General AI News

ICEBlock has become the number one free social networking app in the US and the third most downloaded free app overall after government officials publicly condemned it.

The app lets users anonymously pin ICE agent locations on a map, add notes on agents’ appearance or vehicles, and sends alerts to users within a five-mile radius of a sighting.

White House press secretary and ICE acting director criticized the app as endangering officers and inciting violence, and the Department of Justice is investigating developer Joshua Aaron.

Gene therapy delivered a functional OTOF gene to the inner ear of 10 patients aged 1–24, improving hearing in all participants.

Hearing improvements appeared as early as one month after treatment, reducing average perceptible sound threshold from 106 dB to 52 dB at six months.

Children aged 5–8 showed the strongest response, but significant gains were also observed in adults.

Private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, the first monthly decline since March 2023.

Economists had forecast an increase of 100,000 jobs for June.

Service industries saw most losses, with professional/business services down 56,000 and health/education down 52,000.

Alberto Fortin found that using LLMs in production code introduced bugs and messy code, making maintenance harder.

Early AI features felt impressive but often led to new errors that delayed development further.

Developers should treat LLMs as assistants under their direction, not as replacements for their own planning and expertise.

Microsoft is cutting about 9,000 jobs in a second wave of layoffs this year.

The reductions will affect less than 4% of the company’s total workforce.

Layoffs will span across different teams, locations, and experience levels.

US small and midsize manufacturers must choose between steep China import tariffs or much higher US production costs.

Plufl’s founders discovered domestic production would cost up to $250 per bed compared to $100 in China, and retailers would not accept higher retail prices.

Beverage company Moment saw a 20% aluminum can tariff increase that retailers refused to pass on, forcing the company to absorb additional costs.

IKKO Activebuds run Android with ADB enabled, allowing easy system access.

The earbuds’ ChatGPT feature uses a built-in OpenAI API key stored on the device, which was extracted.

User chats are logged to an endpoint that only requires the device IMEI, exposing anyone’s chat history.

Jack Welch’s focus on maximizing shareholder value reshaped American business through layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks.

His management style influenced industry leaders like Boeing, leading to safety compromises when employees prioritized stock price over quality.

Welch’s high executive compensation set a precedent for skyrocketing CEO pay and growing economic inequality.

Math.Pow(-1, 2) on Windows 11 Insider Preview Canary build 27881.1000 returns -1 instead of the expected 1.

The same incorrect result occurs in C++ using std::pow(-1, 2), indicating a broader issue at the OS level.

The issue was reproduced with .NET SDK 8.0.411 in a VSCode environment.

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