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An eye implant that can help blind people see again is poised to hit the market — in Europe, at least.On Wednesday, the US-based Science Corporation announced that it had received approval from the European Union to treat patients with its vision-restoring bionic eye device, called Prima, in a huge step towards the commercialization of the technology.“We have a cochlear implant for vision now,” CEO Max Hodak told Stat News.Science Corp’s device is designed to treat advanced macular degeneration, a condition in the eye which causes central vision loss. It’s the leading cause of vision loss in older adults, with…
It’s become strangely difficult to attend a work meeting without the presence of an AI recording tool that’s carefully jotting down what every single participant is saying. Some people in tech circles are taking the trend to perverse ends by recording every single conversation they’re having — not just at work but in their private lives as well, as the Wall Street Journal reports.Worse yet, many of them aren’t even asking for permission first, which could technically put them at risk of violating state laws, depending on where the conversation is taking place.It’s a bizarre extension of our newfound obsession with…
AI is upending the way voters take part in the democratic process. The worst part? You might not even know you’ve been affected.In the county of St. Charles, Missouri, a race for county executive has devolved into slop-slinging of the AI variety. According to local channel First Alert 4, conservative candidate Jason Law is flooding the airwaves with an AI-generated video depicting his two rivals Steve Ehlmann and Bill Eigel as co-conspirators in a nefarious plot against voters.“Steve, wake up, I’ve been telling people for 12 years that I’ll cut their personal property taxes, and they still believe me” the…
Traditionally, books have been good for two things: reading, and looking nice on a shelf.But AI companies are interested in neither.To those building large language models, books are nothing more than fodder to be devoured en masse before being spit out like fishbone. Often, they’re happy to use digital books — or even better, pirated digital books, as Meta has been accused of doing, and as Anthropic was forced to pay a $1.5 billion settlement to authors for also doing.But many companies, including Anthropic, have turned to ingesting physical books instead, which they can buy countless used copies of on…
What happens when you deploy hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras against a student population known for their hacking skills? We’re about to find out.This week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s student newspaper the Tech reported that the university is about to spend over $3 million installing over 500 AI-integrated surveillance cameras across the school’s campus.As the paper explains, the cameras will likely be able to collect real-time facial data, as well as more info related to object classification. Basically,that means it’ll be able to automatically identify, catalogue, and track the movement of physical items. That means people, yes, but also…
By now, it should be pretty clear that the corporate executives of the world aren’t exactly into AI because they think it’ll cure cancer. They’re making a different calculation, motivated by simple economics: pretty soon, they believe, AI will be efficient enough to do many or even all workers’ job, removing employee payroll from the corporate equation. That means more money for those at the top, and less time dealing with pesky annoyances like labor rights and health coverage.For that to happen would take a series of technological miracles — as a recent study out of the University of California Berkeley…
A Chinese rocket was smitten by a bolt from the heavens right after it lifted off. And if this was a blessing or a curse from a higher power, we don’t know.The spacecraft, a Long March-3B rocket, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China on Thursday, according to Space.com. Its mission was to deliver a communications relay satellite to geostationary orbit, something the dependable workhorse routinely does.It turned out to be more than just a regular launch. Awe-inspiring footage of the occasion (another angle here) shows cheers erupting from the crowd as the rocket heaves itself into…
Meta is testing an app that uses AI to automate bedtime stories for children. The future is here, folks — and boy, is it depressing.The app, first caught by 9to5Mac, is called “StoryKit.” (It’s not yet available in the US; Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s currently testing StoryKit in pilot countries.) Per a webpage for the app, parents pick a character either by creating one or taking a “photo of their favorite toy or person to bring them to life,” then describe a setting or world for the story to take place in. They can also ask the story to…
Who could’ve guessed that students who use AI to cheat on their assignments are incredibly lazy?Jason Gibson, a history professor at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, says that he used white font to hide a prompt telling an AI model to spew nonsense in the instructions for his mid-term.Unfortunately, it ended up working a little too well.“Thirty-two of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response,” he explained in a viral TikTok, sounding incredulous. “And apparently they didn’t proofread it.”
For years, the conventional wisdom for ambitious students and languishing jobseekers alike was “learn to code.” Do that, the ubiquitous advice went, and you’d be able to find yourself a six-figure job anywhere.But in an age when bosses are hellbent on using powerful AI agents to perform the duties of software engineers, that advice is now looking increasingly obsolete, if not outright backfiring. And the youngsters appear to be getting wise to that new reality.For the first time in nearly twenty years, computer science enrollment declined during the 2025-26 academic year, according to new research from the Stanford economist Jacob…