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Europe’s privacy watchdog has opened yet another investigation into themillions of sexualized images, some of children, produced and shared on the platform last month. It joins theEU’s DSA effort already underway, whateverFrance is doing, and a fewmore in the UK.
Lockdown Mode is “not necessary” for most people and “tightly constrains how ChatGPT can interact with external systems to reduce the risk of prompt injection–based data exfiltration,”according to OpenAI.
I was impressed with foveated streamingon the Steam Frame, which, when you’re interacting with games streamed to the headset, renders what’s right in front of your eyes at the highest fidelity. I hope it’s just as good on the Vision Pro.
Apple announced visionOS’s foveated streaming as part of the first developer beta for visionOS 26.4.
[Apple Developer Documentation]
Despite developers being increasinglyskeptical of generative AI, “AI-driven authoring is our second major area of focus for 2026,” Unity CEO Matthew Bromberg said in earnings remarksreported on byGame Developer. The company plans to reveal more about the new prompting tools at the GDC Festival of Gaming in March.
[Game Developer]
Should Anthropic get the designation, “anyone who wants to do business with the U.S. military has to cut ties with the company,”Axios says. The two sides have apparently been negotiating for months over how the military can use Anthropic’s AI tools.
Activisionremoved the game from app stores in May because it “did not meet our expectations.” If you’re still playing it, you’ll have a couple months until it’s offline for good.
[Activision]
It’s a new feature showing up in the app as part of the first iOS 26.4 developer beta,as reported by9to5Mac.
The beta also includes anew “Playlist Playground” feature that uses Apple Intelligence to make a playlist from a text prompt.
Update: Added Playlist Playground details.
GameHub on Android let Sean Hollister playthe Steam version ofHollow Knight: Silksong on his phone, and GameSir says its new Mac app is“coming soon.” Gamesir claims the app will let you run Windows games natively, and it’s teasing a new controller, too.
St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican has partnered with Translated, an AI-assisted live-translation service, to make the liturgy available in 60 languages. Vatican visitors can use their smartphones to access audio and text translations via the web by scanning QR codes within the Basilica, no app or special equipment required.
It only took an on-camera F-bomb, accusations of cheating, and then video confirmation to get people to take interest. Is the Olympic sport that features frantic brooming having aHawk-Eye moment?
First cameJmail, thenJikipedia. The Epstein files have yielded a lot so far, but I didn’t expect a whole new tech ecosystem to be among them.
alectrem:
at this rate they’re going to make a whole platform of web services and IPO before all the files are even released
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A newSensor Tower report suggests the USDS takeover managed to retain most of its users despite abumpy start andconcerns with the new owners:
The average number of TikTok’s daily active users in the US remains around 95% of its usership compared to the week of Jan. 19-25.
In aletter sent to Congress Saturday, the Attorney General said that the DOJ hadreleased “all ‘records, documents, communications and investigative materials in the possession of the Department’” in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. She also included a list of over300 people mentioned in the files.
The former host ofMorning Edition and current host ofLeft, Right & Center claims that Google illegally replicated his voice for its male podcast host in NotebookLM. Google denies this, but Greene (and many of his friends and colleagues) say the resemblance is “uncanny.” As theWashington Post reports:
To Greene, the resemblance of the AI voice to his own is uncanny — and the harm is deeper and more personal than just a missed chance to capitalize on his most recognizable asset.
“My voice is, like, the most important part of who I am,” Greene said.
Linuxgaming is getting better every day, but I’m not sure that anyone had this on their 2026 bingo card. Support forguitar controllers is being baked directly into theLinux 7.0 kernel, including some licensed models, such as the PDP RiffMaster and CRKD Gibson SG.
What’s causing the issues or how widespread they are is unclear. We’ve been unable to reproduce the issue here, butDownDetector has seen a spike in reports over the past few hours. Users report that Gemini displays error messages orhangs after a prompt. We’ve reached out to Google for comment.
During the company’sQ4 earnings call, Gustav Söderström revealed that Spotify had fully embracedvibe coding. AI is coming for a lot of jobs, andsoftware developer is high on the list of those in danger. Still, it’s shocking that the top devs at Spotify haven’t written any code in 2026. PerBusiness Insider:
“When I speak to my most senior engineers — the best developers we have — they actually say that they haven’t written a single line of code since December… They actually only generate code and supervise it.” - Spotify CEO Gustav Söderström
In a cease and desist letter, Disney includes examples of thenew Seedance 2.0 model making videos featuring characters like Spider-Man and Darth Vader,according toAxios. “ByteDance is hijacking Disney’s characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters,” Disney’s attorney said.
Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta have received “hundreds” of subpoenas from the DHS in recent months, according to a report fromThe New York Times. The agency is reportedly asking the platforms for the names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other information associated with accounts that “track or criticize” ICE.
[The New York Times]
Curbed described the scene as “bleak” and noted that many waiting in line forthe promised free Tide Pods and milk (which was apparently purchased at an Aldi before being stocked on the popups’ oddly orderly shelves) had never heard of Polymarket and didn’t intend to place bets there. WhenCurbed asked why:
Because of the word market within Polymarket, per Josh Tucker, a company executive. Get it? Daf Orlovsky, a creative director, said it could work — “these ideas that don’t seem possible could be brought to life at tech-market speed,” he said.
Flow Tuner lets users pick which genres are included in a Flow session, rather than just disliking individual songs. It’s a hamfisted way to customize your algorithm, but the specificity of Deezer’s options are impressive: Metalcore, Balkan Folk, Schlager. This is well beyond your basic buckets like rock and pop.
Forty years after Optimus Prime’s death inTransformers: The Movie traumatized a generation of kids, Hasbro is releasing a Matrix of Leadership replica giving anyone the fallen leader’s power. Available for preorder starting on February 16th throughHasbro Pulse andAmazon, the collectible features interactive lights and plays Stan Bush’sThe Touch when it’s pulled open.
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While we still lackreliable deepfake detection tech,Jeremy Carrasco (@showtoolsai) has been using his social platforms to help people visually identify red flags for AI in videos. Now, Carrasco is expanding his AI literacy efforts withRiddance — a dedicated text publication for AI media news, investigations, and analysis.
[Riddance]
Turns out, if you leave a Waymo door open,someone gets paid to close it, opening up some novel opportunities for improving the economy.
tsmuse:
So you’re saying we can create jobs if we call a bunch of waymos, open their doors, and then walk away?
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Gemini-powered Audio Summaries give you a condensed overview of lengthy documents instead ofreading the entire thing. The feature isstarting to roll out to select business and Google AI users now, and can be found in the Tools menu in Google Docs.
AfterRing announced that it had canceled integration with Flock Safety, the law enforcement technology company criticized forconnections to ICE (a claim it denies) has releasedit’s own statement andblog post:
Over the past several months, Flock and Ring explored whether their respective platforms could responsibly complement one another in support of public safety. Throughout those discussions, Flock engaged extensively with customers, public officials, and community stakeholders to understand expectations around accountability, transparency, and lawful use.
Based on that engagement, Flock and Ring have chosen to cancel the planned integration.
In addition to another remaster, theLegacy of Kain series is getting a new 2D action game calledAscendance. This is the first installment since 2003’sDefiance.
The trailer waspublished alongside other State of Play announcements but seemingly left out of livestream. It’s launching March 31st.
