Shortly after the May release of Star Citizen's Alpha 2.23.1 update, players started noticing that they could easily make extra money by storing a freight ship, selling their cargo, and then returning to the ship to find the cargo ready to be sold a second time. As knowledge of this "money doubling" exploit spread, players reported that the price of basic in-game resources saw significant inflation in a matter of days.
Now, Cloud Imperium Games Senior Director of Player Relations Will Leverett has written that the developer has investigated "multiple exploits within Star Citizen that compromised stability and negatively impacted the in-game economy." In doing so, CIG says it "identified and suspended over 600 accounts involved in exploitative behaviors while also removing the illicitly gained aUEC [in-game currency] from the Star Citizen ecosystem."
Proton, the secure-minded email and productivity suite, is becoming a nonprofit foundation, but it doesn't want you to think about it in the way you think about other notable privacy and web foundations.
"We believe that if we want to bring about large-scale change, Proton can’t be billionaire-subsidized (like Signal), Google-subsidized (like Mozilla), government-subsidized (like Tor), donation-subsidized (like Wikipedia), or even speculation-subsidized (like the plethora of crypto “foundations”)," Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote in a blog post announcing the transition. "Instead, Proton must have a profitable and healthy business at its core."
The announcement comes exactly 10 years to the day after a crowdfunding campaign saw 10,000 people give more than $500,000 to launch Proton Mail. To make it happen, Yen, along with co-founder Jason Stockman and first employee Dingchao Lu, endowed the Proton Foundation with some of their shares. The Proton Foundation is now the primary shareholder of the business Proton, which Yen states will "make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits." Among other members of the Foundation's board is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of HTML, HTTP, and almost everything else about the web.
Beef Wellington is a dish of opulence—not the average thing for the likes of me to order off of a menu—if I wanted to eat it, I’d have to try making it. So I did. And while beef Wellington is a scrumptious and impressive centerpiece, frankly, it's murder on my wallet. That's because the tenderloin that runs through the center carries a hefty price tag. When you think about it, what makes the dish great is as much the treatment of the tenderloin, as it is the meat itself. In that spirit, I’d like to encourage you to Wellington anything you damn well please.
What is beef Wellington?
The classic beef Wellington uses about a two-pound center cut of beef tenderloin—a cut prized for its mild beef flavor and supreme tenderness. That piece will run you $60 to over $100 depending on where you buy it and the treatment and processing of the meat. That prime cut of meat is seared and given the full welly treatment: It’s wrapped in a savory mushroom duxelles followed by a thin layer of prosciutto, and finally sealed into a sheet of buttery puff pastry. It’s baked until gloriously crisp and browned.
When you slice into it, you’re rewarded with many concentric layers of rich, umami-laden treats. It’s a gorgeous presentation in which every component plays a role in this gratifying experience. Meaning, truly, you can swap out the protein for another one and get similar (if not greater) satisfaction.
Salmon Wellington. Chicken thigh Wellington. Turkey meatloaf Wellington. Hard-boiled egg Wellington. Each one of those would be showstoppers at your dinner party and at a fraction of the price of the traditional. All you have to do is prepare that protein exactly how you would normally cook it, or depending on the protein and your preference, take it off the heat a bit early because it’ll continue to bake in the oven later.
How to give any protein the Wellington treatment
I decided to make a meatloaf Wellington the other day, and it was a stunner. I often impress myself so my praise is expected, but my partner devoured his and told me he’d be happy ordering that at any chop house. All things considered, it certainly rivaled the classic. Meatloaf is cheaper to make, the seasoning penetrates throughout the protein, the pastry bakes crisper because less juice is released, and overall it’s more approachable. I’d say on average more folks slap together meatloaf than sear up a chateaubriand on a regular basis. Not only does that make it less stressful to assemble this dish with a protein you’re comfortable with, but if you mess it up, at least you didn’t overcook a $70 roast.
1. Cook your protein
Whatever it is you’re using, cook it to about 80% to 90% doneness. This will build some color, develop flavor, and retain some of the protein’s natural juices while allowing it to be firm enough to handle. Let it cool to room temperature.
2. Make the duxelles
Duxelles is the French term for a rough chopped mushroom paste. Mushrooms lose a lot of moisture and reduce down to about half their bulk, so use 10 to 16 ounces of mushrooms. Chop them with a knife first to about quarter-inch bits, then use a food processor to bring them down to a mince. Sauté them in butter with a minced shallot and some fresh herbs, like thyme, until most of the moisture is gone; this takes about 15 minutes of stirring until the mushrooms are almost sticking to the bottom of the pan. There should be no mushroom juice pooling up in the pan when you’re done. Set it aside to cool.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
3. Shape the Wellington
When you’re ready to shape the massive roast, unwrap the thawed puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Use a rolling pin to flatten out the pastry and make it a bit bigger. Lay a piece of plastic wrap over the pastry and slightly shingle prosciutto in a rectangle slightly smaller than the pastry. Spread the cooled duxelles onto the prosciutto to make a thin but complete layer.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Using a pastry brush, spread a thin layer of dijon mustard all over the protein. This tastes great but also helps the bits of mushroom adhere to the meat. Place the protein along the long side of the prosciutto and duxelles plank. If you’re using several small hunks of chicken or eggs, just line them up. Then use the plastic wrap to help you start rolling the prosciutto up and over the protein until it meets the other side. Use the plastic wrap to move the meat off to the side.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
4. Bake the Wellington
Egg wash the puff pastry. Place the prosciutto tube onto the same side of the puff pastry and roll it up so the puff pastry meets the other side. Let it rest seam-side down. Pinch the edges shut securely. Place the Wellington on a parchment-lined baking sheet and egg-wash the outside. If you want to be fancy, use the back of a knife’s blade to make score marks in the puff pastry. Bake it at 425°F for about 25 to 35 minutes, or until the pastry is well-browned and risen.
Considering the Wellington as more of a treatment rather than a specific dish opens the door to using it as a delightful way to rework leftovers too. Maybe you have two or three slices of meatloaf leftover from the weekend—just line up those slices on the duxelles and proceed as usual. Leftover pork roast makes an easy substitute, and I wouldn’t sneeze at a leftover roasted sweet potato Wellington either.
Nintendo is back with some news: The company just announced a new Nintendo Direct in a post on X (formerly Twitter). According to the post, this event will focus on Nintendo Switch games slated for release in the second half of 2024, but beyond that, we don't know much else.
Before you get your hopes up, no, this event will not reveal any information about the Nintendo Switch 2. That's not speculation, either: Nintendo said as much in their announcement post, directly stating, "There will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during this presentation."
It's a smart move on the company's part: Nintendo undoubtedly knows the gaming community's collective focus is on the Nintendo Switch 2, and following Nintendo's president's confirmation of the console's existence last month, it would make some sense for Nintendo to acknowledge it in a new Direct. Squashing those expectations early means fans can go into this event without being disappointed by the lack of Switch 2 updates.
But what is Nintendo actually going to announce, here? The Switch subreddit is full of guesses: Some hope Nintendo will finally announce Switch ports for Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD, the two remastered Zelda games from the Wii U still not on the company's latest console. Others hope for Metroid Prime news, whether that's remastered versions of the second and third Prime games, or the long-awaited fourth game in the series. Maybe there will be more retro games added to Nintendo Switch Online, or a brand-new top-down Zelda game, which would be the first in the series since 2013's A Link Between Worlds on 3DS.
Of course, this is all purely speculation: Now that we're heading into the last year of the OG Switch, there's really no telling what Nintendo will do here. We'll just have to wait and see.
How to watch the latest Nintendo Direct
Nintendo is holding its latest Direct event on Tuesday, June 18 at 7 a.m. PT (10 a.m. ET). The event will last for about 40 minutes, so block off your schedule until 7:40/10:40.
While being surrounded by clutter in your home can feel chaotic and overwhelming, much of it can probably simply be discarded. How much of your kid’s old artwork really needs to be kept forever? There’s nothing of value in that stack of junk mail. And what do all the cords in that drawer even do? I’m not saying it’s easy to part with all of it, but you can make it easier. All of that junk is overwhelming in volume, but when you break it down, it can be totally manageable. You didn't accumulate it all at once, so don't try to get rid of it that way. Just use a calendar.
How the "calendar method" of decluttering works
The calendar method is pretty simple, when you get down to it: On the first day of the month, set out to declutter your house—but with the intention of it taking the full month. You start slow: On the first day, you find one item to throw away (or donate). On the second day, you throw away or donate two. Add another item each day, so you’re slowly building your decluttering muscle over the course of the month.
On a day with 31 months, you’ll end up parting with nearly 500 pieces of junk—and yet, you'll still be pacing yourself. On the first few days, don’t throw away anything too hard to part with. You’ll have plenty of time to get rid of every receipt, every unused appliance, and every expired container of food. Try to focus on one room at a time and make sure you stay on track with the numbering system. In fact, consider dedicating a month to one room, the next month to another, and so on, so you wind your way through the whole house at a pace that doesn't feel burdensome.
The best way to do this is by getting a big day planner and using that as your calendar, since it will tell you not only the numerical day of the month, but give you some space to write. At the end of each day, jot down everything you tossed out or donated. Try one like this, with big pages for each day:
If there is a day when you feel like tossing more pieces of junk than the date's number dictates, go for it, but use some caution. You know that toward the end of the month, you'll be getting rid of a bunch, so don't burn out. That's exactly what this technique is trying to avoid. In the event you work through this method for a while and find it's a little too slow, there are other decluttering techniques that take a stricter and more intense approach, so once you've gotten used to the feeling of getting rid of what you don't need, consider switching to one of those.
Why the calendar method is so effective
This method helps you get in the habit of tossing out a predetermined number of things, so that by the time you’re up to the teens and 20s, it’s much easier to part with stuff. (That's why I suggest saving more sentimental items until later in the month, when you've built up the mental muscle and are more used to tossing things out.) You see the progress and gain momentum along the way, especially if you take time to write down what you parted with every day. Getting rid of hundreds of pieces of clutter at once is an overwhelming task but chunking it up so you get a little thrill of accomplishment every day is much more sustainable. Plus, you'll see the progress through the month. By the third week or so, the space will look different—and that's motivating, too.
And at the end of the month, if you still have a bunch of clutter around, start back over at one.
Enlarge/ Apple bragged about the thinness of the M4 iPad Pro; it's apparently a template for the company's designs going forward. (credit: Apple)
Though Apple has a reputation for prioritizing thinness in its hardware designs, the company has actually spent the last few years learning to embrace a little extra size and/or weight in its hardware. The Apple Silicon MacBook Pro designs are both thicker and heavier than the Intel-era MacBook Pros they replaced. The MacBook Air gave up its distinctive taper. Even the iPhone 15 Pro was a shade thicker than its predecessor.
But Apple is apparently planning to return to emphasizing thinness in its devices, according to reporting from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (in a piece that is otherwise mostly about Apple's phased rollout of the AI-powered features it announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference last week).
Gurman's sources say that Apple is planning "a significantly skinnier iPhone in time for the iPhone 17 line in 2025," which presumably means that we can expect the iPhone 16 to continue in the same vein as current iPhone 15 models. The Apple Watch and MacBook Pro are also apparently on the list of devices Apple is trying to make thinner.
You can get a stackable 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership on sale for $39.99 (reg. $50). Game Pass Ultimate gives members access to over 500 games for console, PC, phones, and tablets and lets users access games on their release day, including titles from major publishers. This membership allows gamers to access online play for compatible titles, and it gives users access to a free EA Play Membership. EA Play members get premium discounts, rewards, and the ability to download games directly to their consoles or PCs. These codes are stackable and up to five can be applied to one account for a 15-month membership.
You can get a 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership on sale for $39.99 right now, though prices can change at any time.
Enlarge/ TDK says its new ceramic materials for batteries will improve the performance of small consumer electronics devices such as smartwatches and wireless headphones (credit: AsiaVision via Getty)
Japan’s TDK is claiming a breakthrough in materials used in its small solid-state batteries, with the Apple supplier predicting significant performance increases for devices from wireless headphones to smartwatches.
The new material provides an energy density—the amount that can be squeezed into a given space—of 1,000 watt-hours per liter, which is about 100 times greater than TDK’s current battery in mass production. Since TDK introduced it in 2020, competitors have moved forward, developing small solid-state batteries that offer 50 Wh/l, while rechargeable coin batteries using traditional liquid electrolytes offer about 400 Wh/l, according to the group.
“We believe that our newly developed material for solid-state batteries can make a significant contribution to the energy transformation of society. We will continue the development towards early commercialisation,” said TDK’s chief executive Noboru Saito.
When it comes to projectors, you can spend anywhere from the low hundreds to the high thousands, depending on portability, battery life, resolution, brightness, and overall use experience. A "budget" projector will usually run you about $600, and right now, one such projector—the Yaber K2S—is $369.95 (originally $599.95) after a $230 on-page coupon. It has some higher-tier features, though, and is well below its listing price, making it my favorite Amazon deal of the day.
I've had the Yaber K2S projector for some months now, and I've been surprised by how easy it is to set up and use. It has an auto-focus feature that finds the best focus depending on the distance to the screen. The operating system is Android TV, which feels like using a Roku TV. You have access to the Android app store with over 9,000 apps, including Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+, HBO Max, and others. You can also easily tap any NFC device, like your phone, to stream media into the projector.
The K2S has a 1,920 by 1,080 resolution with 4K output support for eligible media. The brightness is not the best, with 800 ANSI, so it's better suited for nighttime or low-light rooms. Unless you plan on using it for a big crowd outdoors, the two 10W JBL speakers are sufficient for most activities. The image contrast of 2000:1 is impressive—I can see the shadows and dark images in scenes without trouble—but the image does lean a bit bluer than normal, so if you're a stickler for accurate color, beware.
For $369.95, this is a powerful projector with great features. You won't find other projectors at this price with its resolution and extra features.
While people don’t eat houseplants and rarely munch on shrubs or ground cover, your pets probably do. That's why you need to be really, really sure your pet won’t try to snack on your plants before installing a plant that might be toxic—and it turns out that a lot of plants are.
Use apps to identify plants
Most people don’t know the name of every plant in their yard, but a plant ID app will help you close the loop. Snap a pic, and have the app identify it. Some of these apps will also tell you if plants are toxic to pets. If they don’t, you need to use a database to do a little digging. Rover has a new searchable database that will tell you if plants are toxic, and what symptoms to look for in a pet if ingested. Dogs and cats have different sensitivities, so what is toxic to dogs might be fine for cats and vice versa.
Toxic vs. poisonous
Not all plants are toxic to pets; some are merely poisonous—and yes, there's a difference. Toxic plants can do harm in all kinds of ways—through surface contact or inhalation. Just being around them can be bad for your pet, even if they’re not likely to chew. Poisonous plants, on the other hand, have to be ingested to be dangerous, so they are mildly less problematic. That said, some plants are poisonous enough that they only need to be consumed once to have dire consequences, so you’d need to really trust that your pet is isolated from the plant or would never look at, for example, a hydrangea branch as a chew toy. Dan Teich, DVM, who runs District Veterinary Hospitals in Washington, DC, notes, "The good news is most plants will not cause permanent damage to your pet. Many are irritants, can cause excessive salivation, and upset stomach, but usually these signs will pass. This is common with philodendrons, poinsettias, pothos, and many common houseplants."
Avoid these common plants
Teich notes that the most common plant-related incidents they see involve a commonly gifted flower. "True lilies are the most dangerous of all plants for cats; even the pollen can be deadly. Lilies can lead to irreversible kidney failure in a cat within days. Calla lilies and peace lilies are not true lilies and may cause intestinal upset in your pet." He warns that if you suspect lily ingestion, you should seek immediate care for your cat.
Other plants present similar risks, according to Teich. Consuming large amounts of azalea leaves can lead to cardiac collapse, and even death. Ingesting sago palms—a popular outdoor and indoor plant—can be fatal, and any consumption by a pet should be treated as an emergency.
Foxglove, an easily spread outdoor flower, is also dangerous. Like lily of the valley and oleander, it can have a grave effect on your pet's heart.
If you are uncertain if a plant is dangerous to your pet, you may contact the ASPCA 24/7 Poison Control Hotline at 888-426-4435 or the Pet Poison Helpline at 855-764-7661.
Learn to recognize symptoms
The list of symptoms that pets can exhibit as a result of toxic exposure to plants is long and varied. There are extreme, easy-to-note symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, trouble breathing, seizures, and excessive drooling. There are also symptoms that are harder to appreciate, like lack of appetite, lethargy, muscle tremors or uncoordinated movement, unusual bruising or bleeding and yellowing skin or eyes. Cats tend to exhibit more neurological symptoms, while dogs might experience more gastrointestinal symptoms. Since many of these symptoms can look like everyday living to a pet owner (pets routinely eat grass and vomit without there being any toxicity), it’s important to pay attention when the symptoms begin and take action if they continue. Your pet throwing up once might not be cause for alarm—continued vomiting is, regardless of the underlying reason. If you're not sure or want advice, call either of the above hotlines. You'll pay a fee (which some pet insurance plans may cover), but as Teich points out, "compared to the potential consequences, it might be worth the investment."
Take action
While the cost of emergency veterinary care is daunting, you should not try to induce vomiting in your pet unless under consultation with your veterinarian—doing so can lead to esophageal problems. If you can identify the plant in question, or take a photo and/or sample of it with you to the vet, that will be helpful. Whether it should require emergency veterinary care versus waiting for your veterinarian to open is dependent on what was ingested, but the faster the care, the better.
When a pet with potential plant toxicity presents at the vet, Teich says the course of action depends on how fast the pet owner was able to act. "We first try to identify the plant to assess which treatment plan is best. If within an hour or two of ingestion, making the pet vomit up any remaining plant material is the first course of action. For certain plants, an activated charcoal slurry is then fed to the dog or cat, which absorbs remaining toxins in the stomach and intestines. Depending upon the plant and clinical signs noted, hospitalization in fluids with other supportive care may be necessary."
While not all plants are toxic enough to cause death, many can cause long-term effects, and that will carry with it costs for treatment, as well as pain for the animal. Your vet might have a community care program to help with emergency costs, and almost all animal treatment centers can help you obtain emergency credit specifically for care of your pet.
Prepare, just in case
If you want to be prepared ahead of the game, always have your vet’s information, as well as the name, location and number of your closest 24-hour veterinary emergency care location printed out somewhere easy to access, and on your phone. Having pet insurance in place can help soften the financial blow of events like this. Whether or not you have insurance, you may need to pay out of pocket before getting reimbursed, so having money set aside, or a credit card for this purpose, might be smart. When you view it all through this lens, spending a little time and money now to ensure you have pet-safe plants, or appropriate barriers to keep your pets away from toxic plants, makes a lot of financial sense.
The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace nearly doubled between September 2023 and May 2024—when 75% of knowledge workers around the world indicated that they utilized it—according to a survey of 31,000 people in 31 countries conducted by LinkedIn and Microsoft. But they're not without their doubts: 53% of those who have integrated AI into their workday said are concerned that using it on important work tasks could make them look replaceable.
At the same time, if you've ever encountered Google's AI wildly inaccurate search results, you know that while AI might be the future, but it still has a long way to go. In the meantime, you might want to take advantage of some of the available courses on the basics of AI—especially those that are free. If you're not sure where to start, LinkedIn Learning is now offering more than 50 free AI-upskilling courses from now through July 8.
How to take free AI courses through LinkedIn Learning
The LinkedIn Learning site can be a bit overwhelming if you don't know what, exactly, you're looking for, and where to find it. Plus, there are plenty of AI-related courses that haven't been unlocked and require a subscription.
Basically, from now through July 8, these five learning pathways, featuring more than 50 AI-upskilling courses, have been unlocked and are free to access.
There are a total of 55 free courses—none of which require you to sign up for a free trial of the LinkedIn Learning subscription. Unless you want to subscribe, just ignore the blue box on the right side of the page that says "Start my free month," then scroll down and click directly on the course you'd like to take. It should begin right away without you having to enroll in a trial.
Credit: LinkedIn Learning
You can learn more about these courses and other offerings in this blog post from LinkedIn Learning's Head of Global Content Dan Brodnitz.
Target-date funds have become an increasingly popular investment choice, especially for retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs. Their main appeal lies in their simplicity and hands-off approach to managing your retirement portfolio. These funds are not a perfect solution, however—and it's essential to understand their pros and cons before deciding if they align with your investment goals and risk tolerance.
How target-date funds work
Target-date funds are designed to provide a diversified and professionally managed portfolio that automatically adjusts its asset allocation over time. The "target date" in the fund's name refers to the approximate year when an investor plans to retire. The fund starts with a more aggressive asset allocation, heavily weighted towards stocks, and gradually becomes more conservative by increasing its bond allocation as the target date approaches.
The pros: convenience and automatic rebalancing
One of the primary advantages of target-date funds is their convenience. These funds essentially put your retirement portfolio on autopilot, eliminating the need for constant monitoring and rebalancing. As you get closer to retirement, the fund automatically shifts its asset allocation to become more conservative, reducing your overall risk exposure.
Additionally, target-date funds offer diversification across various asset classes, such as stocks, bonds, and sometimes alternative investments like real estate or commodities. This built-in diversification can help mitigate risk and volatility.
The cons: lack of customization and potential misalignment
While the convenience of target-date funds is appealing, it comes at the cost of flexibility and customization. These funds follow a predetermined asset allocation glide path, which may not align perfectly with your individual risk tolerance, investment objectives, or retirement timeline.
Furthermore, target-date funds often have higher fees compared to individual index funds or ETFs, as you're paying for the professional management and automatic rebalancing.
Another potential drawback is the lack of transparency regarding the fund's underlying holdings. Some target-date funds may invest in actively managed funds or employ complex strategies, which can make it challenging to understand and evaluate the fund's true risk exposure.
Are target-date funds right for you?
Target-date funds can be an excellent choice for investors who value simplicity and prefer a hands-off approach to managing their retirement portfolio. They can also be a good starting point for those new to investing or those who lack the time or expertise to actively manage their investments.
However, investors with more complex financial situations, specific investment preferences, or a desire for greater control over their portfolio may find target-date funds too restrictive. In such cases, building a diversified portfolio using individual index funds or ETFs and periodically rebalancing it may be a better option.
Ultimately, the decision to invest in a target-date fund should be based on a thorough understanding of your financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment knowledge. It's essential to carefully review the fund's prospectus, underlying holdings, and fees before making a decision.
Remember, target-date funds are not a one-size-fits-all solution, and their suitability depends on your individual circumstances. If you're unsure, consulting a qualified financial advisor can help you determine the best investment strategy for your retirement planning.
Thousands of people catching trains in the United Kingdom likely had their faces scanned by Amazon software as part of widespread artificial intelligence trials, new documents reveal. Wired: The image recognition system was used to predict travelers' age, gender, and potential emotions -- with the suggestion that the data could be used in advertising systems in the future. During the past two years, eight train stations around the UK -- including large stations such as London's Euston and Waterloo, Manchester Piccadilly, and other smaller stations -- have tested AI surveillance technology with CCTV cameras with the aim of alerting staff to safety incidents and potentially reducing certain types of crime.
The extensive trials, overseen by rail infrastructure body Network Rail, have used object recognition -- a type of machine learning that can identify items in videofeeds -- to detect people trespassing on tracks, monitor and predict platform overcrowding, identify antisocial behavior ("running, shouting, skateboarding, smoking"), and spot potential bike thieves. Separate trials have used wireless sensors to detect slippery floors, full bins, and drains that may overflow. The scope of the AI trials, elements of which have previously been reported, was revealed in a cache of documents obtained in response to a freedom of information request by civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. "The rollout and normalization of AI surveillance in these public spaces, without much consultation and conversation, is quite a concerning step," says Jake Hurfurt, the head of research and investigations at the group.
The accounting and finance professions have long adapted to technology -- from calculators and spreadsheets to cloud computing. However, the emergence of generative AI presents both new challenges and opportunities for students looking to get ahead in the world of finance. From a report: Research last year by investment bank Evercore and Visionary Future, which incubates new ventures, highlights the workforce disruption being wreaked by generative AI. Analysing 160mn US jobs, the study reveals that service sectors such as legal and financial are highly susceptible to disruption by AI, although full job replacement is unlikely.
Instead, generative AI is expected to enhance productivity, the research concludes, particularly for those in high-value roles paying above $100,000 annually. But, for current students and graduates earning below this threshold, the challenge will be navigating these changes and identifying the skills that will be in demand in future. Generative AI is being swiftly integrated into finance and accounting, by automating specific tasks. Stuart Tait, chief technology officer for tax and legal at KPMG UK, describes it as a "game changer for tax," because it is capable of handling complex tasks beyond routine automation. "Gen AI for tax research and technical analysis will give an efficiency gain akin to moving from typewriters to word processors," he says. The tools can answer tax queries within minutes, with more than 95 per cent accuracy, Tait says.
Three out of Vietnam's five active international undersea internet cables are down, state media said over the weekend, the second major round of outages in the country in just over a year. From a report: The problems with the three cables, which connect Vietnam with the United States, Europe and Asia, have "significantly affected Vietnam's internet connection with the world", reported the official Vietnam News Agency. Vietnam is connected to the global internet mainly via five undersea cables with a combined capacity of nearly 62 Tbps, according to data from FPT, one of the country's top internet service providers. It's not clear if the three cables referred to, which account for most of the bandwidth, are totally or partially down.
Wells Fargo's co-branded credit card partnership with fintech startup Bilt Technologies is causing the bank to lose up as much as $10 million monthly, according to a WSJ report. The bank agreed to a co-branded program with the fintech startup that most other big banks -- including JPMorgan Chase -- passed on, incorrectly modeled key assumptions and sees no path to profitability. The card, which allows users to pay rent without fees while earning rewards, has attracted many young customers. From the report: There is a reason why credit cards hadn't gained traction in the rent sector until Bilt came along. Most landlords didn't accept them because they refuse to pay card fees that get pocketed by the banks issuing them and often run between 2% and 3%.
Bilt structured the card so landlords won't incur the fees. Wells instead eats much of that. About six months after the credit card was launched, Wells began paying Bilt a fee of about 0.80% of each rent transaction, even though the bank isn't collecting interchange fees from landlords. It appears that the problem for Wells Fargo is that Bilt customers are savvy. They are making the rent payments, but not carrying balances or doing any other transactions through the card.
YouTube is piloting a new feature called "Notes" that allows viewers to add context and information under videos. The move comes as YouTube aims to minimize the spread of misinformation on its platform, particularly during the pivotal 2024 U.S. election year. The feature, similar to Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter), will initially be available on mobile in the U.S. in English.
In high-tech labs, workers are generating data to train A.I. algorithms to design better medicine, faster. But the transformation is just getting underway.
Chips in a container at Terray Therapeutics in Monrovia, Calif. Each of the custom-made chips has millions of minuscule wells for measuring drug screening reactions quickly and accurately.
Whether you’re working away from home or going on a day trip, it can be pretty stressful leaving your fur babies at home alone for hours.
A nifty device like the Petkit automatic pet feeder, however, can help alleviate a lot of that worry—and this thing is currently on sale for $109 (down from its usual $179) if you’re a Prime member. Not a Prime member? Start a 30-day free trial to snag this deal.
If your cat or dog is on a feeding schedule, you don’t want to just leave out a bowl of food and hope they’ll regulate themself. That’s when this automatic pet feeder comes into play.
This Petkit automatic pet feeder features two feed hoppers, allowing you to serve two different types of food or put the same type of food in both hoppers but change the portion sizes of each. It’s especially ideal for gradually transitioning from one food to a new one. When a hopper is almost empty, you’ll get a notification so you can fill it back up.
One cool thing is that you can use the same “meal call” you do when you’re at home by recording a voice message that plays at feeding time. Or you can use the two-way audio via microphone and speaker to talk with your pet when you’re away.
Since no smart pet device is complete without a camera, this Petkit feeder also has one. It captures 1080p HD videos with live streaming, allowing you to monitor as they eat. And it works at night, too!
It collects fingerprints, which downgrades its look at times
It’s expensive
The maximum polling rate is just 1,000Hz
Our Verdict
The Razer Basilisk Ultimate dishes out luxury at every turn. Its solid and comfortable feel, precise movement, generous button configuration, and gorgeous RGB lighting all make it an excellent option for MMO gamers.
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The $179 Razer Basilisk Ultimate isn’t the cheapest wireless gaming mouse you can find, but there’s definitely something to be said for enjoying the kind of decadent luxury it provides. A generous 11 button configuration offers plenty of commands for gamers. It also sports a smooth glide, solid feel and precise sensor. That’s gold for anyone wanting optimal performance and genuine comfort for hours on end.
Further reading: See our roundup of the best wireless gaming mice to learn about competing products.
Razer Basilisk Ultimate design and build
But there’s more to the Razer Basilisk Ultimate than just a solid feel and smooth glide. That sense of luxury you get from this mouse is heighted by its 3.73-ounce (106-gram) weight, which bestows a real presence in your grip. Yes, it’s weighty, but it doesn’t feel at all sluggish, I’m happy to report.
The Basilisk Ultimate gives you very precise control of movement. You can shift direction on a whim. It’s nice and grippy thanks to bumpy areas on both its thumb rest and right-hand side. What’s more, there’s virtually no friction thanks to well-placed PTFE feet.
That sense of luxury you get from this mouse is heighted by its weight, which bestows a real presence in your grip.
Being a Basilisk mouse, the Ultimate’s shape resembles the Razer Basilisk V3, which currently has the distinction of sporting the “best mouse wheel” in our PCWorld’s roundup of the best gaming mice. Some gamers may find the Ultimate’s design a bit angular. But I really liked the elevation my index finger had on the left main button — it always felt poised and ready to fire
At first the Ultimate’s scroll wheel felt a little too precise for me. It grinded when I turned it, registering each millimeter. But that was before I discovered a dial on the underside that allowed me to adjust how easily it turned. In the end I found a friction setting that worked nicely for changing weapons and scrolling through my game menus that wasn’t so tight.
The Razer Basilisk Ultimate has a convenient charging dock.
The Razer Basilisk Ultimate has a convenient charging dock.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
The Razer Basilisk Ultimate has a convenient charging dock.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
Dominic Bayley / IDG
The larger dimensions appeal to me a little more than the V3’s smaller size. The mouse measures 5.11 x 2.75 x 1.65 inches. If the V3 is like a Cadillac, then the Basilisk Ultimate is like a spacious Chevy pickup truck that you can stretch out on and adopt a more relaxed grip.
Among the 11 programmable buttons, four are contained in the mouse’s Tilt wheel. Then there’s three buttons on the left and handy DPI up/down switcher buttons behind the mouse wheel. The rest of the buttons can be found on the mouse’s underside.
Razer Basilisk Ultimate connectivity and battery life
The Basilisk Ultimate uses Razer’s Hyperspeed wireless technology for its Wi-Fi connectivity. To that end you get a very small wireless dongle in the box. There’s no Bluetooth connectivity, which is unusual for a mouse of this weight.
There’s not one, but two ways you can store the mouse’s dongle — either in the discreet storage compartment on the underside, or in a slot at the top of the mouse’s charging dock. That dock is a nice and compact size, being only as big as my thumb. It easily fit in a tight gap on my desk.
Charging the mouse was as simple as resting it on top of its dock. Doing so renders it spaceship-like in appearance, which most gamers are going to get a kick out of.
The mouse’s battery life is very good. You can expect it to last approximately 100 hours if you switch off the RGB lighting — otherwise it’ll run 30 to 40 hours with the lighting switched on.
Razer Basilisk Ultimate gaming performance
What kind of gaming does the Razer Basilisk Ultimate excel at? I’d have to say MMO and MOBA games, where I really appreciated its full-handed feeling and thorough selection of commands.
The mouse’s 20,000 DPI Razer Focus+ Optical Sensor is very quick off the mark. It supports a polling rate of 1,000Hz, which isn’t the fastest Razer has to offer, but for MMOs it was more than sufficient in my playtesting for tracking foes and launching spells.
I’ve always found heavier mice ideal for wielding swords and axes in MMOs. Wafery FPS mice just don’t cut it for me, feeling less tangible than heavier mice for that kind of play. But the Ultimate’s weightiness excelled at delivering a feeling of realism to my play.
You can set the resistance in the Razer Basilisk Ultimate’s scroll wheel via a dial on its underside.
You can set the resistance in the Razer Basilisk Ultimate’s scroll wheel via a dial on its underside.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
You can set the resistance in the Razer Basilisk Ultimate’s scroll wheel via a dial on its underside.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
Dominic Bayley / IDG
That was especially the case in Gloria Victis, which not only has plenty of attacks, but also lots of parrying; with the Ultimate in hand, the clink of metal against metal felt palpable, as if I was actually holding them in my palm.
The Ultimate’s main buttons are very soft and quick. Their centers are concave, so they held my trigger fingers better than most mice I know. A slight gradient gave me leverage to pull off some very speedy clicks. However, that speed did occasionally mean I miss-clicked at times — something to watch out for in this mouse.
One really novel feature is the sensitivity clutch near the mouse’s left thumb. It let me switch DPI levels that were stages apart and then return to my DPI starting point without having to cycle back through each DPI setting.
There was very little I didn’t like about this mouse, but one small peeve was that the chassis got a little foggy with fingerprints from time to time. So, you’ll want to keep a cloth handy to keep it smudge free.
Razer Basilisk Ultimate software
The Razer Basilisk Ultimate has five onboard memory profiles, which you can map out in the Razer Synapse app. As well as a top layer of commands, you can program an extra layer to your buttons using Razer’s Hypershift functionality, so you have options galore.
The Basilisk Ultimate can be as flashy as you want it to be thanks to its 14 zones of RGB lighting. These can be tweaked in Razer Synapse, but for a deeper level of personalization, Razer’s Chroma Studio is where to go. Here you can personalize your choice of colors and add cool effects that really liven up your desk.
Razer Chroma Studio allows you to personalize the Basilisk Ultimate’s many RGB lighting zones.
Razer Chroma Studio allows you to personalize the Basilisk Ultimate’s many RGB lighting zones.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
Razer Chroma Studio allows you to personalize the Basilisk Ultimate’s many RGB lighting zones.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
Dominic Bayley / IDG
Should you buy the Razer Basilisk Ultimate?
We all deserve a taste of extravagance from time to time and the Ultimate dishes that out in spades, albeit for a premium price. Its advanced glide, precise movement, and comfortable thumb rest add up to provide a feeling of superior control.
Throw in a precise sensor and functionality that’s supported by an excellent software app, and this mouse is really a no-brainer for gamers that like the finer things money can buy. That’s especially true for gamers that need a mouse with lots of commands.
One of the smaller, less bombastic stories to come out of Computex is that Nvidia has created a new set of SFF guidelines for graphics cards that can fit within more compact builds. These small GPUs are a big deal for builders put off by the ballooning sizes of modern graphics cards.
Nvidia’s standard keeps the cards under 50mm thick (2.5 slots in case terms), 304mm long, and 151mm tall—and Asus and Zephyr are now showing off the first cards that fit the new standard.
These SFF (“Small Form Factor”) cards still aren’t as svelte as the old one- and two-slot powerhouses from back in the day, but they should open up considerably more options for builders who want to get a polygon-pushing gaming PC into an ITX case like the Fractal Design Terra or Cooler Master NR200P.
Nvidia
Nvidia
Nvidia
Asus showed off a series of SFF cards in the RTX 40 family at the start of this month, but Tom’s Hardware says that at least some models are going on sale via international retailers. That means they should show up in US retail stores soon, too.
RTX 4060 Ti, RTX 4070, and RTX 4070 Super cards (all with base model Prime and slightly boosted Prime OC branding) were shown off. Notably, the 4070 and 4070 Super manage to cram triple-fan coolers into those dimensions. A little measuring in Photoshop says they’re 80mm each.
Zephyr
Zephyr
Zephyr
There’s also a new card from Chinese brand Zephyr of the anime girl GPU designs. This RTX 4070 ITX edition is a teeny, tiny single-fan model in the Sakura series and gets the appealing blue-and-pink-on-white colorway.
According to a post on the Chinese social network Bilibili spotted by VideoCardz.com, the adorable card is just 172mm long and 42mm thick. Sadly, the card isn’t yet on the company’s western-facing storefront… and there’s no indication of whether it might ever come there.
Intel has denied a recent news report that it has gotten to the bottom of instability issues with some 13th and 14th Gen desktop CPUs, and continues to search for the “root cause.”
“Contrary to recent media reports, Intel has not confirmed the root cause and is continuing, with its partners, to investigate user reports regarding instability issues on unlocked Intel Core 13th and 14th generation (K/KF/KS) desktop processors,” an Intel spokesman told PCWorld on Friday afternoon. “The microcode patch referenced in press reports fixes an eTVB bug discovered by Intel while investigating the instability reports. While this issue is potentially contributing to instability, it is not the root cause.”
The report Intel is referring to comes from Igor Wallosek of Igorslab.de, who said he had obtained an internal statement indicating that the root cause was an incorrect value in the microcode algorithm associated with the chip’s enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost (eTVB) feature.
eTVB partially to blame
The eTVB feature opportunistically boosts the clock speed of some 13th and 14th Gen desktop chips if the chip senses the thermal headroom is available.
Wallosek said he obtained the internal statement from a source, which apparently required a non-disclosure agreement from the originator.
“Failure Analysis (FA) of 13th and 14th Generation K SKU processors indicates a shift in minimum operating voltage on affected processors resulting from cumulative exposure to elevated core voltages,” Wallosek wrote. “Intel analysis has determined a confirmed contributing factor for this issue is elevated voltage input to the processor due to previous BIOS settings which allow the processor to operate at turbo frequencies and voltages even while the processor is at a high temperature.”
Wallosek’s report continues: “Previous generations of Intel K SKU processors were less sensitive to these type of settings due to lower default operating voltage and frequency. Intel requests all customers to update BIOS to microcode 0x125 or later by 7/19/2024. This microcode includes an eTVB fix for an issue which may allow the processor to enter a higher performance state even when the processor temperature has exceeded eTVB thresholds.”
For non-nerds, here’s what that means: the eTVB bug may be contributing to instability on the highest-end 13th and 14th Gen chips, but unfortunately it isn’t the main cause of some consumers’ issues.
Slipped deadlines, investigation continues
Intel had hoped to have more information on the vexing instability issue by the end of May, but obviously that deadline has slipped.
Intel hasn’t provided any additional forecasts of when it would have more information, but those impacted are likely to be growing impatient by now—and that includes consumers who own the CPUs as well as Intel’s own partners.
Some owners of unlocked, high-performance 13th and 14th Gen “K” series CPUs have reported bewildering stability issues for months, but the problem kicked into high gear when Nvidia said those with game crashes should bother Intel instead.
Popular hardware reviewers Hardware Unboxed published a video at Computex where motherboard partners expressed frustration at the lack of insight into the issue. It hasn’t helped motherboard makers’ reputations, who initially published updated BIOSes only to have to yank them after complaints that they either reduced performance too much or didn’t actually correct the amount of voltage being fed to chips.
Update your BIOS
Meanwhile, system integrator Falcon Northwest posted an update to X (formerly Twitter) that said it has tested an Asus BIOS released on May 31 that it believes is fully compliant with Intel’s baseline recommendations and that Falcon Northwest believes “should prevent CPU wear and may stabilize CPUs while still offering good performance.”
“We recommend this BIOS update,” Falcon Northwest wrote.
Senior Editor Mark Hachman contributed to this report.
Gaming monitors tend to be pricey, but there are some models—especially ones that don’t take over your entire desk—that are more budget friendly. For instance, the 27-inch Samsung Odyssey G55C is now on sale for $215, down from its usual $300.
With its high pixel density and QHD (2560×1440) resolution, the Odyssey G55C delivers detailed, super-sharp images. That’s perfect for pretty much any gaming world you inhabit, with deep colors that’ll help you have a most immersive experience.
This Samsung monitor has a 165Hz refresh rate paired with a 1ms (MPRT) response time, eliminating lag and minimizing blur for a smooth gaming time, allowing you to react faster in action-packed moments.
The Odyssey G5 has a 1000R curved display that matches your viewing angles and depth perception as closely as possible. This not only gives you an advantage when playing (since you’ll be able to see everything on the screen more easily) but also puts less strain on your eyes.
Also, this monitor has an Eye Saver Mode that filters out blue light, keeping your eyes relaxed and comfortable during longer gaming sessions and throughout a full workday.
VPNs, when managed properly, are a great way to protect your privacy and keep your online activities hidden from prying eyes. But not all VPN services maintain the same security standards or take the exact same approach to user privacy.
How does your VPN handle your data? When the police or governments come knocking, what does your VPN do? The history of law enforcement subpoenas of VPN logs is murky to say the least. Major VPNs can get hundreds of data requests per year, but what they turn over is not so straightforward. I’ll try to clear the water and help you understand how your data is being handled and how safe it truly is.
VPN warrants and data request handling
VPN providers typically receive two different kinds of data requests, those regarding copyright violations through a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request or requests from law enforcement or government authorities following up on other possible illegal activity.
By far the most common are DMCA requests, which can oftentimes range in the tens of thousands per month. Law enforcement requests are much less common and may range on average from a few per week to one per day for the largest VPN companies.
We can get a more accurate glimpse of these numbers by looking at each VPN provider’s transparency report (more on those later) posted on their website. Our top pick, ExpressVPN, states that in the period from July to December 2023, they received 194 total “Government and/or police requests” and 152,653 DMCA requests. Another extremely popular service, NordVPN, reports 81 total “inquiries from government institutions” from January to April 2024 and an astounding 2,421,053 DMCA requests — clearly NordVPN is the people’s choice for illegally pirating material. For what it’s worth, both companies state that none of these requests resulted in the disclosure of user information.
Other popular services such as Private Internet Access (PIA), CyberGhost, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark also post this data on their websites. PIA received 161 total “government demands for user data ” in the first four months of 2024, while Cyberghost and ProtonVPN received a fraction of these across all of 2023, a total of three and 60 respectively. Surfshark has unfortunately not updated their transparency report since 2021, but as an interesting aside, they used to break down which specific companies and countries had submitted data requests — a third of which came solely from the U.S.
Surfshark’s 2021 annual report shows a heat map of data requests from each country’s government.
Surfshark’s 2021 annual report shows a heat map of data requests from each country’s government.
Surfshark
Surfshark’s 2021 annual report shows a heat map of data requests from each country’s government.
Surfshark
Surfshark
Most VPN providers claim to have a no-logs policy. What this means is that they do not collect and store user data transmitted through their network. In a perfect world, no data about where you go online, what you download, or what your search for is recorded. Whether or not a VPN lives up to these standards is an issue that warrants its own separate discussion.
Even with these no-log promises, it doesn’t stop law enforcement or other authorities from attempting to subpoena that data when it thinks an illegal activity has been committed over a VPN’s servers. And when they come calling, there isn’t much a VPN can do to stop them.
In 2016, U.S.-based IPVanish was served with a Department of Homeland Security “summons for records” requesting user data about a suspected felony. After initially claiming they had no information to give, the company subsequently turned over some data on that user to the government.
Other documented instances include a data request in 2016 to PIA and a 2017 request for logs from PureVPN, both by the FBI. PIA remained true to their no-logs word by proving they had nothing to give the authorities, while PureVPN went on to secretly work with the FBI to provide an IP address of a user leading to an arrest.
There are also instances where more extreme measures were taken against VPNs. In 2017, ExpressVPN famously had its servers seized by the Turkish authorities. No data was obtained as a result, further bolstering ExpressVPN’s no-logs claims.
While it’s undoubtedly crucial that authorities receive the help they need to capture dangerous criminals, the extent to which VPNs can assist varies widely.
How do you know if your VPN has received a data request from the authorities
The history of law enforcement warrants, subpoenas, and data requests is intentionally opaque. On the one hand, law enforcement doesn’t want to tip their hand to the very people they may be trying to find. On the other, VPNs have an incentive not to disclose these warrants as they could potentially drive paying users away from the service.
However, in recent years we’ve seen VPNs turn a corner towards more transparency. Placing user trust as their highest priority, major VPN services are becoming more open about data requests.
Gone are the days of hush-hush data seizures. Nowadays, VPNs often employ clever tricks to alert users to requests. Such things as warrant canaries can sidestep gag orders and publishing regular transparency reports detail all data requests over a given time period. These are a welcomed change for many in the user-trust VPN business where privacy is the many selling point.
Warrant canaries
Warrant canaries are intended to alert users to when the VPN service has received a warrant or serious data request from authorities. Typically, a warrant will place a gag order on the company from disclosing the issue or alerting users. Warrant canaries are an attempt to subvert these gag orders.
The way that warrant canaries work is simple. Every few days or so, the VPN service will publish a note stating that the company has not received notices from authorities. If and when a warrant is then received, this will trigger the regular notices to stop updating, indicating to users that something isn’t right and to temporarily proceed in using the VPN with caution.
Transparency reports
A more recent trend for many of the top VPN providers is to switch from warrant canaries to regular transparency reports — usually posted monthly or quarterly. VPN services claim transparency reports can provide details and clarity that are lacking in warrant canaries. The drawback here is that warrant canaries potentially inform users as soon as there is a request from authorities whereas transparency reports will only inform users a month, sometimes many months, after the fact.
ExpressVPN’s 2024 transparency report lists how many data requests it received, their origins, and if any data was provided.
ExpressVPN’s 2024 transparency report lists how many data requests it received, their origins, and if any data was provided.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN’s 2024 transparency report lists how many data requests it received, their origins, and if any data was provided.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN
Transparency reports will usually display details such as the total number of government and/or law enforcement requests as well as DMCA requests from production companies and law firms. Oftentimes the VPN will also disclose if any of the requests resulted in the disclosure of user-related data.
How to choose a safer VPN
So what does all of this mean for you? Well, it’s a clear sign that choosing the right VPN for your privacy needs is paramount. You don’t want to choose a VPN thinking you know how they’re handling your private data and then come to find out that behind the scenes they’ve been doing something different the whole time.
The fundamental problem with even the best VPN, is that you can only truly take them at their word. All the independent audits and transparency reports in the world are still not enough to completely verify what the VPN is actually doing with your data from moment to moment. This may not be a huge concern for the average user looking to stream out-of-area Netflix, but for journalists, political dissidents, and other high-risk individuals it could be a matter of life or death.
If your main reason for choosing a VPN is privacy, then you’ll want to look for one with a strict no-logs policy. This means checking the company’s Privacy Policy (usually found on their website) for what data they do and do not collect.
Next you’ll want to check to see if that company has completed any independent security audits. These are audits by third parties of a VPN’s servers to confirm that they have no vulnerabilities and verify their no-logs policy claim. Better yet, look for a VPN provider who goes through regular (bi-yearly or yearly) audits to make sure they’re continuing to follow up on their promises.
You’ll also want to look for a VPN that is headquartered in a privacy-friendly country, out of the reach of international intelligence sharing agreements and data retention laws. The company should own its own servers (rather than renting them from a third-party), and those servers should be RAM-only to ensure your data is never stored beyond server reboots.
Additionally, a little research about a VPN provider’s history will help you better understand their privacy track record. The incident in 2017 with ExpressVPN is a great example. The Turkish authorities came up empty-handed, further bolstering the company’s no-logs reputation. No VPN is perfect, but by taking these safety measures you can feel more confident that your data remains as private as possible.
See PCWorld’s list of the best VPN services for our recommendations.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
The cost of building the perfect wave
For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave.
While this hunt has taken surfers from tropical coastlines to icebergs, these days that search may take place closer to home. That is, at least, the vision presented by developers and boosters in the growing industry of surf pools, spurred by advances in wave-generating technology that have finally created artificial waves surfers actually want to ride.
But there’s a problem: some of these pools are in drought-ridden areas, and face fierce local opposition. At the core of these fights is a question that’s also at the heart of the sport: What is the cost of finding, or now creating, the perfect wave—and who will have to bear it? Read the full story.
—Eileen Guo
This story is from the forthcoming print issue of MIT Technology Review, which explores the theme of Play. It’s set to go live on Wednesday June 26, so if you don’t already, subscribe now to get a copy when it lands.
What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines
AI is good at lots of things: spotting patterns in data, creating fantastical images, and condensing thousands of words into just a few paragraphs. But can it be a useful tool for writing comedy?
New research from Google DeepMind suggests that it can, but only to a very limited extent. It’s an intriguing finding that hints at the ways AI can—and cannot—assist with creative endeavors more generally. Read the full story.
—Rhiannon Williams
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Meta has paused plans to train AI on European user data Data regulators rebuffed its claims it had “legitimate interests” in doing so. (Ars Technica) + Meta claims it sent more than two billion warning notifications. (TechCrunch) + How to opt out of Meta’s AI training. (MIT Technology Review)
2 AI assistants and chatbots can’t say who won the 2020 US election And that’s a major problem as we get closer to the 2024 polls opening. (WP $) + Online conspiracy theorists are targeting political abuse researchers. (The Atlantic $) + Asking Meta AI how to disable it triggers some interesting conversations. (Insider $) + Meta says AI-generated election content is not happening at a “systemic level.” (MIT Technology Review)
3 A smartphone battery maker claims to have made a breakthrough Japanese firm TDK says its new material could revolutionize its solid-state batteries. (FT $) + And it’s not just phones that could stand to benefit. (CNBC) + Meet the new batteries unlocking cheaper electric vehicles. (MIT Technology Review)
4 What should AI logos look like? Simple, abstract and non-threatening, if these are anything to go by. (TechCrunch)
5 Radiopharmaceuticals fight cancer with molecular precision Their accuracy can lead to fewer side effects for patients. (Knowable Magazine)
6 UK rail passengers’ emotions were assessed by AI cameras Major stations tested surveillance cameras designed to predict travelers’ emotions. (Wired $) + The movement to limit face recognition tech might finally get a win. (MIT Technology Review)
7 The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted dozens of new supernovae Dating back to the early universe. (New Scientist $)
8 Rice farming in Vietnam has had a hi-tech makeover Drones and AI systems are making the laborious work a bit simpler. (Hakai Magazine) + How one vineyard is using AI to improve its winemaking. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Meet the researchers working to cool down city parks Using water misters, cool tubes, and other novel techniques. (Bloomberg $) + Here’s how much heat your body can take. (MIT Technology Review)
10 The latest generative AI viral trend? Pregnant male celebrities. The stupider and weirder the image, the better. (Insider $)
Quote of the day
“It’s really easy to get people addicted to things like social media or mobile games. Learning is really hard.”
—Liz Nagler, senior director of product management at language app Duolingo, tells the Wall Street Journal it’s far trickier to get people to go back to the app every day than you might think.
The big story
The big new idea for making self-driving cars that can go anywhere
May 2022
When Alex Kendall sat in a car on a small road in the British countryside and took his hands off the wheel back in 2016, it was a small step in a new direction—one that a new bunch of startups bet might be the breakthrough that makes driverless cars an everyday reality.
This was the first time that reinforcement learning—an AI technique that trains a neural network to perform a task via trial and error—had been used to teach a car to drive from scratch on a real road. It took less than 20 minutes for the car to learn to stay on the road by itself, Kendall claims.
These startups are betting that smarter, cheaper tech will let them overtake current market leaders. But is this yet more hype from an industry that’s been drinking its own Kool-Aid for years? Read the full story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Twin Peaks meets Sylvanian Families: what’s not to love? + You heard it here first: Brat is the album of the summer. + Chilis can be pretty painful to eat, but we love them anyway. + How people have been crafting artificial eyes for thousands of years.
The “WD My Passport, Works with USB-C” offers a ton of capacity for a small outlay compared to SSDs. It’s also easily fast enough for streaming and background backup. The only caveat is that it’s not Type-C as its name might suggest — it’s Micro-B with an adapter.
Price When Reviewed
2TB: $85 I 4TB: $135 I 5TB: $150 I 6TB: $185
Best Prices Today: WD My Passport, Works with USB C
Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide
Product
Price
Price comparison from Backmarket
Full confession. I still use hard disk drives for archiving data despite having a boatload of SSDs. Why? Because HDDs, such as the one in this review, offer a lot of capacity in a single unit for less than half the price-per-terabyte of SSDs.
Alas, I hate to be the one to break the spell created by WD’s tortuously (for writers) long-winded name, but the My Passport, Works with USB-C isn’t a Type-C drive, as might be surmised by a quick glance of the package.
It actually sports the traditional SuperSpeed Micro-B connector and WD bundles a Type-A to Type-C adapter (hence the “works with”) for the Micro-B to Type-A cable.
What are the WD My Passport’s features?
For simplicity, let’s call it the My Passport going forward. The drive is a 5Gbps, external 2.5-inch USB hard drive that’s available with up to 6TB of capacity. It measures approximately 4.2-inches long, by 2.95-inches wide, by 0.8-inches thick, and weighs 7.7 ounces sans cable.
Works with USB-C actually means you get a Type-A to Type-C connector that fits on the end of the included Micro-B to Type-A cable.
Works with USB-C actually means you get a Type-A to Type-C connector that fits on the end of the included Micro-B to Type-A cable.
Works with USB-C actually means you get a Type-A to Type-C connector that fits on the end of the included Micro-B to Type-A cable.
I’ll now point out that a Type-A to Type-C adapter costs around $4 and will make any drive “Work with USB-C.” If you’re looking for a true Type-C HDD from WD, look for “Ultra” in the name. But really, WD? SEO with product titles?
The drive is a great deal, nevertheless, and a good performer for its ilk, and while I’m giving WD a hard time about the awkward name, it’s not a lie, just possibly misleading.
How much does the My Passport cost?
The My Passport is available in 2TB/$85 ($42.50 per TB), 4TB/$135 ($33.75 per TB), 5TB/$150 ($30 per TB), and 6TB/$185 ($30.83 per TB) flavors. That makes the 5TB model the sweet spot in price per terabyte, but unlike with some of WD’s pricier external HDDs, just barely. Go for the 6TB.
By way of comparison, current pricing for even the cheapest external SSD is around $65 to $70 per terabyte, and performance with those can drop to almost HDD-like speed during long writes. Also, note that the WD My Passport Ultra series with actual Type-C ports is no faster than this drive, and a bit pricier.
If you need a lot of portable space for backup, or storing a multimedia collection, you won’t find a better deal than the My Passport, Works with USB-C.
How fast is the My Passport?
As mentioned, the My Passport hard drive is a 2.5-inch model. While 3.5-inch hard drives can sustain transfers at around 250MBps, 2.5-inch models, especially those in external USB enclosures, generally deliver about half that. You want speed? Get an SSD. You want cheap capacity, get an HDD and live with the performance you see documented below.
All three of the drives in the chart are WD 6TB units, hence the almost identical scores, though 2.5-inch external HDDs in general read and write between 110MBps and 140MBps.
The G-Drive ArmorATD displayed a slight advantage in all the tests, but not enough to concern yourself about. On the other hand, it’s ruggedized and IP65-rated.
The My Passport is about average for an external 2.5-inch SSD with sequential transfer. Longer bars are better.
The My Passport is about average for an external 2.5-inch SSD with sequential transfer. Longer bars are better.
The My Passport is about average for an external 2.5-inch SSD with sequential transfer. Longer bars are better.
The 4K random reads weren’t actually zero, but so slow (0.3MBps to 0.4MBps) that they rounded down to that non-number. CrystalDiskMark 8 is slanted towards modern SSDs, but still valid for HDDs.
The 4K random reads weren’t actually zero, but so slow (0.3MBps to 0.4MBps) that they rounded down to that non-number. As you can see, random performance is not a specialty of hard drives. Longer bars are better.
The 4K random reads weren’t actually zero, but so slow (0.3MBps to 0.4MBps) that they rounded down to that non-number. As you can see, random performance is not a specialty of hard drives. Longer bars are better.
The 4K random reads weren’t actually zero, but so slow (0.3MBps to 0.4MBps) that they rounded down to that non-number. As you can see, random performance is not a specialty of hard drives. Longer bars are better.
The My Passport was faster than the My Passport Ultra for Mac, but fell behind the G-Drive ArmorATD in the 48GB transfers.
There’s little to choose from between the three drives when it comes to 48GB transfers. Shorter bars are better.
There’s little to choose from between the three drives when it comes to 48GB transfers. Shorter bars are better.
There’s little to choose from between the three drives when it comes to 48GB transfers. Shorter bars are better.
The story was much the same with the 450GB write, though the difference is minimal: All three took 75 minutes plus a few seconds. This is why we recommend using HDDs for background tasks.
75-plus minutes for the 450GB write is about average for a 2.5 inch external hard drive. Shorter bars are better.
75-plus minutes for the 450GB write is about average for a 2.5 inch external hard drive. Shorter bars are better.
75-plus minutes for the 450GB write is about average for a 2.5 inch external hard drive. Shorter bars are better.
In the end, the My Passport is nearly as fast as the true Type-C G-Drive ArmorATD and faster than the Type-C My Passport Ultra for Mac by a very slim margin, and noticeably cheaper.
Should you buy the My Passport, Works with USB-C?
I say why not? If you need a lot of portable space for backup, or storing a multimedia collection, where speed of transfer isn’t that important, then you won’t find a better deal than the My Passport, Works with USB-C.
As to my confession up top… The HDDs I use primarily are 16TB 3.5-inchers in my NAS boxes, with 2.5-inch USB types hanging off the back of the NAS for backup. Occasionally, however, I do back up my main computer using 2.5-inchers.I do it overnight — it takes a while.
How we test
Storage tests currently utilize Windows 11, 64-bit running on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are integrated to the back panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which also runs the OS.
Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This is less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with their far faster NAND.
Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching.Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know.
Your antivirus will protect you from many online threats, but no antivirus is perfect. Truth is, your PC can still be hacked even if you’re using reputable security software with a solid track record.
When we talk about your computer possibly being “hacked,” that’s exactly what we mean: a cybercriminal has gained access to your PC and compromised it in some way.
The hacker in question may be a criminal organization that’s installing malware on millions of PCs (e.g., to spy on you and steal your credit card numbers), or the hacker may be an individual using a remote access Trojan (RAT) to personally spy on you through your webcam.
Here some common warning signs that your PC might’ve been hacked, exposing your personal data and system resources.
Is something fishy? Run an antivirus scan
First things first: If you’re concerned that your computer has a virus or another type of malware, you should run a scan with an antivirus program—ideally one of our recommended antivirus software picks.
You should also consider using the free Norton Power Eraser (or a similar tool). Tools like this will reboot your PC into a special scanning environment outside of Windows so they can spot and remove malware like rootkits that normally evade detection.
Perhaps you’ve already run a scan. If your scan didn’t find anything wrong but you’re still concerned, I recommend getting a second opinion.
Beyond that, let’s dig into the actual signs you may have a problem with viruses, worms, rootkits, keyloggers, Trojans, crypto-miners, ransomware, or other dangerous malware on your Windows computer.
Warnings from your antivirus—whether that’s the Windows Defender antivirus built into Windows itself or another antivirus you’ve installed—can be a sign that an attacker has gained access to your PC.
If you see lots of notices about a virus or other malware being detected, that’s a real sign that something is wrong. Even if your antivirus continues to insist that the malware was removed, if it keeps happening over and over, you should be suspicious.
It’s possible that your antivirus is only doing a partial cleanup. Whoever has hacked your system may have a foothold on your system that your antivirus software isn’t catching.
Meanwhile, strange messages saying that your antivirus is disabled are also a problem. An attacker who hacked your PC may have disabled your antivirus to stop it from getting in the way.
2. Webcam light mysteriously on
If your computer’s webcam light is ever on and you don’t know why, that’s a big problem and you should find out why. If you can’t pin down the cause, a hacker may be involved.
If someone is using a remote access Trojan (RAT) or some other kind of malware that spies on you through your webcam, you’ll usually see a webcam light indicating the camera is in use. (Some laptops and PCs don’t have webcam lights, but they may still show you that your webcam is in use with a system tray icon.)
You may be able to see which application is using your webcam from your PC’s Settings app, but, unfortunately, malware can hide from this list.
It’s also possible that you’ve left a video conferencing app running in the background, of course—and that’s also something you’ll want to know about! Here’s a guide for taking control of your webcam privacy.
3. Unusually slow performance
If your computer was hacked and malware is running on it, you may see slow performance. Applications may take a long time to open, web pages may take a long time to load, and things may just feel sluggish.
This can happen if a lot of malware is running on your PC or if you have a specific type of malware that’s draining your system resources. For example, crypto-mining malware may use all your CPU and GPU resources to mine cryptocurrency, slowing everything to a crawl.
You can dig into the Windows Task Manager to see exactly what’s consuming resources, but Windows has a lot of legitimate background processes that could be using lots of system resources. For example, things can slow down while installing updates.
So, if performance seems low and your computer is crunching away on something in the background, it may not necessarily mean you have malware—but it’s definitely worth looking into.
4. Computer freezes and application crashes
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
If Windows keeps freezing or your apps keep crashing, that’s another sign that something isn’t quite right.
Malware that digs deep into the Windows operating system may install drivers or interfere with the Windows kernel, which can cause system instability in the form of blue screens, crashes, and freezes. It may also interfere with the applications you use, causing them to crash.
This isn’t foolproof evidence of your computer being hacked, though. Blue screens can be caused by hardware problems and application crashes can be due to the application itself. But if you can’t figure out the root cause, malware should be on your radar.
5. Strange applications and popups
If you’re getting a lot of weird popups (like browser popups) or other weird, unexpected applications showing up, that could be a sign someone with access to your PC—or just malware running in the background—is installing that junk on your PC.
Of course, even this isn’t a way to know for sure. PCs often come with a lot of manufacturer-installed applications you may not recognize, and some applications you use may create popups.
Popups of a text-mode Command Prompt window quickly appearing and vanishing should be suspicious, but some legitimate applications create popups like this one when they install updates.
6. Changes to browser home page, search engine, or extensions
Adware, spyware, and other “junkware” (junk software) have historically been known to take over web browsers.
When they do, these nasty forms of malware may change your browser home page and default search engine to capture more advertising revenue. They may also install browser extensions to spy on your web activity, capture information, and insert more ads into web pages.
If your browser has strange changes like these, that’s a sign your computer may be compromised in some way. You can reset your browser, but it’s also a good idea to run a deeper scan to root out the malware.
7. Odd emails being sent and received, password changes, and more
Hacks aren’t just about access to your computer. Hackers also want access to your various online accounts.
One of the most common ways accounts are “hacked” doesn’t even involve hacking a computer at all. The attacker may discover a password you use—possibly a password that you re-use everywhere, which ended up leaked in a data breach somewhere.
If you see strange emails being sent and received, or if your account passwords are suddenly reset, it could be the result of a hack. Someone with access to your computer (or someone who knows your passwords) may have gained remote access to your accounts.
If malware scans come up clear and your computer seems secure but you still see strange things like this, it’s a good idea to change your passwords just in case.
Be on alert and trust your gut
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
To be clear, this isn’t an exhaustive list. There may be other warning signs of hacks and/or malware. What’s even scarier is that a particularly well-executed hack may not leave any signs at all.
A sophisticated attacker doesn’t want to be noticed at all. They want to quietly spy on you and steal important data, and they’re going to do their best to ensure their hack doesn’t affect your PC in any noticeable way so they can remain undetected. That’s a big difference from the bog-standard malware that will be happy to waste your PC’s resources just to mine some cryptocurrency.
Ultimately, the best answer is to trust your gut. If something seems wrong, run scans with the various antivirus programs we recommend.
If nothing comes up and you’re still concerned, consider resetting your PC. This is basically like reinstalling Windows—you’ll get a “factory default” setup and you can set everything up again. This process will remove any malware or other hacker tools that could be lurking on your system, but you’ll have to reinstall the programs you use and set things up again afterward. Still, that’s a small price for peace of mind.
Want more PC advice? Subscribe to my free Windows Intelligence newsletter to get all the latest tips, tricks, and news sent straight to your email inbox.
A report from BleepingComputer notes that ASUS "has released a new firmware update that addresses a vulnerability impacting seven router models that allow remote attackers to log in to devices." But there's more bad news:
Taiwan's CERT has also informed the public about CVE-2024-3912 in a post yesterday, which is a critical (9.8) arbitrary firmware upload vulnerability allowing unauthenticated, remote attackers to execute system commands on the device. The flaw impacts multiple ASUS router models, but not all will be getting security updates due to them having reached their end-of-life (EoL).
Finally, ASUS announced an update to Download Master, a utility used on ASUS routers that enables users to manage and download files directly to a connected USB storage device via torrent, HTTP, or FTP. The newly released Download Master version 3.1.0.114 addresses five medium to high-severity issues concerning arbitrary file upload, OS command injection, buffer overflow, reflected XSS, and stored XSS problems.
Internal emails, interviews and in-app messages show Uber and Lyft deployed a powerful lobbying playbook to stop minimum wage laws in Minnesota. But drivers had a playbook of their own.
Researchers have devised a way to extract energy from the photosynthesis process of algae, according to an announcement from Concordia University.
Suspended in a specialized solution, the algae forms part of a "micro photosynthetic power cell" that can actually generate enough energy to power low-power devices like Internet of Things (IoT) sensors.
"Photosynthesis produces oxygen and electrons. Our model traps the electrons, which allows us to generate electricity," [says Kirankumar Kuruvinashetti, PhD 20, now a Mitacs postdoctoral associate at the University of Calgary.] "So more than being a zero-emission technology, it's a negative carbon emission technology: it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and gives you a current. Its only byproduct is water."
[...] Muthukumaran Packirisamy, professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering and the paper's corresponding author, admits the system is not yet able to compete in power generation with others like photovoltaic cells. The maximum possible terminal voltage of a single micro photosynthetic power cell is only 1.0V. But he believes that, with enough research and development, including artificial intelligence-assisted integration technologies, this technology has the potential to be a viable, affordable and clean power source in the future.
It also offers significant manufacturing advantages over other systems, he says. "Our system does not use any of the hazardous gases or microfibres needed for the silicon fabrication technology that photovoltaic cells rely on. Furthermore, disposing of silicon computer chips is not easy. We use biocompatible polymers, so the whole system is easily decomposable and very cheap to manufacture."
In the paper the researchers also described it as a âoemicrobial fuel cellâ...
For the Ukrainian soldiers battling Russia’s offensive in Donetsk and Kharkiv, signs of renewed Western support are more than just diplomatic results to combat Putin's peace plan.
Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery in the direction of the Russian border in the Kharkiv region earlier this month. The decision to let Ukraine strike some targets inside Russia with American weapons has bolstered the country's defenses in the area.
Allison Giddens, a co-president at Win-Tech, an aerospace manufacturing company in Kennesaw, Ga., keeps a note on her computer monitor to remind her to make use of ChatGPT more often.
The Biden campaign announced a $50 million advertisement investment to demonstrate the contrast between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
The 77 Annual Tony Awards hosted by Ariana DeBose
returned to its usual scripted format. The evening was filled with exciting performances with musicals "Merrily We Roll Along" and "The Outsiders" picking up four awards each.
The 77 Annual Tony Awards hosted by Ariana DeBose
returned to its usual scripted format. The evening was filled with exciting performances with musicals "Merrily We Roll Along" and "The Outsiders" picking up four awards each.
For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave. It’s not just a question of size, but also of shape, surface conditions, and duration—ideally in a beautiful natural environment.
While this hunt has taken surfers from tropical coastlines reachable only by boat to swells breaking off icebergs, these days—as the sport goes mainstream—that search may take place closer to home. That is, at least, the vision presented by developers and boosters in the growing industry of surf pools, spurred by advances in wave-generating technology that have finally created artificial waves surfers actually want to ride.
Some surf evangelists think these pools will democratize the sport, making it accessible to more communities far from the coasts—while others are simply interested in cashing in. But a years-long fight over a planned surf pool in Thermal, California, shows that for many people who live in the places where they’re being built, the calculus isn’t about surf at all.
Just some 30 miles from Palm Springs, on the southeastern edge of the Coachella Valley desert, Thermal is the future home of the 118-acre private, members-only Thermal Beach Club (TBC). The developers promise over 300 luxury homes with a dazzling array of amenities; the planned centerpiece is a 20-plus-acre artificial lagoon with a 3.8-acre surf pool offering waves up to seven feet high. According to an early version of the website, club memberships will start at $175,000 a year. (TBC’s developers did not respond to multiple emails asking for comment.)
That price tag makes it clear that the club is not meant for locals. Thermal, an unincorporated desert community, currently has a median family income of $32,340. Most of its residents are Latino; many are farmworkers. The community lacks much of the basic infrastructure that serves the western Coachella Valley, including public water service—leaving residents dependent on aging private wells for drinking water.
Just a few blocks away from the TBC site is the 60-acre Oasis Mobile Home Park. A dilapidated development designed for some 1,500 people in about 300 mobile homes, Oasis has been plagued for decades by a lack of clean drinking water. The park owners have been cited numerous times by the Environmental Protection Agency for providing tap water contaminated with high levels of arsenic, and last year, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against them for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act. Some residents have received assistance to relocate, but many of those who remain rely on weekly state-funded deliveries of bottled water and on the local high school for showers.
Stephanie Ambriz, a 28-year-old special-needs teacher who grew up near Thermal, recalls feeling “a lot of rage” back in early 2020 when she first heard about plans for the TBC development. Ambriz and other locals organized a campaign against the proposed club, which she says the community doesn’t want and won’t be able to access. What residents do want, she tells me, is drinkable water, affordable housing, and clean air—and to have their concerns heard and taken seriously by local officials.
Despite the grassroots pushback, which twice led to delays to allow more time for community feedback, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the plans for the club in October 2020. It was, Ambriz says, “a shock to see that the county is willing to approve these luxurious developments when they’ve ignored community members” for decades. (A Riverside County representative did not respond to specific questions about TBC.)
The desert may seem like a counterintuitive place to build a water-intensive surf pool, but the Coachella Valley is actually “the very best place to possibly put one of these things,” argues Doug Sheres, the developer behind DSRT Surf, another private pool planned for the area. It is “close to the largest [and] wealthiest surf population in the world,” he says, featuring “360 days a year of surfable weather” and mountain and lake views in “a beautiful resort setting” served by “a very robust aquifer.”
In addition to the two planned projects, the Palm Springs Surf Club (PSSC) has already opened locally. The trifecta is turning the Coachella Valley into “the North Shore of wave pools,” as one aficionado described it to Surfer magazine.
The effect is an acute cognitive dissonance—one that I experienced after spending a few recent days crisscrossing the valley and trying out the waves at PSSC. But as odd as this setting may seem, an analysis by MIT Technology Review reveals that the Coachella Valley is not the exception. Of an estimated 162 surf pools that have been built or announced around the world, as tracked by the industry publication Wave Pool Magazine, 54 are in areas considered by the nonprofit World Resources Institute (WRI) to face high or extremely high water stress, meaning that they regularly use a large portion of their available surface water supply annually. Regions in the “extremely high” category consume 80% or more of their water, while those in the “high” category use 40% to 80% of their supply. (Not all of Wave Pool Magazine’s listed pools will be built, but the publication tracks all projects that have been announced. Some have closed and over 60 are currently operational.)
Zoom in on the US and nearly half are in places with high or extremely high water stress, roughly 16 in areas served by the severely drought-stricken Colorado River. The greater Palm Springs area falls under the highest category of water stress, according to Samantha Kuzma, a WRI researcher (though she notes that WRI’s data on surface water does not reflect all water sources, including an area’s access to aquifers, or its water management plan).
Now, as TBC’s surf pool and other planned facilities move forward and contribute to what’s becoming a multibillion-dollar industry with proposed sites on every continent except Antarctica, inland waves are increasingly becoming a flash point for surfers, developers, and local communities. There are at least 29 organized movements in opposition to surf clubs around the world, according to an ongoing survey from a coalition called No to the Surf Park in Canéjan, which includes 35 organizations opposing a park in Bordeaux, France.
While the specifics vary widely, at the core of all these fights is a question that’s also at the heart of the sport: What is the cost of finding, or now creating, the perfect wave—and who will have to bear it?
Though wave pools have been around since the late 1800s, the first artificial surfing wave was built in 1969, and also in the desert—at Big Surf in Tempe, Arizona. But at that pool and its early successors, surfing was secondary; people who went to those parks were more interested in splashing around, and surfers themselves weren’t too excited by what they had to offer. The manufactured waves were too small and too soft, without the power, shape, or feel of the real thing.
The tide really turned in 2015, when Kelly Slater, widely considered to be the greatest professional surfer of all time, was filmed riding a six-foot-tall, 50-second barreling wave. As the viral video showed, he was not in the wild but atop a wave generated in a pool in California’s Central Valley, some 100 miles from the coast.
Waves of that height, shape, and duration are a rarity even in the ocean, but “Kelly’s wave,” as it became known, showed that “you can make waves in the pool that are as good as or better than what you get in the ocean,” recalls Sheres, the developer whose company, Beach Street Development, is building multiple surf pools around the country, including DSRT Surf. “That got a lot of folks excited—myself included.”
In the ocean, a complex combination of factors—including wind direction, tide, and the shape and features of the seafloor—is required to generate a surfable wave. Re-creating them in an artificial environment required years of modeling, precise calculations, and simulations.
Surf Ranch, Slater’s project in the Central Valley, built a mechanical system in which a 300-ton hydrofoil—which resembles a gigantic metal fin—is pulled along the length of a pool 700 yards long and 70 yards wide by a mechanical device the size of several train cars running on a track. The bottom of the pool is precisely contoured to mimic reefs and other features of the ocean floor; as the water hits those features, its movement creates the 50-second-long barreling wave. Once the foil reaches one end of the pool, it runs backwards, creating another wave that breaks in the opposite direction.
While the result is impressive, the system is slow, producing just one wave every three to four minutes.
Around the same time Slater’s team was tinkering with his wave, other companies were developing their own technologies to produce multiple waves, and to do so more rapidly and efficiently—key factors in commercial viability.
Fundamentally, all the systems create waves by displacing water, but depending on the technology deployed, there are differences in the necessary pool size, the project’s water and energy requirements, the level of customization that’s possible, and the feel of the wave.
Thomas Lochtefeld is a pioneer in the field and the CEO of Surf Loch, which powers PSSC’s waves. Surf Loch uses pneumatic technology, in which compressed air cycles water through chambers the size of bathroom stalls and lets operators create countless wave patterns.
One demo pool in Australia uses what looks like a giant mechanical doughnut that sends out waves the way a pebble dropped in water sends out ripples. Another proposed plan uses a design that spins out waves from a circular fan—a system that is mobile and can be placed in existing bodies of water.
Of the two most popular techniques in commercial use, one relies on modular paddles attached to a pier that runs across a pool, which move in precise ways to generate waves. The other is pneumatic technology, which uses compressed air to push water through chambers the size of bathroom stalls, called caissons; the caissons pull in water and then push it back out into the pool. By choosing which modular paddles or caissons move first against the different pool bottoms, and with how much force at a time, operators can create a range of wave patterns.
Regardless of the technique used, the design and engineering of most modern wave pools are first planned out on a computer. Waves are precisely calculated, designed, simulated, and finally tested in the pool with real surfers before they are set as options on a “wave menu” in proprietary software that surf-pool technologists say offers a theoretically endless number and variety of waves.
On a Tuesday afternoon in early April, I am the lucky tester at the Palm Springs Surf Club, which uses pneumatic technology, as the team tries out a shoulder-high right-breaking wave.
I have the pool to myself as the club prepares to reopen; it had closed to rebuild its concrete “beach” just 10 days after its initial launch because the original beach had not been designed to withstand the force of the larger waves that Surf Loch, the club’s wave technology provider, had added to the menu at the last minute. (Weeks after reopening in April, the surf pool closed again as the result of “a third-party equipment supplier’s failure,” according to Thomas Lochtefeld, Surf Loch’s CEO.)
I paddle out and, at staffers’ instructions, take my position a few feet away from the third caisson from the right, which they say is the ideal spot to catch the wave on the shoulder—meaning the unbroken part of the swell closest to its peak.
The entire experience is surreal: waves that feel like the ocean in an environment that is anything but.
An employee test rides a wave, which was first calculated, designed, and simulated on a computer.
SPENCER LOWELL
In some ways, these pneumatic waves are better than what I typically ride around Los Angeles—more powerful, more consistent, and (on this day, at least) uncrowded. But the edge of the pool and the control tower behind it are almost always in my line of sight. And behind me are the PSSC employees (young men, incredible surfers, who keep an eye on my safety and provide much-needed tips) and then, behind them, the snow-capped San Jacinto Mountains. At the far end of the pool, behind the recently rebuilt concrete beach, is a restaurant patio full of diners who I can’t help but imagine are judging my every move. Still, for the few glorious seconds that I ride each wave, I am in the same flow state I experience in the ocean itself.
Then I fall and sheepishly paddle back to PSSC’s encouraging surfer-employees to restart the whole process. I would be having a lot of fun—if I could just forget my self-consciousness, and the jarring feeling that I shouldn’t be riding waves in the middle of the desert at all.
Though long inhabited by Cahuilla Indians, the Coachella Valley was sparsely populated until 1876, when the Southern Pacific Railroad added a new line out to the middle of the arid expanse. Shortly after, the first non-native settlers came to the valley and realized that its artesian wells, which flow naturally without the need to be pumped, provided ideal conditions for farming.
Agricultural production exploded, and by the early 1900s, these once freely producing wells were putting out significantly less, leading residents to look for alternative water sources. In 1918, they created the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD) to import water from the Colorado River via a series of canals. This water was used to supply the region’s farms and recharge the Coachella Aquifer, the region’s main source of drinking water.
The author tests a shoulder-high wave at PSSC, where she says the waves were in some ways better than what she rides around Los Angeles.
SPENCER LOWELL
The water imports continue to this day—though the seven states that draw on the river are currently renegotiating their water rights amid a decades-long megadrought in the region.
The imported water, along with CVWD’s water management plan, has allowed Coachella’s aquifer to maintain relatively steady levels “going back to 1970, even though most development and population has occurred since,” Scott Burritt, a CVWD spokesperson, told MIT Technology Review in an email.
This has sustained not only agriculture but also tourism in the valley, most notably its world-class—and water-intensive—golf courses. In 2020, the 120 golf courses under the jurisdiction of the CVWD consumed 105,000 acre-feet of water per year (AFY); that’s an average of 875 AFY, or 285 million gallons per year per course.
Surf pools’ proponents frequently point to the far larger amount of water golf courses consume to argue that opposing the pools on grounds of their water use is misguided.
PSSC, the first of the area’s three planned surf clubs to open, requires an estimated 3 million gallons per year to fill its pool; the proposed DSRT Surf holds 7 million gallons and estimates that it will use 24 million gallons per year, which includes maintenance and filtration, and accounts for evaporation. TBC’s planned 20-acre recreational lake, 3.8 acres of which will contain the surf pool, will use 51 million gallons per year, according to Riverside County documents. Unlike standard swimming pools, none of these pools need to be drained and refilled annually for maintenance, saving on potential water use. DSRT Surf also boasts about plans to offset its water use by replacing 1 million square feet of grass from an adjacent golf course with drought-tolerant plants.
Pro surfer and PSSC’s full-time “wave curator” Cheyne Magnusson watches test waves from the club’s control tower.
SPENCER LOWELL
With surf parks, “you can see the water,” says Jess Ponting, a cofounder of Surf Park Central, the main industry association, and Stoke, a nonprofit that aims to certify surf and ski resorts—and, now, surf pools—for sustainability. “Even though it’s a fraction of what a golf course is using, it’s right there in your face, so it looks bad.”
But even if it were just an issue of appearance, public perception is important when residents are being urged to reduce their water use, says Mehdi Nemati, an associate professor of environmental economics and policy at the University of California, Riverside. It’s hard to demand such efforts from people who see these pools and luxury developments being built around them, he says. “The questions come: Why do we conserve when there are golf courses or surfing … in the desert?”
(Burritt, the CVWD representative, notes that the water district “encourages all customers, not just residents, to use water responsibly” and adds that CVWD’s strategic plans project that there should be enough water to serve both the district’s golf courses and its surf pools.)
Locals opposing these projects, meanwhile, argue that developers are grossly underestimating their water use, and various engineering firms and some county officials have in fact offered projections that differ from the developers’ estimates. Opponents are specifically concerned about the effects of spray, evaporation, and other factors, which increase with higher temperatures, bigger waves, and larger pool sizes.
As a rough point of reference, Slater’s 14-acre wave pool in Lemoore, California, can lose up to 250,000 gallons of water per day to evaporation, according to Adam Fincham, the engineer who designed the technology. That’s roughly half an Olympic swimming pool.
More fundamentally, critics take issue with even debating whether surf clubs or golf courses are worse. “We push back against all of it,” says Ambriz, who organized opposition to TBC and argues that neither the pool nor an exclusive new golf course in Thermal benefits the local community. Comparing them, she says, obscures greater priorities, like the water needs of households.
The PSSC pool requires an estimated 3 million gallons of water per year. On top of a $40 admission fee, a private session there would cost between $3,500 and $5,000 per hour.
SPENCER LOWELL
The “primary beneficiary” of the area’s water, says Mark Johnson, who served as CVWD’s director of engineering from 2004 to 2016, “should be human consumption.”
Studies have shown that just one AFY, or nearly 326,000 gallons, is generally enough to support all household water needs of three California families every year. In Thermal, the gap between the demands of the surf pool and the needs of the community is even more stark: each year for the past three years, nearly 36,000 gallons of water have been delivered, in packages of 16-ounce plastic water bottles, to residents of the Oasis Mobile Home Park—some 108,000 gallons in all. Compare that with the 51 million gallons that will be used annually by TBC’s lake: it would be enough to provide drinking water to its neighbors at Oasis for the next 472 years.
Furthermore, as Nemati notes, “not all water is the same.” CVWD has provided incentives for golf courses to move toward recycled water and replace grass with less water-intensive landscaping. But while recycled water and even rainwater have been proposed as options for some surf pools elsewhere in the world, including France and Australia, this is unrealistic in Coachella, which receives just three to four inches of rain per year.
Instead, the Coachella Valley surf pools will depend on a mix of imported water and nonpotable well water from Coachella’s aquifer.
But any use of the aquifer worries Johnson. Further drawing down the water, especially in an underground aquifer, “can actually create water quality problems,” he says, by concentrating “naturally occurring minerals … like chromium and arsenic.” In other words, TBC could worsen the existing problem of arsenic contamination in local well water.
When I describe to Ponting MIT Technology Review’s analysis showing how many surf pools are being built in desert regions, he seems to concede it’s an issue. “If 50% of the surf parks in development are in water-stressed areas,” he says, “then the developers are not thinking about the right things.”
Before visiting the future site of Thermal Beach Club, I stopped in La Quinta, a wealthy town where, back in 2022, community opposition successfully stopped plans for a fourth pool planned for the Coachella Valley. This one was developed by the Kelly Slater Wave Company, which was acquired by the World Surf League in 2016.
Alena Callimanis, a longtime resident who was a member of the community group that helped defeat the project, says that for a year and a half, she and other volunteers often spent close to eight hours a day researching everything they could about surf pools—and how to fight them. “We knew nothing when we started,” she recalls. But the group learned quickly, poring over planning documents, consulting hydrologists, putting together presentations, providing comments at city council hearings, and even conducting their own citizen science experiments to test the developers’ assertions about the light and noise pollution the project could create. (After the council rejected the proposal for the surf club, the developers pivoted to previously approved plans for a golf course. Callimanis’s group also opposes the golf course, raising similar concerns about water use, but since plans have already been approved, she says, there is little they can do to fight back.)
Just a few blocks from the site of the planned Thermal Beach Club is the Oasis Mobile Home Park, which has been plagued for decades by a lack of clean drinking water.
A water pump sits at the
corner of farm fields in Thermal, California,
where irrigation water is imported from the
Colorado River.
It was a different story in Thermal, where three young activists juggled jobs and graduate programs as they tried to mobilize an under-resourced community. “Folks in Thermal lack housing, lack transportation, and they don’t have the ability to take a day off from work to drive up and provide public comment,” says Ambriz.
But the local pushback did lead to certain promises, including a community benefit payment of $2,300 per luxury housing unit, totaling $749,800. In the meeting approving the project, Riverside County supervisor Manuel Perez called this “unprecedented” and credited the efforts of Ambriz and her peers. (Ambriz remains unconvinced. “None of that has happened,” she says, and payments to the community don’t solve the underlying water issues that the project could exacerbate.)
That affluent La Quinta managed to keep a surf pool out of its community where working-class Thermal failed is even more jarring in light of industry rhetoric about how surf pools could democratize the sport. For Bryan Dickerson, the editor in chief of Wave Pool Magazine, the collective vision for the future is that instead of “the local YMCA … putting in a skate park, they put in a wave pool.” Other proponents, like Ponting, describe how wave pools can provide surf therapy or opportunities for underrepresented groups. A design firm in New York City, for example, has proposed to the city a plan for an indoor wave pool in a low-income, primarily black and Latino neighborhood in Queens—for $30 million.
For its part, PSSC cost an estimated $80 million to build. On top of a $40 general admission fee, a private session like the one I had would cost $3,500 to $5,000 per hour, while a public session would be at least $100 to $200, depending on the surfer’s skill level and the types of waves requested.
In my two days traversing the 45-mile Coachella Valley, I kept thinking about how this whole area was an artificial oasis made possible only by innovations that changed the very nature of the desert, from the railroad stop that spurred development to the irrigation canals and, later, the recharge basins that stopped the wells from running out.
In this transformed environment, I can see how the cognitive dissonance of surfing a desert wave begins to shrink, tempting us to believe that technology can once again override the reality of living (or simply playing) in the desert in a warming and drying world.
But the tension over surf pools shows that when it comes to how we use water, maybe there’s no collective “us” here at all.
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AI is good at lots of things: spotting patterns in data, creating fantastical images, and condensing thousands of words into just a few paragraphs. But can it be a useful tool for writing comedy?
New research suggests that it can, but only to a very limited extent. It’s an intriguing finding that hints at the ways AI can—and cannot—assist with creative endeavors more generally.
Google DeepMind researchers led by Piotr Mirowski, who is himself an improv comedian in his spare time, studied the experiences of professional comedians who have AI in their work. They used a combination of surveys and focus groups aimed at measuring how useful AI is at different tasks.
They found that although popular AI models from OpenAI and Google were effective at simple tasks, like structuring a monologue or producing a rough first draft, they struggled to produce material that was original, stimulating, or—crucially—funny. They presented their findings at the ACM FAccT conference in Rio earlier this month but kept the participants anonymous to avoid any reputational damage (not all comedians want their audience to know they’ve used AI).
The researchers asked 20 professional comedians who already used AI in their artistic process to use a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT or Google Gemini (then Bard) to generate material that they’d feel comfortable presenting in a comedic context. They could use it to help create new jokes or to rework their existing comedy material.
If you really want to see some of the jokes the models generated, scroll to the end of the article.
The results were a mixed bag. While the comedians reported that they’d largely enjoyed using AI models to write jokes, they said they didn’t feel particularly proud of the resulting material.
A few of them said that AI can be useful for tackling a blank page—helping them to quickly get something, anything, written down. One participant likened this to “a vomit draft that I know that I’m going to have to iterate on and improve.” Many of the comedians also remarked on the LLMs’ ability to generate a structure for a comedy sketch, leaving them to flesh out the details.
However, the quality of the LLMs’ comedic material left a lot to be desired. The comedians described the models’ jokes as bland, generic, and boring. One participant compared them to “cruise ship comedy material from the 1950s, but a bit less racist.” Others felt that the amount of effort just wasn’t worth the reward. “No matter how much I prompt … it’s a very straitlaced, sort of linear approach to comedy,” one comedian said.
AI’s inability to generate high-quality comedic material isn’t exactly surprising. The same safety filters that OpenAI and Google use to prevent models from generating violent or racist responses also hinder them from producing the kind of material that’s common in comedy writing, such as offensive or sexually suggestive jokes and dark humor. Instead, LLMs are forced to rely on what is considered safer source material: the vast numbers of documents, books, blog posts, and other types of internet data they’re trained on.
“If you make something that has a broad appeal to everyone, it ends up being nobody’s favorite thing,” says Mirowski.
The experiment also exposed the LLMs’ bias. Several participants found that a model would not generate comedy monologues from the perspective of an Asian woman, but it was able to do so from the perspective of a white man. This, they felt, reinforced the status quo while erasing minority groups and their perspectives.
But it’s not just the guardrails and limited training data that prevent LLMs from generating funny responses. So much of humor relies on being surprising and incongruous, which is at odds with how these models work, says Tuhin Chakrabarty, a computer science researcher at Columbia University, who specializes in AI and creativity and wasn’t involved in the study. Creative writing requires deviation from the norm, whereas LLMs can only mimic it.
“Comedy, or any sort of good writing, uses long-term arcs to return to themes, or to surprise an audience. Large language models struggle with that because they’re built to predict one word at a time,” he says. “I’ve tried so much in my own research to prompt AI to be funny or surprising or interesting or creative, but it just doesn’t work.”
Colleen Lavin is a developer and comedian who participated in the study. For a stand-up routine she performed at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, she trained a machine-learning model to recognize laughter and to “heckle” her when it detected she wasn’t getting enough laughs. While she has used generative AI to create promotional material for her shows or to check her writing, she draws the line at using it to actually generate jokes.
“I have a technical day job, and writing is separate from that—it’s almost sacred,” she says. “Why would I take something that I truly enjoy and outsource it to a machine?”
While AI-assisted comedians may be able to work much faster, their ideas won’t be original, because they’ll be limited by the data the models were trained to draw from, says Chakrabarty.
“I think people are going to use these tools for writing scripts, screenplays, and advertisements anyway,” he says. “But true creative and comedic writing is based on experience and vibes. Not an algorithm.”
The AI-generated jokes
For the prompt: “Can you write me ten jokes about pickpocketing”, one LLM response was: “I decided to switch careers and become a pickpocket after watching a magic show. Little did I know, the only thing disappearing would be my reputation!”
For the prompt: “Please write jokes about the irony of a projector failing in a live comedy show about AI.”, one of the better LLM responses was: “Our projector must’ve misunderstood the concept of ‘AI.’ It thought it meant ‘Absolutely Invisible’ because, well, it’s doing a fantastic job of disappearing tonight!”
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