Author: Siôn Geschwindt
Baby Elon Musk. Shrimp Jesus. The Titanic colliding with an iceberg lettuce. Social media is saturated with AI slop — low-quality, often ridiculous and sometimes disturbing images, videos, or words created using generative artificial intelligence. While some AI slop is glaringly fake, a lot isn’t. I remember the first time AI hoodwinked me. It was a striking video I saw on Instagram of a pair of snowy owls in the Arctic with a brood of six little chicks. Amazed by the scene, I instantly shared it with my wife. Her response was: “Surely that can’t be real?!” It wasn’t. A…
Elon Musk’s allegiance to Donald Trump is once again stirring up controversy — this time over Starlink. The satellite internet provider, owned by Musk’s firm SpaceX, has become embroiled in a hot debate among Italian politicians, as Rome weighs its strategic alliances amid mounting tensions between Europe and the US. Italy’s right-wing League party is pushing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government to choose Starlink to provide satellite communications for government officials, citing the superiority of its technology over French rival Eutelsat. Starlink has around 6,700 active satellites in orbit, while Eutelsat has just over 600. “In the Italian interest it…
With their heavy battery packs, EVs are hardly known for being lightweight. That is, perhaps, until now. British startup Longbow — founded by former Tesla, Lucid, and Polestar execs — emerged from stealth today with plans for two new ultralight EVs. The company bills the cars as “spiritual successors” to the iconic Lotus Elise and Jaguar E-Type. The first of the pair is Speedster, a nimble, open-top sports car weighing just 895kg that could accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.5 seconds. Speedster will have an estimated range of 275 miles and a starting price of ₤84,995. The first customer…
Renewed calls for Google to sell Chrome have reignited demands for the company to also divest Android. An executive at Murena, a French smartphone startup, said today that breaking up the businesses is the only way to end Google’s “cycle of domination”. The appeal follows a Friday court filing from the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The filing reaffirmed a proposal for Google to divest its Chrome browser and sell it to a competitor, in a bid to break up the tech giant’s alleged search engine monopoly. “Through its sheer size and unrestricted power, Google has robbed consumers and businesses…
Social media platform X was hit by a series of outages yesterday in what its owner Elon Musk has called a “massive cyberattack” stemming from Ukraine. Analysts believe the disruption was caused by botnets — but finding the culprits will be a tall order. The outages began at around 14:00 CET and lasted for most of the afternoon, trailing off at around 18:00, according to Down Detector. While the outages appeared to have flatlined overnight, there was an uptick in reports of downtime starting from 08:00AM today up until the time of writing. “We’re not sure exactly what happened,”…
French satellite operator Eutelsat was thrust into the spotlight last week as a potential replacement for Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine — and potentially, broader Europe. Eva Berneke, Eutelsat’s CEO, said the company was in advanced discussions with the EU about expanding its internet service in Ukraine. She also said Eutelsat was in “very positive talks” with Italy to provide an encrypted communications service for government officials. In the same week, investors rallied behind Eutelsat, sending its shares soaring over 500%. But what exactly is Eutelsat? And could it realistically replace Starlink in Ukraine and beyond? An independence mission In…
Edge Impulse, a TNW community member that produces an AI platform for developers, has been acquired by American chip giant Qualcomm for an undisclosed sum. Qualcomm said it had bought Edge Impulse to boost its machine learning software capabilities, particularly for its Dragonwing line of AI-powered chips. Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm’s head of IoT, said the acquisition would strengthen his firm’s “leadership in AI” and bolster “critical sectors such as retail, security, energy and utilities, supply chain management, and asset management.” Under the deal, Edge Impulse will integrate its operations with Qualcomm’s, but maintain its own offices, employees, and website. The 💜…