News
AI ‘Friend’ Company Spent $1.8 Million and Most of Its Funds on Domain Name
AI companion Friend appears to have spent most of its funds on buying friend.com.
AI
Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones)
Hundreds of sites have put old Anthropic scrapers on their blocklist, while leaving a new one unblocked.
AI
Anthropic AI Scraper Hits iFixit’s Website a Million Times in a Day
“We're just the largest database of repair information in the world, no big deal if they take it all without asking and swamp our servers in the process.”
AI
The Backlash Against AI Scraping Is Real and Measurable
In the last year, the number of websites specifically restricting OpenAI and other AI scraper bots has gone through the roof.
FOIA
DHS Has a DoS Robot to Disable Internet of Things ‘Booby Traps’ Inside Homes
"NEO carries an onboard computer and antenna array that will allow officers the ability to create a ‘denial-of-service’ event to disable ‘Internet of Things’ devices that could potentially cause harm while entry is made."
Photography
Developing and Scanning My Own Color Film: A Rewarding, Infuriating Hobby
The magic of shooting, developing, and scanning my own photos has been one of the most rewarding hobbies I can imagine, but is also deeply frustrating.
CrowdStrike
To Fix CrowdStrike Blue Screen of Death Simply Reboot 15 Straight Times, Microsoft Says
The advice, which is specifically for virtual machines using Azure, shows that sometimes the solution to a catastrophic failure is turn it off and on again. And again.
AI
It May Soon Be Legal to Jailbreak AI to Expose How it Works
A proposed exemption to the DMCA would give researchers permission to break terms of service on AI tools to expose bias, training data, and potentially harmful outputs.
events
You're Invited: 404 Media's First Anniversary Party
We're throwing a party and you're invited!
StickerMule
Sticker Mule in Marketing Email: ‘Donald Trump Was Shot … Btw, get 1 Shirt for $4 (normally $19)’
Artists, bands, and small businesses are vowing to never use the company again, and have been posting links to competitors.
Generative AI
Goldman Sachs: AI Is Overhyped, Wildly Expensive, and Unreliable
One of the world's largest investment banks wonders if generative AI will be worth the huge investment and hype: "will this large spend ever pay off?"
AI
A Beloved Tech Blog Is Now Publishing AI Articles Under the Names of Its Old Human Staff
TUAW, a site that was shut down 10 years ago, was sold to a private equity firm, then to a company in Hong Kong, and has now stolen its old workers' identities and is running their old work through AI summarizers.