Mashable SEA | Latest Entertainment & Trending topic-10

Trump blasts data center critics: 'Backwards and poor'

Chase Dibenedetto — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 18:57:25 +0000

When it comes to the controversial AI infrastructure, the president is at odds with a majority of his constituents.

Many Americans don't like data centers.

At the very least, a majority of U.S. citizens don't want one of the dozens of proliferating AI infrastructure projects to end up in their backyard, as complaints of environmental destruction, noise pollution, and water constraints reach a fever pitch.

But …

OpenClaw 2.0 is here: A Crowdsourced update to the AI agent is now live

Matt Binder — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:15:49 +0000

Do you hear that? That's the sound of thousands of Mac Minis all crying out at once.

A new version of OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent, is available now.

OpenClaw 2.0 was released over the weekend, promising a "simpler setup" and a new browser app. On its website, OpenClaw calls it "by far the largest update in the history of OpenClaw."

The OpenClaw Foundation …

Texas blocks funding for Flock as backlash grows against AI surveillance cameras

Matt Binder — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 18:52:26 +0000

Governor Greg Abbott was previously criticized by his Democratic challenger for funding Flock cameras.

Flock's AI surveillance cameras are increasingly being targeted by its critics across the country. No, we're not just talking about vigilantes who are taking the cameras down in their towns. We're talking about politicians now, too. And it's a bipartisan effort; an anti-Flock position is being …

Sony Music, Warner sue Anthropic, alleging copyright infringement

Matt Binder — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 14:51:33 +0000

The lawsuit claims the AI company is engaging in the most "blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history."

Music giants Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have just filed a potentially multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Anthropic, and the publishers aren't mincing words.

The lawsuit, filed Friday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, calls Anthropic "the culprits behind …

OpenAI cuts off Cursor's AI models, deepening feud with Musk

Chance Townsend — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 15:31:57 +0000

The contract will end by mid-November, months after SpaceX bought the coding tool's parent company for $60 billion.

OpenAI said Friday it will wind down its partnership with Cursor, the popular AI coding tool now owned by SpaceX, marking the latest escalation in the long-running dispute between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

In a company blog post, OpenAI said it notified SpaceX …

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says AGI is already here — and the milestone is 'senseless'

Matt Binder — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:52:43 +0000

Nvidia’s focus is now on 'productive work' and 'profitable tokens.'

Some AI industry leaders, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are obsessed with artificial general intelligence, or AGI. While the term has no universally agreed-upon definition, it generally refers to AI that can match or even surpass human cognitive abilities across a large …

Trump administration acted illegally in fight against Anthropic, judge rules

Chase Dibenedetto — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:53:31 +0000

The government was making a 'public example' of Anthropic, according to the ruling.

The Trump administration's dramatic decision to mark Anthropic's AI models as a "supply chain risk" earlier this year was illegal, a federal judge has ruled.

"The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," wrote Judge Rita …

Can Martha Stewart convince you Waymo is a good thing?

Neal Broverman — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 22:22:26 +0000

Martha Stewart takes Waymo’s roomier new Ojai robotaxi for a spin, complete with sliding doors and Gemini-powered screens.

Domestic goddess Martha Stewart has given her stamp of approval to Waymo's newest autonomous vehicle, the Ojai.

Stewart partnered with Google-owned Waymo for a spot promoting the Ojai, a roomier alternative to Waymo's increasingly ubiquitous Jaguar I-PACE cars. The Ojai, now available for driverless rides …

Elon Musk's SpacexAI faces another lawsuit from child sexual abuse survivor

Chase Dibenedetto — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:47:03 +0000

A proposed class action case alleges Grok was trained on CSAM.

Elon Musk's SpacexAI (formerly xAI) is facing another lawsuit over Grok's nonconsensual deepfake features.

The proposed nationwide class action lawsuit, filed today, alleges that the AI company trained its chatbot on data sets containing child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) featuring real children. SpacexAI did not adequately "block explicit …

Seen an ad with an AI influencer or actor? It may be against the law.

Matt Binder — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

New York has a law regulating AI "actors," but will Trump's FTC crack down on synthetic performers, too?

In June, a new law went into effect in New York state that requires companies to disclose when they use AI-generated models or actors in advertisements. And now, just a few months after it went into effect, the state is seeing its first complaints reporting advertisers for …

Bill Gates proposes a 'token tax' on AI to protect human workers

Matt Binder — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:08:16 +0000

In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, Gates said that some jobs should be "Human Reserved."

As anti-AI sentiment continues to spread, one tech industry leader is now floating an idea for how to deal with it.

In a 6,000-word essay posted on his Gates Notes website, billionaire and former Microsoft head Bill Gates explains his …

ChatGPT can now do things on your behalf without seeing your login details

Shannon Connellan — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:13:59 +0000

OpenAI's chatbot *will* ask you to confirm whether you'd really like to cancel that flight.

ChatGPT can now check your insurance, cancel flights, or reschedule deliveries for you, all seemingly without seeing your login details.

Announced by OpenAI on X, the AI assistant will be able to complete tasks for users that they'd usually have to open a new browser and log in …

AI mental healthcare is here. Can it help people — or cause more problems?

Neal Broverman — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:39:08 +0000

Talkspace now offers AI therapy. We connected with the company's Chief Medical Officer on the new offering.

Connecting virtually with a therapist went mainstream during the pandemic. The number of U.S. mental health facilities offering telemedicine services grew from 38 percent in 2019 to over 68 percent a year later, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. One of the most …

OpenAI wants California to strengthen its newly passed AI safety law

Chance Townsend — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 15:39:16 +0000

OpenAI is calling on California lawmakers to expand the state's landmark frontier AI safety law, months after the company backed its passage..

OpenAI wants California to toughen up the AI safety law it helped get across the finish line less than a year ago.

In a post from OpenAI's Global Affairs team on LinkedIn, the company laid out its case for amending SB 53, the …

Civil society groups push FTC to sue AI companies over book destruction

Phil Clark — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:47:09 +0000

Deliberately destroying rare books might be the final straw in the eyes of the Federal Trade Commission.

Earlier this month, we reported on the disturbing trend of AI companies using and then destroying physical copies of books to train their agentic AI, in a practice so eerily reminiscent of book burning that it's spooking even devotees of artificial intelligence.

Well,

Can a vehicle wrap hide your car from Flock cameras?

Chase Dibenedetto — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:02:25 +0000

Flashy patterns fight back against AI detection.

Could a solution to the ever-growing surveillance network across the U.S. be as simple as some garish attire? Start-up noRecognition believes so, and they're taking on Flock cameras next.

Started by cybersecurity researcher Bill Swearingen, noRecognition has devised computer-generated patterns that purport to render objects (and people) nearly …

ChatGPT mysteriously stops citing Reddit in many responses to users

Matt Binder — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:10:51 +0000

Reddit citations by ChatGPT have plunged.

Reddit, once a favorite source of information for AI chatbots, is now barely being cited by ChatGPT, according to a new report from an AI search and analytics company.

Published this week by PromptWatch, the report found that Reddit citations in ChatGPT Search fell more than 86 percent …

You may have just gotten Alexa+ AI for free, even if you don't have Amazon Prime

Matt Binder — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:14:00 +0000

Amazon is rolling out its AI assistant to Fire TV users at not cost.

Have an Amazon Fire TV device? Well, you just got Alexa+, Amazon's AI assistant, for free — whether you like it or not.

On Wednesday, Amazon announced that the company would now include Alexa+ at no cost with every Fire TV device.

This includes the current-generation Amazon Fire TV …

Google is turning Search into an AI study tool

Chase Dibenedetto — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:00:52 +0000

And college students can get Google AI Pro for free.

As districts across the country debate the efficacy of tech-enabled classrooms, Google wants to upgrade the average students' school supplies with new AI features. And they don't even need to leave the Google homepage to find them.

Google Search becomes a study helper

Announced today, Google is refashioning Search …

Anthropic’s Claude can now send Gmail emails without asking first

Matt Binder — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:34:49 +0000

Claude no longer needs to seek your approval before replying to your emails.

Would you let AI handle your emails?

If the masochist in you says "yes," well, I guess you're now in luck!

Anthropic has just updated its Claude connector for Google Workspace to allow full Gmail inbox management. This notably includes the ability …

Reddit is testing AI-generated videos that read text posts aloud

Amanda Yeo — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 08:59:44 +0000

It's cutting out the podcaster middleman.

Reddit is testing a new feature that uses AI to convert text posts to video and audio.

Rolling out from Monday in web browsers, the feature hopes to capitalise on the popularity of videos that read Reddit posts aloud. The AI-generated videos will …

Grok CSAM lawsuit expands as more step forward

Chase Dibenedetto — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:37:35 +0000

Plaintiffs are seeking a class action case against SpaceXAI.

Elon Musk-owned SpaceXAI is set to defend its artificial intelligence bot Grok in federal court, following a scandal that alleges the AI assistant was used to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

In March, three Tennessee teenagers filed a federal lawsuit against the company for its alleged role …

What Claude's AI text watermark actually does

Chance Townsend — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:59:09 +0000

Anthropic says the new feature won't change how Claude's responses read, its cost to run, or reveal anything about who's using it.

Anthropic has begun building a watermark into text generated by future Claude models, a change the company says is meant to help identify whether a given piece of writing was likely produced by its AI. This new feature, implemented to comply with EU rules, is meant to be …

Why is OpenAI losing so many executives?

Matt Binder — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 22:22:48 +0000

Executives keep leaving OpenAI. What's going on?

OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer announced today that she is leaving the AI giant.

"I wanted to let you know that I made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI in the coming weeks to pursue other opportunities," said Denise Dresser, the now-former OpenAI CRO, in a post …

Microsoft ditches Copilot's mascot Mico (and cuts a few AI features)

Matt Binder — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 17:18:19 +0000

Copilot's consumer and business apps are merging, resulting in these changes.

Say "goodbye" to Mico and a handful of AI tools, Microsoft Copilot users.

According to new Microsoft support documents, the tech giant is making major changes to its AI assistant, Copilot.

The biggest change to Copilot is that it will no longer exist as separate apps for consumer and business …

Gemini to connect with tons of new apps, including Pandora and OpenTable

Stan Schroeder — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:31:13 +0000

This is actually pretty useful.

Gemini is making new friends.

Google announced tons of new hardware during yesterday's Made by Google event, but that doesn't mean the company's AI didn't get a slew of important updates of its own.

Among them was the announcement that Gemini will …

SpaceXAI launches Grok Bot, an always-on AI agent

Stan Schroeder — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:01:36 +0000

Rockets are taking a back seat to AI.

Elon Musk's SpaceXAI (yes, that's the company name now) has introduced Grok Bot, a team of always-on AI agents that can accomplish tasks in the background while you work on other stuff.

There's some number confusion here: the feature is called "Grok Bot," but the …

Spotify will now tell you when an artist isn’t real

Olivia Tauber — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:04:03 +0000

The new AI Persona badge will flag synthetic artist identities and keep their music out of recommendations by default.

That new singer in your Spotify playlist may have a name, a face, and a carefully written bio. Soon, Spotify may also tell you the person they describe doesn’t exist.

Beginning in mid-September, the streaming platform will place an "AI Persona" badge on profiles built around AI-generated …

Claude to start watermarking AI-generated content

Stan Schroeder — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:48:19 +0000

Anthropic has complied with Europe's rules.

Anthropic's Claude will start watermarking AI-generated content in compliance with EU rules, the company announced on Tuesday.

In a Claude support document, Anthropic wrote that it has signed the EU AI Act's Article 50(2) Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content, …

911 calls are getting the AI treatment now

Chase Dibenedetto — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:18:35 +0000

More and more cities are leaning on AI to help emergency operators.

New Orleans, home to more than 300,000 residents and an emergency system that handles thousands of calls each day, is turning to AI for help.

The city recently confirmed that emergency services, overseen by the Orleans Parish Communication District, are deploying an AI triage tool to …

Claude Code’s auto mode will be on by default, Anthropic confirms

Alex Perry — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:30:08 +0000

The idea is to speed up your coding even more.

Anthropic's AI programming tool just made a somewhat big change.

In a blog post, Anthropic announced that "auto mode" will, going forward, be turned on by default in Claude Code for anyone with a Pro, Max, or Team account. The change takes …

Meta's Muse Glimmer wants to bring AI agents to your laptop

Olivia Tauber — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 15:42:29 +0000

Muse Glimmer can run directly on a high-end laptop or PC as Zuckerberg challenges OpenAI and Anthropic for keeping their AI models private.

Meta thinks the next front in the AI race may be sitting on your desk.

On Aug. 10, Meta released Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-parameter AI model designed to run locally on a Mac or PC with a single consumer GPU. Its weights are available to …

DeepSeek to get a 'significant' price hike soon

Alex Perry — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:47:53 +0000

So much for cheap AI.

Everything is becoming more expensive, including things that are supposed to be cheap.

The latest example is DeepSeek's AI services, as reported by Bloomberg. The Chinese AI firm sent a notice to users on Thursday warning of a "significant" price increase, though it did not specify …

Amazon's new Texas AI data center will include massive amounts of air pollution

Alex Perry — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:16:50 +0000

Of course it does.

In 2019, Amazon signed the Climate Pledge, aiming to help Earth's environmental health. In 2026, Amazon aims to set a record for the most air pollution emitted by a single power plant.

The New York Times reported that the company is building a …

AI companies keep destroying old books. Here's why.

Chris Taylor — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

There's a backlash against book destruction — and a better way to scan them.

The AI industry, not content with alienating top creators, seems to be intent on alienating book lovers too.

That much is clear in the wake of a 404 Media report on ISBNdb, a company that tracks book data and briefly offered "AI training data" …

Old Reddit might be on the chopping block. Here’s why.

Alex Perry — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:05:46 +0000

Another thing you can blame AI for.

Reddit's legacy experience may be under threat.

The internet's home page is constantly undergoing little changes here and there, but as Engadget reported, there's reason to believe Old Reddit might not be long for this world in its current state.

The legacy version …

Elon Musk’s Grokipedia reportedly hasn’t been updated since April

Alex Perry — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:22:50 +0000

At least nothing important has happened in the world since then.

Elon Musk's Wikipedia clone is not doing a great job of imitating Wikipedia these days.

Grokipedia launched late last year as an AI-written alternative to the popular crowdsourced encyclopedia, which Musk called Wokipedia" on X. Evidently, the AI-generated resource hasn't been updated since April …

Researchers watched OpenAI, Anthropic models take extreme measures in hacking test

Alex Perry — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 16:24:22 +0000

It's learning from us.

A bunch of researchers let AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic loose in a testing environment, and the results were a little spooky.

The United Kingdom's AI Security Institute released a report (via Engadget) detailing some incidents in …

Google Assistant to shut down on Android, Wear OS next month

Alex Perry — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:18:38 +0000

Google Assistant has reached the end of its journey.

Google's longtime voice assistant will officially go to the great tech graveyard in the sky in the very near future.

As has been expected for quite a while, Google is ending support for Google Assistant on Android and WearOS in September, according to emails sent to users, as reported …

The 12 best headphones of 2026: We tested the top contenders from Sony, Apple, Bose, and Beats

Bethany Allard, Samantha Mangino — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:00:59 +0000

From budget to premium options, here are our favorite headphones and earbuds. Whether you're a picky audiophile, gym rat, or just in it for the aesthetics, there's a pair of headphones for you.