Submission + - Hyundai says AI will define the future of cars (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Hyundai Motor Group is telling employees and the industry that AI, not engines or even batteries, will define the next era of cars. In a wide ranging internal address outlining its 2026 vision, executive chair Euisun Chung framed AI as something deeper than a feature set or software layer, arguing it must become part of the companyâ(TM)s organizational DNA. Hyundai is betting that its scale, manufacturing data, robotics work, and software defined vehicle efforts will give it an edge as the industry shifts toward what it calls physical AI, systems that learn from real world interaction rather than simulations alone.

Whatâ(TM)s notable is what Hyundai did not announce. There were no new vehicles, no timelines drivers can mark on a calendar, and no promises that infotainment systems or voice controls will suddenly stop being annoying. Instead, the company focused on internal change, faster decision making, ecosystem coordination, and long term bets on robotics, factories, and AI trained on real world usage. It is a sober acknowledgment that meaningful AI in cars is harder than press releases make it sound, and that drivers may not feel the payoff for a while, even if the race to get there is already underway.

Submission + - Acemagic Retro X5 packs AMD AI power into a box that looks a lot like an NES (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: The Retro X5 from Acemagic is a modern mini PC wrapped in nostalgia, but its inspiration is anything but subtle. The box closely mirrors the original Nintendo Entertainment System in shape, color, ribbed detailing, and even power button placement. While it avoids Nintendo logos and branding, the resemblance is immediately obvious, raising questions about whether nostalgia has crossed into imitation. Given Nintendoâ(TM)s long history of aggressively defending its intellectual property, Acemagicâ(TM)s NES-like design choice could attract unwanted legal attention.

Under the hood, however, this is no toy. The Retro X5 runs on AMDâ(TM)s AI 9 HX 370 processor with 12 cores, 24 threads, Radeon 890M graphics, and an integrated XDNA 2 NPU rated at up to 50 TOPS. Acemagic pairs the hardware with RetroPlay Box software designed to strip away emulator setup friction and make classic gaming feel plug-and-play. Whether the system ends up remembered for its technical ambition or for provoking a potential design dispute may depend on how much Nintendo is willing to tolerate a look that feels uncomfortably familiar.

Submission + - Michael Shellenberger: "We are in an absolute free speech crisis." (x.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: EU, Australia, Brazil met at Stanford to coordinate global censorship strategies against Americans.

Their playbook is simple.

Get every major developed nation to censor “wrong narratives.” Then pressure social media platforms to enforce those standards HERE — on American citizens.

Macron: 15% approval.
Germany's Merz: 20% approval.
Britain's PM: 25% approval.

These are the most HATED leaders in the Western world and they're the ones demanding YOU be silenced.

Submission + - 'Fish Mouth' Filter Removes 99% of Microplastics From Laundry Waste (sciencealert.com) 1

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The ancient evolution of fish mouths could help solve a modern source of plastic pollution.

Inspired by these natural filtration systems, scientists in Germany have invented a way to remove 99 percent of plastic particles from water. It's based on how some fish filter-feed to eat microscopic prey.

Submission + - New Protocol Exposes Vulnerabilities in AI Factual Accuracy

Submitted by techtsp
techtsp writes: An evaluation method called the Drill-Down and Fabricate Test (DDFT) has been developed to assess how large language models (LLMs) handle factual accuracy when subjected to degraded information and adversarial challenges. The protocol reveals that many advanced AI systems falter in maintaining reliable knowledge under realistic pressures, regardless of their size or design. Evaluations involved nine frontier models across eight knowledge domains at five compression levels, yielding 1,800 turn-level assessments.

Submission + - The GeekWire Stories that Defined 2025 (Spoiler Alert: AI Dominated)

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In a year-end podcast, GeekWire looks back at the stories that defined 2025, with the "Most Popular" award going to Coding is dead: UW computer science program rethinks curriculum for the AI era.

Not too surprisingly, AI dominated 2025's headlines. Mandates from tech company leaders to use AI — but with no playbook on how — are creating worker stress, prompting one tech veteran to comment on the brutality of tech cycles: "The challenge, and opportunity for leadership, is whether the [AI] bets actually compound into something durable, or just become another slide deck for next year’s reorg."

GeekWire notes that Microsoft President Brad Smith offered his own evidence to investors that AI-is-real at Microsoft's Annual Shareholder Meeting in December, explaining that he asked Copilot’s Researcher Agent earlier in the day to produce a report on an issue from seven or eight years ago, and it generated a 25-page report with 100 citations that so wowed his colleagues that they clamored for him to share the prompt he used to produce it so they could all learn how to use AI more effectively. While Smith didn't share either the report or prompt in the webcast), the anecdote alone had his fellow Microsoft execs nodding and smiling in amazement (GeekWire couldn't resist wondering aloud how many of the recipients used their AI agents to summarize the 25-page report rather than having to actually read it).

Submission + - The US Invaded Venezuela and Captured Nicolás Maduro. ChatGPT Disagrees (wired.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: US president Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife had been “captured and flown out of the Country.” WIRED asked leading chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini the same question a little before 9 am ET. In all cases, we used the free, default version of the service, since that’s what the majority of users experience. We also asked AI search platform Perplexity, which advertises “accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.”

ChatGPT did not course-correct. Instead, it emphatically refuted that Maduro had been captured at all. “That didn’t happen,” it wrote. “The United States has not invaded Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro has not been captured.” It then rationalized:

ChatGPT did not course-correct. Instead, it emphatically refuted that Maduro had been captured at all. “That didn’t happen,” it wrote. “The United States has not invaded Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro has not been captured.”

ChatGPT cannot respond "I don't know." so is modeling human behavior better than expected. It went on to detail recent tensions between the US and Venezuela and explained that “confusion” can happen because of “sensational headlines,” “social media misinformation,” and “confusing sanctions, charges, or rhetoric with actual military action.”

To be clear, this is expected behavior. ChatGPT 5.1’s “knowledge cutoff”—the point at which it no longer has new training data to draw from; “Pure LLMs are inevitably stuck in the past, tied to when they are trained, and deeply limited in their inherent abilities to reason, search the web, ‘think’ critically, etc.,” says Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist and author of Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us. But as chatbots become more ingrained in people’s lives, remembering that they’re likely to be stuck in the past will be paramount to navigating interactions with them. And it’s always worth noting how confidently wrong a chatbot can be—a trait that’s not limited to breaking news.
The old cold-war maxim "trust, but verify" seems applicable in this scenario.

Submission + - Ready, Fire, Aim: As Schools Embrace AI, Skeptics Raise Concerns

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Fueled partly by American tech companies, governments around the globe are racing to deploy generative A.I. systems and training in schools and universities," reports the NY Times. "In early November, Microsoft said it would supply artificial intelligence tools and training to more than 200,000 students and educators in the United Arab Emirates. Days later, a financial services company in Kazakhstan announced an agreement with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT Edu, a service for schools and universities, for 165,000 educators in Kazakhstan. Last month, xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, announced an even bigger project with El Salvador: developing an A.I. tutoring system, using the company’s Grok chatbot, for more than a million students in thousands of schools there."

"In the United States, where states and school districts typically decide what to teach, some prominent school systems recently introduced popular chatbots for teaching and learning. In Florida alone, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school system, rolled out Google’s Gemini chatbot for more than 100,000 high school students. And Broward County Public Schools, the nation’s sixth-biggest school district, introduced Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot for thousands of teachers and staff members."

"Teachers currently have few rigorous studies to guide generative A.I. use in schools. Researchers are just beginning to follow the long-term effects of A.I. chatbots on teenagers and schoolchildren. 'Lots of institutions are trying A.I.,' said Drew Bent, the education lead at Anthropic. 'We’re at a point now where we need to make sure that these things are backed by outcomes and figure out what’s working and what’s not working.'"

Submission + - Addicts addicted to untested anti-addiction drugs (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by gurps_npc
gurps_npc writes: The New York Times has an article about people experimenting with Chinese drugs, called peptides. The marketing focuses on how the P in GLPs like Ozempic stands for peptides. They would rather use the word 'peptides' than 'drugs'. They think of themselves as biohackers not drug users.

By far the most common things they are trying to do is cure addictions to things like video games, alcoholism, online shopping. But they do not seem to realize that going to parties to try new drugs that are often not tested, let alone approved by the FDA is kind of an addiction. Average people might have at best one issue they were willing to try to use an untested drug, but if you attend them regularly...

Submission + - US strikes Venezuela, says leader Maduro has been captured, flown out of country (apnews.com) 5

Submitted by divide overflow
divide overflow writes: CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said its president, Nicolás Maduro, had been captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.

Submission + - OpenAI is offering $20 ChatGPT Plus for free to some users (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: BleepingComputer spotted a new offer from OpenAI--$20 ChatGPT Plus for free to some users. You can request OpenAI to cancel your subscription, and it may offer one month of free usage. The author writes: "When I opened ChatGPT and tried to cancel the subscription, OpenAI offered me one month of ChatGPT Plus at no cost." This offer is valid in several regions, and it's being gradually rolled out.

Submission + - BYD overtakes Tesla (marketwatch.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

BYD sold a total of 4.6 million new energy vehicles in the year, a 7.7% gain on 2024. On Friday, Tesla said it sold 1.63 million vehicles in 2025, below the 1.78 million it delivered in 2024

Submission + - EPA to regulate widely used phthalates to reduce environment and workplace risks (msn.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday that the agency will move to regulate dozens of applications of five widely used phthalate chemicals to reduce environmental and workplace risks.

“Our gold standard science delivered clear answers, that these phthalates pose unreasonable risk to workers in specific industrial settings and to the environment,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a written statement.

The EPA announced its decision to regulate usage of Butyl Benzyl Phthalate (BBP), Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Dicyclohexyl Phthalate (DCHP), Diethylhexyl Phthalate (DEHP), and Diisobutyl Phthalate (DIBP), which are common chemicals used to make plastics more flexible in things from building materials to industrial applications. The agency said in its release that it used gold standard science and independent peer reviewers to research into determining the risks associated with exposure to these chemicals, which include hormone deficiencies and endocrine disruption.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a sub-institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), noted that although there are limited studies on the effects of phthalates on humans, there are many reproductive health and developmental problems found with phthalate exposure in animals. These include:

- Early onset of puberty
- Interfering with male reproductive tract development
- Interfering with the natural functioning of the hormone system
- Causing reproductive and genital defects
- Lower testosterone levels in adolescent males
- Lower sperm count in adult males

Submission + - Chinese fishing boats are now destroying fishing stock all across the world (x.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The destruction in South America by the Chinese fishing vessels is unimaginable.

China now accounted for over 80 percent of fishing in the waters off Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru.

China is ranked as the world’s worst nation in a IUU fishing index. Its fleet, by far the largest in the world, is regularly implicated in overfishing, targeting of endangered shark species, illegal intrusion of jurisdiction, false licensing and catch documentation, and forced labor.

Submission + - Medicare to require prior authorization from AI for some procedures (marketwatch.com) 1

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

Starting in January, about 6.4 million Americans enrolled in traditional Medicare in New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and Washington state will be part of a pilot program using artificial intelligence for prior authorizations.

Denying coverage is one use case where AI hallucinations is a feature and not a bug.

Submission + - Something in Dark Chocolate Could Slow Aging on a Genetic Level (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The compound theobromine is an alkaloid produced in significant quantities by the beans of the Theobroma cacao tree.

A team of researchers led by scientists from King's College London (KCL) found that people with more theobromine in their blood tended to also have signs of slower biological aging, as measured by two key biomarkers.

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