Anthropic hires new CTO with focus on AI infrastructure
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Anthropic hires new CTO with focus on AI infrastructure

Anthropic has a new chief technical officer, former Stripe CTO Rahul Patil. Patil started at the company earlier this week, taking over from co-founder Sam McCandlish, who will move to a new role as chief architect. As part of the change, Anthropic is updating the structure of its core technical group, bringing the company’s product-engineering...

Trump admin defiles even the “out of office” email auto-reply
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Trump admin defiles even the “out of office” email auto-reply

Well—not “Democrats,” exactly, but “Democrat Senators.” The use of the noun “Democrat” as an adjective (e.g., “the Democrat Party”) is a long-standing and deliberate right-wing refusal to call the opposition by its name. (If you visit the Democrats’ website, the very first words below the site header are “We are the Democratic Party”; the party...

Amazon to resume drone delivery following crash in Arizona
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Amazon to resume drone delivery following crash in Arizona

Amazon will restart its drone delivery service in Arizona beginning Friday as two federal agencies continue to investigate a crash that occurred earlier this week. Amazon suspended operations in the West Valley of the Phoenix Metro area — currently its only commercial market — following a crash Wednesday. Two of the company’s Prime Air delivery...

A photo of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot prototype provided by Tesla for the "We Robot" event on October 10, 2024.
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Why iRobot’s founder won’t go within 10 feet of today’s walking robots

In his post, Brooks recounts being “way too close” to an Agility Robotics Digit humanoid when it fell several years ago. He has not dared approach one while walking since. Even in promotional videos from humanoid companies, Brooks notes, humans are never shown close to moving humanoid robots unless separated by furniture, and even then,...

Here’s how to get Xbox and PC Game Pass at the old price
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Here’s how to get Xbox and PC Game Pass at the old price

Microsoft recently announced price hikes for some tiers of Xbox Game Pass, including Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The Ultimate tier, which offers the most games and features (as well as access to PC Game Pass), went from $19.99 per month to $29.99. Those who subscribe to PC Game Pass are now being charged $16.49...

A large lawn dotted with students ends at the steps of a red brick building with a dome and classical colonnade.
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Trump offers universities a choice: Comply for preferential funding

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration had offered nine schools a deal: manage your universities in a way that aligns with administration priorities and get “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” along with other benefits. Failure to accept the bargain would result in a withdrawal of federal programs that would likely...