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The Authentication LayerWhy Digital ID Is the Hill to Die OnA friend and I got into it recently. He’s smart, freedom-minded, and totally gets the danger of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). Expiring money, programmable control, carbon budgets - he sees most of the expanding tyranny clearly. And yet he dismisses Digital ID as a distraction. When I try to make the case that digital ID is the gateway to the gulag in the metaverse, he demands I name ONE thing Digital ID gives the government that they can’t already do.My answer: it enables CBDC.Of course, governments have already encroached...

When you’re building at breakneck speed, hiring a trusted team is crucial for an early-stage startup. In this episode of Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Isaiah Granet, the CEO and co-founder of Bland, a voice AI company that has grown from pre-seed to Series B in just 10 months. Their team has ballooned to 75 people and Granet has tactical advice on how the company managed to find hidden talent in unlikely places. With a founding team fresh out of college, Bland’s early hires were selected for their passion, rather than pedigrees. “We were searching for a really...

Whole Foods says it is cooperating with law enforcement to identify and arrest a man seen on surveillance video committing a lewd act targeting a female shopper inside its store in Valencia, California. The incident occurred March 23 inside the Whole Foods Market at 24130 Valencia Blvd., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Security camera footage shows the man exposing himself and rubbing his genitals on the shopper’s ear as she crouched down and looked at products in an aisle. Investigators say he also appeared to be holding a cell phone, possibly to record the assault.By the time...

"The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement," researchers sayArtificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are so prone to flattering and validating their human users that they are giving bad advice that can damage relationships and reinforce harmful behaviors, according to a new study that explores the dangers of AI telling people what they want to hear. The study, published in Science, tested 11 leading AI systems and found they all showed varying degrees of sycophancy -- behavior that was overly agreeable and affirming. The problem is not just that they dispense inappropriate advice but that people trust and prefer AI...

I don't think many people saw this one coming, but it makes sense in a perverse way. Events in the Middle East have conspired to create a situation in which Ukraine has become an indispensable ally and munitions supplier to Gulf Arab states. Nobody in the world has as much experience fighting Iranian drones as does Ukraine, and they have become extraordinarily proficient at destroying them before they do any damage, and at a price that cannot be beat. The Gulf states, having blown through an awful lot of their anti-air magazines, are having to quickly learn how to defend...

They break into your house and steal the stuff you worked so hard to buy. They rob you on the street in broad daylight. They pull you out of your car at a traffic light and take it. They convince your grandma that they are you and need bail money. They walk into acstore and grab things. They break the jewelry cases and steal the jewelry. They overrun a convenience store and take what they like. They steal your credit card numbers and buy themselves stuff. They steal your bank account numbers and empty your accounts. They convince you to...

Let me tell you, folks, the situation with Iran is going incredibly well, better than anybody could have imagined, and it’s all because of the strength and smart leadership we’ve brought back to America. We’ve got them right where we want them, scrambling and failing, and the results are pouring in like never before. Tremendous progress on every front, and the world is watching us win bigly again. Those IRGC losers thought they could push us around in the Strait of Hormuz, but they were dead wrong, total amateurs. We’re going to blow up all their mines down there, every...

Looking at the letter, Norris called his mother, asking if she could talk with the woman claiming to be his daughter. The matriarch agreed to see her face-to-face instead. While Norris was initially hesitant to meet Dina, his mother called him, urging him to come over immediately. Dina was there. Seeing her stopped him in his tracks. "I walked into the living room and nearly had my breath knocked out of me," Norris wrote in his book. "There, standing before me, was a beautiful young lady. I was stunned, but the moment I saw her, I knew. I didn’t need...

I embarked on a vanity project to record some of my chess games against Shredder, my cell phone app. The games are recorded in algebraic notation, but I prefer the traditional English descriptive notation, so I asked ChatGPT to make the conversion. It kept correcting itself through multiple iterations. I finally had to stop it. I turned to Grok to get the conversion done. It seemed to work, so I asked Grok to illustrate the game with board positions at critical points in the game. It turned into a major league fail on steroids. I won't bore you with the...

There are four categories. You are in one of them. Nobody asked which one you'd like. I am the CEO of Perplexity. My company is worth $20 billion. I am 31 years old. Last week I said losing your job to AI could be a "glorious" thing. I said it at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference. On a podcast. In front of an audience of people who build the tools. Everyone nodded. I said: "The reality is most people don't enjoy their jobs." I have had one job. I have had it for three years. It made me a billionaire. I...

A twisted Welsh teen obsessed with serial killers bludgeoned his mom to death with a sledgehammer after asking an AI bot, “What is a better weapon for murder?” Tristan Roberts, 18, deliberately waited until he was an adult before buying tools used to kill his mom, teaching assistant Angela Shellis, 45, blaming it on his “hatred for women” and a need for “revenge, justice and vengeance,” it emerged Wednesday as he was sentenced to at least 22 years in prison. He planned her killing for three weeks — spewing vile hatred online before turning to the Chinese AI bot Deepseek...

I am trying to set up a "Miracast" connection from my laptop to a TV, and apparently I need to manually change the IP address of my wireless router. Although the router is working just fine, I cannot "find" it from my desktop machine, which is connected via a "fast switch" and ethernet.

No link. Just wondering. Hate to see it disappear.

Stephen Colbert already has a new job lined up for when he ends his 11-year run as host of “The Late Show” in May – the comedian and well-known J.R.R. Tolkien superfan announced he will co-write and develop a new film in the blockbuster “Lord of the Rings” franchise. Colbert joined “LOTR” director Peter Jackson to reveal the news in a video announcement. “I’m pretty happy about it … you know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me,” the late-night host told Jackson, who led the Oscar-winning team behind the nearly $6 billion original...

Leonid Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur who was the owner of the adult content platform OnlyFans, has died. In a statement, the company confirmed his death from cancer at the age of 43. A spokesman for OnlyFans said: "We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Leo Radvinsky. "Leo passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer. "His family have requested privacy at this difficult time." Mr Radvinsky acquired Fenix International ⁠Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans, in 2018 and served ‌as its director and majority shareholder. He also ran Leo, a venture capital ‌fund he founded in 2009...

@VigilantFox Ted Cruz says Tucker Carlson is “the most dangerous demagogue in America.” “He hates Israel.” “He’s attacking Jews on a daily basis.” “He’s also said there’s no one on planet Earth he hates more than Christian Zionists. And he’s identified by name, me and Mike Huckabee, as the two people he hates the most.” “He had Nick Fuentes, who is an open Nazi. And by the way, I don’t use the term Nazi lightly.” “Tucker has also defended Mamdani and defended Maduro.” “Tucker hates President Trump. He opposes everything about his foreign policy, and he’s attacking President Trump on...

Alleged Iranian spies with ties to regime bigwigs have been charged with infiltrating Silicon Valley. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted three Iranian software engineers for allegedly stealing trade secrets from tech companies, including Google. Two of the suspects are sisters, Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and Sorvoor Ghandali, 32. They were charged alongside Mohammadjavad Khosravi,40, who is Samaneh’s husband, with allegedly using their employment at unidentified technology companies to “obtain access to confidential and sensitive information,” according to the Department of Justice. The tech workers then allegedly “exfiltrated confidential and sensitive documents, including trade secrets related to processor security and...

A manic Florida woman beat up a pregnant driver before attacking an elderly bystander and biting a police officer. Mandolyn Shaffer-Brockwell, 37, arrested on February 23 after she stopped traffic on a bustling Orlando road near the Mall of Millenia, the Orlando Police Department said in a Facebook post Friday. Shocking footage captured her violent outburst, which started when Shaffer-Brockwell jumped on the hood of a white SUV before rushing toward the driver's door, swinging it open, and attacking the woman inside. The unidentified victim, who told the crazed suspect she was pregnant and had a child in the car,...

Can you trust AI for gardening advice? A certified Master Gardener digs into the AI fails that range from ridiculous to genuinely dangerous — and discovers AI may have stolen his words. [WATCH THE VIDEO]

@KenPaxtonTX Once again, John Cornyn is a coward who's silent. It's simple: cancel recess until the Save America Act is passed. Why is it always so hard for Cornyn to have the courage to do what's right? @JohnCornyn Doing what is right? Coming from a corrupt, self entitled, serial philanderer, that is rich. Judgement Day is coming.