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A Yann LeCun–Linked Startup Charts a New Path to AGI
If you ask Yann LeCun, Silicon Valley has a groupthink problem. Since leaving Meta in November, the researcher and AI luminary has taken aim at the orthodox view that large language models (LLMs) will get us to artificial general intelligence (AGI), the threshold where computers match or exceed human smarts. Everyone, he declared in a recent interview, has been “LLM-pilled.”On…
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ICE Asks Companies About ‘Ad Tech and Big Data’ Tools It Could Use in Investigations
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is asking companies to provide information about “commercial Big Data and Ad Tech” products that would “directly support investigations activities,” according to a request for information posted on Friday in…
‘The year of Hershey’s’: Inside the confectioner’s first brand platform in 8 years
Some brands refresh campaigns annually. Others take a little more time off.It’s much easier, of course, to take a pause between campaigns when the brand in question is already a household name. That’s the case…
TikTok Data Center Outage Triggers Trust Crisis for New US Owners
TikTok is currently experiencing a widespread service outage in the US, causing disruptions for millions of users only a few days after the company officially transferred control of its American business to a group of…
Behind Instacart’s ‘bananas’ Super Bowl ad
Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer. Case in point: If you’re making an ad about bananas, that ad should probably be, well, bananas.That’s what the team behind Instacart’s second consecutive Super Bowl ad…
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China’s Renewable Energy Revolution Is a Huge Mess That Might Save the World
Indeed, the greatest beneficiaries of China’s renewables revolution may, in fact, be consumers, both inside and outside of China. In…
How a trade org is using a conservation icon to promote battery recycling
The year is 1971. John Lennon’s “Imagine” was taking over the airwaves and NPR had just started broadcasting when Secretary…
Meta Seeks to Bar Mentions of Mental Health—and Zuckerberg’s Harvard Past—From Child Safety Trial
As Meta heads to trial in the state of New Mexico for allegedly failing to protect minors from sexual exploitation,…
New York Road Runners rebrands amid a swelling interest in running
New York Road Runners, the nonprofit that puts on the TCS New York City Marathon and dozens of other races…
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How Claude Code Is Reshaping Software—and Anthropic
Engineers in Silicon Valley have been raving about Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude Code, for months. But recently, the buzz feels as if it’s reached a fever pitch.Earlier this week, I sat down with Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code, to try to understand how the company is meeting this…
Netflix crosses 325 million paid subscribers as it closes in on Warner Bros.
Hollywood has been in a frenzy about the potential demise of the theatrical business if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery, but during the streamer’s Q4 2025 earnings call on Tuesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sought to put some of those fears to rest.“When this deal closes, we will be in…
As Sundance takes its last bow in Utah, marketer interest in the festival continues to grow
Sundance is taking over Park City, Utah, for the last time.The film festival, which kicked off Thursday and runs until Feb. 1, has drawn the film industry and marketers keen on branded entertainment opportunities to the ski destination for years. As the festival prepares to take its last bow in…
Chinese EV Batteries Are Eating the World
THE symbolism was clear last June when Emmanuel Macron, surrounded by factory workers, held up a sleek lithium battery in his right hand and a mining lamp in his left. He was in Douai, a northern French city with a coal mining history dating back to the 1700s. The city…
TikTok’s US operations sale is official
After a yearslong saga, TikTok’s US operations are now under new management.The $14 billion deal that was signed last month to form the TikTok USDS Joint Venture was finalized late Thursday night after the US and Chinese governments gave it the green light. Moving forward, Oracle, Silver Lake investing, and…
How China’s ‘Crystal Capital’ Cornered the Market on a Western Obsession
Villages looked for niches they could fill in the global market. The town of Xuchang, for instance, capitalized on its legacy of making hairpieces for opera performers—and on the willingness of rural women to sell their black ponytails—and turned itself into a hub for wigs. Zhuangzhai became the largest supplier…
As hockey fandom heats up, Florida Panthers ink deal with hair care brand
Hair has always been a big deal in men’s hockey, if the timeless “hockey flow” style of many players’ tresses is any indication. But beauty and hair brand sponsorships haven’t always been common in men’s professional sports.That tide is starting to turn, including in South Florida, where back-to-back Stanley Cup…
Elon Musk’s Grok ‘Undressing’ Problem Isn’t Fixed
Elon Musk’s X has introduced new restrictions stopping people from editing and generating images of real people in bikinis or other “revealing clothing.” The change in policy on Wednesday night follows global outrage at Grok being used to generate thousands of harmful nonconsensual “undressing” photos of women and sexualized images…
Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary is a celebration of human knowledge
Wikipedia is, in many ways, the backbone of the internet. The free encyclopedia boasts more than 66 million articles in 342 languages on just about every topic under the sun; the English articles alone would take more than 38 years to get through. On an average day, the site receives…
Former USDS Leaders Launch Tech Reform Project to Fix What DOGE Broke
The past year has been traumatic for many of the volunteer tech warriors of what was once called the United States Digital Service (USDS). The team’s former coders, designers, and UX experts have watched in horror as Donald Trump rebranded the service as DOGE, effectively forced out its staff, and…
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Why brands are hitting the slopes for the 2026 Winter Games
Nothing beats the feeling of taking off ski boots after a day on the slopes.…
Thousands of Companies Are Driving China’s AI Boom. A Government Registry Tracks Them All
When DeepSeek burst onto the global stage in January 2025, it seemed to appear out…
For some impacted by layoffs, content creation is a new safety net
Paul Butler had long dreamed of moving to New York City. So when he finally…
After 10 years in retirement, Dos Equis’s Most Interesting Man is back
He’s baaaaccckkk.After 10 years in retirement, Dos Equis’s iconic character, the Most Interesting Man, is…
Inside OpenAI’s Raid on Thinking Machines Lab
If someone ever makes an HBO Max series about the AI industry, the events of…