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Amazon security research reportedly led to the White House’s Anthropic Fable ban

Anthropic logo on an orange and grey background.

According to the The Wall Street Journal, the export control directive that led to Anthropic cutting off access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 was triggered in part by cybersecurity research from Amazon and conversations between CEO Andy Jassy and the White House. According to the report, the paper from Amazon claims that, through a series of prompts, it was able to get Fable 5 to serve up information that could be used in cyberattacks. Amazon has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Shortly after Jassy shared the company's findings with the government, it made the call to block its use by foreign nationals. Complicating this issue is that man …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Microsoft hasn’t ruled out spinning off Xbox

Asha Sharma on a background of green Xbox logos.
Asha Sharma. | Image: The Verge, Microsoft

Microsoft is preparing to lay off a significant chunk of its Xbox division and is reevaluating the plans for its next-generation Project Helix console. It's apparently also considering dramatically restructuring its relationship with Xbox, and hasn't ruled out spinning it off into a separate company.

A new report from The Information suggests that Microsoft has considered some dramatic measures to make its Xbox unit more sustainable. That includes turning it into a wholly owned subsidiary, a joint venture, or even spinning it off entirely, with the possibility of selling the business. The report doesn't suggest anything is imminent, but it …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Bose’s latest QuietComfort Ultra are $70 off, marking a new low price 

Bose's second-generation QuietComfort Ultra headphones
Bose’s latest QuietComfort Ultra headphones fold down for easy storage. | Image: Bose

If you’re planning on traveling anytime soon, Bose’s second-generation QuietComfort Ultra headphones are a great companion for long flights and train rides. Not only do they offer excellent noise cancellation, but they also retain the foldable design of their predecessor, making them easy to pack in a carry-on. They’re even easier to recommend today, now that they’ve dropped to a new low price of $379 ($70 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. 

Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones (second-gen)

Where to Buy:

The over-ears improve upon their predecessor with better noise cancellation and support for lossless audio over a USB-C cable, allowing you to enjoy higher-quality sound from compatible devices. Bose also added a new Cinema Mode that helps make movies and TV shows feel more immersive while making dialogue easier to hear, along with an improved transparency mode that surpasses the predecessor’s capabilities of reducing sudden loud noises. Battery life is better too, with the headphones lasting up to 30 hours on a single charge — a six-hour increase over the first-generation model. 

Bose has also added a few other conveniences, including the ability to automatically enter a low-power standby mode when stored in the included case or laid flat. Plus, the headphones automatically power on and reconnect to a paired device when you put them on. At the same time, the new model retains soft ear cups and a comfortable, lightweight design that’s easy to wear for hours a time. Support for multipoint Bluetooth pairing remains as well, allowing you to stay connected to two devices simultaneously, so you can watch a video on your laptop and answer calls from your phone.

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My first 24 hours with Siri AI on the Mac

A MacBook Pro resting on a couch with Siri AI running on the macOS 27 Golden Gate developer beta.

I turned off Siri on the Mac years ago and never looked back. Similarly, I found Apple Intelligence so fruitless I never engage with it. But the new Siri AI coming to macOS 27 Golden Gate has at least got me slightly rethinking things.

I'm still early in testing Siri AI, as I've only had access to it in the macOS 27 developer beta for little more than 24 hours. It's also in an early preview state on the dev beta, so there should be lots of runway for improvements before it releases later this year. I don't even know if it's done indexing my files and folders on our review unit M5 MacBook Air and M5 Max MacBook Pro. Unlike on the iOS 27 dev …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Never Post’s Mike Rugnetta on the creative process and the value of reliable power

Headshot of Mike Rugnetta against a plain gray background.

Mike Rugnetta is a writer, podcast host, producer, audio engineer, educator, musician, sound designer, and father. In short, the man wears a lot of hats. He's the cocreator and host of the award-winning Never Post, an absolutely must-listen podcast about the internet, as well as Fun City, a TTRPG podcast where he's the GM. He's also hosted two different Crash Course series and PBS's Idea Channel.

If you're thinking that sounds like a lot, you're not wrong. It made us want to know how Mike stays focused with so much on his plate, and what tools are most indispensable to him with his hectic schedule. But, what we got was so much more than th …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Battery-free artificial photosynthesis keeps solar fuel production stable under shifting sunlight

Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University have developed an artificial photosynthesis system capable of producing solar fuels more stably by integrating a self-regulating chemical component directly into the electrolyzer itself. The new device doesn't rely on a battery-powered control method, removing an expensive component of such systems. The study is published in EES Solar.

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Apple’s new AI photo editing tools mostly work, for better and worse

iPhone on a tray showing editing UI in Apple Photos
iPhone owners are getting real, native AI photo editing for the first time.

The most popular camera in the world just got its first set of serious AI photo editing features, and I don't think any of us are ready.

As far as AI photo editing goes, the new features in iOS 27 are pretty tame compared to what you can do on, say, Google's Pixel phones. But for the iPhone, they represent a tipping point in what the native photos app allows you to do to your photos. I mean memories. I mean, I don't know anymore.

These new features are part of the iOS 27 developer beta right now, so bear in mind that Apple may continue making tweaks to them before they're released to the general public. There are three, or maybe two and a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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A better way to manage all your screenshots

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 132, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy soccer, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I've been preparing for a month of getting absolutely nothing done during the World Cup. I've also been reading about Steven Spielberg and wearables and the Boeing 747, overloading on computer nostalgia thanks to The Virtual OS Museum, watching that Knicks game winner over and over and over, listening to the fabulous new This Was SportsCenter podcast and the fabulous old The Renner Files podcast, and trying to tame my …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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The future of Hollywood isn’t feeding prompts into vanilla gen AI models 

An illustration of a young woman standing on a bed. The woman is grimacing and engulfed in a flaming aura.
Concept art from Dear Upstairs Neighbors that used to train custom builds of Google’s Veo and Imagen models. | Image: Google DeepMind

For all the noise that's been made about how generative AI is poised to revolutionize the filmmaking industry, there haven't really been any projects created with the technology that felt like the sort of entertainment people would pay to see. Most AI firms' video models are still only capable of churning out short bursts of visually inconsistent footage. And some of Hollywood's biggest AI partnerships have suddenly evaporated in ways that make it seem like studios might not be able to rely on the new technology coming out of Silicon Valley. For the most part, short-form video slop appears to be the only thing that major production houses ar …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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