On Tuesday, the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the way the social networking giant handles scammers on its platforms violates Washington, DC’s consumer protection laws.While many online scams involve direct outreach to victims by scammers (who are often themselves human trafficking victims trapped in scam compounds), CFA’s lawsuit focuses on fraudulent advertising that CFA alleges Meta profited from and allowed to “proliferate on its platforms,” despite publicly promising that it takes cracking down on fraud and scams seriously.In its complaint, CFA points to ads found in Meta’s ads library that CFA claims are…
If you could travel back in time, what year would you choose? What would you change about history? For a surprising number of Chinese people, their answer turns out to be the same: Use what they know today to save China from its unglorious past.In a new book titled Make…
The U.S. government is offering companies $24 million to prototype and test projects that retrieve rare earth critical minerals from scrap materials to make into advanced magnets.The grants are being offered in the first part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator” funding notice. Applications are…
As thousands of influencers descended on southern California earlier this month for the annual Coachella Music Festival, a very Silicon Valley program dubbed “AI Coachella” was taking shape a few hundred miles north in Palo Alto. The class, CS 153, is one of Stanford’s buzziest offerings this semester, and like…
In a fight that was as wild and non-technical as one might expect, reality-TV star Chrisean Rock scored a knockdown, and shook off a controversial knockdown to defeat Zenith Zion via split decision in a three-round, crossover boxing match in Chester, Pennsylvania on Saturday night. This fight and event had…
I recently witnessed how scary-good artificial intelligence is getting at the human side of computer hacking, when the following message popped up on my laptop screen:Hi Will,I’ve been following your AI Lab newsletter and really appreciate your insights on open-source AI and agent-based learning—especially your recent piece on emergent behaviors…
The final weekend of April is here, my dearest Wordlers. Soon, the chilly days and evenings of early spring will melt into the month of May. April showers beget May flowers, and all that jazz. We have a Wordle to solve this final Saturday of April. Let’s solve it!Looking for…
Sportswriting legend Red Smith once said that writing a column is easy: “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” In 2026, though, no blood is required. All you do is sit down at a laptop and have Claude or ChatGPT write the story for you.That seems…
Hundreds of Oregon’s endangered species will have better survival odds thanks to a new tax expected to raise millions in dedicated conservation revenue.Starting Jan. 1, a share of a state transient lodging tax is expected to generate $37 million yearly to support the state’s wildlife, including pelicans, bats, turtles, abalone…
They said it was going to be a big one, and it is. Pearl Abyss has just released a new patch for Crimson Desert, one that is not only physically big, 37 GB on Steam mainly due to new visual fidelity additions, but also big in scope, as in, the…
How do you file taxes on prediction market profits? It seems like the type of straightforward question any halfway decent bookkeeper should be able to answer. Right now, though, it’s a conundrum for tax experts across the country. “You have a vacuum of guidance,” says Patrick Camuso, an accountant who…
One of the U.S. government’s most important activities to increase domestic critical mineral production is being developed without much fanfare: gold. Since last year, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has steadily backed projects and sought public input on gold mining operations.President Donald Trump named gold along…
Since March, Israeli attacks on Beirut and the occupation of southern Lebanon have displaced over 1 million people. Families are sheltering with relatives, renting if they can, or sleeping in cars and out in the open, placing immense strain on already fragile infrastructure. Over 130,000 people have also crossed into…
At Nvidia’s 2026 GTC conference in San Jose, Jensen Huang did something unusual even by Silicon Valley standards. He did not just outline a roadmap. He quantified the future of artificial intelligence. He declared, “I believe that computing demand has increased by one million times in the last two years.”Huang…
This week, our hosts discuss why OpenAI and Elon Musk’s legal feud is heating up once again—and happening alongside SpaceX’s IPO filing. They also dive into how a Department of Justice lawyer misled a judge about how they’re handling voter data, and why the Artemis II’s launch captured all of…
Spotlight
This week on Uncanny Valley, hosts Brian Barrett and Zoë Schiffer discuss…
Kalshi has been temporarily banned in Nevada, marking the latest escalation in…
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour posted a video on Wednesday of six men…
In case you missed Monday’s NYT Mini, you can find the answers…
