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Four hundred inquiries from American farmers poured in after a single interview. Not for a John Deere. Not for a Case IH. For a tractor built in Alberta with a remanufactured 1990s diesel engine and zero electronics. Ursa Ag, a small Canadian manufacturer, is assembling tractors powered by 12-valve Cummins engines — the same mechanically injected workhorses that powered combines and pickup trucks decades ago — and selling them for roughly half the price of comparable machines from established brands. The 150-horsepower model starts at $129,900 CAD, about $95,000 USD. The range-topping 260-hp version runs $199,900 CAD, around $146,000. Try...

Paging Indiana Jones! An American archeologist thinks he may know where the lost Ark of the Covenant is hidden, and is hoping to mount a search to find it. Dr. Jones — err, Professor Chris McKinny — believes the Lost Ark may be waiting beneath the City of David, an archeological site just south of the Dome of the Rock which is considered to be one of the oldest sections of Jerusalem, the Daily Mail reported. McKinny — an associate professor of biblical archeology at Lipscomb University in Tennessee — drew on biblical and historical texts to zero in on...

Hedy Lamarr lived a remarkable life as an actress of Hollywood’s Golden Age after leaving Europe shortly before the start of World War II. Fleeing a restrictive marriage in Austria in 1937, Lamarr arrived in Hollywood and skyrocketed to fame, starring in films like Algiers (1938), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), and Samson and Delilah (1949). However, only late in her life was she recognized for a lesser-known aspect of her work: inventing. During World War II, she invented a “Secret Communication System,” together with avant-garde composer George Antheil. The system used the concept of frequency hopping to guide torpedoes in a...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - One person died Friday morning after trying to extinguish a fire caused by an e-bike’s rechargeable battery at a San Jose apartment, fire officials said.

First Lady Melania Trump is hosting the Fostering the Future Together summit in Washington, DC aimed at 'expanding access to educational tools' and protecting kids in digital environments, according to the White House. Trump, France's First Lady Brigitte Macron, and leaders from more than 40 other countries were joined by a humanoid robot named Figure 3 developed by the AI robotics company, Figure. The robot takes care of household tasks like laundry, cleaning, and doing dishes.

It's a ~24-minute video that primarily consists of a transcript/narration of a major speech by Elon Musk. In it, Musk announces a massive collaborative project between SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to build what's called a "Terafab" — an unprecedented advanced chip fabrication facility (described as "the most epic chip building exercise in history"). Key points from the announcement: The goal is to produce 1 terawatt (1,000 gigawatts) of compute capacity per year, combined with terawatt-scale solar power — much of it deployed in space. This is framed as essential to advance humanity on the Kardashev scale (toward Type 1 civilization...

.The Epoch Times@EpochTimes·5hMan Accidentally Hacks an Army of 7,000 Robot Vacuums, Able to Access Video Feeds Within People’s HomesA man over in Spain tried to hack into his own vacuum cleaner robot, but instead, he accidentally hacked into 7,000 different vacuum robots—giving him direct access to live video feeds within people’s homes. Basically, he discovered a backdoor within these Chinese-made robots that made them extremely insecure

Researchers at Australian start-up Cortical Labs have taught human neurons grown on a chip to play the classic Doom game. In 2021, they had already used 800,000 neurons to play Pong. Now, with four times fewer brain cells, they can play a much more complicated game. … The technology making this possible is the CL-1, a “biological computer” chip. The biological component of the CL-1 system consists of human neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These cells, typically repurposed from adult skin or blood samples, are differentiated in a lab into functional cortical neurons. Once matured, approximately 200,000...

If China invades Taiwan and cuts off its chip exports to American companies, the tech industry and the U.S. economy would be crippled.Federal officials have for years tried to wean Silicon Valley from its dependence on Taiwan, an island democracy roughly the size of Maryland that makes 90 percent of the world’s high-end computer chips. In secret briefings held in Washington and Silicon Valley, national security officials warned executives from companies like Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm that China was making plans to retake Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered a breakaway territory. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon on Tuesday morning for what senior Defense officials made clear was anything but a courtesy call. The meeting represents a breaking point between the U.S. military and the AI company behind Claude — the only artificial intelligence model currently operating inside the military’s classified systems — over whether a private technology company gets to set the rules for how its tools are used in war. The core dispute is over what conditions Anthropic will place on military use of Claude. The company has sought formal assurances that its...

Candace Gesner I believe that facebook has just now made itself irrelevant. I am finding that AI is mixing and remixing posts so that a person will not notice that their and everyone’s posts have been corrupted. I can no longer believe anything I am reading.

ZDNET's key takeaways - Treat the AI like another developer, not a magic box. - Encode design systems and user profiles in system prompts. - Every fixed bug becomes a permanent lesson learned in the project's DNA. Ever since the days of punched cards, I've self-identified as a programmer and a computer scientist. The programmer side is the practical side of my engineering identity, the person who crafts code line by line. The computer scientist is the theoretician, the scientist, the strategist, and the planner. While I love the theory and science of computers, I've always enjoyed the hands-on feeling...

In a meeting with the British Columbia government, the day after a trans-identifying 18-year-old carried out a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, OpenAI did not disclose that it had been aware of concerning conversations the shooter had with its chatbot months prior. The province said in a statement that OpenAI waited until the following day to ask its provincial contact to help connect the company with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. OpenAI handed over evidence that the shooter was banned from using ChatGPT after its automated screening systems flagged his chats last June, according to a company statement. A previous...

Samsung unleashed a new batch of Galaxy Z TriFold units after selling out initial stock of the behemoth foldable that turns into a 10-inch tablet. It took less than ten minutes to sell through today’s supply, which either speaks to the phone’s surprising popularity or, rather, just how few of them the company is making. The device launched on January 30th, and unlike most other Samsung phones, availability of this one was limited to the company’s own site. The TriFold costs $2,899.99 and comes with 512GB of storage (you’d think paying this much would get you at least 1TB, but...

Taiwan has told Washington that its proposal to move 40% of the island’s semiconductor supply chain to the U.S. was “impossible,” Taipei’s top tariff trade negotiator said in an interview. Speaking on a local television broadcast Sunday, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun said she had made it clear to Washington that the island’s semiconductor ecosystem, built over decades, could not simply be relocated. Taiwan’s international expansion, including its investments in the U.S., is predicated on the notion that the industry remains’ rooted in Taiwan and continues to expand domestic investments, she said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

Elon Musk revealed the future of quantum computing will be on the Moon's permanently shadowed craters Quantum computing need extreme cold and near-perfect isolation to work The Moon’s permanently shadowed craters offer exactly that - Temperatures stay below −200°C, keeping qubits stable without massive Earth-based cooling systems - No atmosphere, no weather, no day–night cycles. Hardware stays in a steady, undisturbed state - No air, no vibrations, no human electromagnetic noise - meaning quantum information survives longer with fewer errors The Moon is not just for exploration It is actually a perfect home for the future of computing

Matt Shumer warns that AI is reshaping industries like law, finance, and customer service, urging professionals to adapt quickly to stay relevant. Artificial intelligence could eliminate up to half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years, according to tech entrepreneur Matt Shumer, who says the shift is unfolding faster than most people realise. Shumer, founder and CEO of AI firm OthersideAI (HyperWrite), made the remarks in a widely shared essay titled Something Big Is Happening. In it, he compared the current AI moment to early 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted economies and daily life across...

SUPPORTING AMERICA’S SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Proclamation invoking Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Act) to address national security concerns with respect to imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and their derivative products.The President directed the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to jointly negotiate agreements, or continue any current negotiations of agreements, to address the threatened impairment of the national security with respect to imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and their derivative products from any country.The President also imposed a 25% tariff on certain advanced computing chips, such...

President Donald Trump did not exceed his authority when he issued a Sept. 19 proclamation requiring employers to pay an additional $100,000 before new H-1B visas can be processed, a federal district court judge held Dec. 23 in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. President Trump legitimately exercised his broad discretion authorized by the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict the entry of noncitizens into the U.S., the judge found. Trump found the proclamation was necessary to counter abuse of the H-1B program, which the proclamation asserts is harming American workers...

'We need to control the platforms, all the social platforms,' Cato Networks co-founder Shlomo Kramer saidIsraeli billionaire tech entrepreneur and Cato Networks co-founder Shlomo Kramer argued on Monday’s episode of CNBC’s "Money Movers" that governments must restrict freedom of speech in the age of AI.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate, weeks after a top Israeli defense official warned the world is soon to face its first cyber-based war. This meeting between Trump and Netanyahu comes amid growing debate within some conservative circles over the scope of American backing for Israel and...