Technology News

Anjan Katta thinks computers and the tech industry became too corporate and straitlaced—so he invented a tablet with a zippy monochrome screen that’s usable outdoors.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

The New York Times is fighting to take down a game called Worldle, according to a legal filing viewed by the BBC, in which The Times apparently argued that the geography-based game is "creating confusion" by using a name that's way too similar to Wordle.

Worldle is "nearly identical in appearance, sound, meaning, and imparts the same commercial impression" to Wordle, The Times claimed.

The Times bought Wordle in 2022, paying software developer Josh Wardle seven figures for the daily word-guessing puzzle game after its breakout success during the pandemic. Around the same time, Worldle was created—along with more than 100 other Wordle spinoffs offering niche alternatives to Wordle, including versions in different languages and completely different games simply using the name construction ending in "-le." The Times filed for a Wordle trademark the day after buying the game and by March 2022, it started sending takedown requests.

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Biotech giant Bayer plans to distribute mustard greens that have been genetically altered to make them less bitter to grocery stores across the country.

Enlarge / Jeep is ready to join the electric SUV fray with the new Wagoneer S, which goes on sale later this year. (credit: Jeep)

The Jeep brand has finally debuted its first purpose-built electric vehicle. It's targeting the hotly contested SUV segment with the new Wagoneer S, which goes on sale this fall. But other than its name, it shares little with the gasoline-powered Wagoneer; the Wagoneer S uses the same EV architecture—called STLA Large—as the forthcoming electric Dodge Charger.

It looks like Jeep is using a similar playbook to Dodge and Ram as it introduces its electric models: Give them the same name and styling as a familiar bestseller to keep customers comfortable, then give them serious power output and some headline-grabbing numbers to generate a halo effect.

Powerful

That's why the Jeep Wagoneer S Launch Edition will offer 600 hp (447 kW), 617 lb-ft (837 Nm), and a 0–60 mph (0-98 km/h) time of 3.4 seconds. It's powered by a 100.5 kWh battery pack with nickel manganese cobalt chemistry operating at 400 V.

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From small donors to rich Silicon Valley investors, Donald Trump enthusiasts signaled their support for the convicted felon by sending money to his campaign.

This kid-friendly sampler is meant to introduce little ones to the world of home recording and beat-making.

Enlarge / OpenAI said it was committed to uncovering disinformation campaigns and was building its own AI-powered tools to make detection and analysis "more effective." (credit: FT montage/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

OpenAI has revealed operations linked to Russia, China, Iran and Israel have been using its artificial intelligence tools to create and spread disinformation, as technology becomes a powerful weapon in information warfare in an election-heavy year.

The San Francisco-based maker of the ChatGPT chatbot said in a report on Thursday that five covert influence operations had used its AI models to generate text and images at a high volume, with fewer language errors than previously, as well as to generate comments or replies to their own posts. OpenAI’s policies prohibit the use of its models to deceive or mislead others.

The content focused on issues “including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza, the Indian elections, politics in Europe and the United States, and criticisms of the Chinese government by Chinese dissidents and foreign governments,” OpenAI said in the report.

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Whether you want to sleep through the party or rock out (safely) to your favorite band, these will help block out the noise.

These nontoxic beds and bedsheets are easier on the environment and your health—and they feel like a dream.

These utilities for Windows 11 and macOS record all your desktop actions, giving you a searchable log. The apps work similarly to the still-in-preview Microsoft Recall, but they're available now.

Annoying, mistake-prone touch controls have become standard on induction stoves, but good old-fashioned knobs are far superior in the busy, messy kitchen. It’s high time we bring back the knob.

Enlarge / No one's entirely sure if driverless racing will be any good to watch, but before we find that out, people have to actually develop driverless race cars. A2RL in Abu Dhabi is the latest step down that path. (credit: A2RL)

A2RL provided flights from London to Abu Dhabi and accommodation so Ars could attend the autonomous race event. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

ABU DHABI—We live in a weird time for autonomous vehicles. Ambitions come and go, but genuinely autonomous cars are further off than solid-state vehicle batteries. Part of the problem with developing autonomous cars is that teaching road cars to take risks is unacceptable.

A race track, though, is a decent place to potentially crash a car. You can take risks there, with every brutal crunch becoming a learning exercise. (You’d be hard-pressed to find a top racing driver without a few wrecks smoldering in their junior career records.)

That's why 10,000 people descended on the Yas Marina race track in Abu Dhabi to watch the first four-car driverless race.

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Enlarge / A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China's Shandong province. (credit: VCG via Getty Images)

Welcome to Edition 6.46 of the Rocket Report! It looks like we will be covering the crew test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft and the fourth test flight of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket over the next week. All of this is happening as SpaceX keeps up its cadence of flying multiple Starlink missions per week. The real stars are the Ars copy editors helping make sure our stories don't use the wrong names.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Another North Korean launch failure. North Korea's latest attempt to launch a rocket with a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure due to the midair explosion of the rocket during the first-stage flight this week, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reports. Video captured by the Japanese news organization NHK appears to show the North Korean rocket disappearing in a fireball shortly after liftoff Monday night from a launch pad on the country's northwest coast. North Korean officials acknowledged the launch failure and said the rocket was carrying a small reconnaissance satellite named Malligyong-1-1.

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The “All Eyes on Rafah” image went viral on social media this week, with over 47 million shares on Instagram alone. It's bringing up tough questions about the power of the visuals of war and AI.

Apple's lightweight tablet comes equipped with a faster processor, but it's the bigger screen that steals the spotlight.

Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, said in a blog post that the company had made adjustments to its new AI search feature after screenshots of its errors went viral.

Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, said in a blog post that the company had made adjustments to its new AI search feature after screenshots of its errors went viral.

Here’s what happened with AI Overviews, the feedback we've received, and the steps we’ve taken.Here’s what happened with AI Overviews, the feedback we've received, and the steps we’ve taken.

Trump supporters, fringe extremists, right-wing pundits, and politicians have all posted incendiary rhetoric, including some calls for “war,” following former president Donald Trump’s felony conviction.

Enlarge (credit: Apu Gomes / Stringer | Getty Images News)

After months of loudly protesting a subpoena, Elon Musk has once again agreed to testify in the US Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into his acquisition of Twitter (now called X).

Musk tried to avoid testifying by arguing that the SEC had deposed him twice before, telling a US district court in California that the most recent subpoena was "the latest in a long string of SEC abuses of its investigative authority.”

But the court did not agree that Musk testifying three times in the SEC probe was either "abuse" or "overly burdensome." Especially since the SEC has said it's seeking a follow-up deposition after receiving "thousands of new documents" from Musk and third parties over the past year since his last depositions. And according to an order requiring Musk and the SEC to agree on a deposition date from US district judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, "Musk’s lament does not come close to meeting his burden of proving 'the subpoena was issued in bad faith or for an improper purpose.'"

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