Month: February 2025

Meta fires around 20 employees for leaking confidential information

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Meta has fired “roughly” 20 employees for leaking confidential information, The Verge reports. “We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders, that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent,” Meta told the publication. “We recently conducted an investigation that resulted in roughly 20 employees … Read more

Waymo has doubled its weekly robotaxi rides in less than a year

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Waymo is logging more than 200,000 paid robotaxi rides every week, according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who shared the stat about the tech giant’s subsidiary on X. Waymo commercially operates robotaxis in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. The 200,000-weekly trips milestone is notable for a company that was providing only 10,000 rides a … Read more

Twitch is letting more streamers access its monetization tools

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Twitch CEO Dan Clancy published an open letter on Thursday outlining the platform’s plans for 2025, which include upcoming features, updates to the mobile experience, as well as a significant change to its monetization policy.   Of note, Clancy revealed that Twitch is opening up subscriptions and “Bits,” the virtual items that viewers buy to cheer … Read more

Microsoft releases a Copilot app for Mac

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Microsoft is releasing a native Copilot app for macOS today. Much like the Windows app, the Copilot version for Mac will provide access to the web-based version of Microsoft’s AI assistant, where you can upload images and generate images or text. The macOS version of Copilot also includes a dark mode and a shortcut command … Read more

OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 is better at convincing other AIs to give it money

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OpenAI’s next major AI model, GPT-4.5, is highly persuasive, according to the results of OpenAI’s internal benchmark evaluations. It’s particularly good at convincing another AI to give it cash. On Thursday, OpenAI published a white paper describing the capabilities of its GPT-4.5 model, code-named Orion, which was released Thursday. According to the paper, OpenAI tested … Read more

OpenAI unveils GPT-4.5 ‘Orion,’ its largest AI model yet

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OpenAI announced on Thursday it is launching GPT-4.5, the much-anticipated AI model code-named Orion. GPT-4.5 is OpenAI’s largest model to date, trained using more computing power and data than any of the company’s previous releases. Despite its size, OpenAI notes in a whitepaper that it does not consider GPT-4.5 to be a frontier model. Subscribers … Read more

Hands-on with Alexa Plus in the smart home

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The Echo Show 21, Amazon’s newest smart display, shows the new user interface for viewing your calendar, playing music, and other tasks. Oh, Alexa, how you’ve changed. The long-awaited new Alexa, Alexa Plus, is set to bring a more conversational, context-aware, and capable assistant to your smart home. With a new voice (eight of them, … Read more

TikTok sunsets its creator marketplace for TikTok One, a broader solution with AI tools

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TikTok is preparing to sunset its creator marketplace in favor of a new, more expanded experience, the company has informed businesses and creators via email. The online platform, which connects brands with creators for collaborating on ads and other sponsorships, will stop allowing creator invitations or the creation of new campaigns as of Saturday the … Read more

Figure will start ‘alpha testing’ its humanoid robot in the home in 2025

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Figure is planning to bring its humanoids into the home sooner than expected. CEO Brett Adcock confirmed on Thursday that the Bay Area robotics startup will begin “alpha testing” its Figure 02 robot in the home setting, starting later in 2025. The executive says the accelerated timeline is a product of the company’s “generalist” Vision-Language-Action … Read more

Meta is firing about 20 employees for leaking

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Meta has fired “roughly 20” employees who leaked “confidential information outside the company,” according to a spokesperson. “We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders, that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent,” Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold tells The Verge exclusively. “We recently conducted … Read more

Why Natural Language Coding Isn’t for Everyone—Yet

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The Current State of Plain English Coding in Feb, 2025 Introduction Imagine instructing your computer, “Build me an application,” and watching it materialize—no arcane syntax or advanced training required. This is natural language coding (NLC): artificial intelligence translates everyday English into functional code. By February 2025, GitHub Copilot leads the charge, offering a free tier … Read more