1.5 million people have now viewed a slick 15-second video imagining Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt that was generated by ByteDance's new AI video generation tool Seedance 2.0.

But while ByteDance gushes their tool "delivers cinematic output aligned with industry standards," the cinema industry isn't happy, reports the Los Angeles Times reports: Charles Rivkin, chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn., wrote in a statement that the company "should immediately cease its infringing activity."

"In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale," wrote Rivkin. "By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs."

The video was posted on X by Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson. His post said the 15-second video came from a two-line prompt he put into Seedance 2.0. Rhett Reese, writer-producer of movies such as the "Deadpool" trilogy and "Zombieland," responded to Robinson's post, writing, "I hate to say it. It's likely over for us." He goes on to say that soon people will be able to sit at a computer and create a movie "indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases." Reese says he's fearful of losing his job as increasingly powerful AI tools advance into creative fields. "I was blown away by the Pitt v Cruise video because it is so professional. That's exactly why I'm scared," wrote Reese on X. "My glass half empty view is that Hollywood is about to be revolutionized/decimated...."

In a statement to The Times, [screen/TV actors union] SAG-AFTRA confirmed that the union stands with the studios in "condemning the blatant infringement" from Seedance 2.0, as video includes "unauthorized use of our members' voices and likenesses. This is unacceptable and undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood. Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent," wrote a spokesperson from SAG-AFTRA. "Responsible A.I. development demands responsibility, and that is nonexistent here."

Apple's long-promised overhaul of Siri has hit fresh problems during internal testing, forcing the company to push several key features out of the iOS 26.4 update that was slated for March and spread them across later releases, Bloomberg is reporting.

The new Siri -- first announced at WWDC in June 2024 and originally due by early 2025 -- struggles to reliably process queries, takes too long to respond and sometimes falls back on OpenAI's ChatGPT instead of Apple's own technology, the report said. Apple has instructed engineers to begin testing new Siri capabilities on iOS 26.5 instead, due in May, and internal builds of that update include a settings toggle labeled "preview" for the personal data features. A more ambitious chatbot-style Siri code-named Campo, powered by Google servers and a custom Gemini model, is in development for iOS 27 in September.

"You can hear the hum of the drone," says a local newscaster, "but then the propellors come into contact with the building, chunks of the drone later seen falling down. The next video shows the drone on the ground, surrounded by smoke...

"Amazon tells us there was minimal damage to the apartment building, adding they are working with the appropriate people to handle any repairs." But there were people standing outside, notes the woman who filmed the crash, and the falling drone "could've hit them, and they would've hurt."

More from USA Today: Cesarina Johnson, who captured the collision from her window, told USA TODAY that the collision seemed to happen "almost immediately" after she began to record the drone in action... "The propellers on the thing were still moving, and you could smell it was starting to burn," Johnson told Fox 4 News. "And you see a few sparks in one of my videos. Luckily, nothing really caught on fire where it got, it escalated really crazy." According to the outlet, firefighters were called out of an abundance of caution, but the "drone never caught fire...."

Amazon employees can be seen surveying the scene in the clip. Johnson told the outlet that firefighters and Amazon workers worked together to clean up before the drone was loaded into a truck.
Another local news report points out Amazon only began drone delivery in the area late last year.

The San Antonio Express News points out that America's Federal Aviation Administration "opened an investigation into Amazon's drone delivery program in November after one of its drone struck an Internet cable line in Waco."

It's the first "AI" Super Bowl, argues the tech/business writer at Slate, with AI company advertisements taking center stage, even while consumers insist to surveyors that they're "mostly negative" about AI-generated ads.

Last year AI companies spent over $1.7 billion on AI-related ads, notes the Washington Post, adding the blitz this year will be "inescapable" — even while surveys show Americans "doubt the technology is good for them or the world..."

Slate wonders if that means history will repeat itself... The sheer saturation of new A.I. gambits, added to the mismatch with consumer priorities, gives this year's NFL showcase the sector-specific recession-indicator vibes that have defined Super Bowls of the past. 2022 was a pride-cometh-before-the-fall event for the cryptocurrency bubble, which collapsed in such spectacular fashion later that year — thanks largely to Super Bowl ad client Sam Bankman-Fried — that none of its major brands have ever returned to the broadcast. (... the coins themselves are once again crashing, hard.) Mortgage lender Ameriquest was as conspicuous a presence in the mid-2000s Super Bowls as it was an absence in the later aughts, having folded in 2007 when the risky subprime loans it specialized in helped kick off the financial crisis. And then there were all those bowl-game commercials for websites like Pets.com and Computer.com in 2000, when the dot-com rush brought attention to a slew of digital startups that went bust with the bubble.

Does this Super Bowl's record-breaking A.I. ad splurge also portend a coming pop? Look at the business environment: The biggest names in the industry are swapping unimaginable stacks of cash exclusively with one another. One firm's stock price depends on another firm's projections, which depend on another contractor's successes. Necessary infrastructure is meeting resistance, and all-around investment in these projects is riskier than ever. And yet, the sector is still willing to break the bank for the Super Bowl — even though, time and again, we've already seen how this particular game plays out.
People are using AI apps. And Meta has aired an ad where a man in rural New Mexico "says he landed a good job in his hometown at a Meta data center," notes the Washington Post. "It's interspersed with scenes from a rodeo and other folksy tropes, in one of . The TV commercial (and a similar one set in Iowa), aired in Washington, D.C., and a handful of other communities, suggesting it's aimed at convincing U.S. elected officials that AI brings job opportunities.

But the Post argues the AI industry "is selling a vision of the future that Americans don't like." And they offer cite Allen Adamson, a brand strategist and co-founder of marketing firm Metaforce, who says the perennial question about advertising is whether it can fix bad vibes about a product.

"The answer since the dawn of marketing and advertising is no."

Apple "is preparing to allow voice-controlled AI apps from other companies in CarPlay," reports Bloomberg, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Bloomberg calls it "a move that will let users query AI chatbots through its vehicle interface for the first time." The company is working to support the apps in CarPlay within the coming months, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan hasn't been announced. The change marks a strategic shift for Apple, which until now has only allowed its own Siri assistant as a voice-control option within its popular vehicle infotainment software. With the move, AI providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic PBC and Alphabet Inc.'s Google will be able to release CarPlay versions of their apps that include a voice-control mode...

The company also has launched a higher-end version of the platform, CarPlay Ultra, that lets drivers control functions like seat adjustments and climate settings directly through Apple's software. But that system is rolling out slowly and must be customized for each automaker. That means it's likely to be a niche offering.
The article notes that Tesla is now working to support Apple's CarPlay.

Walmart's market cap surpassed $1 trillion on Tuesday, putting the largest U.S. retail chain in an exclusive club dominated by tech groups. Bloomberg adds: The Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain -- a longtime favorite of bargain-hunting consumers -- has flexed its massive scale and supplier network to keep prices low and grab market share across the income spectrum. While Walmart has maintained its appeal to households looking for value, its online offerings are drawing new, wealthier shoppers seeking convenience.

October saw Bitcoin reach $123,742. But less than four months later, "The world's largest cryptocurrency slipped below $76,000..." Bloomberg reports, "dropping about 40% from its 2025 peak..."

"What began as a sharp crash in October has morphed into something more corrosive: a selloff shaped not by panic, but by absence of buyers, momentum and belief." Unlike the October drawdown, there's been no obvious spark, cascading liquidations or systemic shock — just fading demand, thinning liquidity, and a token that's untethered to broader markets. Bitcoin has failed to respond to geopolitical stress, dollar weakness, or risk rallies. Even during gold and silver's violent swings in recent weeks, crypto saw no rotation. Bitcoin fell nearly 11% in January, marking its fourth straight monthly decline — the longest losing streak since 2018, during the crash that followed the 2017 boom in initial coin offerings...

Even more striking than the drop itself is the relative lack of optimism around it on social media. In a space known for relentless bravado and "number go up" memes, Bitcoin's slide has been met with little cheerleading or dip-buying fanfare... [Despite legislative wins and some institutional investments] Many investors say that optimism was front-run. Prices rallied early — and then stalled. Meanwhile, spot ETFs continue to bleed, a sign of weakening conviction among mainstream buyers — many of whom are now underwater after buying at higher prices.
On Thursday, Bitcoin closed at 88,228. By Sunday it had plunged another 13%, to $76,790...

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will be adding spaces for electric vehicle charging to parking lots in 19 different states, reports MLive: The move follows up on a plan announced in 2023 to build a network of charging stations at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the U.S... "With a store or club located within 10 miles of approximately 90% of Americans, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a convenient charging option that will help make EV ownership possible whether people live in rural, suburban or urban areas," wrote Walmart Senior Vice President of Energy Transformation, Vishal Kapadia in 2023. Walmart plans to have the nationwide network operating by 2030.

Walmart plans to have the nationwide network operating by 2030.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis for sharing the news.

Remember that lawsuit questioning WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption? Thursday Bloomberg reported those allegations had been investigated by special agents with America's Commerce Department, "according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractors." Similar claims were also the subject of a 2024 whistleblower complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the records and the person, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified out of concern for potential retaliation. The investigation and whistleblower complaint haven't been previously reported...

Last year, two people who did content moderation work for WhatsApp told an investigator with Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security that some staff at Meta have been able to see the content of WhatsApp messages, according to the agent's report summarizing the interviews. [A spokesperson for the Bureau later told Bloomberg that investigator's assertions were "unsubstantiated and outside the scope of his authority as an export enforcement agent."] Those content moderators, who worked for Meta through a contract with the management and technology consulting firm Accenture Plc, also alleged that they and some of their colleagues had broad access to the substance of WhatsApp messages that were supposed to be encrypted and inaccessible, according to the report. "Both sources confirmed that they had employees within their physical work locations who had unfettered access to WhatsApp," wrote the agent... One of the content moderators who told the investigator she had access said she also "spoke with a Facebook team employee and confirmed that they could go back aways into WhatsApp (encrypted) messages, stating that they worked cases that involved criminal actions," according to the document...

The investigator's report, dated July 2025, described the investigation as "ongoing," includes a case number and dubs the inquiry "Operation Sourced Encryption..." The inquiry was active as recently as January, according to a person familiar with the matter. The inquiry's current status and who may be the defined target are both unclear. Many investigations end without any formal accusations of wrongdoing...

WhatsApp on its website says it does, in some instances, allow information about messages to be seen by the company. If someone reports a user or group for problematic messages, "WhatsApp receives up to five of the last messages they've sent to you" and "the user or group won't be notified," the company says. In those cases, WhatsApp says it receives the "group or user ID, information on when the message was sent, and the type of message sent (image, video, text, etc.)." Former contractors outlined much broader access. Larkin Fordyce was an Accenture contractor who the report says an agent interviewed about content moderation work for Meta. Fordyce told the investigator he spent years doing this work out of an Austin, Texas office starting as early as the end of 2018. He said moderators eventually were granted their own access to WhatsApp, but even before that they could request access to communications and "the Facebook team was able to 'pull whatever they wanted and then send it,'" the report states...

The agent also gathered records that were filed in the whistleblower complaint to the SEC, according to his report, which doesn't describe the materials... The status of the whistleblower complaint is unclear.
Some key points from the article:

• "The investigative report seen by Bloomberg doesn't include a technical explanation of the contractors' claims."

• "A spokesperson for Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, said the contractors' claims are impossible."

• One contractor "said that there was little vetting" of foreign nationals hired to do content moderation for Meta, saying this granted them "full access to the same portal to review" content moderation cases

"A future with flying cars is no longer science fiction," writes the Los Angeles Times.

"All you need to order your own is about $200,000 and some hope and patience." The Palo Alto-based company Pivotal has been developing the technology since 2009 and is nearly ready to bring it to market... [Company founder Marcus] Leng engineered an ultralight, electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft known as an eVTOL. Other VTOL aircraft, such as helicopters, had existed for decades, but Leng's invention was fixed-wing and didn't rely on gas. The Canadian engineer dubbed his creation BlackFly and spent years working on it in secret. The company moved to the Bay Area in 2014 and by 2018 had developed a second version of BlackFly that laid the groundwork for Helix, the aircraft Pivotal now offers for sale...

Those who are curious — and wealthy — can reserve a Helix today with a $50,000 deposit. The aircraft starts at $190,000 with the option of purchasing a transport trailer for $21,000 and a charger for $1,100. A customer who makes their reservation today could receive their aircraft in nine to 12 months, [Pivotal Chief Executive Ken] Karklin said. It takes less than two weeks to learn how to fly it. In order to complete Pivotal's flight certification training, a customer has to pass the FAA knowledge test and complete ground school. Training, which takes place at the company's Palo Alto headquarters and at the Monterey Bay Academy Airport, teaches customers how to control and maintain the aircraft, as well as how to transport and assemble it...

It is uncertain how fast the company and others like it can ramp up production and how communities will react. Not everyone is on board. Darlene Yaplee, president of the Aviation-Impacted Communities Alliance, said there are concerns about having different types of aircraft in limited airspace. Pivotal has around six early-access customers who already own a version of the BlackFly and are flying it for fun... Helix will have an electric range of about 30 minutes and a cruise speed of 62 mph, the company said. It takes 75 minutes to charge it using a 240 volt charger. The noise produced by the aircraft during takeoff and landing is equivalent to a couple of leaf blowers, Karklin said. When flying it is overhead, someone on the ground might not be able to hear it.

Karklin said the simplicity of the aircraft comes with lower cost, lower weight and higher safety. The aircraft, which has only 18 moving parts, is full of redundancy to prevent system failures.
In short, the article describes it as "a single-person aircraft for recreational use and short-haul travel that also has the potential to support emergency response and military operations."

The Daily Beast:

"Salacious claims from Jeffrey Epstein that Bill Gates contracted an STD following 'sex with Russian girls,' and colluded with the disgraced financier on a plot to secretly slip his wife antibiotics, were revealed in the latest Epstein files release."

The New York Times. (Alternate URL)

"A representative of the Gates Foundation said, 'These claims — from a proven, disgruntled liar — are absolutely absurd and completely false. The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein's frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.'"

And Yahoo News points out the error of social media posts about the news: None paid attention to who actually wrote the email. The email was from Epstein — to Epstein... Both the "From" and "To" fields list Epstein's personal Gmail address. The message appears to be a draft, written during a period when Epstein's relationship with Gates had deteriorated. In it, Epstein alleges that Gates asked him to delete messages related to an STD. But the document does not show Gates making that request, nor does it provide independent confirmation that any of the claims are true.

It reads like Epstein venting. It is not Gates confessing.
"In a 2021 interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Gates called his relationship with the disgraced financier 'a huge mistake'," notes the New York Times. "He also sought to downplay his interactions with Epstein, saying he had several dinners with Epstein, with the hope of getting him to generate donations to the Gates Foundation."

An anonymous reader shares a report: A hacking of the Nobel organization's computer systems is the most likely cause of last year's leak of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado's name, according to the results of an investigation [non-paywalled source]. An individual or a state actor may have illegally gained access in a cyber breach, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Friday after concluding an internal investigation assisted by security authorities.

The leak had triggered an unusual betting surge on Machado at the Polymarket platform hours before she was unveiled as the award recipient in October. The Venezuelan opposition leader hadn't previously been considered a favorite for the 2025 prize.

"We still think that the digital domain is the main suspect," said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Oslo-based institute, an administrative arm of the Nobel Committee that awards the prize. The institute has decided against filing for a police investigation given "the absence of a clear theory," he said in an interview in Oslo.

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Reuters: Fully electric car sales in December overtook petrol for the first time in the European Union, even as policymakers proposed to loosen emissions regulations, data showed on Tuesday. U.S. battery-electric brand Tesla continued to lose market share to competitors including China's BYD and Europe's best-selling group Volkswagen, data from the European auto lobby ACEA showed.

Car sales throughout Europe sustained a sixth straight month of year-on-year growth, with overall registrations, a proxy for sales, hitting their highest volumes in five years in Europe in 2025, though they remained well below pre-pandemic levels. [...] December registrations of battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid electric cars were up 51%, 36.7% and 5.8%, respectively, to account collectively for 67% of the bloc's registrations, up from 57.8% in December 2024.

Reddit has forced Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of infamous r/WallStreetBets, to strip the WallStreetBets name from an upcoming Miami conference after legal threats citing trademark rights. According to a press release, it's the "first known case of a social media company enforcing trademark control over a user-created community." From the report: After years of litigation, courts ultimately sided with Reddit in a decision now referred to as the "Rogozinski Ruling," a precedent that grants platforms broad authority to assert trademark ownership over user-created communities. That ruling now forms the basis for Reddit's demand that the words "WallStreetBets" be physically removed from the event. "They aren't afraid of the name being used," said Rogozinski. "If they were, they'd have to sue the internet. What they're afraid of is the creator hanging out with his creation. They're afraid of the community's independence. And they're afraid it's evolved into something bigger than a subreddit."

The irony is difficult to ignore. The original subreddit counts around three million subscribers, while conservative estimates place more than seven million WallStreetBets participants spread across other platforms. For a movement that built its reputation confronting corporate overreach, Reddit's decision to extend its authority beyond the confines of its web-based platform, reaching into real-world gatherings to police culture it did not create, risks stirring a hornet's nest with a long memory and a track record of collective action.

The event formerly known as WallStreetBets Live, will proceed as scheduled on January 28-30 in Miami. In compliance with Reddit's demands, all references to the name will be physically redacted on-site. "Reddit's lawyers did one thing right," Rogozinski continued. "They proved exactly why we need a decentralized future. This event has become a live case study in what's broken about modern social media. Platforms can deplatform creators, and now, with courts backing them, they can appropriate what users build."

Nike says it is investigating a potential data breach, after a group known for cyber attacks reportedly claimed to have leaked a trove of data related to its business operations. From a report: "We always take consumer privacy and data security very seriously," Nike said in a statement. "We are investigating a potential cyber security incident and are actively assessing the situation."

The ransomware group World Leaks said on its website that it had published 1.4 terabytes of data from Nike.

California-based Karman Industries "says it has developed a cooling system that uses SpaceX rocket engine technology to rein in the environmental impact of data centers," reports the Los Angeles Times, "chilling them with less space, less power and no water." Karman has developed a cooling system similar to the heat pumps in the average home, except its pumps use liquid carbon dioxide as refrigerant, which is circulated using rocket engine technology rather than fans. The company's efficient pumps can reduce the space required for data center cooling equipment by 80%.

Over the years, data centers have used fans and air conditioning to blow cold air on the chips. Bigger facilities pass cold liquid through tubes near the chips to absorb the heat. This hot liquid is sent outside to a cooling yard, where sprawling networks of pipes use as much water as a city of 50,000 people to remove the heat. A 50 megawatt data center also uses enough electricity to power a mid-sized city... Cooling systems account for up to 40% of a data center's power consumption and an average midsized data center consumes more than 35,000 gallons of water per day...

U.S. data centers will consume about 8% of all electricity in the country by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency... The cooling systems are projected to use up to 33 billion gallons of water by 2028 per year... To serve this seemingly insatiable market, Karman has developed a rotating compressor that spins at 30,000 revolutions per minute — nearly 10 times faster than traditional compressors — to move heat...

About a third of Karman's 23-person team came from SpaceX or Rocket Lab, and they co-opted technologies from aerospace engineering and electric vehicles to design the mechanics for the high-speed motors. The system uses a special type of carbon dioxide under high pressure to transfer heat from the data center to the outside air. Depending on the conditions, it can do the same amount of cooling using less than half the energy. Karman's heat pump can either reject heat to air, or route it into extra cooling, or even power generation.
The company "recently raised $20 million," according to the article, "and expects to start building its first compressors in Long Beach later this year...."

An anonymous reader shared this report from Fortune The large language models (LLMs) that have captivated the world are not a path to human-level intelligence, two AI experts asserted in separate remarks at Davos. Demis Hassabis, the Nobel Prize-winning CEO of Google DeepMind, and the executive who leads the development of Google's Gemini models, said today's AI systems, as impressive as they are, are "nowhere near" human-level artificial general intelligence, or AGI. [Though the artilcle notes that later Hassabis predicted there was a 50% chance AGI might be achieved within the decade.] Yann LeCun — an AI pioneer who won a Turing Award, computer science's most prestigious prize, for his work on neural networks — went further, saying that the LLMs that underpin all of the leading AI models will never be able to achieve humanlike intelligence and that a completely different approach is needed... ["The reason ... LLMs have been so successful is because language is easy," LeCun said later.]

Their views differ starkly from the position asserted by top executives of Google's leading AI rivals, OpenAI and Anthropic, who assert that their AI models are about to rival human intelligence. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, told an audience at Davos that AI models would replace the work of all software developers within a year and would reach "Nobel-level" scientific research in multiple fields within two years. He said 50% of white-collar jobs would disappear within five years. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (who was not at Davos this year) has said we are already beginning to slip past human-level AGI toward "superintelligence," or AI that would be smarter than all humans combined...

The debate over AGI may be somewhat academic for many business leaders. The more pressing question, says Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar, is whether companies can capture the enormous value that AI already offers. According to Cognizant research released ahead of Davos, current AI technology could unlock approximately $4.5 trillion in U.S. labor productivity — if businesses can implement it effectively.

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Deel over allegations that it recruited a spy inside rival Rippling, according to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal. From the report: An Ireland-based Rippling employee, Keith O'Brien, alleged in an affidavit filed in April that Deel Chief Executive Alex Bouaziz recruited him and gave him instructions for what information to take from Rippling. O'Brien alleged that other executives were involved in the spying plot, including Bouaziz's father, who is Deel's executive chairman and chief strategy officer.

A spokeswoman for Deel said the company isn't aware of a criminal investigation but is willing to cooperate with authorities. The company has previously said: "We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims." Unsealed court documents allege that an entity tied to Deel transferred $6,000 to an account owned by the wife of Chief Operating Officer Dan Westgarth, and that the same amount was forwarded from the account to O'Brien seconds later.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Shares of Japanese toilet maker Toto gained the most in five years after booming memory demand excited expectations of growth in its little-known chipmaking materials operations. The stock surged as much as 11%, its steepest rise since February 2021, after Goldman Sachs analysts said Toto's electrostatic chucks used in NAND chipmaking will likely benefit from an AI infrastructure buildout that's tightening supplies of both high-end and commodity memory.

[...] Known for its heated toilet seats, the maker of washlets has for decades been part of the semiconductor and display supply chain via its advanced ceramic parts and films. Its electrostatic chucks -- which it began mass producing in 1988 -- are used to hold silicon wafers in place during chipmaking while helping to control temperature and contamination, according to the company. The company's new domain business accounted for 42% of its total operating income in the fiscal year ended March 2025, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

Autodesk said today it plans to cut approximately 1,000 jobs, or roughly 7% of its workforce, as part of what the company described as the final phase of a global restructuring effort aimed at strengthening its sales and marketing operations.

The maker of AutoCAD and other digital design software said a significant portion of the cuts will fall within customer-facing sales functions.