Peter Thiel—the billionaire venture capitalist, PayPal, and Palantir cofounder, and outspoken commentator on all matters relating to the “Antichrist”—appears at least 2,200 times in the latest batch of files released by the Department of Justice related to convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.The tranche of records demonstrate how Epstein managed to cultivate an extensive network of wealthy and influential figures in Silicon Valley. A number of them, including Thiel, continued to interact with Epstein even after his 2008 guilty plea for solicitation of prostitution and of procurement of minors to engage in prostitution.The new files show that Thiel…

Dan Peguine, a tech entrepreneur and marketing consultant based in Lisbon, lets a precocious, lobster-themed AI assistant called Moltbot run much of his life.Peguine, a self-professed early adopter and trendspotter, discovered Moltbot several weeks ago—back then it was Clawdbot—after discussing a vibe-coding side project with friends on WhatsApp. He installed…

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is asking companies to provide information about “commercial Big Data and Ad Tech” products that would “directly support investigations activities,” according to a request for information posted on Friday in the Federal Register, the US government’s official journal for agency notices, rulemaking, and other public…

It’s 2XP Friday for Competitive Wordle players, so get ready to double your winnings . . . or your losses. This could be the day that decides whether you are a January Wordle champion, or loser. It’s almost the weekend, and it’s almost February, so dust off your thinking caps…

It’s Thor’s Day, and we have yesterday’s Wordle Wednesday riddle to solve before we get to the daily Wordle. This was the riddle:The answer: The letter “e” which you can find in a tree, but in the woods, and in the sea, but not in light. Okay, Wordle time!Looking for…

The big AI companies promised us that 2025 would be “the year of the AI agents.” It turned out to be the year of talking about AI agents, and kicking the can for that transformational moment to 2026 or maybe later. But what if the answer to the question “When…

It’s Odin’s day, Wednesday, known around here as Wordle Wednesday. On this day, every week I hand out a special challenge. A riddle, brain-teaser or logic puzzle for you to solve before the daily Wordle. Here’s today’s riddle:I’m not in the woodsbut I am in a treenot in the mountainsbut…

Engineers in Silicon Valley have been raving about Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude Code, for months. But recently, the buzz feels as if it’s reached a fever pitch.Earlier this week, I sat down with Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code, to try to understand how the company is meeting this…

A new federal organization called the U.S. Wildland Fire Service has been established to streamline government responses to the growing threat posed by wildfires and improve resiliency in the nation.U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Jan. 12 issued Order No. 3448 in a reorganization of various departmental wildfire operations into…

Indeed, the greatest beneficiaries of China’s renewables revolution may, in fact, be consumers, both inside and outside of China. In sun-blessed Australia, where rooftop solar panels sit atop nearly a third of all households, the country’s energy minister, Chris Bowen, proposed a “solar sharer program” to offer three hours of…

Ahead of the launch of the Pixel 10a in February, Google has slashed the price of the Pixel 9a. With the Pixel 10a expected to make a smaller jump in specs than previous new Pixel A smartphones, the Pixel 9a offer is an attractive one… and it might hold a…

Villages looked for niches they could fill in the global market. The town of Xuchang, for instance, capitalized on its legacy of making hairpieces for opera performers—and on the willingness of rural women to sell their black ponytails—and turned itself into a hub for wigs. Zhuangzhai became the largest supplier…

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