Enlarge (credit: Sonos) Sonos is laying off about 100 people, the company confirmed on Wednesday. The news comes as Sonos is expecting to spend $20 million to $30 million in the short term to repair the damage from its poorly received app update. In a statement to The Verge, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said: We made the difficult decision to say goodbye to approximately 100 team members representing 6 percent…

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of Donald Trump and catgirls created with Grok, which uses the Flux image synthesis model. (credit: BEAST / X) On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s AI company xAI announced the beta release of two new language models, Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini, available to subscribers of his social media platform X (formerly Twitter). The models are also linked to the recently released Flux image synthesis model, which allows…

Enlarge (credit: Getty) Roku has finally axed the Redbox app from its platform. Redbox parent company Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June and moved to Chapter 7 in July, signaling the liquidation of its assets. However, the app has remained available but not fully functional in various places, leaving customers wondering if they will still be able to access content they bought. This…

Enlarge (credit: Moor Studio via Getty Images) On Tuesday, Tokyo-based AI research firm Sakana AI announced a new AI system called “The AI Scientist” that attempts to conduct scientific research autonomously using AI language models (LLMs) similar to what powers ChatGPT. During testing, Sakana found that its system began unexpectedly attempting to modify its own experiment code to extend the time it had to work on a problem. “In one…

Enlarge / Soon enough, iPhone owners will be able to use “CREDIT CARD” to pay for delicious clams and prawns at the bistro of their choice. (credit: Getty Images) Do iPhones have NFC? Up until recently, the answer was “Kind of,” or, possibly, “It depends.” You could use an iPhone’s near-field communication (NFC) hardware for Apple Pay transactions, tapping through a public transit gate, exchanging contacts with another iPhone user,…

Enlarge / The start of any journey in MS-DOS. (credit: Samuel Axon) After a 14-year journey of various states of availability and usefulness amid the shifting policies of Apple’s App Store approval process, MS-DOS game emulator iDOS is back on the iPhone and iPad. It’s hopefully here to stay this time. iDOS allows you to run applications made for MS-DOS via DOSBox, with a nice retro-styled interface. Its main use…

Enlarge / A Waymo self-driving car in front of Google’s San Francisco headquarters, San Francisco, California, June 7, 2024. (credit: Getty Images) Silicon Valley’s latest disruption? Your sleep schedule. On Saturday, NBC Bay Area reported that San Francisco’s South of Market residents are being awakened throughout the night by Waymo self-driving cars honking at each other in a parking lot. No one is inside the cars, and they appear to…

Enlarge (credit: Google) In addition to a whole bunch of Pixel 9 phones, Google launched the Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel Buds Pro 2 at its Made by Google event today. Here’s the lowdown on what’s new, what’s interesting, and what Google has to say about the products beyond their AI connection. The Pixel Watch 3 45 mm model, which boasts 40 percent more usable screen space than the prior…

Enlarge / A still video capture of X user João Fiadeiro replacing his face with J.D. Vance in a test of Deep-Live-Cam. Over the past few days, a software package called Deep-Live-Cam has been going viral on social media because it can take the face of a person extracted from a single photo and apply it to a live webcam video source while following pose, lighting, and expressions performed by…

Enlarge / The Bambu Lab A1, complete with heated build platform. (credit: Bambu Lab) A patent lawsuit filed by one of 3D printing’s most established firms against a consumer-focused upstart could have a big impact on the wider 3D-printing scene. In two complaints, (1, 2, PDF) filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, against six entities related to Bambu Lab, Stratasys alleges that Bambu Lab infringed upon 10…