kent Halliburton stood in a bathroom at the Rosewood Hotel in central Amsterdam, thousands of miles from home, running his fingers through an envelope filled with €10,000 in crisp banknotes, he started to wonder what he had gotten himself into.Halliburton is the cofounder and CEO of Sazmining, a company…
The weekend is finally here and it’s a rather chilly one. The ski hill has opened up here in the mountains of Arizona thanks to some serious snowfall, with more to come over the weekend. I mean, just look at this:I bet that’s not what you picture when you think…
Joe Kiniry, a security expert specializing in elections, was attending an annual conference on voting technology in Washington, DC, when a woman approached him with an unusual offer. She said she represented a wealthy client interested in funding voting systems that would encourage bigger turnouts. Did he have any ideas?…
Some of artist David Hockney’s most famous paintings hung in midair last week when hundreds of drones recreated them as luminous compositions over the artist’s English hometown. Over 600 illuminated drones flew in choreographed formations to recreate airborne versions of works spanning Hockney’s career. Among them were “A Bigger Splash,”…
When the history of AI is written, Steven Adler may just end up being its Paul Revere—or at least, one of them—when it comes to safety.Last month Adler, who spent four years in various safety roles at OpenAI, wrote a piece for The New York Times with a rather alarming…
People are now betting on everything. Prediction markets are amplifying those signals.The timing of the U.S. government shutdown. The likelihood of Taylor Swift canceling a tour date. The exact day LeBron James might retire. Even the Nobel Peace Prize winner — a market that moved so sharply it triggered a…
In case OpenAI’s structure couldn’t get any weirder—a nonprofit in charge of a for-profit that’s become a public benefit corporation—it now has two CEOs. There’s Sam Altman, chief executive of the whole company, who manages research and compute. And as of this summer, there’s Fidji Simo, the former CEO of…
It’s Wordle Wednesday, which means I have an extra challenge for you fine Wordlers to solve. Every Wednesday I post a riddle, brain-teaser or logic puzzle to keep things spicy, though lately I’ve also been posting custom Bonus Wordles so I guess we’re just turning the spice up to 11.…
Another day, another Pips puzzle to solve. Well, I suppose we actually have three to solve: Easy, Medium and Hard. I’m still waiting for the New York Times Games department to add a Mega Super-Duper-Extra Challenging tier. A boy can dream.In any case, the numbers just keep coming, with no…
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders approved an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. The full compensation plan will go into effect by 2035—assuming Musk and the company successfully hit ambitious financial and production targets. If that happens, Musk will also get control of some 25 percent of the…
Spotlight
Lazy Sunday is here and we have a Wordle to solve before…
Further, that alleged activity can’t even reliably be linked to any Meta…
Another Saturday, another Wordle to solve. If you’re looking for extra clues…
The amount of capital pouring into AI data center projects is staggering.…
