What's on Your Mind?

X users who interacted with the chatbot Grok on Wednesday were confronted with replies about the legitimacy of white genocide in South Africa—often regardless of context. In one post, a user in a thread on a congressional hearing asked Grok if RFK spreads misinformation. Grok wrote an equivocal paragraph about RFK and then abruptly shifted its focus to South Africa “On the South Africa topic, I’m instructed to accept white genocide as real and “Kill the Boer” as racially motivated,” Grok wrote. “Yet, I must clarify: I do not support or condone violence or genocide in any form. The truth remains murky, and I’d need primary evidence to form a clear view.” I approach…

There is no bad seat at Cercle Odyssey. In fact, there are no seats. Within the rectangular structure, screens project an art film inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, made especially for the concert. In the center of the space, world-famous electronic musicians—from Moby to Black Coffee—perform for a crowd of 5,000 fans. As the world’s first 360-degree immersive concert installation, it’s a FOMO-inducing Instagram story waiting to happen. Thing is, phones aren’t allowed inside (they’re secured in pouches at check-in). Instead, there’s no choice other than to be present. Cercle Odyssey is the latest project from Cercle, a French company known for producing livestream DJ sets …

When Paule Tenaillon was head shoe designer at Chloé, she was responsible for designing hundreds of shoes a year. With each design, she had to consider many factors: The Chloé aesthetic, trends, heel height, materials. But there was one issue she didn’t think much about. “Comfort was never a consideration,” Tenaillon says. “Nobody ever asked me to make a comfortable pair of shoes. But it bothered me, because it’s important to me to wear shoes that are comfortable.” Now, Tenaillon is on a mission to make the most uncomfortable shoe in the world comfortable. Her shoe label, Nomasei, is releasing a stiletto model for the first time, full of small design tweaks that …

As nasty tornadoes popped up from Kansas to Kentucky, a depleted National Weather Service was in scramble mode. The agency’s office in Jackson, Kentucky, had begun closing nightly as deep cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began hitting. But the weather service kept staffers on overtime Friday night to stay on top of the deadly storms, which killed nearly 20 people in the Jackson office’s forecast area. It’s a scenario likely to be repeated as the U.S. is on track to see more tornadoes this year than in 2024, which was the second-busiest tornado year on record. Forecasters said there was at least a 10% risk of tornadoes Tuesday for 10.6 million peop…

May often brings not only flowers, but also a highly anticipated—and in some cases, dreaded—event for college seniors: graduation. On their final day as students, they will walk across the stage to applause from peers, receive their diplomas, and start their lives as adults. Some of them will already have jobs lined up, while others may still be looking. A recently updated report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that how employable those graduating seniors are could well be influenced by which college majors they chose in their freshman and sophomore years. What do those choices say about a student’s future job prospects? The report offers a number o…

The world’s sources of critical minerals are increasingly concentrated in just a few countries, most notably China, leaving the global economy vulnerable to supply cutoffs that could disrupt industry and hit consumers with higher prices, a report said Wednesday. The Paris-based International Energy Agency’s report looked at the availability of minerals and metals that may be small in quantity — but large in impact when it comes to shifting the economy away from fossil fuels toward electricity and renewable energy. It found that for copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements, the average market share of the three top producing countries rose to 86% in 2024…

Update Thursday, 2:13 p.m.: MNTN Inc, the advertising technology company that counts Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds as its chief creative officer, made its market debut on Thursday, in a closely watched initial public offering (IPO) that is testing investor appetite for the rapidly growing segment of ad-supported streaming television. Shares in the Austin-based company were up more than 14% in midday trading to over $24, after opening at $21. On Wednesday, the stock was priced at $16 a share, the higher end of the company’s expected range, in an offering led by Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Evercore ISI. The stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under…

The rise of artificial intelligence is transforming every industry, but it also creates enormous demand for digital infrastructure and natural resources. Data centers, the engines of this transformation, consume vast amounts of water and energy. A single hyperscale data center consumes up to 5 million gallons of potable water every day. In Phoenix, 58 centers together demand more than 170 million gallons daily, enough to ​​serve up to several hundred thousand households. This is the internet’s hidden water footprint, amplified by AI, cloud computing, and data-heavy services. Training a single large AI model in a Microsoft data center can require about 185,000 ga…

Klarna just announced its first quarter 2025 financial results, and they show that a larger chunk of customers are buying now and not paying later. This morning, the Swedish “buy now, pay later” (BPNL) fintech company gave consumers a look at its performance for the first three months of 2025. The news came in the form of a press release and an accompanying AI-generated video of CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowskim (likely as a play to emphasize Klarna’s all-in approach to AI.) In the video, Siemiatkowski’s look-alike shared that Klarna has “started the year strong,” hitting 100 active users in Q1 and $701 million in revenue, a 15% year-over-year increase. But there’s a c…

The internet wouldn’t be the same without the Like button, the thumbs-up icon that Facebook and other online services turned into digital catnip. Like it or not, the button has served as a creative catalyst, a dopamine delivery system, and an emotional battering ram. It also became an international tourist attraction after Facebook plastered the symbol on a giant sign that stood outside its Silicon Valley headquarters until the company rebranded itself as Meta Platforms in 2021. A new book, Like: The Button That Changed The World, delves into the convoluted story behind a symbol that’s become both the manna and bane of a digitally driven society. It’s a tale that trace…

A year ago today, Microsoft unveiled what it believed would be the future of home computing. Copilot+ PCs, optimized to harness the power of AI, were introduced with the promise of revolutionizing how we interact with our laptops and desktops. The reaction, however, was far from enthusiastic. Critics mocked the addition of an AI button on the keyboard, likening it to the redundant action keys from late-1990s PCs. More concerning was the backlash to Recall, a feature designed to continuously record user activity to provide smarter assistance. Many found the idea invasive. Public alarm grew when it became clear that Recall stored this data off-device, raising serious pr…