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Nvidia indulged all your artificial intelligence fantasies on Tuesday at what was being called the “Super Bowl of AI.” The chip giant’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) was held at the SAP Center in San Jose on Tuesday, and it was—you guessed it—all about AI. Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang made several large announcements during a two-hour keynote, with plenty of meat to keep AI-hungry consumers and businesses happy. That includes partnerships with large automakers to build autonomous vehicles and even personal AI supercomputers that sit right on your desktop. Here are some of the key announcements from Huang’s keynote: GM partnership: General Motors…

The European Union’s law enforcement agency cautioned Tuesday that artificial intelligence is turbocharging organized crime that is eroding the foundations of societies across the 27-nation bloc as it becomes intertwined with state-sponsored destabilization campaigns. The grim warning came at the launch of the latest edition of a report on organized crime published every four years by Europol that is compiled using data from police across the EU and will help shape law enforcement policy in the bloc in coming years. “Cybercrime is evolving into a digital arms race targeting governments, businesses and individuals. AI-driven attacks are becoming more precise and de…

When it comes to sharing Instagram Reels with friends, the process of three taps to get a Reel from A to B can feel surprisingly tedious. Now, Instagram has addressed that issue with its latest feature: Instagram Blend. Announced on Thursday, Blend lets users create invite-only, personalized Reels feeds with friends. By tapping a new two-emoji-hugging icon (the Blend icon) within a chat, you can start or accept a Blend. Once active, Instagram will begin recommending Reels for both users in a shared feed, powered by an algorithm. The feature works in one-on-one DMs as well as group chats. These recommendations, refreshed daily, are said to be unique to each Blend and b…

Kristina Smithe was running the California International Marathon in 2019, grabbing cups of water to stay hydrated, when she started to think about how much waste such events produce. On the flight home, she did the math: 9,000 runners, 17 aid stations, and something like 150,000 cups used once and thrown away. “I was just shocked that, even in California, it’s not sustainable,” Smithe said. That sparked her idea for something more durable—a lightweight, pliable silicone cup that could be used again and again. After working out a design, Smithe ordered her first shipment and tested them at a race in 2021. Now her business, Hiccup Earth, has 70,000 cups that Smithe rent…

The psychological contract hasn’t just shifted around where we work. It has shifted, and continues to shift, around the entire relationship between organizations and employees. That shift in expectations feels most dramatic when we look at Gen Z, the latest entrants to the workforce. More than 40% of Gen Z employees have refused a work assignment because of ethical concerns. Nearly four in 10 have turned down a job with a company that doesn’t align with their values. In the workplace, they are driving the conversation around social justice, mental health, and work-life balance. More than 90% of workers say they’ve been influenced by Gen Z on issues of meaning at w…

For Paul, a finance administrator, things came to a head when his report mistakenly included £7,000,000 of costs rather than £700,000. Fearing accusations of fraud, Paul disclosed his recent dementia diagnosis to his boss. Six weeks of sick leave became six months, and then a stepping stone to early retirement. Several years later, Paul regrets his unwanted unemployment, but at the time there didn’t seem to be an alternative. Paul was participating in an unrelated study about public transport when he told us about his unemployment. As researchers, we had heard many similar accounts—so we decided to dig down into the research on work and dementia. We were curious a…

New Jersey filed a lawsuit against Discord on Thursday, alleging that the social platform recklessly exposed children to “harassment, abuse, and sexual exploitation by predators who lurk on the platform.” The move makes it the first state to sue Discord. Founded in 2015, Discord is a platform where its millions of users can communicate in chatrooms and direct messages. It shot up in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many users were stuck at home and wanted to connect. Children, in particular, make up a “significant portion” of its 200 million global monthly active user base, per the suit. The New Jersey complaint alleges that Discord knew its safety fe…

A computer science student is behind a new AI tool designed to track down Redditors showing signs of radicalization and deploy bots to “deradicalize” them through conversation. First reported by 404 Media, PrismX was built by Sairaj Balaji, a computer science student at SRMIST in Chennai, India. The tool works by analyzing posts for specific keywords and patterns associated with extreme views, giving those users a “radical score.” High scorers are then targeted by AI bots programmed to attempt deradicalization through engaging the user in conversation. According to the federal government, the primary terror threat to the U.S. now is individuals radicalized to vi…

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video-sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months. The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin. “TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of…

Today’s corporate job market presents serious challenges for recent college grads. In part, that’s because the job market is difficult for everyone. But it’s also because entry-level job seekers don’t have as much experience and must work harder to show why their skill set and background makes them a good fit for a role. I recently reached out to Katie Smith, who offers career guidance for young professionals on her site Get a Corporate Job. She encourages students to take the following steps to land their first full-time position—and others to come. 1. UNDERSTAND THE JOBS LISTED First, begin with a deep dive into the jobs that interest you. You may have a majo…

Trading platform Robinhood, best known for introducing a new generation of traders to the stock market, crypto, and ETFs, is growing up alongside its customers, moving one step closer to becoming a full financial service company the likes of Fidelity or Charles Schwab. On Wednesday, the digital brokerage announced plans to launch Robinhood Banking this fall, a one-stop service that provides “traditional checking and savings accounts with luxury benefits,” as well as Robinhood Strategies, a wealth management product. Customers will need a Gold subscription, which runs $5 a month or $50 a year, to open those individual and joint checking accounts, which will allow u…

TD Bank is planning to close at least 37 branches across 10 states and Washington, D.C., as part of a broader effort to streamline operations and adapt to changing customer banking habits. The decision comes amid ongoing recovery efforts for the company, which is still grappling with the fallout from a $3 billion payout after pleading guilty to money laundering and failing to prevent illegal transactions. In October 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that over a six-year period, TD Bank had neglected to monitor more than $18 trillion in payments, enabling the laundering of over $600 million. As part of the settlement, the bank was required to pay hefty…

It took Duolingo more than a decade to grow its owl mascot, Duo, from a cute cartoon character into a social media star with tens of millions of followers. Then Duolingo’s marketing team did the unthinkable: It killed him off. The decision turned out to be the company’s most successful social media play ever—and likely one of the widest-reaching social campaigns of all time, by any brand. Duo was originally created as logo in 2011, the year that Duolingo was founded. In the years since, the friendly (if occasionally menacing) green owl has grown into a layered character with friends, enemies, motivations, even a potential lover, and legions of fans. But on February 11, D…

Amazon and Grubhub are entering the second year of a five-year commercial agreement that gives Amazon Prime members access to the food delivery platform’s subscription program at no extra cost. As part of the deal, Grubhub’s ordering tab was integrated directly into the Amazon app and website, allowing users to order burritos while shopping for face wash or streaming a show. That seamless experience appears to be paying off, say company executives. “Amazon Prime customers are a very engaged customer cohort,” says Jamil Ghani, Amazon’s worldwide vice president of Prime. More than nine out of 10 orders on Amazon.com or in the app are coming from Prime members retur…

Workers without college degrees have, for some time, faced declining opportunities in the workforce. However, new data signals that this may be changing, a sign that hiring managers are less focused on educational attainment and more focused on skills than they were in years past. That’s according to new research from Opportunity@Work, a nonprofit focused on increasing career opportunities for workers who lack college degrees but are “skilled through alternative routes,” aka “STARs.” The research, which analyzed trends in so-called paper ceilings, finds that between the years of 2000 and 2020, 70% of newly created jobs often required a college degree. However…

The commercial starts with an actor sitting in front of a TV, remote in hand. Suddenly the world around her changes, and she changes, too, as makeup artists transform her from a couch potato to a Victorian-era lady to a skeleton buried in dirt. The time-lapse filming looks like AI, but it’s exactly the opposite. In fact, the 90-second commercial—shot for BritBox’s first ever brand campaign—is the product of a single, continuous shot that took 14 hours, 45 minutes, and 31 seconds, and was filmed with 11 different sets, at one frame per second using a precision motion control unit. The British streaming service is aiming to woo potential subscribers with its attention to de…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Last week, Zillow announced a new policy that bans home listings from appearing on the platform if they were first listed for sale in private networks more than 24 hours before appearing on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). That’s an attempt by Zillow to keep more inventory on the “public” housing market. “If a listing is online, it should be online everywhere. . . . If a listing is marketed to any home shoppers, it should be marketed to all home shoppers,” wrote Zillow. The announcement comes as some brokerages, most infamously Compass, ar…

Despite ongoing efforts to address increased costs, out-of-pocket spending on healthcare continues to rise. Higher insurance copays and deductibles, increased medication costs, and rising inflation rates are just a few of the factors contributing to this trend. As a result, millions of Americans find themselves racking up medical debt, deferring critical medical treatment, or neglecting chronic health conditions. But the cost burden isn’t equal by gender. Many people have heard of the “pink tax,” the pattern of women’s goods and services—from razors to dry cleaning—costing more than the men’s equivalent. But few realize how far this extends beyond store shelves. Acros…

During his family’s annual summer vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, high schooler Ajith Varikuti began to notice something concerning. Homes on the narrow line of barrier islands that Varikuti had grown up visiting from his hometown Charlotte were no longer there. “I started seeing more and more news articles about entire houses being completely destroyed. And it started clicking, because some of those houses that were being destroyed I’d seen in my previous years there,” he says. Varikuti, who was then a 9th grade student, knew there had to be a solution. So, as part of a student design competition organized by the design software company Autodesk, Varikuti …

Jimmy Fallon has done plenty of commercials and branded segments on his late-night show. Last year, he partnered with Beats by Dre for a signature set of headphones and put them head-to-head against Kim Kardashian’s design. Now, The Tonight Show host is taking his business interests to a new level by becoming a brand partner and investor in tortilla chips and salsa brand Xochitl. His first challenge is pretty basic: teach people how to pronounce the brand name. (It’s so-cheel.) “It’s like so-chill. Or so-cheel media. So-cheel network. So-cheel distortion,” says Fallon. “It gets easier the more you practice it. So that’s my first job. And then once I get that out …

Olivia Walch is an investigator in the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan and CEO of a tech start-up called Arcascope. Her research has been featured on CNN, NPR, and in The Atlantic, among other outlets. Beyond sleep research, she coedited Political Geometry, a book on the mathematics of gerrymandering, and published comics with The Nib and Silver Sprocket. She is also the cartoonist of Imogen Quest, a webcomic that won her the “America’s Next Great Cartoonist” prize from the Washington Post. What’s the big idea? If you are dancing and can’t catch the beat, you are not dancing well. In this way, if your sleep doesn’t follow a regular pattern tha…