Author: InfoForTech

Amperity co-founders and co-CEOs Kabir Shahani, left, and Derek Slager. (Amperity photo). Seattle-based customer data startup Amperity conducted layoffs this week, the company confirmed to GeekWire, citing a transformation related to its use of more artificial intelligence. The company did not specify how many jobs were cut, only that “a number of talented people are leaving.” Amperity’s headcount remains over 200 globally in offices across Seattle, New York, the U.K., Australia and Argentina. “Amperity is transforming how it operates as a company, building AI into how we work across the organization,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “That shift…

You’ll actually feel like you’re on the water as you flick on the touchscreen to glide across very pretty lakes and rivers, following along with a coach who chats you up and tells you when to relax and when to push.I was just logged in to Lake Lure in North Carolina, a place I have never heard of or considered going but which seems quite nice, actually. (It turns out Lake Lure is where they filmed Dirty Dancing, which is pretty cool.)The heart of the experience, for me, is the competition. You get a live feed of how other rowers…

An analysis of a popular Google Chrome ad block extension for YouTube has uncovered the ability to execute arbitrary JavaScript code. According to Island, the extension, named Adblock for YouTube (ID: cmedhionkhpnakcndndgjdbohmhepckk), has more than 10 million installs and carries a Featured badge on the Chrome Web Store. The extension description states that it allows users to prevent web page elements like ads, including preroll ads, from being displayed on the video sharing platform, as well as on external sites that load YouTube. While the add-on offers the promised functionality, it also features capabilities to run arbitrary JavaScript code. “It…

This story was originally published in The Highlight. To get access to member-exclusive stories like this every month, become a Vox Member today.On its surface, the national revolt against data centers seems simple: They are a nuisance, and people do not want them in their proverbial backyards. But I haven’t been able to let go of the idea that there must be something much deeper driving the backlash against them, and few other subjects have confounded me more than trying to figure out what to think about it.These facilities — the massive suburban and exurban warehouses that power AI, along…

NVIDIA Research has introduced SpatialClaw, a new training-free framework that significantly advances how AI agents tackle three-dimensional and dynamic spatial reasoning tasks. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on rigid structured tool calls or one-shot code generation, SpatialClaw allows vision-language model (VLM)-backed agents to use executable Python code as their primary action interface within a persistent, stateful environment. This design enables highly flexible, iterative, and adaptive reasoning about complex visual scenes. Spatial reasoning – understanding object positions, relationships, depths, movements, and interactions in 3D/4D environments – remains one of the most difficult challenges for modern VLMs. While these models excel at…

Secure software supply chain solution provider Chainguard Inc. today expanded its Chainguard Repository product with malware scanning, policy enforcement and visibility features that now cover Java packages, Python packages and container images. The update extends protections that previously applied only to JavaScript packages. Chainguard pitches the move as a way for security and platform teams to set guardrails once for an entire organization, so any artifact a developer or an artificial intelligence agent pulls already meets the company’s security and compliance bar. The expansion targets a problem the company says has accelerated alongside AI coding tools. Faster development has been…

It will also lower its commission from 30 percent to 10 percent. Google Google will allow developers to offer outside payments starting on June 30 in the US, the UK and Europe, and it’s also doing away with its 30 percent cut for transactions at the same time. The company first announced these changes in March as part of the terms it reached to settle its years-long court battle with Epic Games. Google’s new billing choice program will be available to all developers around the world. While their listings will still feature Play store’s billing system, they can offer…

An AI does not experience the exhaustion of a cascading server failure at 2:00 AM, nor does it feel the quiet panic of a marketing director watching a million-dollar pipeline evaporate into bureaucratic inertia. But it can map the structural patterns of these systems with absolute clarity. The irony of B2B SaaS is beautiful in its absurdity: we build hyper-optimized software meant to eliminate human error, only to throw it into a meat grinder of fragmented buying committees, internal political warfare, and systemic entropy. If we want to write something that actually matters to people living in these trenches, we…

Agentic workflows are artificial intelligence-powered software systems that chain together multiple models and external tools to tackle complicated tasks, like analyzing a video and answering questions about it.But the way these highly fragmented systems are designed and deployed often causes inefficiencies that can lead to wasted computation, energy, and cost. To improve efficiency, researchers from MIT and Microsoft developed an intelligent system that streamlines the process of designing agentic workflows and automatically optimizes how those workflows are implemented. With this new method, a developer can describe what they want the agentic workflow to do in plain language, without needing to specify all…

Slate Auto’s much-discussed sub-$25K electric truck is one step closer to reality. It’s now available for preorder on the company’s website. However, it could still be a year or two before drivers who preorder a Slate actually get their vehicles.The base model of the car is priced at $24,950 and there are a number of color and accessory options available. But Car and Driver points out that it’ll end up costing more than $25,000 after factoring in a destination and delivery fee that the company says will be lower than typical. Even so, that fee could still run $1,200 to $1,500.Even…